The chopper rose and peeled away from the center circle. I whipped my head towards the others. A flash of Orry, a tight grip on an image of Joseph waiting for me on the other side of the wall. They were photos scrunched in my hand as I uttered, “We have to run.”
They both nodded and we took off together with me in the lead, leaving the bloodstained bricks behind. I hurdled the low wall and headed for the first gate, all the while whispering, “Please open, please open.”
I skidded up to the gate and stuck my shaking wrist under the scanner. The infrared line wobbled over my wrist tattoo, and the lock clicked. I shook my head realizing that, of course it worked. Grant knew that was where I would head, to rescue my mother. He was counting on it. The gate creaked open, and Gwen and I stepped through. Denis faltered. I didn’t have time for this.
“What are you doing?” I panted, my breath cloudy like smoke, my head clear as the sky.
“If I go in there, I’ll probably die.” He wrapped his hand around the bars, holding it open, though it strained against him.
I searched nearby, found a rock, and wedged it in the gap.
“You have a chance to save people today, to do something good,” I said, challenging his dark blue eyes, squished almost shut on one side from the beating.
I didn’t wait to see if he followed, I spun around, and Gwen and I ran. I shouted over my head, “Warn as many people as you can.”
When I hit the main street of Ring Two, the smell of cut grass and bleeding sap made me pause. It was Sunday. People were maintaining their gardens. A woman walked passed me with an armful of groceries, staring so hard she tripped on a crack in the pavement. I caught her elbow, and she snatched it back like my skin stung her. “You need to get out of Ring Two, Ma’am. Something bad is about to happen.” She huffed and walked away, paying me no attention at all.
No one was going to listen to me.
Denis jogged into the street and headed to the first home, knocking on the door impatiently. No answer.
Gwen shook her head, her dimples looking like little frowns under her dark eyes. “They’re not going to listen. Look at us,” she said, motioning to her bare feet, prison clothes, and my taffeta frock.
She was right.
I pressed back on my heels and pushed forward, heading for my mother’s house, cursing the fact that her home was so far from the gate.
Pau Brazil trees capped with ice rustled in the freezing breeze. Wide eyes followed us, mouths hung open. One barefoot girl in pajamas and one in a shredded taffeta gown, decorated with mud speckles streaming down the street was probably the weirdest thing any of them had seen in their whole, controlled existence.
As I ran, I wondered what I could say, how I could get people to at least come out of their homes, to give them a fighting chance. I rounded the bend and my elbow clipped a letterbox. The man shouted abuse at me from his yard.
“Sorry,” I shouted, my stupid shoes skidding on the icy bitumen.
Gwen yelled happily, “Superior Grant is dead! Superior Grant is dead!” The man dropped his shovel with an empty clang and followed us a few meters.
I joined in screaming, “Superior Grant is dead! Superior Grant is dead!”
Doors creaked and slammed as curious and alarmed people poked their heads out of their homes, following our noise.
In front, a plain house with cardboard-thin walls leaned towards me. Yellow and purple curtains waved at me like the finishing flag, but we were far from finished. They were tied back for once. My reflection blurred across the yard like a different person, a crazed, wild person, running towards the house, torn taffeta spilling behind me in ribbons.
We kept screaming.
We kept running.
We had about fifteen minutes.
I caught a flash of my face as I ran up my mother’s driveway. This girl with bleached hair and wide, underfed eyes. I stalled at the door as I attempted to smooth my hair down, to look less insane.
“Rosa, darling, get away from the door. You’ve been told before about playing with the locks.” My mother’s voice sounded calm, sweet, and it open-palm slapped me, stinging my cheeks.
Gwen turned to me, her face muddled. “This is your house, right?” she said as she bent over purple feet to catch her breath.
My own breath was gone. My nerves frayed to a million points of nothingness. What was on the other side of that door? My birth. My death. My future.
I raised a hand to knock, holding my breath. The door swung open, and a child collided with my leg. A dark face framed in strips of taffeta glanced up at me from my knees.
“Rosa!” My mother’s face was smacked of color, her eyes round with disbelief. She grabbed the collar of the small girl and pulled her back inside the door, stepping back herself.
The little girl looked up at her mother, my mother, and grasped at the woman’s waist, digging her chubby fingers into her skirt’s waistband, begging to be picked up.
Gwen and I followed her in and shut the door behind us. “I don’t have any time to explain,” I said, walking closer until my mother’s back was pressed against the kitchen counter. She pulled the child into her arms, and tears formed for all three of us.
“Rosa. It’s so good to see you. I thought you were dead.” She shook her silvering head in shock, and my head rattled with it too. Good to see me? Last time I saw her, she’d pushed me away. She’d said no. She reached out to take my hand, and I let her grasp it briefly. It felt… odd.
“Mother, there’s no time. The Superiors are planning to destroy Ring Two. We need to get out of here now!”
Her eyes widened, and she tightened her grip on the little girl sitting on her hip. My sister.
I thought I’d have to fight, convince her, but all she said was, “Thank you for coming back for us.”
I couldn’t respond; we’d wasted too much time already. I grabbed her arm, and she shivered.
“Rosa, your fingers are like ice!” Her voice was a bruise that couldn’t heal. Her life was in my hands. She reached up and retrieved a coat from the rack by the door. My grey, wool coat. “Put this on,” she ordered quietly. “And this young lady needs shoes,” she said in a pitch strings higher than usual, her calm hanging off the precipice with the rest of us. I sighed, exasperated, somehow already falling into a pattern that was years old. I pulled the coat on, my hands brushing over the rust stains at the elbows while she fetched shoes for Gwen and threw her own coat over Gwen’s shoulders. I danced from foot to foot and shouted impatiently, “Mother! We have to go,” and then I yanked her out of the door.
The child started crying. “Sh, Rosa-May, it’s all right. We’ll be all right.” My mother smoothed the little girl’s hair from her forehead.
She named her baby after me. My heart swelled in my chest and I laughed, while Gwen and Mother gave me concerned sideways glances. That must have killed Paulo!
We took off for the gate to Ring Three, which was closest. Denis caught up with us, a group of about thirty people at his heels.
“We need to run faster,” I wheezed. My mother struggled to keep up, her tiny legs tangling in her long skirt.
“Take Rosa-May, please. I can’t keep up,” she urged, handing the child to me. I grasped at the child with desperate fingers while running and secured her to my hip, her weight immediately slowing me down. Gwen grabbed my sleeve and towed me along. We were all attached, moving towards the gate like a blob of fear, knocking each other’s shoulders and scooping each other up when we stumbled.
As we ran, I kept thinking of the things I wanted to tell my mother. But I’d have time. After this was over, I would sit down with her, and we’d have time.
Right now, the second hand was beating down on us.