“Bishop, see anything?”
“Nothing,” he calls back through the flames and frightened faces. “I think we’re all right.”
The stone doors grind open. Beyond it, a white hallway with a glowing ceiling.
I lean in near Spingate. “Close it after everyone is through, then come back up front with me.”
I turn to face the others. So much fear.
In that moment, I finally understand why I am the leader. I know why these people voted for me. We have had all we can take, yet we keep fighting. Everything could crumble to bits at any second, but that won’t happen because I refuse to let it happen. These people, they are my people, and I will help them survive.
“If you’re scared, if you’re tired, look to me! We will not stop. I will lead you to safety. Follow me a little farther. Let’s move!”
A new mood sweeps over them. I see their faces harden, I see them prepare themselves to do what must be done. Someone has to be the example, and right now that someone is me.
El-Saffani darts out ahead. I run, my feet kicking up fresh dust. Our people follow.
We need a room that is easily guarded. I’m tired but I can’t show it. Keep going, legs—keep going. Get these people somewhere safe, rest for a bit, then go back for Bello. She is alone and the monsters have her.
A little bit more…a little bit…
My muscles scream, my lungs burn. I’m ready to collapse when Spingate and Gaston catch up to me.
She points ahead. Archways on both the left and the right. Some are open. We’ll be able to defend those.
We’ve done it.
As we close in, El-Saffani stops. I catch up to them, breathing so hard my mouth hangs open.
The boy points to the ground.
“Footprints in the dust, Em—”
“—and dead people, lots of them.”
Piles of dusty bones. The Grownups’ war happened here, too, just as it did where we first woke up.
I see the footprints. Are those from the wrinkled monsters? Or are there more kids like us down here somewhere?
I stop and put my hand against the wall to keep from collapsing. I can’t move another step.
“O’Malley,” I say between gasps, “count us. Are we all here?”
He’s barely even breathing hard. How can he run so fast and so far yet not be exhausted? He stands tall, looks back, his finger bobbing in time to the numbers in his head.
Bishop comes up from the rear, gently pushing past everyone so he can stand next to me. His bloody, bare-skinned chest heaves. He’s still holding the spear. Even as tired and afraid as I am, I look at it. He looks at it, too—a little longingly, perhaps—then he offers it to me.
With a shaking hand, I take it. The blade remains covered in red-gray smears.
Bishop nods. I am still the leader…at least for now.
People are worn out. Some are sniffling, a few are crying. They are terrified and they don’t even know the whole of it yet.
O’Malley finishes his count.
“Twenty-two,” he says. “Everyone except for Bello. Em, what happened to her?”
I start to talk, but my throat stings too much to speak. I draw in a couple of breaths, try to steady myself.
“They took her,” I say.
“Who took her?”
I look at the group. Aramovsky is close by, breathing as hard as I am. He looks at me with that arrogant face of his—I’m convinced he knows what I am about to say before I say it.
Maybe he deserves to be arrogant: because he was right.
“Monsters,” I say. “In the trees…monsters attacked us.”
Aramovsky’s eyes widen at the sound of that word. He nods, slowly and solemnly, as if he always knew this moment would come.
All down the hall, faces stare at me in shock. Monsters…their leader just told them that monsters are real.
O’Malley shakes his head. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing.”
Bishop shoves O’Malley’s shoulder, almost knocking him down.
“Shut up,” Bishop says. “You don’t know, O’Malley, you didn’t see them. I did. I saved Savage.”
O’Malley’s fingers flex on the knife handle. He snarls at the bigger boy, starts to step forward, but I put myself between them.
“It’s true,” I say. “There were monsters. Bishop killed one, I saw it. Another one of them took Bello.”
O’Malley looks at me in disbelief. “Wait…the monsters took Bello? You mean she isn’t dead?”
The way he says that, the astonishment in his voice, it makes things hit home—I left Bello alone. I abandoned her.
“I…I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe she is.”
The moment those words leave my lips, shame hammers home. A piece of me—a nasty, small, horrible piece—actually wants Bello to be dead, because if she is, we don’t have to go back for her, we don’t have to return to the Garden and face the monsters.
O’Malley is shocked. He looks from me to Bishop, back again. “They took Bello, and you told us to run? We left her?”