Rise An Eve Novel

twenty-seven



“WHAT’S THE POINT IN GOING NOW?” CLARA ASKED, SETTING her hands on top of mine. Her palms were cold and damp, the feel of them startling me. “Their efforts are still focused inside the City. You still have a few months.”

“What then?” I asked. “Am I supposed to wait until I have a child, then go into hiding? He can have me killed, but the thought of him taking her . . .”

Beatrice sat on one arm of the couch. Whenever the girls came to the door she hurried them away, then resumed her position, legs crossed at the ankles, her head slightly turned as she listened.

Clara rubbed her face with both hands. “We won’t let him take her,” she said. “You’re better off here. What are you going to do? Go back to the Palace and threaten him? Even if you do make it there, every soldier knows who you are—they know what you’ve done.”

I turned, studying the side of Beatrice’s face. She was silent. Behind her, Quinn and Ruby sat at the kitchen table. Ruby’s eyes were red and watery, her fingers carefully pulling threads from a tattered napkin. “You know him, Beatrice, you’ve seen it,” I said. “As soon as he can, he’ll bring me back to the City.”

“Then we’ll come with you,” Quinn said. “If you have to do this, let us help.”

I stared at the pack beside my feet. Maeve had given me the bulk of the supplies, showing me how to steer the bike, how to load it so the weight was even on both sides. Out of all the women in the settlement, she’d been the least resistant to my leaving, and that felt like a subtle confirmation I was right. However dangerous it was, if I didn’t return to the City now. He would come for me later—when I had a child who depended on me. When I was no longer alone.

I sat back, letting my hand fall to my stomach, imagining just what my mother had felt for me. How many times had she told me she loved me in those letters, in the way she combed my hair, carefully pinning each tiny curl back behind my ears? She had let me go, pressing me into the arms of a stranger, sending me away so I had a chance. But I was only beginning to know it now, in the midst of my own pregnancy, to understand what she’d felt. How all-consuming it was to love someone like this. Soon there would be this other person to protect. How could I bring her into this world, knowing she could be so easily taken from it? What kind of life would that be?

I shook my head, steeling myself against Quinn’s words. “This is why I was going to leave last night—this is something I have to finish alone. I don’t want anyone else to be in danger because of me. You heard it yourself, you know what’s happening in the Palace.”

“He’ll have you executed,” Clara said. “You have to know that.”

I stood, pulling the pack over my shoulder. “That’s why I have to find him first. There is no second-in-command. The Lieutenant doesn’t hold the same power my father does. If he’s gone, it’ll be easier once the colonies arrive. They’ll have a real chance at taking the City.”

Clara’s hand came down on my arm, but I pulled her into a hug, burying my face in the soft mess of her hair. “I’ll be back in less than two weeks,” I said. “I promise.” I let the words hang there between us, as if saying them could make them true.

Ruby came to my side, her face as I’d never seen it at School. She pressed her fingers to her eyes, but they were still swollen and pink. Soon I was surrounded, Quinn, Ruby, and Beatrice, whispering to be safe, to send word through the radio if something happened along the way. “You have to come back,” Ruby kept repeating. “You have to.”

Outside, the gulls cried as they circled the bay. Some of the girls were coming up the dock, laughing as they ran. The pack felt heavier than it did when I had put it on just hours before. My hand went to my stomach, smoothing down my sweater to cover it.

“I will,” I said, when I finally pulled away. “I will.”


IT TOOK ME THREE DAYS TO REACH THE TUNNEL. ONCE I adjusted to the bike, the miles went quickly, and I got better at weaving through abandoned cars, keeping on side roads to avoid being seen. I still had some of the supplies Maeve had packed, the dried meats and nuts slowly dwindling with each day. I knew what I was doing was right, that I had to go back inside the walls again. But as I pulled up to the abandoned buildings outside the City, a white pillar of smoke rose up over the stone wall. The air smelled of burned plastic, the sick, stinging scent enough to make my lungs seize.

The building was up ahead, a dilapidated school with a bent flagpole and faded green walls. Maeve had gotten the location from one of the earlier messages from the Trail. People were instructed not to write the address down, so I’d memorized it. 7351 North Campbell Road, I repeated to myself, as I had a hundred times in the last few days. I scanned the worn map I had, checking street signs to be certain.

I passed an abandoned playground, the metal swings clanking together whenever the wind came through. I kept my headlight off and stayed close to the edge of the building, trying to keep the watchtower out of sight. One of the side doors was smashed in. I walked the bike through the broken frame, the stench hitting me first. I’d remembered it from the plague, the wet rot of dead bodies. As I started down the hall toward the room marked 198, I saw the shadow of a man, lying facedown, several yards ahead.

I held my breath, covering my face with my sweater as I ducked into the room. Blood was smeared across the floor. Short wooden desks were overturned, piled on top of one another. Simple sentences were still printed on the far wall: The party was fun. My mother smiled. The sky is blue. I moved to the back closet, the third one in from the windows, as Maeve had described. There was a three-foot-wide hole in the floor. I listened, trying to decipher footsteps. Everything was quiet and still.

I lowered myself down, into the blackness, clutching the sides with both hands. When I hit the ground I fumbled with the flashlight Maeve had given me, finally turning it on. The beam flew ahead, illuminating the tunnel. Mud came over the soles of my boots. There was more blood, some of it dried on the wall. A jacket, the red band still tied around the sleeve, was crumpled on the floor.

I turned the corner, seeing for the first time how the walls changed, the mud giving way to the remnants of the old concrete flood tunnels. The corridor widened in places, until it was several feet across. A red cloth had been tied to a pipe snaking out of the ceiling, marking the threshold when I crossed inside the City. When I neared the end, I saw a figure huddled on the ground, tending to a wound on his leg. It looked as though he’d been hiding there for weeks, a bunch of cans scattered by his feet. He raised his gun, aiming at me, and I froze, the flashlight unsteady in my hand.

“I’m just trying to pass through,” I said. “I’m with the rebels.”

He squinted against the light, then lowered his weapon. “As soon as you get out, go east,” he said. He set the gun down and resumed changing a fabric bandage on his leg. “There’s a government barricade to the west, just three blocks away.”

He went back to his work, wincing as he knotted the strip. He didn’t say anything else, instead digging through his supplies, pulling out corked bottles of water. “Thanks,” I said as I started back down the tunnel, where the ceiling broke open, revealing a dank room. I climbed into the small walk-in closet, setting the thin carpet back over the opening, along with an empty cardboard box that had been pushed into the corner.

Inside, the first-story apartment was dark. I could make out the ripped couch on its side and a moldy, half-eaten sandwich on the kitchen table, casually sitting there, as if someone had left abruptly and never came back. The front window was shattered in the corner, making it hard to see through.

I pulled the tattered curtains away just an inch, exposing an intact piece of glass. A soldier came down the road. He looked over the end of his rifle as he scanned the buildings. He paused a moment in my direction and I froze, not moving my hand away from the thin curtain. He was younger than I was, his face gaunt, his cheeks hollowed out. He squinted for a moment before he finally looked away.

For a long while I stayed there, my finger pinning the curtain away from the glass, waiting until I was certain he wouldn’t return. I could feel the eight-hour journey in my movements, in the dead ache in my legs, the throbbing in my lower back. I needed one night to rest, to prepare for what lay ahead in the morning, but it was too dangerous to stay at the mouth of the tunnel. I stepped out of the apartment, scanning the road for any signs of the King’s men. When it was clear, I started east, as the rebel had said, looking for the first secure place I could find.

There was an old apartment complex a few yards ahead. Some of the rooms had been set on fire. The sign had fallen and smashed on the pavement, leaving a thin layer of colored glass in its wake. But it was set back from the road, the inner courtyard empty. A parking lot sat beside it, a few cars laying there, belly up, like dead bugs.

I started up the inside stairs, spurred on by an explosion that sounded half a mile east. Moving along the outdoor hall, I finally found an apartment that was unlocked, the inside raided for supplies. I moved the remaining furniture against the entrance, not stopping until it sat in a pile, a desk chair wedged beneath the doorknob.

There was only a handful of dried fruit left in my pack. I forced myself to eat it, despite the tense sickness I held in my gut. I listened to the sounds of the Outlands, the occasional gunshot splitting the night. Somewhere someone screamed. I lay my head onto the dingy mattress on the floor, curling in on myself, trying to get warm.

Soon the sounds outside grew louder. A Jeep barreled past. As the night persisted, I thought of my father, of the stillness of his suite, the look he’d shared with the Lieutenant when Moss and I were questioned. It was nearly impossible to sleep, my body awake, alive, my thoughts sprinting ahead of me.

The morning was coming for us both.