Authors: sarah crossan
Resist (22 page)
I’m about to unbuckle the benefactor in the bed next to Jo’s when Maude pipes up. “You took your sweet time. I’ve probably got bedsores on me bum. Untie me. Hurry up!”
She isn’t wearing shoes and throws off a surgical robe revealing her emaciated, naked body. “Where are your clothes?” I ask. She points to a bin in the corner of the room brimming with rags. I help her up, pull out the tubes and IVs, and she hobbles over to the bin and scrambles into an outfit that looks far too big for her. Within a minute, two more benefactors are next to her doing the same thing.
I go from bed to bed, unbuckling scrawny ankles and wrists and pulling out tubes. “Quicker!” Abel says.
Silas barges in holding a bawling toddler, its mouth a perfect ring of noise. Abel groans. “Shut. Her. Up.” If the situation weren’t so serious, his nerves would be comical.
“
You
shut it,” Maude snarls and slaps Abel. Abel puts his hand to his face like it’s too hot to touch.
“There aren’t that many of them,” Silas says.
“Did you find the tanks?” I ask.
“Quinn’s sorting that out,” he says.
Abel scratches his eyebrows as the baby continues to bawl. The cry wheels around the room like a security alarm. Silas tries to cover the baby’s mouth.
Jo is sitting on the end of a bed near the door rubbing her belly. She reaches out her arms and Silas hands her the baby he’s holding. Looking at them, I’m struck by the hopelessness of the situation. How will we care for infants? How will Jo crawl under the wall and away with her large belly, and who’s going to deliver her baby when the time comes? None of us are doctors. We aren’t even proper adults. She looks at Abel and rocks the baby. We aren’t on the run yet, and I feel defeated.
“Show me the nursery,” Maude says to Silas, and that’s when I remember she was training to be a nurse. After everything I’ve felt about Maude, could she be our one hope? “The rest of you, keep releasing these ones,” she says, and they leave.
We release the remaining benefactors as fast as we can. Most sit up and get dressed, but a few refuse to stir, the whites of their eyes glowing. And we haven’t time to convince them to leave.
“Help us,” Silas says, darting back into the room carrying a child in each arm. Bruce seizes a sleeping girl from Silas. The rest of us tear toward the nursery and carry off a child apiece. Abel meets us in the hallway with a gaggle of children ranging from about four to eight. Their eyes are wide. “We’re saving you, okay?” I say, using a gentle voice. They nod, but they still look frightened.
Within minutes we’re with the duty nurse, who is attempting to wriggle away. Some of the benefactors kick her, then choose an air tank from the floor where Quinn has piled them. Bruce has put down the toddler he was carrying and has a stack of sheets in his arms instead. He throws them next to the air tanks. He folds his and shows us how to make a sling. “Take one to carry the little ’uns,” he says.
Maude is the only one of us not carrying a child. She chose to stock up on feeding formula, spoons, and bowls instead. She jangles when she runs, and a peculiar flood of true affection for the old woman washes through me.
I push open the main doors with my hip, carrying a toddler in my sling at the front. And out of the shadows, Dorian appears.
“You
traitor
,” Silas says, and takes a swing at Dorian. Apart from the thud of Dorian hitting the ground, it’s silent—all the children and benefactors look on in wonderment.
“Stop,” Song hisses.
“I came to warn you,” Dorian croaks. He struggles to his feet and uses Quinn as a crutch.
“They’re coming, aren’t they?” Abel guesses.
“I heard a ruckus outside my room. Maks is rounding up troopers, but I don’t think they know you came here.”
“You didn’t meet us like we planned,” I say.
“Juno wouldn’t go to sleep,” he says. I’m not sure I believe him. But he’s here now.
“Can we make it out in time?” Song asks no one in particular.
I look at the benefactors we’ve released. They’re wearing face masks, and look frighteningly similar to an army of zombies. “They’ll expect us to use the front gate and go north like everyone does,” Abel says. “They won’t suspect the back wall.”
And we’re off again.
I wait until last, steering the benefactors along the wall that separates Sequoia from the world. The baby in my arms giggles, tipping her head back and looking up at the stars. Thankfully none of the babies are crying.
We reach the back wall and edge along that, too. The benefactor in front of me stops, and I bump into her. But no sooner have we stopped than we’re moving forward again slowly as our group slides through the hole one by one. And then it’s just Silas and me staring at the tunnel burrowed beneath the wall. He takes the child from me, putting her on her tummy in the dip and letting whoever is on the other side pull her through. “Is this crazy?” I ask Silas. His expression is hard and before he has a chance to answer, floodlights illuminate Sequoia and an alarm blasts out. The ground vibrates under the force of marching troopers. Silas pushes me to my knees, and I slink under the wall and out.
“Hurry!” I say, breathing in freedom. And as I sidestep the junk and crawl down a shallow ravine to fetch Crab’s air tank, I can’t help watching the frail figures of benefactors and children smearing the wasteland and wondering how long until our oxygen expires—or we get caught.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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The gymnasium is packed with the new recruits. They’re scrawny and sunken-eyed, but there are at least fifty of them, and although their bodies look weak, their eyes are doggedly determined. “Another set! Go!” Jude bellows through a megaphone, and they’re off—climbing ropes, leaping onto vaulting horses, swinging on the rings, or jogging around the track.
Jude sees me and makes his way over. “Not bad, huh?” he says. He looks proud. He should be. I can hardly believe it.
“You managed this in a few days?” I say, as an auxiliary runs past us. Runs!
“
They
managed it,” he says. “See her?” His eyes fix on a girl on a balancing beam with braids twisted into buns at the sides of her head.
“What about her?” I ask.
“First time with a rifle she shot the bull’s-eye dead on. I thought it was a fluke. She repeated it three more times.”
I laugh. “She must have joined the Resistance a while ago but managed to stay off the radar.” Jude nods. “Any sign of Quinn and his friends yet?”
“I’m afraid not,” he says. A boy sprints past us and Jude claps. “Good job!”
“When will they be ready to go?” It has to be soon. I can’t keep the Resistance in my studio much longer. It’s only a matter of time before Niamh starts to suspect something.
He sighs. “It usually takes six months for the basics. I’m condensing it into four weeks.”
“That’s still too long.”
“What’s the rush?”
I haven’t said anything about hiding Resistance in my studio. Jude would only have freaked out about the risk I was taking, and I didn’t want him to get cold feet and wash his hands of us. But it’s time for him to see how urgent this is. And he should shoulder more of the burden.
“Can you break for half an hour? I want to show you something.”
He checks the clock on the wall. “I have another unit coming at eight. And another at ten. I finish at midnight.”
“Fifteen minutes,” I say. Jude consults his pad.
“Ten,” he says. “Another set after this and then rotate!” he tells the soldiers. They don’t groan or huff or any of the things I used to do. They smile, happy to be driven hard.
I tap on the studio door a couple of times, then let myself in. Bea is standing with her arms wrapped around herself. Jude gazes at her and then at the people strewn on the floor, the table with boxes of protein bars and jugs of water arranged on it, and the pile of air tanks in the corner. “What
is
this?” His jaw tenses. “You haven’t . . . I thought they were living in the alleys.”
“We’re running out of space,” I tell him. Old Watson brought me another five fugitives yesterday. The studio is crammed to capacity, and there’ll be more.
“With Niamh downstairs? You’re asking to get caught, and when you do, we’re all in for it.” A few people are meditating on their sleeping bags.
“Harriet’s training us as best she can,” Bea says. “We do sit-ups and push-ups, yoga and meditation. It’s only been a few days and already I’m so much stronger. If only we could lower the levels of oxygen in here.”
Jude presses his lips together like he’s preventing himself from saying something cruel. “The buggy’s waiting. I have to get back.” He charges down the stairs.
“Have you asked him yet?” Bea asks. I shake my head and she shoos me out the door.
By the time I reach the bottom, Jude’s out of sight. I catch him as he reaches the buggy. “This is the last straw. We’ll be hanged. I should never have agreed to any of it,” he says, climbing into the back of the buggy.
I stick my head through the window. “You have to train them quicker.”
“I’m doing the best I can.” He rubs his temples.
“Can you hide a few in your house?” I whisper, keeping an eye on the driver.
Jude laughs, banging his fist against his leg. “You can’t be serious.” He pauses. “You
are
. You’re serious.” He laughs again so hard he coughs. When he’s recovered, his expression becomes hard as granite. “The girl doesn’t love you. If that’s why you’re doing this. If you think you’ll win her over, you’re going to be disappointed. I’ve known her since she was a child and she’s always been devoted to Quinn. And he’s been devoted to her. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is.” He stares at me: a challenge. And I have to think about it. Is all this about Bea and some latent feelings I have for her? It’s true she makes me want to be a better person and fight for a better world. I think of her earnest round face framed by black hair. She’s pretty and smart and brave and kind, but Jude’s right—she doesn’t look at me with eager eyes. Maybe that’s why I’ve never let myself be drawn to her. I know it would be hopeless, and hopeless is not the love I want.
“Something should have been done about the Ministry a long time ago. Bea woke me up.”
Jude wipes his eyes. “I have a double garage. But with the buggy in there, it wouldn’t leave a lot of room,” he says.
“Can I give you ten people?”
“You can give me eight. But we do it at night. I don’t want Cynthia finding out. She’s close to her due date.”
“Tomorrow,” I say.
Jude leans forward and taps the glass between the backseat and the driver. “Get me out of here,” he says.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Abel knows the area better than anyone, so he has been heading up the group finding the safest route down slopes and over streams for the last three days. The rest of us stay in small groups, and we do a regular headcount, so no one gets left by the wayside.
When we left Sequoia, we scuttled along lanes and through fields for what felt like hours. And we never slowed. Not when the benefactors got weak or when those of us who are inefficient breathers had to increase the density of oxygen in our air tanks. Only when the children began to cry did we stop to feed them.
We’re huddled among a cluster of moss-covered boulders by the edge of a half-frozen lake. Mostly we’re quiet; if we hear anything, we’re ready to move again at a moment’s notice. It’s night, so we have barely enough light to see what we’re doing. When the sun is up, we’ll move on.
“What was that?” I whisper. I can’t rest and jump at the slightest crackling. When the Ministry was after me, I was afraid, but it was a faceless enemy. I can’t think of anything more horrible than being caught by Maks.
Maude stops stirring the powdered formula and water. She clicks her tongue “I don’t hear nothing. Just these poor babies’ tummies grumbling. Mine, too. We got any more grub for the adults?” She lifts the milky spoon out of the bowl, licks it, and grimaces. I go back to rocking Lily, the child I’ve been carrying. She wriggles and reaches out to Maude. Maude pulls Lily onto her knee and forces a spoon into her mouth. “Shh, pet,” she soothes.
My stomach is knotted in hunger, and I only have one protein bar left. I break off a small piece of it and pass it to Maude, who chews and swallows it in a few seconds. I hand the rest of it to Jo. She looks down at the offering and wells up. She has plenty of reasons to cry, but I pretend I don’t notice and join Silas, who’s poring over a map. He’s put himself in charge of the route, and no one’s arguing, not even Dorian, whose clamor for control has come to a swift end. “We’ve almost no food,” I tell him. We didn’t have much in the first place, but now we’re dangerously low.
Silas points to a spot on the map. “Another day at most,” he says. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s where we’ll find solar respirators. We can leave everyone there and head for the pod.”
“Great, Silas, but you said that yesterday.” He continues to study the map. “Silas?” I say, and prod him. He looks up. His eyes are deep in their sockets and he has a glazed expression, like he can’t really see me properly. I’ve always looked up to him; he’s older than me and tougher, but sometimes I forget Silas is just as breakable as any of us. “Have you slept since we left Sequoia?” I ask.
He turns to Song, who’s sitting against one of the boulders, a toddler asleep in his arms. A girl of around eight, who’s been helping Maude carry supplies, is asleep with her head on his shoulder. “Do you think there might be a way to transfer the air from the solar respirators to air tanks?” he says.