“Take my bike!” The boy sprints into the barn and, panting, wheels out an electric bicycle. “It’s fully charged,” he says.
I stare down at the thick, knobby tires and full-suspension frame. The boy stares up at me.
“The military took my mom,” he says, his chipped tooth gleaming in the darkness. “She cut out her microchip and tried to free me of mine. One night the Guard came and just took her.” I wonder if there was a scuffle, if his tooth broke in the fight.
Spotlights flood the sky.
“You have to make it,” he tells me, looking under my hood, straight into my eyes.
With no time to spare, I climb onto the low seat of the e-bike and speed away, leaving the lionhearted boy standing beside the defiant message. SAVE THE TWINS.
Since I left Rayla’s I have been awake, running and hiding, for over forty hours.
The consequences hit me all at once as I cruise through the even farmland on the motorized bicycle. My head dips and bobs, my grip slackens and slips. The terror of the sirens and the never-ending panic that has nipped at my heels and kept me on my feet cannot suppress my body from now taking what it craves.
Delirious, asleep at the wheel, I hit something hard. The motor stops, the bicycle pitches me over, and I land on the sharp ground, useless and disabled.
The boy’s request echoes in my ears. You have to make it. What is it? Make it to where? There’s no safety anywhere. No hope. Roth is everywhere.
Behind my hazy, cross-eyed vision, I see a dozen skyscrapers closing in around me. I’ve been captured and returned to Dallas.
A scream dies in my throat as I tuck my useless legs into a fetal position, seal my lids shut, and drop into a comatose state. A lamb for the taking.
They’re only trees, my dreams tell me. You’ve made it to a grove of trees.
My lids rip open.
The panic returns and jerks me upright. My forehead smacks into a snapped tree branch, which sends drops of dew raining down on me. I ignore the pain and scramble to gain my bearings in the early morning light.
The land before me is a forest of matchsticks. Stripped, limbless trees and mangled stumps poke out from the charred undergrowth like gravestones. Ashes shroud this cemetery. Layers and layers of ashes.
The aftermath of a wildfire.
Gently, so as not to disturb the silence, I rise and pat my coat free of the powdery remains. I grip my rucksack with one hand, uncover the boy’s e-bike with my other, and pick my way through the blackened forest where nothing green could live.
I keep my compass in my bag. Keep the persistent, nagging thoughts out of my troubled mind. I look aimlessly around me. However grueling the strain, however punishing the pressure, I must keep my mind blank. Blissfully hollow.
To think is to feel. To feel is to acknowledge hope. And hope is agony. Hope is cruel. I’m too far gone. Roth and his men have me trapped, and when I close my eyes, I see them closing in. The only thing left is to put my hands up and surrender.
I make it five more steps before I see the patch of yellow.
My legs give way and I crawl, wrestling with dead branches and severed trunks to touch what my eyes can’t believe: a cluster of black-eyed Susans. Bright, resilient, and growing from the ashes.
My mother’s flower.
I reach out, pluck a single stem, and hold on to it with all that I have. Love squeezes my heart. It’s painful, but it tells me there is still life. There is still hope.
“Ava,” I whisper.
Her name summons a howl of sirens that shatter the stillness of the dawn. They’re so close now.
“Wait for me.”
AVA
Seventeen hundred miles from where my journey first started, I stand in front of a massive tree line, out of breath and full of muted expectation. It’s high noon. Somewhere inside this pristine wilderness is a hole in an impregnable wall that leads to freedom.
I ran the first five miles north after slipping out from beneath the tarp when the truck pulled into the family farm. Even in daylight, it was easy enough to make my getaway unnoticed—the farmer was preoccupied by his lively reunion with his wife and young son.
When my legs faltered and I had to stop, I fueled my famished body with water and mettle, and carried on at a brisk trot, the waning time ever present in my mind.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Make it to the border, or you’ll be caught.
I take in a lungful of the clean, fresh air and step into the forest.
For people to understand their place in the world, they only have to stand in the center of an ancient forest and surround themselves with huge western red cedars, hemlocks, and cottonwoods that soar so high their expansive canopies absorb nearly all sunlight. No need to look to the immensity of space. Looking up, my breath taken from me, I know my humble place beside these centuries-old trees.
I clamber to the top of a fallen log, wider than my five-foot-six height. From my high ground, I can see that the dense network of deep-green foliage—speckled with bursts of yellow flora—goes on for miles. No hint of a border in sight.
Thin rays of sunlight penetrate the trees’ shade like little spots of encouragement. Then a sudden jolt of alarm floods my body, rushing down to my feet, urging me to run.
Military spotlights.
Our intention—my intention—of crossing the border must be clear to Roth and his men; why else would we travel all the way up to Montana? These woods might be packed with dozens of drones and Scent Hunters scouring the area overhead, a hundred watchful eyes on me right now.
I stand motionless and listen for noises: a footfall, buzzing, barking, an alarm, a shout—anything. After a few silent moments, I realize my eyes were deceiving me. It was a ruse of the sunlight. I dig my nails into my palm—they’ve grown long and sharp—and press on, determined.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
My progress is slow as I pick my way cautiously through the tightly packed vegetation. Half an hour later, I’m staring at two huge white signs nailed into two trees.
RESTRICTED AREA. DO NOT PROCEED.
DANGER OF DEATH AHEAD
Using a thickset cottonwood trunk as my shield, I scan the forest around me in vain. All weaponry will be expertly hidden. I’ll be dead before I even know I’ve tripped an invisible wire, detonating my own demise. I’ve heard of videos online showing groups of people mowed down as they attempted to cross the border into Quebec. I’ll never make it past the ground sensors and automated guns.
Propaganda, Rayla assured us in the car.
I leave the protection of the tough outer sheath of the trunk and grab a jagged fist-sized rock from the ground. I lob my decoy ten feet in front of the tree like a hand grenade and brace myself, waiting for gunfire or an explosion in response.
No gunfire. No explosion. Stillness.
Maybe Rayla was right. The signs, the videos, all the horrifying rumors were just propaganda peddled by both sides to dissuade the masses from storming the border.
I gather a pile of rocks together and place them into a sling tied around my neck, fashioned from my jacket. Facing north, I seize a rock and toss it twenty feet in front of me. Stillness once more. I take a few steps forward. I reach for another rock and repeat the process.
Better safe than blown to pieces.
I’ve been walking over an hour with nothing to show for it. Discouraged, hungry, and dehydrated, I raise my water bottle to my lips. My sore shoulders sag in defeat, but I quickly straighten up to my full height.
I’ve hiked at least four miles north into the wilderness. I’m not lost. I can’t be. According to my map, the coordinates should be no more than five miles from the start of the tree line. I’ll have to run into the border eventually.