Weeping Justice Read online

  Riley makes me eat most of the dehydrated fruit. I try telling her we need to save it, but she gives me a withering look and I shut up, too tired to argue.

  Too tired to stay awake.

  I don’t know how long I’m out, but when I wake with a start, it’s still dark.

  “Time?” I try to ask, but my throat is so raw it comes out as a croak. Riley has no trouble interpreting my question.

  “Two a.m.”

  I nod, rising to my feet. The world around me wobbles. I blink several times, bringing it into alignment. Riley is at my elbow, shining her Readybeam in my eyes. I push her hand away and clear my throat. “Stop.”

  She frowns for a minute, then pockets her light. “Are you sure you’re ready to keep going?”

  “Yes.”

  She nods. We strap on our packs and start walking.

  We’ve been at this higher elevation for three days, passing through patches of forest and grasslands, occasionally finding old roads and highways long since overgrown by nature. At least it’s not raining tonight, but our progress is still slow. We’ve always traveled at night, mostly through plains and prairies where the highways are still intact, catching rides on transports carrying freight from place to place. Neil taught us how to wait in the shadows near recharging stations, watching for the symbol chalked on bumpers and mud flaps that welcomed us to ask for help—a circle with an arrow running through it.

  It was scary at first, relying on sympathetic strangers. Only once did we have problems with a pilot who wanted something in return for his help. It was a blessing we got away from him with only scraped hands and knees after jumping from his moving truck. Riley and I laid low for several days after that, sleeping in abandoned buildings or old fueling stations—anyplace we could find that wasn’t out in the open. We argued a lot. Mostly about whether we should try again (Riley’s idea) or just keep walking (mine). Eventually she won and we hitched another ride, making quick progress through a couple hundred kilometers of high desert.

  As soon as we reached this forest, things slowed down. We’ve seen only a few transports winding through old timber roads. Our compass tells us to keep climbing, but some places are impassable, forcing us to turn back and search for alternate routes, wasting precious time. We thought we would have enough food by foraging and fishing, but we haven’t found any of the roots or berries Neil told us about. Fishing led us to little more than wasted hours, frustration, and an argument that lasted for hours last night until the rainstorm forced us to seek shelter under that massive tree.

  “Did you hear that?” I stop suddenly and Riley runs into me.

  “What?”

  For a minute we are both still, listening. Now I hear nothing but sounds that have grown familiar. Birds in the trees, and small animals scurrying through the brush. We’ve seen countless deer, but they avoid us. Two days ago, we saw a brown bear in the distance and held still for ten minutes until it lumbered away. But what I hear now is something different: a whooshing sound. Not water, not wind. Something in between.

  “There!” I whisper. “Did you hear that?”

  Riley is looking at me strangely. “Reed, I think―”

  I squeeze her hand, stopping her. I point through the trees and motion for her to follow, then start running.

  “Reed!”

  Riley runs behind me. The sound is getting louder. What is it? I imagine a water mill or a dam, maybe something with a big fan. Who knows what’s hidden out here in the woods?

  I’m pushing through the trees, feeling desperate to find it, though I don’t know why. Sweat is pouring down my face and the edges of the forest are starting to blur, but I can’t stop. I see light ahead. A clearing. I know it’s there, just ahead, if I can only reach it.

  “Reed! Stop!” I hear Riley from far away and I wonder why she can’t keep up. Impatient, I turn to wait for her. Somehow, she’s already there, and I’m lying on the ground with the forest swirling above my head. Now the whooshing noise is inside me, pounding against my ears.

  “Riley?”

  I reach for her hand and everything goes black.

  2

  JOEY

  The battle to take Windmill Bay ends before it begins.

  We planned it for weeks while I waited impatiently, shifting from one foot to the other like Oliver would, thinking all the while, “We are too late. We are too late.”

  I was right. We are too late.

  Windmill Bay is abandoned. The Sentribots are gone, ripped from their posts, and the EM gate is disengaged. Most of the buildings are burned ruins, though the new trees the boys planted in the courtyard this spring somehow managed to survive. Even Middlebrook’s twinkle lights are still here, dangling from young branches or half-buried in trampled mud that was once pristine sod, making me wonder: What happened here after we escaped?

  There are no answers as we march through, our eyes fixed on the desolation around us—just more questions that torment me.

  Where are the students? The teachers?

  Where are Oliver and Paisley?

  My heart pounds. I struggle to push down my panic.

  Dear God, please! I…

  My prayer sputters. Stalls. I don’t know what to pray for.

  I wanted to return within days of escaping with the Liberty Bell. I don’t know what I imagined, other than undoing what we had done wrong by leaving Oliver and Paisley behind in the first place. The rebels at Fort Unity quickly made me realize how desperately stupid that would be.

  “You want to go back and rescue two kids from a secured facility, defended by Sentribots, backed by the UDR army with a full squadron of drones at their disposal?” Captain Strong asked me. “How do you think that’s going to work?”

  I had no idea. Luckily, someone else did. Lieutenant Bess Stewart quickly volunteered to lead a rescue squad back to Windmill Bay. Bess knew Oliver—had trained with him with the Resistance before he was sent deep undercover to pose as a student. She is the one who now holds up her fist, signaling us to stop in the empty courtyard. For a minute we stand in a loose circle, our rifles aimed at nothing. The only sound is the wind rattling a chain against the empty flagpole. Even the fountain is silent.

  Ozzy breaks the spell.

  “Hellooooo!” His voice echoes across the courtyard even while Bess grabs his arm and shakes him.

  “Haud your wheesht!”

  “Huh?” Ozzy says.

  I’m wondering the same thing. I still have trouble understanding Bess—both her Scottish accent and her foreign expressions.

  Bess rolls her eyes. “Are ye daft? Shut it, you eejit! We dinnae ken if someone is still here—hidin’.”

  She pushes past Ozzy and points two fingers toward the cafeteria, then toward the charred ruins that were once our dorms. “Adam, Joey, check it out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Quyen, get up on that roof and keep edgy fer drones, would’ye?”

  Quyen nods and heads toward the library. Bess turns and points me toward the admin building. “Xoey, see what’s left in there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I turn and run past the fountain, leading with my firearm, like I have been taught. A few months ago, I never would have imagined coming back here by choice, armed and trained to take down an enemy. Yet here I am, silently pushing through a charred door and stepping over the soggy mess inside. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. Burned wood and plastic combined with something that smells like rotten eggs. Maybe a broken water pipe? The west half of the building is gone, everything but the brick exterior burned to ash. The concrete stairs are still intact, though, and seem as solid as ever, so I climb them and make my way toward Kino’s office.

  I navigate the upstairs hallway slowly, clearing rooms on my left and right as I go. So far the flooring feels solid, but I test each step, remembering too well what it feels like to fall through cracking wood. When it happened to me last fall in the library, I was blessed to escape with nothing but a sprained ankle. I doubt I
would be so lucky again.

  When I reach Kino’s door, I find it open, hanging on one hinge and disconnected from the chip reader that once served as its lock. I push through, trying to ignore the way my heart suddenly ricochets against my chest. My first visit to this hateful place echoes in my mind, and I am once again desolate and inconsolable.

  But it doesn’t last today, just like it didn’t last then. Reed Paine stood up for me that day, defending me from Kino’s vile threats. I didn’t know it then, but that was the last day I would feel truly alone. I owe Reed for that, along with my escape from this place. If only it had all gone according to plan. If only Oliver and Paisley had made it out with us, I would not need to be back here now, standing in Kino’s empty office, wondering what to do next.

  I say the room is empty, but that’s not true. She left the bloodstained rug behind. I lower my gun and stare at it. This is where Riley was held down, where Kino beat her with a belt and forced Oliver to watch. Riley wasn’t Kino’s target that day. Her only goal was hurting Oliver.

  So, what is she doing to hurt Oliver right now?

  The room is suddenly stifling and my panic returns—the kind that usually only comes when I’m locked in a closet or buried under rubble. Still, I can’t talk myself out of it, so I rush to the window and push it open, taking a deep breath. There’s a breeze pushing through the courtyard and a drop of rain lands on my cheek—a false tear for someone who refuses to cry anymore. Below I see Adam coming out of the cafeteria. He looks up at me, the same haunted look in his eyes as always.

  I tap my ear, engaging the new mic surgically attached to my tragus implant. It’s old tech, but a new upgrade for those of us who had our comm links restricted when we were students here. “Kino’s gone,” I tell Adam. “Her office is empty.”

  He nods and turns toward Bess. Adam has always been quiet, though prone to angry outbursts from time to time, but he has changed since our escape. At first, I thought it was depression. The horror of being shot, of almost dying on the road between here and Fort Unity. Lately, though, I wonder if I’ve had it all wrong. Adam and Oliver were best friends. Maybe he just feels anchorless without him.

  I understand that better than anyone.

  Turning away from the window, I cross to the server room next to Kino’s office. I have never been here before, but it’s the last place Paisley was headed when we left Windmill Bay. Now, as I walk through narrow rows of black machines covered in dust, I imagine her here, logging in, her deft mind composing the code that would make it possible for us to leave undetected.

  There was always something musical about the way Paisley discussed computer coding, but the idea that this sacrificial act was her final opus is too much to bear. The computers around me are lifeless now. No hum, no lights, just scorch marks and dead air when I experiment with switches. It looks like someone might have even taken a hammer to them. If these computers still hold secrets about the last days of Windmill Bay, I am not the person to coax them out of hiding.

  Maybe it would have been better if Sam had come with us after all.

  He argued for it, of course, but General Kelly refused. Sam tried to train in firearms with the rest of us, but even with ear protection, the noise and the smell was just too much for him. His mother, Jasmine, calls it sensory overload, but Sam calls it failure. He has always been too hard on himself. Adam and I reminded him how much we depend on him in other ways—how we could not have escaped Windmill Bay without his amazing hacking skills, but he refuses to see it. Now I dread heading back more than ever—without Paisley, the person Sam needs most.

  By the time I reach the courtyard, our small team has regrouped—all except for Quyen and Bess, whose voice I hear through my tragus implant.

  “Can you give a hand, Xoey? In the library. There’s somethin’ I need’ye to see.”

  I turn and climb the steps, but my feet feel like lead. Somehow I know where Bess is—what dark closet has drawn her attention.

  I am not wrong.

  “Here.” She guides me down a familiar hallway on the first floor. Only one door is open. The one to my closet. The one Kino locked me in every Sunday.

  “Religious accommodation,” she called it, when it was actually nothing more than my punishment for expressing faith in something other than the government that rules us.

  I take a deep breath and move past Bess to look inside. It is the same as I left it, except for the inside of the door. Someone has scratched it—or clawed it, more like. The letter X over and over again.

  Oliver.

  “Do you think…”

  It’s Adam’s voice over my shoulder. I nod, swallowing bile. I touch the door and it’s like my finger is touching Oliver’s. Like I’m feeling his heart pound with fear.

  I can’t stay here. Not a second longer. I turn and run from the building, nearly tripping down the crumbling concrete steps. I gasp for fresh air, but it fights me, refusing to fill my lungs. Tears spring to my eyes—the first I’ve cried in weeks, and I am panicking again, more than I ever did when locked in the closet myself.

  What do we do, what do we do, what do we do?

  “Xoey?”

  Bess puts a hand on my shoulder. I wipe my eyes with my sleeve, hating for her to see me like this. Bess is tall and strong. With copper hair shining in the sun, and clad in camouflage from head to toe, she seems invincible—courageous in every way I am weak. I open my mouth to say I’m fine, but only an embarrassing hiccup of hysteria escapes.

  “Ye’ve a right to be upset. It’s a bit of a shocker, for sure.”

  Her voice calms me. Maybe it’s the foreignness of her accent, her crisp consonants and lilting vowels, reminding me she has come a long way to help us.

  “It’s proof of somethin’ good, Xoey. He was alive. She didnae kill him right away, as’ye feared. There’s reason to hope, so chin up.”

  I nod, gulping down air, straightening up like she commands. But it is all on the outside. I can dress like Bess and learn to shoot a gun, but it is not much different than the night Middlebrooks dressed me up like Cinderella. I am just Xoey underneath. Scared and overwhelmed.

  Adam crosses the courtyard. “She’s right, Xoey. We’ll find him. We’ll find them both.”

  He has taken naturally to this military life. He claims it’s because his father was a soldier too, but I think there is more to it. He was the first to hit the target when we learned to shoot. His knives always hit the mark while mine bounced off ineffectively for days, leaving me with nothing but sore arms. Still, his confidence does not penetrate my fear. Not today.

  “How?” I ask. “We have no idea where they have taken them—where any of the students are now.”

  “We’ll keep watching the news feeds. Figure something out.”

  “And yer Sam’s about found a way to hack the UDR satellite feeds,” Bess adds. “He’s dead clever, that one.”

  “Kino is too smart to leave us a trail to follow. This used to be a secret school—a secret people died to uncover. If they have abandoned it, what hope do we have?”

  “Xoey—”

  “No, he’s dead! You know he is! Just like Zak, just like she would have killed Sam if we had not interfered.”

  Adam pulls me into a hug, but I continue arguing through my tears, muffled by his broad chest. “Why wouldn’t she, Adam? Why wouldn’t she kill Oliver too?”

  But Adam doesn’t have time to answer my questions or talk me out of my fears. Just then Quyen’s voice blasts through my tragus implant, urgent and fast.

  “Drone! Incoming due south! Everyone take cover!”

  3

  Riley

  “Reed, wait!”

  He doesn’t, of course. Instead, he darts ahead, disappearing behind a tree. I try and keep up, but his legs are longer than mine and he’s zigzagging all over the forest.

  What an idiot.

  But I’m the idiot. I should have noticed his fever earlier and made him rest longer. What’s another night huddled under a tree
, when we’re already so far behind schedule, I’ve lost track of the days? But no. I’ve been so focused on reaching Lexie, I’ve pretty much ignored Reed and his symptoms.

  So much for my medic training at Fort Unity.

  “Reed! Hold up!”

  He stops at the edge of a clearing and cocks his head up toward the treetops, swaying on his feet. “Do you hear that?” he whispers. I catch up to him just as he crumples to the ground.

  “Reed!” I drop to my knees beside him.

  “Riley?”

  He lifts his hand then drops it as his eyes roll back in his head.

  “Reed?” I shake him but he doesn’t respond. “Reed!”

  What do I do?

  “Don’t panic, Riley,” I mutter to myself, trying to ignore how my voice shakes. Taking a deep breath, I think back to my training, then take his pulse. It’s steady. Good. He’s not breathing so great, but it sounds like congestion in his head, not his lungs. Not his lungs, I repeat to myself. The medics at Fort Unity had plenty to tell me about Contagion symptoms, but I won’t let those ideas creep into my mind. Not today.

  I’m shifting his head to my lap and reaching for my canteen when I hear the click of a gun behind me.

  “Don’t move.”

  I don’t, except for my heart, which hammers against my ribcage.

  “Easy.”

  It’s a woman’s voice, and soon a woman’s form circles me, all while keeping her rifle trained on my head. It’s not yet dawn, so her face is shadowed, but I can see that she is tall—taller than Reed, probably. She looks strong too, despite the white hair that glows around her head like a helmet. I somehow know that if I could see her eyes, I would find them unwavering.

  “Up. Slowly.”

  I shift Reed’s head to the ground and rise, lifting my hands in the air. “Please.” I swallow hard. “My friend is sick.”

  Her gun doesn’t move. “I can see that. I’ve been watching you all night. Listening to you too.”

  “All night?” My heart lurches. Has she been following us? Tracking us?