“We have to get out!” I shouted. “Now!”
He didn’t ask questions, he only nodded.
“Cease fire!” shouted one of the soldiers as another shot rang out. “We’re too close! Cease fire!”
Soldiers were shooting soldiers in an attempt to kill the prisoners, but with so many bodies rushing the stage, we were packed like sardines.
“Help!” Billy was swallowed beneath a wave of blue. Chase dove in after him, never hesitating to give anyone in a uniform a chance to attack.
“Chase!” I screamed. I shoved toward where they’d disappeared.
A whistle reached my ears, a soaring, high-pitched song like the hiss of the microphone, only more distant, like a kettle of tea finally reaching the boiling point.
And then the world exploded.
CHAPTER
25
MY breath pulled in and out, in and out, like the waves at the ocean.
My vision was blurry, or maybe it was the cloud of dust surrounding me. Bright lights flickered, lighting the world for seconds at a time. It was difficult to make out my surroundings. Behind me was a hard surface, above me, some kind of warped chain fence.
As if someone was turning up the volume, the sound gradually increased until my chest vibrated with a rumbling, like the world was about to cave in on itself. Groans of pain punctuated the air, and above it all, the wail of a siren, low at first, but getting higher, and louder, just like it had during the air raid drills in the War.
In elementary school, the drills had come once a week. At the sound of the siren screeching over the loudspeakers, we were to duck under our desks, wait for the lights to turn off, and then run for the nearest exit. The teachers had made a game out of it.
Rabbit hides under a tree for Fox to hunt his prey.
Rabbit waits for dark, then rabbit runs away.
I thought of that now, as the blood pumped through my veins and my eyes turned skyward in search of an aerial attack. But as I shoved up to a stand, I realized the attack had already come. The memories slowly returned to me. Jesse, killing the Chief of Reformation. Chase, just beyond the entrance to the ring.
I was missing a shoe, and the heel of the other had broken off. A pale layer of dust coated my skin, and I was bleeding from half a dozen scrapes on my knees and right arm.
The stage that had meant the deaths of Marco and Polo, of Jesse and the Chief of Reformation, and who knew how many others, had been flipped on its side, though it looked like it would cave in on me at any moment.
Sharp gravel dug into my feet as I stumbled through the cloud of dust in search of the prisoners. They were not far away, mixed in with soldiers strewn across the ground. Some stood, others toppled over or remained on their knees. Some—most—did not get up at all.
“Chase!” I rasped.
I picked my way through the bodies, finally finding him halfway buried beneath another body—a soldier, lifeless as a doll. In a surge of effort, I pushed him aside and to my relief Chase rose to his elbows and slapped a hand against the side of his head as if his ear was filled with water.
“What…” He looked up and met my gaze.
“We have to get out of here,” I said. I glanced up, only to find a gaping hole in the side of the building. Where the stories of soldiers had climbed skyward, now there was only a pile of rubble. Half the base had been blown away.
“My uncle…”
“We have to go,” I said.
Chase’s face twisted in pain just for an instant before he packed it away with a curt nod.
I helped him to a stand, but he staggered. There beside us, on the ground, was the soldier I’d pushed aside. His blank eyes stared upward, unseeing, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
“Billy?” I fell to all fours. I shook him, but he didn’t move.
My mind struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. Billy was just here, just helping to free the others. He’d found the keys. He’d let me out of my cell. He could not be gone.
“Billy!” I shouted.
Chase’s arms surrounded my waist and hoisted me to a stand.
“Can’t say I ever thought I’d see you two…” Wallace trailed off as he saw the boy lying on the ground.
He crouched, and laid two fingers aside Billy’s neck. His head fell forward.
“All right, kid,” he said. “You did real good back there.” He closed Billy’s eyes. “Real good.”
The sob in my throat choked out. The tears stung my eyes, but cleared them. Cleared away all the distractions, all the departures from the one road we should have been following the whole time. The road that led us away from this.
I looked at Chase and knew he felt the same.
“We need to get out of here,” I said.
As if nothing else in the world mattered, Wallace carefully removed the boy’s MM jacket, button by button, and gently placed it aside. I said his name, I begged him to come, but he acted as if he couldn’t hear me.
The resistance leader who we thought had died on the rooftop of the Wayland Inn folded Billy’s hands over his chest.
“That’s my boy,” he said. He straightened Billy’s undershirt. “That’s my boy,” he said again.
An outcry came from the open side of the base, and we turned just in time to see the men and women, dressed in civilian clothing, cresting the wreckage. The MM regrouped, and orders to stand and fight brought on a hailstorm of bullets.
Chase and I dove behind the stage, hearing the ping of bullets slap against its metal underbelly.
Wallace stood slowly, the MM gun from Billy’s belt in his hand. He didn’t seek cover as the bullets flew.
“We did it,” he said, staring blankly into the battle.
Wallace was right. We had done it. Jesse had killed the Chief of Reformation, Three had broken into the Charlotte base. It should have felt like victory, but all I felt was loss and the gallop of my heartbeat repeating the same urgent message: get out, get out, get out.
I took one final look at Billy, and Wallace walking calmly to join Three as they attacked the remainder of the soldiers in the courtyard. Those in uniforms fell around us, fell from the high remaining floors that were still intact. Some surrendered and were taken prisoner. Some were not offered that option.
“Ember.” My name on Chase’s lips brought me back.
Now came the point of decision: to join Three’s ranks and destroy the MM—to risk the chance at being destroyed ourselves—or to leave all of this devastation behind. Soon the choice would be made for us; a battle was underway and in a moment we were going to be caught in the middle of it.
“Follow me,” I said.
Keeping low, we picked our way through a path of debris greater than the wreckage we’d seen inside the Chicago tunnels. Away from the fighting. My chin lifted; I didn’t know if another bomb would come, but I wasn’t about to wait and find out.
The two of us raced through the exit, down the hallway where I’d walked with the girls, toward the parking lot. As we neared the door, the patter of gunfire had us taking cover against the wall.
The buzz of the lights flickered on and off, grating on my raw nerves. Two shots embedded into the wall above us, then a third. Over it all, the siren screamed, constant and demanding. Outside came a cry of victory from the men and women of Three.
“You hear that?” shouted Chase. “That’s the sound of you losing. If you don’t want to die today, I suggest you get out of here fast.”