Once. Twice.
But nothing happens.
“Breathe, dammit,” I say, and try compressions again.
Quinn stands up. “It’s not working, Bea. We have to get out of here.” He doesn’t understand: Old Watson saved me when I had no interest in saving myself. I won’t leave him here.
“I’m trying again,” I say, and lay my hands over his heart. I count out the compressions, one to thirty, and Quinn kneels back down and blows into his mouth, filling him up with air.
And it works! Old Watson gasps. I push the few strands of hair he still has away from his eyes and he opens them. “Don’t try to speak,” I say, and help him sit.
I throw Quinn’s keys back at him. “The other cells.”
“You’ll be okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Of course, I will.”
53
QUINN
Bea, Old Watson, about thirty Resistance members, and I flee the Justice Building. Auxiliaries crowd the streets, frantically darting this way and that, and most of them are carrying a weapon of some sort. I stop a boy about my age as he gallops by. “What’s going on?”
“The bastards have cut off the air to Zone Three apartments.” He pulls himself loose from me and runs away as best he can. A humanoid voice comes over the loudspeaker. “Air rationing stage three in operation. Premiums must return to their homes. Air rationing stage three in operation. Premiums must return to their homes.”
We look at one another anxiously and then Gideon, Silas’s father, turns to me. “We need airtanks.”
“This way,” I say.
“Where are we going?” he asks, racing alongside me.
“Research Labs.”
We careen along a street, which is quickly clearing as auxiliaries jump over gates and high walls to get to Premium homes. It’s complete chaos: windows are smashed and gunshots fired. I slow down. “My brothers,” I say.
Gideon shakes his head. “We haven’t time.”
“I’m getting them,” I tell him.
“Fine. We’ll meet you at the border in an hour. Give me the keys and we’ll find the tanks,” Gideon says. I throw the keys at him.
“What about Jazz?” Old Watson asks. He’s right next to me, but his voice sounds far away. He’s way paler and more hunched than he was when I last saw him. He isn’t cut out for all this. Then again, who is?
“The infirmary isn’t far. I’ll get her,” Bea says, stepping forward, her chin high.
I seize her by the shoulders. “We keep bloody leaving each other,” I say, which wasn’t part of the plan. The plan was to find Bea and never let her go.
She smiles. “Some things are more important than us,” she says, and I kiss her. There might be a million things more important than us, but I can’t think of anything more important than her. “The border in an hour,” she repeats.
The auxiliaries are pressing in on my street with broken bottles and pipes. I gallop past them and up to my house. My brothers and mother are watching the news on the screen—explosions and rising dust.
Lennon glances at me and waves. Keane does the same. Then, simultaneously realizing I shouldn’t be here, they jump up and throw their arms around me. “Quinn, is it you?” Keane asks. He jabs me in the ribs. My mother turns like a mechanical doll, and her mouth drops open.
“I told you he wasn’t dead,” Lennon says. I kiss the top of his head and hold Keane close. Man, I missed them.
My mother totters toward me using the back of the couch for support. Whoa—she’s so big, she looks as if she’s going to pop out my new brother any minute. “We’re leaving,” I tell her.
“Oh, Quinn, my darling.” She clutches my arm and looks like she really wants to feel something. But her eyes are empty.
“We have two minutes before auxiliaries come crashing in here,” I say. Something booms in the street and my mother jumps. Maybe we have one minute. “Come on.”
My mother smiles condescendingly. “We’re safe here. Don’t worry about us.” She tries to coax the twins away from me, but they cling even tighter. It isn’t right that they’d rather be with me than her. But if they leave, at least I’ll be able to save them.
“They’re coming with me,” I say. “That’s nonnegotiable. Are you coming, too?” I ask. I don’t want her to die. She’s my mother, after all.
“Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused? Your father hasn’t been the same since you—” She presses her thumbs against her eyelids, draws in a quick breath, and holds her belly.
“Mom?” Keane says. I keep a tight hold of him. She’s faking it.
“You’ve destroyed this family.” She starts to sob—big, blistery tears. But they’re not for me.
“I’m taking food and airtanks,” I say.
“Take what you want, but please leave the boys,” she whimpers. A rock hits the living room window and she screams. She drops to her knees and puts her hands over her head.
“Go get a few things! Quickly!” I push my brothers toward the stairs. “Mom, we all have to go,” I say. I can’t leave her at the mercy of marauding auxiliaries.
She looks up from the floor. “You’ve chosen your life, stop dragging us all down with you.” Another window smashes and a screwdriver lands on the couch. “What’s happening? The world’s gone mad.”
I lift her up. “The world’s changing, that’s all. And you have to change with it.”
“They’re going to destroy my beautiful home,” she says.
“You have to pack some stuff,” I say, and steer her into the hall and then her bedroom.
I sprint down the hallway and into the basement, where I snatch as many airtanks as I can carry. By the time I’m back, Keane and Lennon are standing at the bottom of the stairs, packs slung over their backs. They’re ready to leave everything behind and join me.
“Mom!” I call out.
She appears wearing a heavy coat. She doesn’t look angry anymore. She holds her stomach and winces.
“The baby’s coming,” she says.
54
BEA
I leave the other Resistance members to loot the Breathe headquarters and head for the infirmary on the Zone One–Zone Two border. The oxygen in the streets is dwindling, but it’s more than I had in the cell. I walk quickly, passing brawling groups of men and women, until I turn a corner into a quiet street where two boys are grappling over a mini-airtank lying next to them. I snatch it, cover my mouth and nose with the facemask, and speed off. They holler things after me, but I’m faster than them. Stronger. Running hurts my legs and my breathing gets short, but it feels like a small triumph against the Ministry.
When I get to the infirmary, a broad white building taking up an entire block, the security hut is empty, and the gate is open. I scamper along the lane and into the deserted lobby where the switchboard is madly ringing and blinking and cots and wheelchairs are strewn in every direction.
A doctor with a stethoscope around her neck and blood spots on her white coat stumbles from a room. “We don’t have any spare oxygen for visitors,” she says, and tries to jam me back through the revolving doors.
“I’m looking for a child,” I say.
She lets me go and rushes to the switchboard, where she mutes the ringing. “Auxiliaries have been moved to Premium wards upstairs. We’ll lose our jobs over it, but looks like we won’t have jobs anyway.” The building shudders and the doctor takes a long look me. “I have my own kids. I have to go,” she says, and scrambles through the infirmary doors and away.