Authors: Tahereh Mafi
I have no idea how we all fit inside this tank. We’re eight people jammed into cramped
quarters, sitting on laps, and no one even cares. The tension is so thick it’s practically
its own person, taking up a seat we don’t have to spare. I can barely think straight.
I’m trying to breathe, trying to stay calm, and I can’t.
The planes are already overhead, and I feel sick in a way I don’t know how to explain.
It’s deeper than my stomach. Bigger than my heart. More overwhelming than just my
mind. It’s like fear has become me; it wears my body like an old suit.
Fear is all I have left now.
I think we all feel it. Kenji is driving this tank, somehow still able to function
in the face of all this, but no one else is moving. Not speaking. Not even breathing
too loudly.
I feel so sick.
Oh God, oh God.
Drive faster
, I want to say, but then, actually, I don’t. I don’t know if I want to hurry up or
slow down. I don’t know what will hurt more. I watched my own mother die, and, somehow,
it didn’t hurt as much as this.
I throw up then.
All over the floor mats.
The dead body of my ten-year-old brother.
I’m dry-heaving, wiping my mouth on my shirt.
Will it hurt when he dies? Will he feel it? Will he be killed instantly, or will he
be impaled—injured, somehow—and die slowly? Will he bleed to death all alone? My ten-year-old
brother?
I’m holding fast to the dashboard, trying to steady my heart, my breathing. It’s impossible.
The tears are falling fast now, my shoulders shaking, my body breaking. The planes
get louder as they come closer. I can hear it now. We all can.
We’re not even there yet.
We hear the bombs explode far off in the distance, and that’s when I feel it: the
bones inside of me fracture, little earthquakes breaking me apart.
The tank stops.
There’s no going forward anymore. There’s no one and nothing to get to, and we all
know it. The bombs keep falling and I hear the explosions echoing the sounds of my
own sobs, loud and gasping in the silence. I have nothing left now.
Nothing left.
Nothing so precious as my own flesh and blood.
I’ve just dropped my head into my hands when a scream pierces the quiet.
“Kenji! Look!”
It’s Alia, shrieking from the backseat as she throws the door open and jumps out.
I follow her with my eyes and only then see what she saw, and it takes just seconds
before I’m out the door and bolting past her, falling to my knees in front of the
one person I never thought I’d see, not ever again.
I’m almost too overcome to speak.
James is standing in front of me, sobbing, and I don’t know if I’m dreaming.
“James?” I hear Kenji say. I look back to see almost everyone has gotten out of the
tank now. “Is that you, buddy?”
“Addie, I’m s-sorry,” he hiccups. “I know you s-said—you s-said I wasn’t supposed
to fight, but I couldn’t stay behind and I had to l-leave—”
I pull him into my arms, clutching him tight, hardly able to breathe.
“I wanted to f-fight with you,” he stammers. “I didn’t w-want to be a baby. I wanted
t-to h-help—”
“Shhhh,” I say to him. “It’s okay, James. It’s okay. We’re okay. It’s going to be
okay.”
“But Addie,” he says, “you don’t know what h-happened—I’d only been gone a little
while and then I saw the p-planes—”
I shush him again and tell him it’s okay. That we know what happened. That he’s safe
now.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t h-help you,” he says, pulling back to look me in the eye, his
cheeks a splotchy red and streaked with tears. “I know you said I shouldn’t, but I
really w-wanted to h-help—”
I pick him up, cradling his body in my arms as I carry him back to the tank, and only
then realize that the wet stain down the front of his pants isn’t from the rain.
James must’ve been terrified. He must’ve been scared out of his mind and still, he
snuck out of Omega Point because he wanted to help. Because he wanted to fight alongside
us.
I could kill him for it.
But damn if he’s not one of the bravest people I’ve ever known.
Once we’re back in the tank, we realize we have no idea what to do.
Nowhere to go.
The depth of what’s happened has only begun to hit us. And just because I was able
to salvage a bit of good news from the wreckage doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot left
to grieve.
Castle is practically comatose.
Kenji is the only one who’s still trying to keep us alive. He’s the only one with
any sense of self-preservation left, and I think it’s
because
of Castle. Because no one is leading us anymore, and someone has to step up.
But even with Kenji doing his best to keep us focused, few of us are responding. The
day has come to a close much more quickly than we could’ve expected, and the sun is
setting fast, plunging us all into darkness.
We’re tired, we’re broken, and we can no longer function.
Sleep, it seems, is the only thing that will come.
James stirs in my arms.
I’m awake in an instant, blinking fast and looking around to find everyone else still
asleep. The sun slits open the horizon to let the light out, and the morning is so
still, and so quiet, it seems impossible there’s ever been anything wrong.
The truth, however, comes back too quickly.
It’s bricks on my chest, pressure in my lungs, aches in my joints, and metal in my
mouth—reminders of the long day, the longer night, and the boy curled up in my arms.
Death and destruction. Slivers of hope.
Kenji drove us to a remote location and used the last of his strength to make the
tank invisible for most of the night; it was the only way we could wait out the battle
and manage to sleep for a few hours. I’m still not sure how that guy is functioning.
He’s definitely way stronger than I’ve ever given him credit for.
The world around us is eerily calm. I shift a little and James is alert, up and asking
questions the moment his mouth hinges open. His voice disturbs everyone, startling
them awake. I use the back of my hand to rub at my eyes and adjust James in my lap,
holding him close. I drop a kiss on the top of his head and tell him to be quiet.
“Why?” he asks.
I cover his mouth with my hand.
He slaps it away.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Kenji blinks in our direction.
“Morning,” I say back.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he says, trying to smile. “I was talking to the sunshine.”
I grin in response, not really sure where we’re going with this. There’s so much to
talk about, and so much we don’t want to talk about, that I don’t know if we’ll ever
talk at all. I glance back at Castle and notice he’s wide awake and staring out the
window. I wave hello.
“Did you sleep all right?” I ask him.
Castle stares at me.
I glance at Kenji.
Kenji looks out the window, too.
I blow out a breath.
Everyone makes their way back to the present, slowly but surely. Once we’re all in
semiworking condition—Brendan and Winston included—Kenji doesn’t waste any time.
“We have to figure out where we’re going to go,” he says. “We can’t risk being on
the road for too long, and I’m not sure how long or how well I’ll be able to project.
My energy is coming back, but slowly, and it’s in and out. Not something I can rely
on right now.”
“We also need to think about food,” Ian says groggily.
“Yeah, I’m pretty hungry,” James adds.
I squeeze his shoulders. We’re all starving.
“Right,” Kenji says. “So does anyone have any ideas?”
Silence from all of us.
“Come on, guys,” he says. “Think. Any hideouts, any secure spots—anywhere you’ve ever
crashed that was once a safe space—”
“What about our old house?” James asks, looking around.
I sit up straighter, surprised I hadn’t thought of it myself. “Right—of course,” I
say. “Good idea, James.” I muss his hair. “That would work.”
Kenji pounds his fist on the steering wheel. “Yes!” he says loudly. “Good. Excellent.
Perfect. Thank God.”
“But what if they come looking for us?” Lily asks. “Didn’t Warner know about your
old place?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “But if they think everyone from Omega Point is dead, they won’t
think to come search for me. Or any of us.”
At that, the car goes dead quiet.
The elephant in the room has made an appearance, and now no one knows what to say.
We all look to Castle for direction on how best to proceed, but he doesn’t say a word.
He’s staring straight ahead at nothing at all, like he’s been paralyzed from the inside.
“Let’s go,” Alia says quietly. She’s the only one who responds to me, and she offers
me a kind smile as she does. I decide I like her for it. “We should secure shelter
as soon as possible. And maybe find James something to eat.”
I beam at her. So touched that she would speak for James.
“Maybe we could find something all of us could eat,” Ian cuts in, grumpy. I frown,
but I can’t blame him. My stomach has made a few protests of its own.
“We should have plenty of food back at the house,” I say. “It’s been paid for through
the end of the year, so we’ll have just about everything we need—water, electricity,
a roof over our heads—but it’ll be tight, and it’ll be temporary. We’ll have to come
up with a more long-term solution soon.”
“Sounds good,” Kenji says to me. He turns back to look at everyone. “We all in agreement
here?”
There’s a murmur of consent and that’s all we need, really, before we’re off and heading
back to my old place. Back to the beginning.
Relief floods through me.
I’m so grateful to be able to take James home. To let him sleep in his own bed. And
though I know better than to ever say it out loud, a small part of me is happy that
our time at Omega Point is officially over. There’s a silver lining in all of this,
and it’s that Warner thinks we’re all dead. And even though he’s got Juliette now,
he won’t have her forever. She’ll be safe until we can find a way to get her back,
and until then, he won’t come after us. We can find a way to live, away from all the
violence and destruction.
Besides, I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of being on the run and always having to
risk my life and constantly worrying about James. I just want to go home. I want to
take care of my brother. And I never, ever,
ever
want to feel what I felt last night.
I can’t risk losing James, not ever again.
The roads are almost entirely abandoned. The sun is high and the wind is bitingly
cold and though the rain has stopped, the air smells like snow, and I have a feeling
it’s going to be harsh. I wrap James more tightly in my arms, shivering against a
chill coming from deep inside my body. He’s fallen asleep again, his small face buried
in the crook of my neck. I hug him closer to my chest.
With the opposition destroyed, there’s no need to have many—if any—troops on the ground.
They’re probably clearing out the bodies now, cleaning up the mess and putting things
back in order as soon as possible. It’s what we always did.
Battle was necessary, but cleaning it up was just as crucial.
Warner used to drill that home: we were never to allow civilians time to grieve. We
could never give them the opportunity to make martyrs of their loved ones. No, it
was better for the deaths to seem as insignificant as possible.
Everyone had to go back to work right away.
So many times I was a part of those missions. I always hated Warner, hated The Reestablishment
and all it stood for, but now I feel even more strongly about it all. Thinking I’d
lost James did something to me last night, and the damage is irreparable. I thought
I knew what it was like to lose someone close to me, but I didn’t, not really. Losing
a parent is excruciating, but somehow, the pain is so much different from losing a
child. And James, to me, in many ways, feels like my own kid. I raised him. Took care
of him. Protected him. Fed him and clothed him. Taught him most everything he knows.
He’s my only hope in all this devastation—the one thing I’ve always lived for, always
fought for. I’d be lost without him.
James gives my life purpose.
And I didn’t realize this until last night.
What The Reestablishment does—separating parents from their children, separating spouses
from each other, basically ripping families apart—they do it on purpose. And the cruelty
of these actions hadn’t really hit me until now.
I don’t think I could ever be a part of something like that again.
We pull into the underground parking garage without a problem, and once we’re inside,
I can exhale. I know we’ll be safe here.
The nine of us clamber out of the tank and stand around for a moment. Brendan and
Winston are holding fast to each other, still recovering from their wounds. I’m not
sure what happened to them, exactly, because no one is talking about it, but I don’t
think I want to know. Alia and Lily help Castle down from the tank, and Ian is close
behind. Kenji is standing next to me. I’m still holding James in my arms, and I only
put him down after he asks me to.
“You guys ready to go up?” I ask. “Shower? Eat some breakfast?”
“That sounds great, man,” says Ian.
Everyone else agrees.
I lead the way, James clinging to my hand.
It’s crazy—the last time we were here, we were on the run from Warner. Me and Juliette.
It was the first time she met James, the first time it felt like we could really have
a life together. And then Kenji showed up and redirected the course of everything.
I shake my head, remembering. It feels like a million years ago, somehow. So much
has changed. I was practically a different guy back then. I feel much older and harder
and angrier now. Difficult to believe it was only a few months ago.
The front door is still messed up from when Warner and his guys busted it open, but
we make do. I yank on the handle and then shove, hard, and the door swings inward.
Suddenly we’re all crossing the threshold.
I’m looking around, amazed to see everything almost exactly the way we left it. A
few things are knocked over and the place needs a serious cleaning, but it’ll work.
It’ll be a great, safe place to live for a while. I start flipping switches and the
small rooms flicker to life, fluorescent lights humming steadily in the silence. James
bolts toward his bedroom, and I check the cabinets for canned goods and nonperishable
items; we’ve still got tons of Saran-wrapped packages for the Automat.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Who wants breakfast?” I ask, holding up a few packets.
Kenji falls to his knees, shouting, “Hallelujah!” in the process; Ian practically
tackles me. James comes racing out of his room shouting, “ME ME ME I DO I DO,” and
Lily laughs her head off. Alia smiles and leans against the wall as Brendan and Winston
collapse on the couch, groaning in relief. Castle is the only one who remains silent.
“All right, everyone,” Kenji says. “Adam and I will get the food going, and the rest
of you can take turns washing up. Also, I hate to be super obvious here, but there’s
only one bathroom, and we all have to share, so let’s please be aware of that. Adam’s
got some supplies, but not too much, so let’s be frugal, okay? Let’s remember we’re
living on rations now. Consideration is crucial.”
There’s general consent and lots of nodding, and everyone busies themselves with a
different kind of preparation. Everyone except Castle, who sits down in the single
armchair and doesn’t move. He seems to be doing worse than Brendan and Winston, who
happen to be in actual physical pain.
I’m still staring at the two of them when Ian slips away from the group to ask me
if I have anything to help patch up Brendan and Winston. I assure him that I’ll use
whatever supplies I’ve got to fix them up as best I can. I always have a little medical
kit at home, but it’s not extensive, and I’m not a medic. But I know enough. I think
I’ll be able to help. This cheers up Ian significantly.
It’s only once Kenji and I are busy preparing food in the kitchen that he brings up
the most pressing issue. The one I’m still not sure how to resolve.
“So what are we going to do about Juliette?” Kenji asks, tossing an Automat packet
into a bowl. “I’m already worried we waited this long to go after her.”
I feel myself pale. I don’t know how to tell him I had no immediate plans to go back
out there. Certainly not to fight—not after what happened to James. “I don’t know,”
I say. “I’m not sure what we can do.”
Kenji stares at me, confused. “What do you mean? We have to get her out of there.
Which means we have to
break
her out of there, which means we’ve got to plan another rescue mission.” He shoots
me a look. “I thought that was obvious.”
I clear my throat. “But what about James? And Brendan and Winston? And Castle? We’re
not doing too well over here. Is it okay to just leave them here and—”
“Dude, what the hell are you talking about? Aren’t you in love with this girl? Where’s
the fire under your ass? I thought you would be dying to get to her right now—”
“I am,” I say urgently. “Of course I am. I’m just worried—it’s so soon after they
bombed Point that I just—”
“The longer we wait, the worse it’s going to get.” Kenji shakes his head. “We have
to go as soon as possible. If we don’t, she’ll be stuck there forever, and Warner
will use her as his torture monster. He’ll probably kill her in the process without
even meaning to.”
I grip the edge of the counter and stare into the sink.
Shit.
Shit shit shit
.
I spin around at the sound of James’s voice, listen for a moment as he laughs at something
Alia said. My heart constricts just
thinking
about walking away from him again. But I know I have a responsibility to Juliette.
What would she do if I weren’t there to help her? She needs me.
“Okay,” I sigh. “Of course. What do we have to do?”