Dissidence (26 page)

The hallways are all deserted
,
and every door we pass is shut tight as we make our way to
the third floor. The entire level has been vacated besides us, and a bright red sign hangs over the double doors leading to the ward, warning, ‘Quarantine’.

“It’s the onl
y way to keep your people off
security’s radar,”
Hixon
explains when he catches me staring at it. “Even they’re not dumb enough to break quarantine. If there’s one thing we can count on, it’s their sense of self preservation. They’ll never know what’s inside these doors.”

What is inside are doctors, nurses, surgeons, machinery doing who knows what, pain medicine, clean bandages, and other supplies we’ve been sorely lacking. It definitely beats a bunch of bodies lying all over the guard’s quarters being held together by gauze and masking tape, that’s for sure.

It takes hours before everyone’s been examined. Some are moved directly to a separate section of the floor designated for surgeries, while others are made comfortable in their own beds. Officially, Peter and I are here for the next two days to help everyone get settled while the train mo
ves on to pick up the workers in
E. Unofficially, I have absolutely no idea what ‘getting settled’ entails, and everything seems to be under control, so we basically just try and stay out of the way.

When all is said and done, the sun is starting to come up
,
and I’m completely wiped out. Too exhausted to move another muscle, I collapse into one of the chairs in the waiting room.

***

Sleeping in a hospital waiting room is not something I recommend. I wake up tired, grouchy, and sore. Not a great combination, espec
ially for me. I’m stretched out –
as much as one can stretch out
–
on this dinky little mini bench thing clearly not meant for sleeping on. The hard wood digs into my hip bone, but my head is actually resting on something
. . .
not exactly soft, but definitely more comfortable. It takes me a moment to notice the knee in front of my face.
A leg.
My head is on someone’s leg? I roll my head back, about to rocket off the bench in a full blown fit of embarrassment, but what I see stills me. His head is tipped back so that I only have a view of his chest and the underside of his jaw, but it’s enough. I’d recognize Peter anywhere. 

I lift myself slowly from his lap, careful not to wake him. N
ot that I really need to worry. T
he guy sleeps like the freaking dead. He looks so ridiculous sitting there, passed out, head and neck bent back at some awkward angle that’s probably going to
hurt like hell when he wakes up
and his mouth gaping open. It’s one of those moments when I really wish I had a camera on me. I afford Peter’s unconscious form one last glimpse, and can’t help smirking as I ease the waiting room door shut behind me. He’s such a dork, but a dork with a pretty comfy lap.

I bounce around for the next hour, check
ing in on some of the patients
and asking doctor’s if there’s anything I can do. They all decli
ne my help.
S
urprise, surprise.
Eventually, I admit defeat in the effort to try to occupy myself, and head back to the waiting room. Peter’s finally decided to vacate dreamland, but doesn’t seem quite ready to rejoin reality
,
as he’s now engrossed in a book. At least I
tried
to be helpful.

“What are you reading?”

“Nothing.”
He shuts what looks like a fantasy novel judging by the d
ragon on the cover and tosses it
onto a small, round table. “Where have you been?”

“Helping.”

“Helping?
In a hospital?”

“Well, trying to help.”

“I think they’ve got it under control, Leigh.”

“You seem relaxed.”

“There’s nothing left to do but wait for the tr
ain to come back for us tonight
. Why not enjoy the break while we . . .” Peter’s interrupted by series of loud pops coming from outside the building.

There are moments in life that stay with you forever.
Unforgettable instances that affect us so profoundly that they are never far from our minds.
This is one of those moments. A month ago, I wouldn’t have recognized the sound, but now I’m devastatingly familiar with it.
Gunfire.
 

“What’s going on?
”

“I don’t know. Stay here!”

Seriously, has that line
ever
worked on me? I follow Peter down stairs and right out the front door. Another round of gunfire is joined by an uproar of people screaming and shouting as they run past where we’re standing. At the end of the block, a whole troop of men in black uniforms turns the corner, wielding some of the largest guns I’ve ever seen.

“We have to get out of here.”

“What about the patients
?
”

“Leigh, they’re looking for us!” He dips his head so that we’re eye to eye. “Someone gave us up. The patients are about as well hidden as they can be, but if they catch us, they’ll have proof that the colony’s helping us. Then everyone will be in trouble. We need to get out of here.
Now!”

The relentless popping grows louder as another troop of guards moves in our direction through the alleyway running alongside the hospital. Bodies drop indiscriminately all around them as they go. They appear to be aiming at anything that moves.

“Peter, I don’t think they’re looking for anyone. I think everyone’s
already
in trouble.”

I’
ve never known this kind of hit-you-in-the-gut-and-take-your-breath-away terror before. This is a whole new level of fear than anything I’ve experienced in my life. Peter must feel it
,
too
,
because for a few moments
,
neither of us does anything but
stare
as they draw closer.

“Move,” he finally shouts, regaining hi
s senses and grabbing
my hand.

He pulls me behind him through a sea of bodies flooding the streets. Everyone’s running, everyone’s screaming. Peter clings
tightly to me as we race toward
the edge of town. I don’t know what we’re going to do once we reach it, but putting as much distance as possible between ourselves and the guards sounds like as good a plan as any. Havoc is too tame a word to describe this. My ears feel like they’re going to bleed from all the noise. The guns, the explod
ing glass,
the
screaming people:
all of it combines into some kind of booming chorus of destruction all around us. It’s indescribable.

There’s a stitch in my side
,
and my legs feel like rubber by the time we reach the fence. My whole body has been screaming at me to stop for a
t
least the last mile, but the guns at our backs serve as an excellent motivator. Beyond the fence, the landscape turns into solid forest. Everywhere I look, people are scurrying over and under and through the fence, disappearing into the trees. Several sections are loose and rusted through. It doesn’t take much pressure for Peter to snap a series of links away from a pole. The metal digs into my fingers as we pry it back just far enough to squeeze through. Good thing the local guards a
re so lax about our ‘protection
’
,
since
it actually ended up saving our lives in the end. Peter practically drags me at least another quarter mile into the forest. My lungs feel as though they may explode by the time he finally stops.

“Up,” he pants.

“What?”

He points up the tree beside us. It feels a little like trapping ourselves, but I’m not su
re how
much further I can
run
,
anyway. He gives me a boost, and I haul myself up onto the lowest branch. Pulling Peter up proves
more difficult than I
imagined. He may n
ot be Connor, but he’s no light
weight
,
either. With an exhaustive amount of pulling and tugging, I manage to get him high enough for his elbows to hook over the branch
,
and from there he hauls himself the rest of the way up. We continue moving upward as high as we can before the branches start to creak and bend under our combined weight. 

From our perch in the tre
e, Peter and I look back toward
the colony
,
trying to get a glimpse of what we left behind. It’s difficult to see much of anything through the foliage, but the gunfire is faint and only sporadic now. It feels like it’s winding down. That’s when we see the smoke. Flames lick the sky, visible even above the tree line. Something’s on fire, something near the center of the business district. What would they bothe
r burning? Town hall maybe or—

“The hospital!”

Chapter 24

I know I’m right the minute I say it. The only people left were those who couldn’t make a run for it. All of the workers, everyone
I
brought here. I don’t even get two feet lower in the tree before Peter stops me
with a firm grip on my arm
.

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“I can’t just—
”

“Nothing,” he repeats sternly, refusing to release me.

He’s right, deep down I know that, but I can’t just sit here.

“Peter—
”

“Leigh.”

His f
ace reflects my grief
,
and I realize I’m not the only one who brought them here.
I look out over the chaos
and watch the plum
e
s
of black smoke drift up toward
the sky on the lazy breeze. My hands a
re shaking so badly that there’
s a very real possibility of me falling out of the tree. Peter carefully scoots me toward where he’s sitting with his back pressed up against the trunk
,
and his arms envelope me. I lean into him, knowing that he won’t let me fall.

For one horrific moment
,
I allow all the sights and sounds of what I imagine is going on down there to fill me up, consume me, shatter my heart, and make me want to claw my eyes out. Then I shut it off. We’re not out of danger yet. There are still soldiers down there. Will they follow us into the woods? Hunt us down? Just the thought is terrifying, and I sink deeper into Peter’s embrace. His arms tighten around me, and his breath brushes the fine hairs on the back of my neck.

“It’s not our fault, it’s no
t our fault, it’s not our fault—
” His voice is so soft that I wonder if he’s saying it to me or himself.

If I’m going to hold it together, then I need to act, to keep moving. Peter grabs for me, but I slip out of his grasp and cautiously maneuver my way further up into the tree until I’m no longer convinced the branches can hold my weight. Anchoring my feet on a sturdy bough
,
I push up to standing, and look toward the colony.

A large number of guards linger along the fence line, but all of them are on the inside. It looks as though they’re setting up perimeter patrols, but none of them seem keen on the idea of following the escapees into the woods. I’ve been in these
woods:
I know ther
e’s nothing scary out here. But
maybe they don’t. Unti
l I hiked them with Connor, I’
d always believed there were
some kinds of vicious beasts out here. Why else would they ne
ed those fences? But
now I know the truth
—t
hose fences aren’t there to keep anything
out
. Maybe the soldiers don’t know that, or maybe they just assume we have nowhere else to go. They’re wrong.

Down below us
a crowd is growing, and people are beginnin
g to argue about what the guard
s want, what we should do next, if we should go back. When the arguments escalate into shouting matches
,
I know it’s time for someone to step up and take control of this situation before it gets completely out of hand. I guess that someone should be us since we’re the only ones that actually know what’s going on right now. I’m not worried that they won’t listen to me because I’m younger than most of them. One thing I’ve found is that in times of chaos, people are willing to listen to just about anyone who offers them a solution, even if that solution is completely ludicrous.

I slide through Peter’s arms as I drop from the tree, and he steadies me on my feet before letting go. Public speaking has never been my thing, but desperate times . . .