“Everyone’s okay,” he promised. He let out a sharp whistle, and the nearest figure in black turned around expectantly and ran toward us. She moved with a kind of animal grace, arms pumping at her side, boots spraying mud everywhere as she trampled through the puddles and thick, black mud.
I couldn’t see her face through the curtain of rain, but I knew. Vida.
She would have crashed into us if Harry hadn’t put out a strong hand to catch her.
“Careful!” Liam warned, drawing me closer to his side as Harry pulled back and untangled his grip. Vida filled in the spot he’d vacated, wrapping both arms around me.
“Holy shit,” she said. “I’m going to kill you, I’m actually going to wring your little neck. I’m going to—to—”
“I’m going to sweep through the Mess one last time to check for stragglers,” Harry said. “Mac, John, and I will bring up the rear.”
“See you at the meet point,” Liam said. “Ruby, let me carry you, please—”
“I have to walk.” My throat ached, the words coming out in a croak. “Can you help me?”
He had already started to adjust his grip when Vida stopped him by taking the other half of my weight. “Whatever you want, as long it means getting you out of this goddamn nightmare factory. I mean, holy shit, boo.”
Our progress was slow and awkward through the mud, but we staggered forward, drifting into the rush of kids moving out, heading toward the gate that was blown wide open.
It rained the day they brought us to Thurmond.
And it rained the day I walked out.
I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t shake the cold. Couldn’t stop trembling. As we walked through the woods, following the kids ahead of us, the black uniforms with white bands at the front, my shivering made my muscles lock and limbs seize.
Vida glanced over at Liam, and our pace quickened.
“Hurts,” I whispered.
“Do you want to stop? Rest?” Vida asked. “Is it your leg?”
I shook my head. “Everything.”
To fill the silence, or to distract me, Liam tried to explain what had happened. “Mom gave me the number to contact Harry, to tell him...about...about Cole. She told me how to find him. They waited for me, and by then I knew I should have gone straight back, that I wanted to. But by the time we made it to the Ranch, you were long gone. Chubs was beside himself, so was Zu—all of them. Nico held it together for them until we got back.”
“Fucking Clancy,” Vida said. “Fucking crazy-ass Grays. They did this broadcast, him and his mom...”
“I saw,” I said, not willing or particularly able to go into detail at that moment.
“How did you...never mind, it doesn’t matter,” Liam said. “You tell me later, when this is over and done with.”
“Cole...” I started to say, my grip on him tightening.
His face twisted with fresh grief. “Later, okay? It’s not too much farther. We had to set the meet point nearby—too many kids to drive out. I wish you could have seen it—Amplify pushed the information we gave them out everywhere. TV, the Internet, traffic signs—they bombarded the world with the truth.”
“Let’s see if it actually worked,” Vida muttered. “If there aren’t any parents waiting—”
“They’ll be waiting,” Liam insisted.
No matter how many steps I took, it still felt like we were falling farther and farther away from the lights filtering through the trees. I knew he was right, though, when the first helicopter appeared over us, casting a light down and kicking up the wind and rain. It was blinding—I couldn’t tell if it belonged to the military or to the news.
There had been a din of noise, this faint low buzz of energy and sound I’d barely been able to detect under the shrill ringing in my ears. Now it was like I could hear the pulse of the world around me, throbbing underfoot. Up ahead, there were more lights, all pointed toward us.
The assault team, kids and adults alike, brought the huge group up short, just past the line of trees. There were buildings nearby, most likely the abandoned downtown area of Thurmond, West Virginia. Liam and Vida navigated us up through the sea of stalled bodies, shouldering our way closer to the front.
Three thousand children spread out through the trees like an avalanche, stopping up every gap between them. I knew when we were close because someone got on a bullhorn and barked out, “Remain where you are! Any advancement will be seen as a sign of hostile aggression!”
But if the armed forces saw us, so did the families gathered behind them.
We were moving forward again, slowly now, but at a steady pace. Finally, through the blinding field ahead of us, shapes began to form.
Two large, white tents had been set up by someone. Lights from ambulances and cop cars flashed blue, red, blue, falling over us and the double lines of soldiers that stood between us and hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
I blinked, trying to clear my thoughts. This was right—this was how it was supposed to be. Alice would have released her last blast of information during the assault, including the names of the children at Thurmond, and a location where they could be retrieved. I’d assumed that it would also give the military time to respond, and I’d been right. The soldiers, National Guard, police, and PSFs alike had assumed a defensive stance, shielded by riot gear.
“Drop your weapons, get down on the ground, and place your hands on your head,” the same man ordered. “Any further advancement will be seen as a sign of hostile aggression and we will open fire.”
We kept moving forward, toward the men and women in camouflage, toward the few in black PSF uniforms, until we were less than three hundred feet away.
The tall, clear riot shields formed an actual wall between us, but didn’t mask the way the soldiers’ eyes flickered over us. The row behind them was armed and primed to do exactly as the officer had threatened; the muzzles of their guns were carefully placed in the gaps of space between the shields. They stood back-to-back with a row of FBI and uniformed police officers, who were facing the crowd of reporters and civilians. Cameras—there were cameras everywhere, flashing, recording, even as the men and women tried to block the shots or smash the devices altogether.
The helicopter’s propeller announced its arrival long before it appeared in the sky. Its searchlight swept over us several times, as if scanning for one person in particular. A soldier sat at the edge of the open door, an automatic rifle in his hands as he took stock of the situation.
The officer in charge stood just left of center, behind both lines of soldiers. There was a satellite phone pressed to his ear; he kept ducking in and out of sight, as if crouching down could somehow drown out the noise of the crowd that rose behind him, breaking over all of us in a rush.
Names, I thought, forcing myself to look beyond the weapons and the gear, to the faces of regret and hope behind them. One of the kids behind me recognized one of them, clearly, because she surged forward with a shout of, “Mom—Mom!”
“Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head,” the officer yelled into the bullhorn. “Do it now—now!”
“Here!” a woman shouted back. “I’m here! Emily, I’m here!”
Watching the face of the soldier directly in front of me was like seeing a trickling creek become a river; emotion roared across his eyes, and not even the glare of the chopper’s searchlight could disguise the look he cast back at the woman, who was struggling against the three FBI agents pushing her to the ground. The civilians around her pushed back, trying to drive them away from her.
The soldier was well past the point of youth; the stubble on his weathered cheeks was silver, matching the heavy brows above his pale blue eyes. He faced forward again, ignoring the uncomfortable shifting of the younger men and women to his left and right as they waited for their next order. His gaze shifted to a girl a few feet away from me. She was crying, still yelling, “Mom! Mom!” Her dark curls stuck to her wet cheeks.
The soldier shook his head. Such a slow, simple movement. He shook his head and let the riot shield fall forward into the mud. The sound somehow cut off all others. His own automatic rifle he left on the ground as he straightened up to his full height, chest out and forward, as he dodged the hand of the dumbstruck soldier next to him who’d half-heartedly put an arm out to stop him.
He stepped over his own shield, snapping the clips on his Kevlar vest and tugging it off. The helicopter’s light found his path and traced it as he came toward us slowly, showing that he was unarmed. He held out his hand to her, and, after a moment of hesitation, she took it and allowed him to draw her forward to drop the vest over her head. His helmet came off next, and though it was too big for her, he clipped it on anyway, adjusting the strap tight under her chin.
The soldier picked her up and she locked her arms around his neck in complete trust. As he carried her back toward the line of soldiers, the officer in charge finally shook off his stupor enough to realize he should be shouting orders. He tried. No one, not a single one of us, listened. I heard my heart in my ears, louder and louder, and held my breath.
Holding out an arm, he pushed his way through the soldiers that tried to close the gap he’d left in the line, until, finally, the few FBI agents still standing over the woman released her. She met the soldier halfway, tearing the girl out of his arms and into hers. It wasn’t until Liam reached up and lightly squeezed the arm I had around his neck that I realized the kids around me were moving again. The crack in the line of soldiers expanded as two kids followed the path they had taken through, three kids, four...
The officer was shouting into the megaphone, but except for a rare few, the soldiers were lifting their riot shields out of formation and turning to the side. The kids flooded through them, the same way they’d flowed through the trees; finding the openings, gathering their courage close, and passing through them.
Vida said something I couldn’t hear. My head was too heavy now for my neck to support, and both of them stumbled as my left leg crumpled beneath me. Liam’s hands were on my face, forcing my eyes open. It was so cold—how could I be sweating?