Sissy lifts her head from the journal map. “We do what David said. Go look for the sanctuary, then head back if we can’t find it. That way—”
“There’s no time!” I exclaim. “We have to make haste right now. Do you see those clouds? It’s going to be as black as night within the hour. And you don’t need me to spell out what that means.” I’m not bluffing here. Ominous bands of dark clouds are racing across the sky, threatening to pull darkness down prematurely, hours before dusk.
“You shut up!” shouts Epap, his face red with fury. “You have no say here!” He steps towards me, his bony arms stiff and crooked at the elbows.
“Take it easy,” I caution him.
But he keeps coming. “We don’t even need you.” He flashes a look back at the hepers, waves his arm beckoningly to them. “C’mon, let’s just take the carriage for ourselves.”
I reach out for his arm, but he brushes my arm aside.
“Stop it.” Spoken quietly but with command. “We all stay together. Every one of us.” Sissy is looking past us, west, back to where the Institute lies.
“We can’t trust him,” Epap says.
“We can and we will. He’s right. There’s no time. Those clouds mean business.”
Epap spits into the ground. “Why are you so quick to believe him?”
She looks at him for a long time, as if giving him a chance to come up with the obvious answer on his own. “Because,” she says, walking to the carriage, “he didn’t have to come out here, did he?”
Ben sits next to me on the driver’s seat. The other four squeeze into the carriage as we race back to the Institute. They are quiet in the back, gazing out of the windows. Sissy is nose-deep in the journal, studying it intensely.
“What’s the horse’s name?” Ben asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you and I can think of a name together.”
“I don’t think so. Let’s just be quiet, OK?” I say tersely. I’m not in the mood to talk. Something about leading a boy to his death kills conversation.
He’s quiet for only a little while. “So glad you came. As soon as I saw the dust cloud, I knew it had to be you. Everyone else was freaking out, they thought it was one of them. I knew it couldn’t be, not with the sun out.” He gazes awestruck at the horse. “So awesome that you came by horse. We’ve been trying forever to steal a horse from the stable.”
Despite myself, I’m curious. “Why’s that?”
“Sissy wants out. She hates the Dome. Calls it a prison.”
“Why didn’t you all just escape years ago? Dome walls come down, you get away, as far as you can.”
Ben shakes his head with too much sadness for a boy his age. “Wouldn’t be able to get far enough. Even in the summer, when the sun’s out fourteen hours, we’d only be able to travel forty miles, tops. Once night comes, they’d only take three hours to cover that distance. Besides, there’s nowhere to go. It’s all just open land, endless.”
The wind has picked up again, stirring the clouds into a more ominous hue. More plumes of sand sail across the plains, ghosts scurrying as if afraid of their own shadows. At times the wind catches the carriage at an angle, whistling through it with an eerie jubilation.
An unbroken swathe of clouds moves across the face of the sun. Sunshine peeks through the gauzy haze, then disappears altogether.
The Vast plummets into the grey darkness of a day gone dead.
Ben places his hand on my thigh, afraid.
I look down at his hand, chubby and guileless. We hit a bump and he scoots even closer to me.
“It’s OK,” I tell him.
“What?”
“It’s OK,” I shout, “everything’s going to be OK.”
He looks up at me, his lips drawn tight across his face, his eyes tearing up. Two streaks cut across his face, across the caked dirt. He nods once, twice, his eyes never leaving mine.
Something breaks inside me. I tear my eyes away.
Be quick.
It’s one thing to plan for something like this, another to execute it.
Never forget.
I pull up on the reins, stopping the horse. Ben looks quizzically at me. “Hey,” I say, staring straight ahead, “you need to go into the carriage.”
“There’s no room.”
“Yes. There is. I need to be alone for this last bit, OK?”
“Why have we stopped?” Epap says, leaning out of the window.
“He’s joining you all,” I say matter-of-factly. “There’s no room up here.” I jump down, indicating to Ben to follow suit.
“There’s no room in here,” Epap replies. “Seems like you’ve done plenty fine so far.”
“Why don’t you shut your trap?” I yell.
They pour out of the carriage at that, tension filling the air between us. I look at David and Jacob standing by Epap. “Do you always need their help in your fights?” I ask.
“Shut up!” Epap yells.
“Easy, Epap,” Sissy says, climbing ou
t of the carriage, “he’s just trying to provoke you.”
“And do you always need her around telling you what to do?” I ask him.
He’s gathering his body to throw himself at me – I see his legs bend, his mouth downturn – when a horn sounds across the plains. Coming west, from the direction of the Institute.
For a moment, we’re so completely stunned that we simply stare at one another. Then, slowly, we turn our heads.
We see nothing across the plains. Just a grey band of darkness, sitting on the horizon.
Then another blast of the horn, a forlorn, meandering sound.
“What’s happening?” Epap asks. “What’s that sound?”
All eyes turn to me.
“The Hunt,” I say. “It’s begun. They’re coming.”
“It’s just our ears playing tricks on us, wind hitting those boulders,” Epap says, pointing to our left at five large boulders piled messily on one another.
Nobody responds.
“There,” Ben says, standing on the driver’s seat, his finger pointing out like a weather vane. Directly ahead of us, in the direction of the Institute. His voice is neutral, almost casual.
“I don’t see anything, Ben,” Sissy says.
“Over there!” he says, his voice getting more excited now, afraid.
And then we all see it. In the far distance, a cloud of dust, puffing upward.
I feel my internal organs falling through a trapdoor suddenly opened.
The hunters are coming. How fast.
I try not to think of Ashley June. Still in a dark, cold cell, holding out hope—
Somebody grabs me by the scruff of my neck. “You’ve got some explaining to do.” Epap’s voice. “What’s going on?”
“Let go of me!” I shout, swinging my arm back. I connect with his cheekbone. His head goes flying back, then snaps forward, rage raving in his eyes. He smacks back, a stony fist surprising me with its bite. Before I can respond, he’s pummelled me in my stomach, winding me. I double over, fall to my knees. But he’s not done with me yet. He kicks me in the side of my ribs. A flash of white washes across my vision.