I shook my head, refusing to move. “No way. We’re not going to your ‘camp.’” I made quote signs in the air. It was surely a trap.
“Suit yourself. But I wouldn’t want to be alone out here if I were you. Especially not in this weather.” Caleb pointed to the dense storm clouds, which were moving faster, stretching out, ready to spill water onto the forest. Then he turned the horse and they started down the road. Arden waved good-bye to me, not troubling to turn her head.
I looked back at the field we’d come through. The sunflowers leaned to one side, pushed down by the wind. I wasn’t sure which direction the house was in, or how far off it was. I didn’t know how to start my own fire, I didn’t know how to hunt, and I didn’t have a knife to call my own.
I dug my fingernails into my palm. “Wait!” I called, running after the horse. “Wait for me!”
Chapter Eight
IT WAS THE DARKEST NIGHT I’D EVER SEEN, LIT ONLY BY flashes of lightning across the black sky. We’d been traveling for over two hours. I clung to Arden, grateful for the extra space between Caleb and me. As we made our way down a muddy road, I kept silent, reviewing all the ways we might die by Caleb’s hand, or be manipulated into doing things we weren’t supposed to. Among all the lies the Teachers had told us, there must have been some truths. After seeing the way the gang had skinned that animal alive, I knew men were as violent and callous as we had been told. I thought of the innocent Anna Karenina, and how she was oppressed by her husband, Alexei, and then seduced by her lover, Vronsky. Teacher Agnes had read her suicide scene aloud, shaking her head in disappointment. If only she had known what you know, she’d said. If only.
I would not be fooled. As soon as we arrived at Caleb’s camp we’d eat, then wait out the storm. I wouldn’t sleep. No, I’d stay awake and alert, my back against the wall. Then in the morning, when the sky had returned to its perfect cerulean blue, we’d be off. Me and Arden. Alone.
“So how’d you know about School?” Arden asked. She hadn’t spoken much, except to question Caleb about the route he was taking.
I raised my cheek from Arden’s back, suddenly interested in their conversation.
“I know more about Schools than I would like.” Caleb kept his eyes on the road ahead. “I was an orphan, too.”
“There are schools for boys then,” Arden pressed. “I knew it. Where?”
“A hundred miles north. But they’re not Schools, so much as labor camps. I know the things you’ve seen at School, I know how unspeakable it is, the girls who are being used for breeding. But I can tell you—” Caleb paused for a moment. He spoke slowly and matter-of-factly, like he’d known these secrets for years. “I can tell you that the boys have suffered, too, perhaps worse.”
I couldn’t stop from scoffing. It was always women who’d suffered at the hands of men. Men were the ones who’d started wars. Men had polluted the air and sea with smoke and oil, ruined the economy and filled the old prison systems up to their limits. But Arden reached over and pinched my thigh so hard I squealed. “You’ll have to excuse her,” she said. “She was the School valedictorian.”
Caleb nodded, as if that explained some deeper truth about me. Then he leaned forward, urging the horse to pick up the pace. We galloped up a long incline, the crest of the hill just a quarter mile off. Trees stretched their limbs over the grassy terrain, creating menacing shadows. The rain was falling harder now. The drops felt like tiny pebbles hitting my skin.
“Oh no.” Caleb stopped the horse in the mud. I followed his gaze. There, only a hundred yards ahead of us, was a government Jeep. Even through the rain, I could make out the two red taillights.
Caleb tried to turn the horse around, but it was too late. A beam of light stretched through the darkness, illuminating our faces.
“Stop! By order of the King of The New America!” a voice bellowed over a megaphone.
“Go,” Arden urged. “Now!”
Caleb spun the horse around and we took off the way we’d come. I couldn’t stop myself from looking back. The Jeep was spinning around, too, mud splashing from its back tires. It started toward us, our backs lit by the unblinking eyes of its front headlights.
“Stop in the name of the King! Or we will use force.”
“No,” I whispered to myself, clinging to Arden’s slippery back. “No, this can’t be happening.” Maybe it was the downpour, or the mud, or the weight of the third person, but the horse was slower than before. The Jeep was gaining on us.
“We can’t stay on this road,” Caleb said. “They’ll catch us.” He pointed off to the side at a thickly wooded forest. The horse raced toward it. “Hold on!” Caleb shouted.