He stirs, scratches his head, and then looks at me, wide-eyed. His brown eyes scan my face, and then he’s up, fumbling for the dragon toy I made him from petrified sand. No crying, no one-word questions, as if he knows how unspeakable this really is—a choice between being devoured by Stiles or having our flesh eaten by nomads in the desert.
In my imagination I’ve planned for this moment dozens of times. Run to the back exit, where the workers bury the trash. Where it reeks so no late nighters would want to hang around, sipping hard mead. We dare not take a light, but the full moon’s burgundy glow is some help. We streak to the line of gliders that the men take to the runners’ depot, where they pick up the monthly supply of food from up north. Our gliders’ engines are solar powered, engines sent from the north years ago. It’s not often that we get new parts, so mostly our boys from eighteen section patch the vehicles with abandoned machine parts to keep them running.
Thorn keeps up with me. He’s still sleepy but he almost looks eager. This makes me less guilty, and more hopeful that we’ll get out before Stiles wakes.
But the line of gliders is gone. What was I thinking? Of course, the men have flown them all to the Founders’ ceremony! And the celebration runs all night and into the dawn. Dread crashes through me. I look down at Thorn. “They’re gone. We’ve just got to run.” I take off into the desert, with Thorn at my side. This is crazy. We’ll never survive. Thorn must know that. He tugs on my arm to stop.
His eyes throw off a dim, hopeful light. He nods his round face back from where we came from.
“Thorn, we already looked. There’s nothing back there.”
He nods again, more decisively toward the side of the compound.
I take his hand, and we pad back with caution, my every nerve pricked for footsteps that don’t belong to us. Once back at the building, I still see nothing—no gliders, and not even a trash wagon with clumsy wheels. “Thorn, come on. Please talk!” Sometimes I wish he would speak to me—even a hushed whisper would do.
But all of his words have been beaten and burned out of him. I know this.
He scrambles around the corner of the building and disappears. I imagine Stiles there. To come back here was a bad mistake. When I follow, though, I see Thorn’s genius. There’s one battered glider that someone junked here. Its treads are bent in, and it’s missing its right handlebar but my good hand’s the left one so as long as the things runs …
I hop on and reach for the key. Nowhere. “Thorn, there’s—”
He’s scrambling around by another dirty refuse pile edged up against the compound. He leans over a crooked sign that we used in one of the classrooms to hang cloaks on. It has nails on it. Whirling around, he holds a key up triumphantly.
I wave him over. “Hurry! Get on.”
Sweeping him up, I warn him to hold tight as I fire up the glider. It’s making rumbling, farting noises, which I fear will wake the guard. But in fits and starts it rises a few inches and begins to glide unsteadily over the sand. I steer it south, the opposite direction of the Founding Ceremony. We’ll cut a wide swath around, even if it takes us out of the way.
Thorn’s hands press into my sides as we pick up speed. His touch fills me with relief. He’s the one person I truly love on this earth aside from my mother. Oh, I wish I could take her; she’ll worry so much. I’ll try to send word soon. I also love my father, who graduated to the sky.
And the Fireseed God.
I disagree with how the leaders worship Fireseed, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe. I whisper a prayer to its invisible five pointed red petals as I gaze into its home in the sky. “Help speed us away. Guide us to a safer place.”
The Fireseed God only grants part of my prayer. The feeble glider makes it fifty miles to a building labeled Depot. And then, just after we escape its smoky chamber, in a firework of explosions, it dies one last death.
Chapter 2
Dread courses through my veins. The proprietor is jogging toward us at an awkward, gamboling clip. Must’ve heard the loud death rattle of the glider. A grizzled man with leathery skin, he also has a pendulous belly—from eating the arms of unlucky nomads? I gulp. Thorn and I are perfect fodder for his night kitchen. Plus, it occurs to me that he’ll naturally tell the founders where we are. Why wouldn’t he? Why didn’t I think of this before? He depends on them to pay for our Fireagar and clothing. He needs to remain on good terms. I consider running.
Thorn grips my cloak. Now he’s tugging on it. A warning? Too late! The man is only twenty paces away, and growing closer by the second.
“Who goes there?” he bellows, cupping his eyes with his hand, as if that will help him see us more clearly under the bleeding moon.
I know what I must do—perform in a similar way as I did with Stiles. My theatrical, seductive charm is the only tool I know against these men. I shudder. “Wait here, Thorn.”