Infraction (24 page)

The soldiers struggle and grunt. The gun goes off
four times before the other soldier stops it.

“
No rats, alright? Pull it together.
Told you that you weren't okay. I don't care if we're supposed to
be looking for those idiot girls. You need to see Benedict. Let's
go.”

The boots fade away; the door swings closed.

I resume climbing, my muscles screaming with relief
that I can finally move them again. Each rumble of the metal makes
me cringe, but there's nothing else to do. The face above finally
hisses at me.

“
What's going on?”

I wave Madge away. If some of the soldiers are
already recovering, either they didn't get very much of the serum,
or it's already wearing off. We don't have much time. I climb
faster. After a few more feet, I pull myself over the edge into the
cold night air and flop on my back, my breaths coming fast and
heavy. We're in a narrow space between the women's wing and the
fence.

“
What happened?” Mary asks. I can
only see the planes and shadows of her face in the dark.

Soldiers. They know we're gone.

“
Hurry.” Madge leads us along the
fence to where we're going to cut the chain link. It's in the far
corner and hopefully the last stop on a perimeter check.

Madge pulls the cutters from her pants and grunts as
she uses both hands to cut through the metal. I watch our backs.
The night is silent and cold, only the forest noises crackling
across the fence at us. It's only a matter of time before the
agents find out about the soldiers in the basement and start to
suspect that we've gone through the chute. Maybe everyone's
questionable mental state will give us enough of a head start.

I help Mary and Madge peel back a section of fence
just large enough for a person to slip through. The metal twists
against me. My arms shake as I struggle to hold it back long enough
for all of us to worm through. Lily squirms on her belly through
the hole, and she gives a quiet laugh.

“
Never thought I'd be doing this at
my age,” she whispers.

I love that she can find the humor in these
frightening moments. It makes me miss Nell terribly.

Lily stands up on the other side. “I definitely
prefer crawling through the dirt than the stench of solitary.”

Everyone's out, and I'm trying to wriggle through
without slapping the sharp ends of the metal down on me when the
alarms start blaring. It stuns me, and I let go of the fence. It
hurtles down on me, the cut ends digging into my legs. I want to
scream, but I only let out a moan.

The alarms have to be for us; they know we've
gone.

Mary kneels by me and carefully pulls the fencing
off me, and I pull my legs out. Blood wells up through the rips in
my pants. I don't think the punctures are bad, though. It wouldn't
matter if they were. We have to move.

The forest comes right up against the fence, and we
retreat several feet into the trees and skirt around the edges of
the camp. We are just nearing the southeast corner when suddenly
the abandoned guard towers buzz to life. Soldiers scurry up the
ladders and into the nests. The searchlights hum and then shine
their stark beams down on the yard. I cower into the shadows of
trees. Mary's eyes gleam, and the pin-pricks of her eyes are much
too bright. The searchlights don't rove beyond the fencing, though.
We creep onward, keeping a covering of brush between us and those
lights.

Soldiers line up in the yard next to two trucks.
Several agents consult tablets. One shakes her head and wipes her
eyes like she's convincing herself of what she sees—or she's trying
to erase it. She must still be hallucinating. A man yells at her
and looks like he's going to tear her to pieces before two soldiers
subdue him. They're still under the effects of the serum, then.
That will be in our favor, but for how long? They'll still be able
to hunt us down, and if they're delirious and they catch us, they
might kill us thinking we're some kind of monsters before they
realize what's going on.

We scurry along the south fence, and the
searchlights sweep by, closer and closer to the fence line. If they
finally reach the perimeter and start shining in the woods, there's
no way our yellow shirts will hide us. They gave us neon clothes
for a reason.

About two dozen soldiers load into the trucks. I
wish it meant that would be all that are following us, but there's
still what seems like an army in the yard. They heft their guns in
the crooks of their arms and stand at attention. Some of them waver
in their ranks; a few of them whisper to each other. It's
definitely not as precise as usual, but they're still just waiting
for the order to hunt us down.

Madge hisses at us. “Hurry. If we're this close
they'll find us in no time.”

Lily can't move as fast, and I hold her arm and help
her along. Every step on every twig makes me cringe, but with the
way the agents are barking orders and the soldiers' boots stomp the
ground, I know they can't hear us.

We've just reached the southwest corner when the
huge gates slide open and the trucks hurtle out and down the road
to the west. If they get in front of us, we'll have soldiers and
agents coming at us from two directions.

My heart pounds against my ribs so hard it feels
like it could bruise, and we plunge deeper into the forest. We've
gone about a hundred yards when two shapes detach themselves from
the trees and step toward us and I gasp.

It's just Jack and Dave.

I knew it would be them, but I'm too keyed up. Jack
puts a hand on my arm and I shiver. If only I had a moment to tell
him how I feel, but there are no moments to spare.

Dave eyes me warily. Jack had to have told him the
truth about me to explain where we would escape to. But I'm still
not used to the skepticism and mistrust people feel for me. After a
minute, though, the creases between his eyebrows ease up and he
nods at me. His eyes aren't clear, but he isn't openly hostile. I
haven't seen him in months, and I wasn't sure what I would feel
when I saw him next. I laugh at myself for thinking I was in love
with him. Now that I know what it really feels like, I look back at
how pathetic I was with him. All I feel for him now is warm
affection. Mary rushes for him and kisses him. I don't think they
ever saw each other in the yard. I wonder why.

As we jog away, I study him. He looks much too thin
and his skin is sallow. His whiskers have grown into a scraggy
beard, and the hollows under his eyes turn his face ragged. He was
in solitary; he had to be. And why not? When the agents captured
the settlement, what else would they do with the leader? And that
would explain why he never made it to yard time and Jack hardly
ever saw him.

“
Who's this?” Dave asks as I pull
Lily along with me.

“
I'm Lily. Terra found me in
solitary.”

Dave raises his eyebrows, and Jack runs closer to
me. “You were in solitary?” they both say at the same time.

I nod and stare straight ahead, not wanting to talk
about the miserable hours I spent crouched on the floor trying to
sleep without getting who knows what all over me. And then there's
poor Lily who just gives me a slight nod as we keep jogging. She
was there for so long. She was there more times before that as
well. I can't begin to imagine how she's stayed so human. Dave
looks like he wants to ask more questions, but Jack shakes his head
and simply touches my arm.

I pick a path through the trees. I never thought I
had a good sense of direction because in the colony I never needed
one. From the months of wandering with Jack, I discovered it came
innately. I know without even thinking about it that we're heading
straight west.

Jane wraps her arm around Lily's waist and she helps
her along. Her eyes turn to Dave. “She didn't know how to sew.”

Dave laughs between breaths. “I could have told 'em
that. She barely knew how to weed.”

Jack looks long at me, and I warm all over under his
gaze. Then he turns to watch the path. Now, more than ever, I wish
I could speak. Spelling the words would take too long, and I don't
know if he can see it in my eyes as we're covered with tree
shadow.

“
How far?” Dave says.

“
Terra thought two miles to the
ocean. She could see it from her window.” Mary lopes along beside
him. “It'll be tricky when we get there, though, to know where
exactly the sub will be.”

“
If there is a sub.” There's a note
of bitterness in Dave's voice.

My eyes flash at him. I hope that's aimed at
colonists in general and not just at me, but his eyes are shaded,
and I can't read them.

“
There will be a sub,” Jack says. I
smile gratefully.

We run parallel to the road and it worries me. I
don't know where those trucks were headed or when they'll stop, but
the closer we are to the road, the closer we'll be to them.

The road veers to the southwest, and I lead us more
sharply south. It'll add some time to our run, but I don't want to
be so near the road. Jack must understand because he simply nods at
me.

Behind us, Kai sucks in a breath. She's stumbled,
but Madge catches her and helps her find her feet again. Kai's
cheeks puff in and out, but she's still running well. She smiles at
me. “I'm fine. Keep going.”

There's a small clearing up ahead, and the moonlight
filters down on the ground and is almost blinding after being in
the trees. It instantly sets me on edge.

“
Let's go around it,” Jack
says.

I nod and we cut a path to the east of it. I don't
want to be caught between this bright spot and the road.

“
What time is that sub coming?” Dave
asks.

“
Midnight,” Mary says.

“
What time is it? How are we
supposed to know if we've made it?”

Madge holds up her wrist. “Kai stole a watch when
she was in the commissary today. Guess I'm designated time keeper.
It's ten-thirty. Hour and a half.”

I wave my hand down.

“
Not so much noise,” Jack
whispers.

We fall silent and pick our way past the clearing. I
hear a noise and freeze. The others stop behind me, and all I hear
now are the sounds of breathing. It's much too loud.

Across the clearing, a shape separates from the
shadows: a single soldier creeps, and the plants shush-shush around
his legs. I put a hand over my mouth. Luckily, he's not wearing his
nighttime goggles. They dangle from his neck, and he closes his
eyes and shakes his head before opening them again. He's dazed, and
it doesn't look like he has anyone else with him. He has to be one
of the soldiers from the truck, so there are others out here
somewhere.

Dave motions us forward, and we take tentative
steps, placing our feet carefully. The others aren't as practiced
at this as Jack and I are, and we're like a stampede going through
the forest.

The soldier doesn't turn, though. Not until we're
almost out of sight, and Mary steps on a twig.

“
I hear you!” he shouts. His voice
quavers. “I know you're out there.”

We keep going, and my body is on fire with the
tension cutting through the night.

“
I'll shoot you! I'm not afraid of
monsters! Monsters aren't real. There's no such thing.” But he
doesn't sound sure. Then there's a deafening click, and his gun is
up and ready at his shoulder. We stop mid-stride. He thinks we're
monsters, and while he may not shoot people point-blank, he'll
definitely shoot a monster. I press my eyes closed, counting
silently in my head. One, two, three. Still nothing, and my hands
tremble.

“
I can't see you, but I can hear
you!”

Four, five, six. I don't breathe, and my lungs ache
for air. Seven, eight . . .

The gun goes off, and the bullet cracks into a
nearby tree.

“
Run!” Dave shouts.

We take off before the soldier has time to think
about what he's hit, before he has time to get his head right and
realize what's going on, before the other soldiers come running
toward the sound of gunfire.

We crash back into the darkness of tree-cover, and
we're nothing but shadows after the brightness of the meadow. We're
too loud—the soldiers will hear us coming from a mile—but we're too
scared to care. That bullet could have taken down any one of us,
and I've seen too many bullets and too much blood, and I can't even
dream what I'd do if it had hit someone. I am a wild animal flying
through the woods on nothing but adrenaline.

Kai holds both hands under her belly to support it;
Mary and Dave run in unison; Madge has a wild glint in her eyes;
Jane looks radiant. Freedom agrees with her, even if we are being
hunted down. Lily can't keep up, though. She stumbles and catches
at tree branches. I slow with her and Jack grabs her arm.

In the distance there's a faint glimmer of light,
and I hope it's not another meadow with more delusional soldiers.
This light is funny though, slashed through and quavering. Maybe my
eyes are going nuts after squinting through the dark. I don't want
to veer even further east. We've already gone too far from the
ocean, and I don't know how much time we'll have at the end. We
plunge straight toward the light.

The trees thin and the brush thickens around my
churning feet. We stumble now as brambles and thick plants grab our
legs. I don't hear the heavy tramp of boots, and I hope we've
outrun the trucks. I don't get too optimistic. Dr. Benedict
effectively taught me that optimism always leads to trouble where
agents and soldiers are concerned.

We break through the last line of trees, and almost
slam into buildings. They're houses, old and rundown. In the
darkness, the bricks pale to ghostly gray. Landscaping has long
since gone, and it's all a tangle of tall grass and weeds. Windows
are smashed in almost every house I see. This isn't where we came
for reclamation—that town was still too pristine, even as
dilapidated as it was—this town is a disaster. Was this the first
town searched for reclamation when the labor camp was built? It
looks like it's been picked over a hundred times too many.