Everyone was gone.
Everyone.
I checked every few paces, but the sky remained clear. The Survivor’s video hadn’t started, and I worried something had gone wrong. That he wasn’t here. That they got to him first. My feet sped up, my leather shoes squeaking on the stones. Gwen and Joseph’s parents kept pace with me and soon, we were running. We caught up with the noise, the panicked screaming, and were sucked into the thrashing fishtail end of thousands of people fleeing the compound. They had to be heading somewhere. I jumped up to try and see over the sea of heads, but I was too small. Jonathan stood behind me. He shielded his eyes with his hand, the sun casting a plane of light right into his face.
“There. Up ahead. I’ll be damned. Someone’s blown a hole through the wall.”
I squeezed Jonathan’s arm. “He’s here.” The words a balm, a medicine to keep me from liquefying into a pool of sadness.
I clutched Rosa-May tighter, grabbed Gwen’s hand, and moved with the crowd, losing Joseph’s parents in the throng.
JOSEPH
After the blast, Pelo made it to us and we crouched down behind the chopper. Waiting. Watching for people to start coming over the rubble and into the open. A lid flipped open near the nose of the chopper, and the little guy with the case popped his head out of the ground like a mole. He took one look at the wall blown to pieces, swung his head to the chopper where he saw us crouching over the bound soldiers, and disappeared back into the ground before we could really register his presence.
In the other towns, people had warily picked their way over the broken wall and peeked their heads out like nervous mice. They tested the air. Sampled the freedom. Some had retreated. Some had stepped over carefully and wandered out. My eyes rested on the pile of rubble, anticipating the same kind of reaction.
A bald head poked its way up from behind the hill of twisted iron and concrete dust. Eyes squinted and blinked behind round glasses. The old man put his hand to his brow, searched the horizon, and was flattened. I surged forward but Gus grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me back. Hundreds of people flurried over the debris, trampling the man. Desperate, dirty faces, women clutching children to their hips, others chained to each other by tight, clasped hands as they pulled loved ones through. They poured over the breach in the wall like an avalanche. People tripped, their legs getting stuck in the gaps between the rubble. They were run over before I could blink.
I tensed and clenched my teeth. What the hell had happened in there? These people weren’t just escaping the compound; they were running away from something. Running for their lives.
A young woman with golden brown hair scrambled over the edge of the debris. People streamed passed her, yet she held still. Another girl came behind her and put her arm on the woman’s shoulder, pulling herself up and passing her a small girl about Orry’s age. I squinted. I knew that face.
“It’s Gwen,” I said to Gus, elbowing him.
Gus shook his head in disbelief and whispered, “It can’t be…”
My excitement overcame any other panic. We’d found Gwen. I rose from my crouch.
“Joseph, look…” Gus said, pointing at the woman standing next to Gwen. She still wasn’t moving, standing atop the pile of rubble, looking down at the small girl who clung to her leg. She leaned down, spoke to the girl, and then she flipped her hair, put her hands on her hips, and smiled wide.
The sun crossed her face and those eyes… those eyes I’d wanted for so long, flashed defiantly. A revolution standing in front of me. Rosa.
ROSA
This was what I had wanted. To stand atop the crumbling wall and watch the Woodlands disintegrate before me, turned to dust. But not like this. Terrified people clipped my shoulders, and I struggled to hold my ground. I clung to Rosa-May, keeping my body rigid, a barrier between her and the crush of the crowd. She wouldn’t stop crying, that sticky, hick, hick, hick, hitching her breath. I had run out of tears. I was an empty drum with salt lines running around my walls.
Gwen spoke, though I could barely hear her through the screaming. “They have to be here. Let’s go.”
Rosa-May’s perfect little jacket was smeared with dirt and blood. I leaned down and dusted it off, carefully checking her for injuries. My heart broke as I said, “It’s okay, little sister. Hold tight to my hand. Don’t let go.” I was all she had left. I tried to smile for her sake.
Gwen tugged on my arm, but I wasn’t ready to tumble into the crowd and lose my perspective. From here, I could see for miles. I put my hands on my hips and scanned the area, a smile still stuck to my face so Rosa-May wouldn’t be scared. They had to be nearby.
My heartbeat grew steady as I took in sections of the forest. Like the pie of the Superiors’ compound. I broke it up and searched each piece thoroughly. The black rocks were clear, the forest line seemed clear, although they could have been hiding behind the bushes. A soldier shoved past me, scrambling down the rubble and knocking others out of his way as he went, his uniform in tatters. Someone had pulled all the gold decoration from it, and now he looked like an urchin. He disappeared into the crowd. He was just the same as the rest of us in this situation, frightened, trying to survive.
My eyes landed on the chopper. I moved sideways, keeping my legs as sturdy as steel beams. The shadow of a person somehow shone behind the rear of the black angel.
The air around him was brighter, shining, pulsing like golden brushstrokes. Joseph.
JOSEPH
She looked thinner, her eyes ringed with dark, her clothes an odd combination of a delicate dress, torn to shreds as it reached her upper thighs, and a thick, grey wool jacket. I remembered that jacket. The way she had cursed the gate for giving her rust stains. I wondered for a second if she was an apparition, a memory, but then I would never imagine her with dyed hair. What was she doing here?
“It’s her. Let’s go,” Pelo urged, pushing me forward.
But I froze, my feet stationed, burning a hole in the ground. Her eye’s fell on me. They ripped me open and cut me a million times with every dusty-lashed blink.
What does she see?
I am broken.
ROSA
He looked the same. His beard scruffy, his hair knitted over his brow in that delicate balance. But when he looked up at me, his eyes were deep green, ringed with sadness.
What does he see when he looks at me?
I am broken.
JOSEPH
I forced my legs forward. Something stronger than any shame, stronger than any fear I had of what she might say or do when she met me, pulled me towards her and suddenly, I was running.
She was here. That was all that mattered.
ROSA
“There,” I said as I pointed to the group of Survivors who were now approaching us carefully as the people of Pau Brazil spilled around them in scattered lines. Except for Joseph, who was flat out sprinting.
I handed Rosa-May to Gwen and helped them climb down. Slipping through the cracks, something snagged my leg, tearing my dress even further. I pulled my jammed leg out and scrambled down, holding Rosa-May’s hand, keeping us connected. Her wide eyes were open to the chaos. She sniffed, but she didn’t cry.