Rebirth Part 21

She took a sharp breath and turned the key with shaking fingers, and was reaching to put the truck in gear, to make their escape, when she thought of Dor again inside.

She couldn't do it. She was armed, and she was able, and as long as that was the case she had to try. She pulled the truck around the corner, where it was hidden from the front of the building by the oleander hedge.

If she failed now, someone would find Smoke and Ruthie here. They would kill Smoke, but Ruthie was an outlier, and a child, and they would take care of her.

"I love you," she mouthed as she slipped out of the car, and she had almost reached the entrance when a car came around the corner so fast that the tires shrieked, and stopped a few feet from the front door. Two men jumped out, leaving their doors open, and ran inside. Now that Cass had a view into the enormous high-ceilinged lobby that formed the entire ground floor of the dorm, bare except for a few clusters of furniture on a patterned rug in the center, she saw that a dozen girls and young women were gathered at the other end, hugging each other and screaming.

Between them and her, Dor was standing with his hands over his head, a short middle-aged female guard backing him toward the wall with a rifle that looked outlandishly large in her hands. Nearby a girl with long honey-colored hair was kneeling on the floor, a second female guard holding a gun to her head and yelling something at the two men from the car.

Cass didn't think. She raised the gun Dor had given her and remembered sunlit afternoons when her father took her out in the field by the pond, setting up cans along the falling-down fence, the way he wrapped his arms around her when he taught her how to sight down the barrel.

Two dozen steps to the open doors and the woman never stopped yelling and Dor never turned around and the girl on the floor was the only one who saw her. As the guard behind her turned toward the two men crossing the lobby, the girl rolled out of the way and Cass took her shot.

The first man went down like a rock. As the other spun around and dropped, Cass fired again and again but he didn't stop, he turned in a circle and came up shooting back at her. Cass felt the pavement at her feet break and splinter and she dived through the doors into the building, sprinting to the shelter of a sofa, her heart racing, ears filled with screaming. There was another shot, and another, and more screaming, and someone ran past her, out into the night. She peeked around the sofa and saw the shooter crouched low, crawling toward her, and even as their eyes met he took another shot but it went wide.

"Outlier! I'm an outlier!" she screamed. "I'm putting down my gun and we can figure this out! Don't shoot anymore. I'm an outlier!" She had to get to Dor, had to trade herself for him and Sammi. She could make this right. The Rebuilders would understand the trade they proposed-they would know that Mary would value her life far above the others'. Dor was strong and he was good. He was Sammi's father and he was a good father, and he would make sure that Ruthie was safe. He would take Smoke and if there was a chance for him, Dor would find that chance. Everyone she loved could live, maybe even thrive, and all Cass had to do was stay here.

"Shoot me and Mary will know you killed an outlier," she yelled. The girls clustered at the back of the room stared at her, holding each other and crying. She scanned their faces, frantically searching for Sammi. "Every girl here will tell them. They're all witnesses. But if you let this man and his daughter go I'll put down my gun. I'll come without a fight."

There was silence, and Cass took a deep breath. That was it, all she had to offer.

She came out from behind the sofa, standing up. The man in front of her didn't lower his gun, but he didn't shoot, either. Behind him, the gray-haired woman stared at her with fury. At her feet, the other woman guard twitched and moaned.

A low, guttural cough echoed through the still room. Cass looked around wildly for its source.

Then her gaze fell on Dor.

He knelt on the floor, clutching his head. Blood ran through his fingers.

Cass had been willing to strike a bargain with the Rebuilders-her life for Sammi's and Dor's freedom. But they hadn't listened to her. They'd shot him. Once again they had taken what was not theirs, and this time Cass would not stand for it.

"Deal's off," she whispered to herself.

And she pulled the trigger.

The man was only a couple of yards away. Too close to miss, and he fell practically at her feet. Cass barely glanced at him. Instead, she got ready to take her next shot.

But as she tried to steady her shaking arm, tried to blink away the sudden blurriness in her vision, the female guard staggered sideways and fell, her final shot going into the ceiling, tackled by several of the women who'd been clustered in the back of the room.

One of them broke away from the others and kicked at the fallen guard, screaming, and the gun went spinning and sliding across the floor, coming to rest under a vending machine that had long since been looted of the last of its contents.

Cass surveyed the scene in stunned amazement. She longed to sink to the floor herself, adrenaline giving way to trembling terror, but now there was another girl who'd just made enemies of the Rebuilders.

Cass could shoot the two women guards. Up close, she saw that the one who lay spitting and gasping had the mark of the koru on her wrist. She was high-level Rebuilder. There was no reason to spare her.

"Where's Sammi?" she yelled at nobody in particular. "The new girl? Where is she?"

The long-haired girl who'd been kneeling on the floor crawled away from the center of the room, then stood and ran toward her.

"Where's Sammi?" she asked again. Up close, Cass saw that her wide, pretty face bore more anger than fear. A tiny diamond pierced her nose, and it flashed in the lobby lights. "She escaped."

"Escaped-where?"

"Out there. Over the wall. Like, ten minutes ago. That's where she said she was going, anyway. I helped her. I'm-I was her roommate. Roan."

Cass's heart sank. All the blood, all the dead, everything they had done to get here, and now Sammi was gone, and Dor was shot. Outside, in the truck, was her own daughter, and Smoke, near dead. How had this happened, how had so many people ended up depending on her? And what was she supposed to do now, when they had reached the end of her options?

Already tonight, Cass had killed twice and given away her innocence. Very little remained. Was it enough to take care of the people she loved? Cass had no idea. But it would have to be enough for tonight.

Do the next right thing.

Cass swallowed hard, and swiped at her eyes with her free hand.

"You," she ordered to the girl who'd kicked the gun. "What's your name?"

"Leslie."

"Okay. Pick up the guns. There-and there. Get his."

After only a second's hesitation the girl did as she asked, crouching down to reach under the vending machine. She jammed it in the pocket of her flannel pajama pants and scrambled to collect the rest of the weapons.

"You can't stay here," Cass said, holding out her hands for the guns. "You're the enemy now. You have to come with us."

Leslie nodded, handing over the weapons.

Cass took a deep breath and looked at Dor. Please please please, she prayed. Let him live.

"We need to go now," she said. The last of the girls-seven of them, she saw now-had fallen quiet and backed up, away from the scene in the center of the lobby, against the wide glass window that looked out on a courtyard that must have once been pretty, and was now filled with the skeletons of ornamental trees. "Roan and Leslie, help this man. He comes with us. All of you can, too. But you have to come now."

"No," the gray-haired guard said, in a steely voice. "No one leaves. Leave this building and they'll shoot you on sight. Stay here and we'll guarantee your safety. You and your babies."

"Babies they won't let you keep," Cass snapped. "Your choice. We leave now."

Roan and Leslie crouched next to Dor and helped him to his feet. Cass could see the bloodied place on his skull, obscured by his long thick hair. He swayed, but the girls supported him, staggering under his weight, their pajamas already streaked with his blood. He stumbled, his ankle buckling, and for a second Cass anticipated him falling to the shiny waxed floor of the lobby and knew that if he fell, they would have to leave him. Already the guard in front of her was edging away, wriggling like a snake; Cass knew she had only seconds to decide whether to shoot her. Either way, she had to get out now, even if it meant leaving Dor here, injured and alone.

Her finger was tightening on the trigger, tears obscuring her vision, when Dor grunted and staggered two steps forward. In the split second after she shot the floor inches from the crawling guard's face, she took a chance and focused on him.

His face was ashen and he leaned heavily on Roan, but he was moving, the girls half dragging him along. At her feet there was screaming, and Cass tore her eyes away from Dor to see the guard scrabbling at her face with her fingers, trying to dislodge chips of tile that had embedded themselves in her skin.

Cass flipped the gun in her hands and brought it down, holding tight to the barrel, as hard as she could against the woman's skull, and she cried out and fell to the floor. Then Cass stomped with all her weight on the other guard's hand, feeling the bones shift and break, trying to ignore the screaming.

She should have killed them. Should have killed them. The thought ricocheted around her brain as she jammed the gun in her waistband and ran, avoiding the corpses of the men she'd killed, their blood seeping slowly onto the floor. The girls had gotten Dor out the door, into the night, and Cass could no longer see them.

"Last chance," Cass called, turning around in the wide doorway and addressing the girls in the back of the lobby. One of them ran toward her with a backward glance over her shoulder, and then a moment later, two more. The rest of them shrank against the window, some of them sobbing.

"All right," Cass said, as the three followed the others through the door. "The rest of you, make them understand you had no choice. Tell them I was armed. We were armed. They'll be here soon. And you-" she had to choke down bile when she addressed the two guards. "I may regret letting you live. I already do, in fact. But you're not worth the hit on my conscience. Treat these girls well."

She backed out into the night, the cold reaching for her. "You can't have the future," she added as she turned and ran, but her words were lost on the night air.

36.

ROAN'S TEETH CHATTERED BUT SHE DIDN'T notice until she bit her tongue and tasted blood.

The truck jounced along, wheels screeching, taking turns hard so that she and the other girls slid and rocked, holding on to each other for balance.

Next to them, on the cold truck floor, was the man they'd dragged from the lobby. She'd barely caught him when he passed out, holding him so his head didn't hit the hard floor. The blood flow had slowed-she thought it had, anyway, though it was hard to tell in the dark. And his pulse still felt strong to her, strong enough, anyway, as she pressed his wrist between her hands.

In her lap was the silver box. He'd given it to her before he passed out, and told her what to do with it.

Roan had trusted men before and it usually didn't work out very well. She'd been pregnant before, but lost the baby before she got around to figuring out how to tell Darryl. Faking a miscarriage tonight hadn't been all that hard, since she'd had a real one not even a year ago. That baby, she'd wanted, wanted desperately, even if she was only twenty-two and an art student with a coffee shop job and no way to support a child. When Darryl came home the night after she miscarried, he found her puffy-eyed in a darkened room and asked her what was wrong; she'd said it was nothing and he said he guessed that was right, she had nothing to be sorry about and she was lucky to live in a place he paid for and all she did was sit on her ass drawing like a three-year-old while he worked two construction jobs to support them, which wasn't really accurate even besides the fact that she worked, too, because one of the jobs was just pickup work on weekends and the other hadn't been full-time since the economy tanked-besides, Darryl left her anyway a couple of weeks later, almost like he'd made it his project to find something real for her to cry over.

Roan decided she wouldn't date anyone after that so it was kind of fitting that the guy who got her pregnant this time didn't even take his clothes off, he was just a doctor with cold hands and not much to say.

But the man lying next to her in his own blood on the floor of the truck was different. He was old enough to be her dad, but when he'd spoken to her his voice was gentle. Even as she and Leslie dragged him out of the dorm he'd tried to be considerate, tried not to lean too hard, had stumbled along as best he could, biting down the pain.

And he'd pissed off the Rebuilders and maybe that was enough for her.

She released his wrist and carefully laid his arm against his chest, and then she picked up the box and opened the lid and took out the small round thing. It was cool and squishy in her hand. They wanted her to trust them, the wounded man and the woman driving. Roan didn't see why she should-but then again, she didn't see why she shouldn't. They hadn't done anything to her yet, and that was more than Roan could say for the Rebuilders. And she was already involved, wasn't she? The minute she decided to help Sammi, she was involved, she supposed. She probably should have just gone with her to begin with.

Roan rolled the cool, squishy ball in her palm for a moment. Then she crawled to the back of the truck and watched the road disappearing under the wheels. Outside the sky was gray. And there it was, just like he said, the building like a castle, with all the fancy trim around the top. Near the front there was a commotion, guards in their camo clothes yelling, others streaming from the doors. As the truck sped past she saw two of them raising their arms, holding weapons, trying to fix their aim.

She watched the building go by and then she flung the thing the man had given her, threw it as hard as she could and watched as it struck the castle wall and burst into a flame big enough to swallow the whole world.

37.

THE SKY BEHIND HER WAS A FLOWER, YELLOW TO orange, a poppy unfurling across the night.

The explosion had rocked the truck as she drove and Cass's instincts made her grip the wheel tight, made her press the pedal down. Nothing could shake her now. Nothing could stop her now.

Dor had done it-that much she was sure of. Dor had blown up the leaders' headquarters. She didn't know how. Knowing was a luxury for later, if they survived. When they survived, Cass muttered to herself, pushing the truck even harder as they tore across the savaged streets. The girl said Sammi'd headed toward the water tower so it was toward the water tower Cass drove. Ruthie had twisted around to watch, her mouth dropped open in surprise, but she didn't appear frightened, which was a little miracle right there. Cass kept one hand on Smoke's neck, and though it was cool and clammy and crusted with pus and blood, she could feel his pulse faint but steady.

He was alive, and alive was all she was asking for tonight.

Outside the wall, the run-down student neighborhood butted up close. Unlike the streets surrounding the Box, these were choked with weeds and trash; junked cars lay where they'd collided.

The Rebuilders made no effort to make the world outside their walled-off compound more hospitable. Cass supposed they didn't give a damn about anything or anyone that they couldn't leverage into more power for themselves, power with which to build their twisted dream society. They were content to leave the landscape ravaged and burning behind them after they plundered.

As they neared the water tower, Cass slowed the truck, navigating the narrow streets of the humble neighborhood. No one would be pursuing them now. With any luck, most of the top leadership would have been asleep inside when the building blew-Mary, Evangeline, all of them. It was a shame that they would have died instantly, would never have the sickening realization that they had lost, that their empire was doomed.

No time to savor the thought now. Cass rolled the truck's windows down, scanning the streets and yards and houses for movement, listening for cries.

And it wasn't long before she heard them.

Them.

Her heart skipped when she heard the barking excited shrieks of Beaters who'd caught a scent. This was the sound you heard before they fed, when they attacked, like the baying of a pack of hounds on the hunt, a deafening chorus as though each of the things were trying to drown out the others' voices.

Sammi was still alive-but unless she was luckier than any of them had been yet, she wouldn't be for long.

"No," Cass whispered, looking frantically around the cab. No one here could help her, and she would have to leave her daughter with Smoke once again, alone, while she fought to make things right. The cries were coming from up ahead, a narrow side street made nearly impassable by the shitty cars thrown on either side. Windows were broken, shingles ripped from roofs and dead trees downed, all of it bathed in a strange soft orange glow from the fire that lit up the sky behind them. Far away behind her, she could hear the sounds of chaos, frantic yelling over a loudspeaker and the pops and crashes of secondary explosions and a building falling in on itself.

But the Beaters' hunting cries were ten times louder.

She was close.

At the end of the block a pickup lay smashed and broken across the intersection. Someone had rammed it, over and over again-maybe the SUV that was abandoned half on the lawn of a little white ranch house. She could not drive around the wreck, and as Cass jammed the truck into Park she was already throwing open the door, because she had to go the rest of the way on foot, and fast.

A hand pressed to Ruthie's soft cheek, a whispered promise, and a moment spent checking that the cab was as impenetrable as she could make it, the windows rolled up and the doors shut tight-and Cass ran to the back of the truck and squinted into the open doors. Dor lay on the floor, unmoving, but Cass had no time to examine him. Five girls huddled together against the far wall.

"Who has the guns?" she demanded. Three of the girls raised their hands in the darkness, not speaking.

"Can any of you shoot?"

Two hands lowered.

"I can." It was Leslie, the girl who'd tackled the guard. The brave one.

"Then you come with me."

But she was already jumping to the ground. "It's the new girl, isn't it? Roan said she escaped."

"Yes." Cass sucked in a breath, looking at the frightened girls who remained. "Shoot," she urged them, a hopeless prayer. "Shoot anything that comes."

Then she and Leslie were jogging toward the sound. A left at the corner, a flash of movement half a block ahead-then a stumbling clumped shape: Beaters. Three of them, lurching across a lawn. They halted, breathing hard.

"You killed Beaters before?" Cass asked the girl at her side, a girl who looked barely older than Sammi in the odd orange glow.

"Yes. I was in the Guard, was supposed to go to Yemen-I know what to do." And at that Leslie broke away, running faster than Cass, whose exhaustion felt like a layer of lead slowing her down. Cass wanted to chase after her-how could the thin, almost delicate young woman take on the things by herself?

In that second, time suspended while Leslie ran, Cass remembered the other running girl, all those months before, when she had not yet returned to herself, when she was a torn and ravaged thing walking the burnt fields. That day, Sammi had sped toward her with a blade, her hair flying behind her, heartbreaking in her fearlessness. Cass could do nothing but watch, helpless, as a child was forced to play a hero's part once again. Now it was Leslie who ran headlong and fearless into hell, and Cass could not help her, either. But she could do what she had come here to do.

"Sammi!" she yelled, praying the girl was inside the house, that she was behind stacks of furniture barricaded against a door and jamming windows shut. But even as she prayed for luck she saw a shape move on the porch of the brick house not ten yards from the Beaters-and as her feet flew faster, the last of her breath ragged in her throat, she saw the slender form of Sammi silhouetted against the brick, a wall someone had once painted a pale yellow that looked enchanted in the rosy light of the burning dawn. Sammi held something in her hands and swung it left and right-a broom, a bat, it didn't matter, it would be nothing against three of them.

Chapter end