Infraction (14 page)

I study the dirt between our feet and the fence.
There's no easy way to take away all the lies I've told. They weigh
on me now. They never weighed this heavily when I was around Dave.
But knowing how much Jack has trusted me, I can feel the burden of
it pressing down on me, wanting to bury me. Mary sees the change
and takes a step away from us. I've got to give her that. She knows
how to read relationships.

“
What's wrong, Terra? Are you
okay?”

I laugh. I must look so sick to him. I feel sick. My
stomach is churning, threatening to show me that the bacon is even
worse coming back up. I shake my head and take his hand.

“
Terra, I don't think—”

But I shake my head at him again, my eyes wide. This
is important, and he sees it on my face. He quiets and lets me hold
his hand, but he angles his body to shield us from the
soldiers.

I lied about Arizona.

This doesn't surprise him. “Lots of people lie about
where they're from.”

I'm not from the Burn.

“
What's the Burn? Is that what you
call Arizona? It makes sense with the heat.” He gives me a
half-smile. That smile makes me sad.

The Burn is what colonists call land.

He drops my hand. “Colonists?” The thoughts race
across his face and weave through his eyes, puzzling what I could
possibly mean.

Mary's not far enough away to be out of earshot. At
the word “colonists,” her head snaps up. She's doubly alert now.
She knows the truth, and she is surprised I'm telling anyone
else.

“
It's true then, what they say about
the colonies?” Jack says.

I nod. I guess it is. I honestly don't know what
they say besides the few snippets Mary's told me and what Madge and
Jane talked about at the reclamation site. Mary steps back to
us.

“
Terra, what are you doing?” she
hisses. She glances at the soldiers patrolling and the one soldier
in the guard tower. There are no agents I can see, and they scare
me with their silence more than the soldiers do with their
guns.

I grab her hand and hold it so Jack
can see what I write.
I have a plan. It's crazy. Might
work.

But Jack's not ready for that yet. His eyes hold the
hurt I was expecting, but actually seeing it is completely
different. What I wasn't expecting was the way it would affect me.
It almost bowls me over to know that I could hurt him that much.
How can I jump immediately to plans and dates and logistics when
he's just had the wind knocked out of him?

Wanted to tell you sooner.

He shakes his head, trying to brush away the shock.
“I know you did. That night in the gas station, right?”

I nod. His next question cuts me more deeply. It's a
question I'm not entirely prepared for because I still haven't
sorted out what he means to me, why things have changed.

“
Why not before then?”

I shrug my shoulders, helpless. He always thought I
was brave, but really I was a coward.

He turns from me, and as he does, my knees wobble.
He walks away, and I brace myself against the fence. Mary puts a
hand on my arm. Then Jack stops and turns back to me. The wind
fingers through his hair, and he looks so much like he did that day
next to the Puget Sound when he told me he'd come with me.

I'm so sorry,
I mouth. I
don't know what changes his mind, but he hesitates for a moment
before walking toward us, and his face is guarded. He doesn't light
up for me anymore.

“
Not much time left,” Mary says, and
I panic, remembering what I had to accomplish here.

I want to bring people to the colony.

Both of them are so stunned that if I didn't feel
like I'd just been punched in the stomach, I could almost laugh to
see their identical expressions: jaws gaping open and eyes
wide.

I can get a sub.

They do nothing but blink at me.

I'm not sure about escaping, but I'll try.

Mary is the first to compose herself.

“
You're right. It is
crazy.”

I nod. The craziest thing I've done so far. Crazier
than lying in a field of corn under burning UV lamps, crazier than
allowing my mother to mutilate me, crazier than going on a
thirty-mile hike in boots that don't fit. I laugh, though. I've
definitely done crazy, and I think I can handle it.

“
We'd need help,” Jack says, and I
see the look in his eyes. It's the same look he gets when he sees a
patient and knows he can help: it's just a matter of coming to a
diagnosis. He's right. This could heal people. But that look is not
for me anymore, it's for the people we could save. It sends a
shiver through me that splinters my heart. I ache now.

Then the intercom sounds. “Men, report to your work
hours.”

The soldiers file along the fence, herding the men
back into their building. A soldier makes his way toward us. We
have no time left.

Two weeks
, I
write.

Jack and Mary nod.

Two weeks is going to both fly by and drag on
forever. I hate the feeling of time being completely out of my
control. There's so much to do between now and then, so much to
plan for and take care of. It will take forever because I feel like
I just might be marching myself and those who come with me to our
doom.

First, I need to send the message. I squint up
between the clouds. It's amazing how even a day like today can seem
bright, especially now that the spark I felt in the truck has
blossomed into flame. I have a plan; I am going to act; I am trying
to save others.

I look at the sky, trying to imagine where those
satellites are that Gaea watches so intently. They're out there,
circling the earth in ever-decreasing orbit. I wonder when they'll
just fall from the sky like meteors. I'm sure there will be more to
replace them—Gaea can't be the only one who wants to keep tabs on
what's going on down here.

Mary's standing two feet away, her eyes hard. I know
from the way she said, “You're right. It is crazy,” that she thinks
it's the most insane idea ever, but that she's also willing to try
it. Her hard eyes don't speak to me of mistrust, but
thoughtfulness, her way of puzzling this out. What I'm about to do
will probably look even more insane. I look down the fence. The
soldiers march away, focused on getting the men back into their
building. The soldier left on the women's side leans against the
fence, one foot propped behind him. Almost bored. I'm safe for a
moment at least.

Gaea,
I mouth, praying that
she's watching me, that she hasn't stepped away from the monitor
bank right at this moment. This is one time her obsession will pay
off.
If you're watching, I need help. A sub for seven
passengers. Fourteen days. Midnight.

But then I falter. Where? Where is
the rendezvous point? I snag Mary's hand.
Closest
shore?

Mary's brows knit together. “The harbor,” she
finally says.

That's it?

She shrugs. “I don't know what else to call it.
There's an abandoned airport right on the edge.”

That will have to be enough.
The harbor, the abandoned airport.

That's all I can do. I hope that my suspicions are
right: that she watches me as much as she can because, despite it
all, she's still my mother.

“
That's it?” Mary folds her arms
over her chest. If it had been four months ago, I would have said
it was because she was angry or dissatisfied. Now I read it as
concern that there's more that needs to be done.

Now we plan.

We walk back toward the cluster of women.

“
You said a sub for seven. Who's
coming?”

I point them out.
Madge.
Kai. Jane. You. Jack. Dave.
Then I hesitate.
I've never felt more unsure about anything.
Me.

“
You're sure? You don't look
sure.”

I shake my head.

“
Well, I guess you have two weeks to
decide.”

Two weeks to decide whether or not I regret my
decision to come to the Burn. Two weeks to decide whether or not I
can cope with the blackness of ocean all around me after I've felt
the sun and the wind. After I've been free. I look around:
soldiers, chain link fence three times taller than I am, coils of
barbed wire like snakes waiting to strike, agents who hate me for a
reason I have no name for. Am I free?

“
Take your time. It's a big
choice.”

Two weeks to see if Jack will ever trust me
again.

Mary's rubbing the thread on her finger, and an
uncertain smile plays at the corner of her lips. She watches the
last of the men disappear into the building.

Dave?

She shakes her head. “I didn't see him. That doesn't
mean he's not here, though.”

No, it doesn't, but I worry that he wasn't out here
with the rest of them and that Jack didn't mention him. Jack. Will
he ever really look at me again? I chafe the sides of my arms. I'm
cold remembering the way he looked at me like he was seeing me for
the first time and what he saw was almost . . .
repulsive.

I told him the truth, and now that hangs between us
like a guillotine.

“
You okay?” Mary asks.

I nod.

“
You're not. That's the same look on
your face the night I . . . ”

She can't finish, and she doesn't have to. I know
which night she's talking about. The night she confronted me with
Jessa's letter. The sadness floods her eyes as she thinks about
what she did to me. If I stayed at the settlement, I might have
wound up here anyway, but I know she thinks it's her fault I'm
here.

You didn't make me leave.

She laughs and shakes her head. “I may as well have,
and you know it.” She looks at the pathetic grass trying to fight
the cold as it's trampled under our shoes. “I'm so sorry,
Terra.”

I know.

She grips my arm tightly and I wince, but she
doesn't let go. “I don't think you do.”

It's okay,
I
mouth.

Her eyes are tear-filled again. “I just wanted to
fix everything, the way I wanted to fix Seattle. I couldn't do
anything for that city, and I see that now—how hopeless it was. But
I could fix what was wrong with me and Dave. I could fix that.”

I know.

She releases my arm and puts both hands over her
face. “I'm so scared, Terra. I'm scared why he wasn't out here
today.”

Jack would have said something.

She drops her hands, and her eyes are red. “He
would, right?”

It's little comfort because I know how quickly the
agents can take you away. Dave was born in the settlement. He had
no tracker. They were rough with me, but I didn't take any damage
because I've learned from Madge and Jane how to play the game. But
Dave? Would he fight back, say something, get riled up? He could be
in solitary confinement right now. I shudder, but quickly try to
play it off as a shiver. I can't let Mary see my doubts.

She's moved on, trying to set aside the pain for
now, focusing her mind on something else. But still she strokes the
thread tied around her finger.

“
How are we doing this?”

Madge and Jane. They've been here longer. They might
know something.

“
Well, let's figure out how to talk
to them.”

This proves trickier than Mary's simple
sentence.

The next two days are filled with cannery work,
medical exams, agent questions, meals, and time alone at night in
my cell with Jane and the screams. Jane and I both sleep on the top
bunk now. We spend the few minutes we have of twilight gazing out
the window and dreaming before we pull the pillows over our heads
for the anthem.

It's been two days since I sent Gaea
the message—the message I hope she's received. If she didn't
receive it and we can actually break out of here, I don't know what
we'll do when we reach the ocean. So much can go wrong. I fully
expect to have soldiers and agents on our heels, and if we come up
against the water without a place to run to, we'll all die. But
would that be a worse fate than what we do now? I'm alive but is
this
life
? I'm tired from working,
sure, but the work is just work. The rest of it—treating us like
animals, like machines with no emotions—makes me feel like I'm
living some kind of half-life, like I'm a zombie with only half of
my brain functioning. But what the agents don't know is that it's
the more dangerous half.

Has anyone tried to escape before? I look out my
window across the yard. The shadows are a mile long as they reach
east, like they're begging the sun to rise again. The sun dips
beneath the horizon, and in the purple gloom flooding the quad, the
soldier's cigarette flares in the tower. Still just the one
soldier. The soldiers patrolling the perimeter have gone in for the
night. There's an old searchlight on the tower—I noticed it in yard
time two days ago, and it looked dusty with disuse.

If someone had tried to escape,
there would be more security around this place. If there isn't very
much security out there, sure we could get past the fence, but will
we be able to get out of
here
? I
think the inside will be the hardest part.

Jane is nestled against me so comfortably I hate to
wake her, but it's time to ask. I nudge her shoulder, and she
buries her head deeper into my arm. I bump her again, and her eyes
shoot open. This is how she always wakes—like she needs to be up
and running or else she'll get plowed over.

Ask you something?

Her eyes relax, but her body is alert.