The Reaping (25 page)

“And what?” A council member snorts. “Maneuver a sub right to their doorstep, sneak on board, and hijack them? They would know in an instant a nomad could never accomplish such a thing. Once again, it would confirm our existence.”

Government island. It’s what the physician’s assistant said in the tunnels. It gives me hope. Surely it would be easier to reach an island than to penetrate a mountain fortress. My mind races.

“Just give me the resources I need. You don’t even have to offer any more help than that. Just let me take a sub to this island, and I will do what I can.”

One of the council members rolls his eyes, and that makes me seethe. I look to my father, wanting an ally somewhere, but he looks about helplessly. I can tell he’s deciding exactly what to tell me. Finally he scrapes his hands down his face and speaks.

“The colonies kept an eye on the Burn from day one. There were a lot of reasons, but the two that were tossed around the most were to monitor military activity—for our own protection—and to see if there ever came a time when we would go back up.”

Go back up? My heart dares to jump. Could the colonists abandon the underwater life and create a new one on land? My father holds out a hand.

“I see that look in your eyes. Don’t get your hopes up. It would take a lot more than a loyalty serum to convince us to return. A loyalty serum could be enough to convince most colonists to never return. We don’t have the resources to come charging out of the sea like a cleansing army. It doesn’t work that way. And from what I have heard from the nomads, most citizens of New America despise colonists. I don’t see how that would help us at all.”

“They hate colonists because we abandoned them! But everyone I’ve met on the Burn gets over that pretty quick.”

“Regardless, it’s not in my power to simply command us all to migrate land-side.”

“And it’s also not in your power to at least help the people up there?”

Dad pinches the bridge of his nose. “We can’t do anything, Terra. Not right away.”

“There is no time. My friend Nell who came with me, she was under the effect of the loyalty serum, and it scared me to death. If they’ve made it work for one person, it won’t take them long to get it to work for the whole population.”

“Terra, the founders laid out rules and protocols for a reason, and I’m not going to disregard those at the first emergency that crops up.”

“The first emergency? This is just one in a long string of emergencies. Have you heard anything about what the government is doing to its people? Did you hear anything I said about my time in the labor camp? Don’t you understand? People are dying up there for this.”

“And we’re not to get involved without the consent of the council—not just this council, but the high council over all the colonies—and that takes time.” Dad looks at me with narrowed eyes, and I’m reminded of the way he looked at me every time I failed at a vocation.

“Do I look like that same child to you? Do you think I’m still that same girl who left all those months ago? You think I’ll be cowed just because you’re glaring at me? I appreciate that you’re in a tight spot right now, Dad, but it’s not going to get any easier from here on out.”

Dad’s color is rising, and he makes a sound at the back of his throat like he’s really trying to be civil, but it’s not working out so well.

“You can talk with all the council members and spin in circles all you like. I’m leaving—going back to the Burn—” Dad’s eyes nearly bug out of his head “—and doing something to help the people that you somehow feel no responsibility for.”

Gaea sweeps away from me, and I jump to my feet. My chair falls over, and the clatter echoes around the room. Jack stands next to me, but he doesn’t touch me. He lets me stand up to my father alone, to show him I don’t need anyone else to do it. But I know he’s there just an arm’s length away, and I’m so grateful he’s here with me especially with the eyes of all the council members on me, burrowing into my skin.

I stand as straight as I can and turn and leave the room.

Chapter Nineteen

I sink to the floor. I’m not even sure where I am—a supply closet, maybe? As soon as I left the council chamber, I ran blindly down the corridors with Jack calling my name behind me. But I didn’t slow down for him, not until my palm print opened a random door. When it closed behind me, all I could hear was my breath coming in gasps and my heart churning in my chest.

Now that I’m alone and it’s dark and no one is watching, I cry. The feeling of being stared at like a specimen slowly fades, but not slowly enough. The looks of the council members remind me too much of the way the agents looked at me. I don’t remember anyone ever looking at me that way before I left for the Burn. Did my time up there really make me so different from them? Can they not bear to think of me as one of them anymore? That I’ve somehow been tainted?

I lean back and find something soft to rest my head on. A mop, maybe. Right now I don’t care if it’s dirty. Knowing the hygiene protocols down here, it’s probably as sterile as the medical area. I take a deep breath, and then there’s a soft knock on the door. I fold my arms over my face.

“Go away,” I say without even thinking. My fingers find the voice box. I sigh.

“Terra, can I come in?”

Jessa.

The door slides open and the light shines in my eyes. After I stop squinting at her, she smiles.

“How did you find me?”

“You don’t know where you are?”

I shrug. “Supply closet. There’s dozens of them around here.”

She nudges me with the toe of her slipper. “Not just any supply closet. This is the same one you hid in after dad’s big blow up the day you first asked him about the Burn.”

“Really?” I look around. I remember that closet lurking over me like a huge mouth ready to swallow me. This supply closet just looks like a supply closet.

“I’m not surprised you found the same one. Jack told me what happened.”

I’m all cried out and my eyes are too dry. I rub them hard. “I don’t know why those people can’t see past the ends of their noses.”

Jessa laughs. “Well, for the evil witch—” I wonder if she means the shrew “—that would be pretty hard. Did you see how big her nose is?”

Oh, Jessa. I can’t help but laugh, and Jessa smiles. Mission accomplished. She always knows just how to snap me out of it. She holds out a hand and helps me up.

We wander the corridors with no real direction and then take the transport to the vocational quarter. Our feet take one step and then another until we end up by the fields. I put a hand on the glass, and Jessa sits on the floor.

Jessa hugs her knees as she stares though the glass into the field. “We’re seventeen, you know. I should be off with Brant right now, kissing on the Juice Deck. He’s a good kisser, did you know that?”

I smirk. “Jess, how in the world would I know?”

“What? Oh, right. But that’s why I decided to help you, to bring the sub every time.”

I frown. “You bring the sub because Brant’s a good kisser?”

She smiles, but there’s no humor in it and her voice quavers when she speaks. “When you asked for a sub that first time, Mom told me what you were planning, so I went.” I blink. When did Gaea become
Mom
? “And then I saw how you were helping, how what you were doing really mattered. I wanted that, too. I mean, sure growing food is important, but there are dozens of other people doing the same thing, and dozens more who could take my place. But what you were doing
mattered
. It changed lives, and you were the only one who could do it. I needed to help. I don’t know why Dad couldn’t see that.”

“When did he find out you were taking the sub?”

“Not until I came back with your friends that first time. He flipped. First that I left without permission, second that I was going to the Burn, and third that there had to be someone else helping me, but I wouldn’t tell him who. Terra, he almost had me turned in for illegal contact with the Burn. Me. His angel child.”

She looks at her hands. I study the carefully manicured fingers and look at my own hands. The nails used to be rough and uneven, but now they’re filed down just like hers.

I look in her eyes. They shine in the bright light. “He doesn’t understand that we need to help because he doesn’t want to see,” I say. “That’s a lot easier than dealing with the truth.”

“All you asked the council for was some help.”

I shake my head. “But to him—to them—it was so much more than that. If they agree to help, that would mean they admit that everything they ever told us was wrong.”

“It’s amazing how there is this whole world that exists that I didn’t even know about.”

“None of us did.”

“That’s not true, though. You listened to Mr. Klein. The rest of us heard it like it was a fairy tale, but you did something about it. You
knew
. I was happy just ignoring it.” Her face scrunches up and finally a tear streaks down her cheek. She wipes it away and leans her head on her hands.

“But you’re helping now.”

“Sure. But am I doing enough?”

“It’s never enough.” I put my chin on my hands and look at the rows of strawberries. The field is empty, and I wonder why Dave isn’t out there.

“I can’t come with you to the Burn,” Jessa says. “I can’t do it. Piloting the sub, that’s all I can do. I’m not brave like you.”

I rest my head on her shoulder. “I never asked you to come with. You’re doing more than I ever dreamed you would.”

She laughs, and the sound is warped by tears. “I probably am, huh, when all I ever cared about before was dressing you up and coercing you to come to a dance with me.”

My mind flashes back to a tall, gangly redhead boy. Funny how I haven’t thought about him in months. Not since I started wandering with Jack. “Whatever happened to Matt anyway?”

Jessa shrugs. “Last I heard he transferred to another colony.”

I stand up and brush off my pants and offer my hands to her. She grabs mine and stands up. We link arms and walk down the corridor. Funny how we never walked like this before I left. We’re walking like old friends, equal partners, like sisters. Why didn’t we do this before? I didn’t love her any less back then.

“I feel like I’m finally starting to understand you, Terra.” Jessa trails her other hand down the padded corridor wall. “I could never do what you’re doing, but I finally get it.”

Maybe that’s the answer. She can look at me and not wonder
why?
anymore.

When we turn the corner, we almost run into Jack, and he’s breathless.

“I’ve looked everywhere for you. Are you okay?”

I nod. “Jessa found me. Old hiding spot, I guess. I’m fine.”

Jack swoops me into a hug and kisses me. “You were brilliant.”

“I didn’t feel brilliant.”

“Maybe not, but you questioned them. From what your grandmother says, it’s been a long time since anyone has. It’s not something they’re used to.”

Jessa squeezes my hand. “I have to go back to work. We’ll talk more tonight?”

I nod. “Thank you.”

She beams. “Anytime.” Then she disappears around a corridor corner.

“You missed her a lot while we were up there, didn’t you?”

“Every day.”

“You never told me about her until that night on the beach when the sub came, but I could tell there was something.”

“She’s the one thing that makes leaving hard.”

“So when do we go back?”

That
we
in his sentence still thrills me, and I turn to him, wrap my arms around his neck, and kiss him hard.

We turn down the corridor to our living quarters. Jack’s head is low to mine, and he’s talking quickly, his hands moving with each word. We’re going. Finally going. Gaea can point me in the direction of the government island, I’m sure, but once we’re there, I don’t know what I’m going to do. All I know is I’ve been down here in the cold water for too long. My muscles are aching to do
something
.

I look up and see a figure sitting on the floor, hunched against my door. His head hangs down between his shoulders, and his hands rake through his sandy blond hair. Dave looks up when he hears our footsteps. His face is pale and his eyes burn into mine.

“You’re going back?” His voice shakes as he says it.

I nod and squeeze Jack’s hand. “Why don’t you go ahead. I’ll be inside in a minute.”

Jack pauses, sizing up Dave and his hands hanging uselessly off his knees. It doesn’t take a doctor to know that Dave is sick, and not the kind that a bowl of chicken noodle soup can fix.

“Okay. Let me know if you need anything.” He kisses my forehead and then holds his hand to be scanned and steps around Dave.

Dave stares at the floor until the door hisses closed. “Is Jack going with you?”

I slide down on the floor next to him. “Yes.”

One corner of Dave’s mouth turns up, but that half of his lips is the only part of his face that’s smiling. “Of course he is. Mary would have done the same thing for me. I would have done the same thing for her.” He turns his hands over and studies them. He closes them into fists so tight that his knuckles turn white. Then he stretches them open again.