“Greer! Card!”
Hannah had stopped running. The kids were huddled behind her. Benny. DeShaun. Astrid. Makela. Eliot cradled Margo in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder. They were all streaked with soot and tears. I turned back to Greer, and it was as if a switch flipped inside him. His arm slipped out of my hand and he ran toward Hannah. He took Margo from Eliot and waved them all down the other side of the hill. I turned for a last look back at the park. The Ferris wheel had fallen over, and every last trace of the carnival was gone, crushed underfoot. A house on an adjacent street was burning. Smoke from the fires mixed with the tear gas, churning in the rotor wash from the helicopters. Deep inside the haze, faceless forms grappled hand to hand.
Behold, Abaddon.
I turned and fled. By the time we hit the roadway on the other side of the hill, the riot had spilled into the streets. Main was blocked by a barricade of vehicles, so we ended up twisting through Black River’s neighborhoods, just barely avoiding the Marvins. I kept my eyes locked on the summit of Lucy’s Promise with every turn we took, frustrated by how it drew closer and slipped away over and over again.
At Washington Street we stumbled into one of the clouds of tear gas and the kids started coughing violently. I could breathe because of my mask, but it was like a swarm of bees gouging at my eyes. Greer pushed everyone into a nearby yard, then stripped off his shirt and told Ren and Eliot to do the same. He handed the shirts to me and I used my knife to cut them into wide strips. Greer and Hannah moved through the group, tying the fabric tightly around mouths and noses. It wasn’t much, but it was all we had, and it was enough to get everyone back on their feet and moving.
There was a full-on brawl underway at the end of Washington, so we jumped fences until we hit the next street over. I caught a flash of the bridge up ahead and called out to the others, but by the time we’d turned toward it, a Marvin patrol cut us off and we lost sight of it again. We tumbled from street to street, as if we’d fallen into the churn of Black River Falls. The world became flickers of light and darkness. There and then gone again. I saw riot clubs falling. Clouds of smoke. People running. All around us was the sound of broken glass and sirens and the pop pop pop of gunfire.
Astrid fell, and I helped her up and pushed her on. Blood poured from a cut on the side of her head and across her pale skin, but she didn’t seem to notice. Hannah had DeShaun in her arms. Greer carried Margo. Makela snatched a rock off the street and hurled it at a passing car. Every few minutes another mass of infected crashed into us, overwhelming and scattering our group. We fought to pull ourselves together again and again, clasping hands, making a chain. Stay together. Keep moving. It was all I could think. All I could do.
“Card! Look!”
My head snapped left at Hannah’s voice. Gray stone showed through the trees, and then there was a rush of sound that I took for the roar of voices until I realized what it really was—white water crashing over the falls.
By then we’d mixed in with at least three other groups of infected. We turned a corner, and suddenly there it was. The bridge. The roadway was clear. It was a straight shot to Lucy’s Promise. Seeing it gave us a jolt, and we raced out onto it. Hannah and I looked around wildly as we ran, counting heads, making sure everyone was there. I panicked when I didn’t see Tomiko, but then the crowd shifted and I caught sight of her.
We were halfway across when the truck appeared. It shot out of a side street and came to a stop at the far end of the bridge, blocking our way. Marvins in riot gear poured out, ten or fifteen of them, some with shields and clubs, some with tear gas launchers, some with sleek black rifles hanging from their shoulders and side arms strapped to their hips. The crowd didn’t turn back, didn’t even slow. We hit them as one body, determined to break through. Clubs fell. Gas billowed. An older man crumpled beside me, eyes shut, blood on his forehead. A woman went down next. I heard a scream and turned to see Jenna and Tomiko trapped by the flow of the crowd, their backs pressed against the stone guardrail. I tore through a clot of infected and pulled them away from the Marvins.
“Go! Run!”
By then the Marvins were advancing, pushing us back to the other side of the bridge, toward Black River and away from Lucy’s Promise. There were still a few infected out in the middle of it though, some fighting, others who just couldn’t escape.
I led Jenna and Tomiko to a spot on the grass, then started searching for everyone else as a stream of escaping infected raced by. I found them on the other side of the road, huddled around Hannah. They were trapped by the riot, but safe. Ren. Eliot. Makela. Astrid. Crystal. Isaac. Hannah. Greer. DeShaun. Carrie. Ricky. Margo.