“You ready?” he asked.
I heard the impatience in his voice; he wanted to get out of here at sunrise. What other dangers were there besides wild dogs?
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m just looking at this… boat.” It was a little Sunfish, maybe nine feet long, covered with dust. Mr. Grogan had had one for fishing in Cattail Pond, back home. Sometimes he’d let me take it out by myself, sail it across the pond.
“Yeah, so?” he said.
I dumped my backpack into the rear of the Sunfish.
“Cassie. You remember the desert part, right? The great outdoors where tumbleweeds go to die?”
“Yeah,” I said, walking around the small boat. “But look—it’s attached to this trailer.”
“We can’t pull the boat across the desert,” he said flatly.
“I know. But the boat’s on a trailer, the trailer has wheels, and the boat has a sail, too. Could we maybe sail it across the desert? Save us some walking?”
His mouth dropped open. He stood back and looked at the boat.
Half an hour later, when we were about to ditch the boat, trailer, and everything else, our small sail suddenly caught the wind. It filled out, plump and beautiful, and Tim and I stared at each other for a second.
“Get in!” he yelled, and we threw ourselves into the boat.
I shrieked as the small boom almost knocked us overboard. Tim reached for the rudder, but I shook my head. It wouldn’t help us steer since we weren’t in the water; we’d have to go where the wind took us. Our only choice was to swing the boom back and forth, zigzagging across the desert.
I didn’t even have the words to describe how I felt skimming along. Happy? Maybe. For once I didn’t have a worried scowl on my face. I looked over at Tim and he seemed almost lighthearted with the wind ruffling his hair.
We nodded at each other, grinning. Then I gasped as a gust of wind sent us careening for just a second. I stumbled into him, and he grabbed my good shoulder, pulling me toward him. Looking into my startled eyes, he tilted his head and kissed me. A real kiss.
He pulled back moments later, looking shocked. I probably looked just as shocked, my face white, my fingers moving slowly to my lips.
Time stood still, for a while.
89
HELEN
MS. STREPP COULDN’T BELIEVE HER life’s work came down to this. She’d thought she could drive this mission further. All those soldiers—no, those kids. They’d believed in her. They’d been forced to believe in her. But now instead of a training camp director, she was a prisoner. A prisoner! Her! It was unbelievable, except for… the reality—the horrible, infuriating reality of now.
The door of the dank metal shipping container opened with a rusty, goose-bump-inducing shriek. It was a guard, of course. A guard from the lowest echelon of guard school. He clomped up to where she sat on the cold, wet floor. He kicked her ankle in its shackle, knocking it several feet sideways. Ms. Strepp prided herself on not looking up, not moving her foot back.
“The Vice President will be here soon,” the guard said. “She wants to meet you herself. Before you… disappear.” He giggled at the last part.
Think, Helen, think, Strepp told herself. Buy Becca more time.
The guard left, clomping through the puddles, trying to splash her. She was stoic till he left, then let her face sag. Becca. She was the best Strepp had ever trained, ever seen. But it was a difficult journey, and there w
ere so many ways it could’ve gone wrong. What if she never made it to Chicago as Strepp had planned? It was risky keeping Becca in the dark, but Strepp couldn’t risk her getting captured and divulging their plans to the enemy. Even if she did make it, Strepp knew that Becca’s was a suicide mission. They would probably both be dead long before they accomplished their goals.
90
BECCA
“NO, THOSE GET WASHED IN the sink and then hung to dry!” Mia snapped, yanking the flimsy lace bra out of my hands. “Didn’t they teach you anything?”
Uh, they didn’t tell me how to wash your undies, but I know a couple different ways to kill you with this hanger.
Right at this minute, I was ready to use all of my deadly skills on every single person in this joint. Whenever my eyes were open, they were assaulted by beauty, culture, art, luxury. No cellfolk anywhere had anything like this stuff—real paintings, actual statues, extravagant flower arrangements in enormous vases on round marble tables.