Resist (18 page)
Authors: sarah crossan
“Alina,” Maks growls. “Come on.”
“Abel?” I say, but he can’t tell me any more because Maks has my arm and is dragging me away.
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The sound of an engine puttering to a halt in the street below wakes me. And then Jude Caffrey’s voice. “RONAN!”
Ronan tears out of the room as I crawl off the bed. By the time I get to the window, he’s already with Jude Caffrey, standing next to the buggy. Jude puts his arm over Ronan’s shoulder, and for a moment I imagine it’s Quinn. My nose tingles: Ronan, Quinn, and I have all lost our fathers.
It’s dawn and the buildings draw thick belts of golden light across the street. I step away from the window. I’m really doing this—I’m teaming up with Jude Caffrey.
Footsteps knock on the stairs and Ronan appears. “Ready?” A shaft of light illuminates the top half of his face. His eyes are bloodshot, dark circles beneath them. He must have been up all night.
“Did you tell him?” I ask. He comes to the corner where I’m scooping my things into a backpack and takes my hand. I snatch it away. “Does he know about me?”
“He knows.”
“He’ll help? He’ll protect me and recruit Resistance members to the army?”
“Yes,” he says, and beams. I throw my arms around him, unable to contain my own joy. “Oh, Ronan, do you think we can really oust the Ministry?”
“We’re about to try,” he says.
He pulls several packets of nutrition and protein bars and two spare air tanks from his backpack and throws them on the floor. I frown. “You said some drifters were harmless. They need them more than I do,” he says. He tugs on the backpack’s drawstrings and throws it over his shoulder. We stand facing each other. After today, we probably won’t get many more moments alone, but I can’t think what to say, so I just smile and hope he knows how grateful I am that he saved Jazz from death and me from the drifters.
Jude calls up from the road, and Ronan looks at the window, then at me, and finally at the door. He fiddles with the straps on his face mask. “Come on,” he says.
Outside, Jude Caffrey looks me up and down and sighs. “Bea Whitcraft . . . I didn’t expect to see you again.”
“You mean you didn’t
want
to,” I respond.
“No. No, I probably didn’t,” he says. “But here we are.” Jude stuffs his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth. He looks at my disheveled appearance and then at Ronan. “Sorry I couldn’t get here yesterday. Things are hectic in the pod.”
Ronan shrugs. “You’re here now. I wondered whether you’d come at all.”
Jude allows himself a small smile. “You sure you want to come back?” he asks me, and I nod. “If the ministers get a hold of you, you’re in deep shit,” Jude says. “We’re
all
in very deep shit.”
“They won’t find her,” Ronan says, leading me to the buggy. “Take the front seat,” he says.
And sit next to Jude for an hour? I shake my head. “I’ll be fine in the back,” I say, and climb in.
Soon the buggy is bumping along the road. None of us talk for a long time. And then Jude turns around and looks at me. “Quinn is alive, isn’t he?” he asks. “You wouldn’t make it up.”
I’ve never heard him speak like this—with feeling for his son.
“He’s alive,” I say. “And he’s coming.”
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The pod has plenty of exit-only doors so rebels can be ejected. Jude guides Bea to one of them, where she waits in the dark.
Jude and I enter through the official border gates. A steward is scrolling through a pad. When he sees me, he stops. “Welcome back, Mr. Knavery. I’m sure you did your best,” he says. He looks at his colleague and smirks.
I’m so tired, I react immediately, resting my index finger on the hollow of the steward’s chest. He steps back and I follow him, keeping my finger where it is. “Be careful.”
His nose twitches. “I only meant—”
I interrupt. “I know what you meant.” He looks at his colleague. I could easily sidestep him. I decide not to. “Move,” I say, and he does.
Jude is close behind. We clamber into the waiting buggy. “What does that girl do to people?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Bea Whitcraft turns boys into men.”
Every few blocks there’s a checkpoint, but the stewards only have to catch a glimpse of Jude, and wave us through. “Security hasn’t been relaxed then,” I say.
He snorts. “Nightly raids on auxiliary homes began two days ago. More speed cameras, and there’s a call to ban auxiliaries from Zone One altogether.”
We pull up in front of the Justice Building. Jude climbs out of the buggy, and I follow him up the steps into the foyer. A gaggle of ministers squint when they see me. I’m the first of the Special Forces to return.
“Have you heard from any of the others?” I ask Jude. “Has Rick knifed anyone yet?”
“He radioed in and told me that he’s about to rappel down a well because he’s convinced he can hear people.” He laughs. “I get a feeling the others will be back soon. Robyn knows she’s out there for nothing.”
“She’s as disillusioned as I am,” I say.
“You’re not to involve her in what we’re doing. The more Premiums who know, the more chance we have of being betrayed.”
We scan our pads and walk down a hallway lined with doors. The light bulbs flicker. A moan comes from somewhere, and I stop. Jude keeps walking. “We’ve made over thirty arrests since you’ve been away. Suspected RATS mostly. That’s a hunger pang you’re hearing,” he says.
“Why are you starving them?”
Jude stops. “The ministers believe they’ll talk when they’re hungry. Your sister comes down daily to goad them with smoothies and cakes.”
“My sister?”
“She’s working as Lance Vine’s assistant. Seems to be enjoying it.”
I can hardly believe it. Niamh has taken a job?
Jude pushes open a door marked
CAUTION—AIR TANKS REQUIRED
. He steps outside and a rush of cold air fills the hallway. Jude returns, followed by Bea. “In here,” he says, jangling a heavy set of old-fashioned keys and pushing us into an empty cell with condensation running down the walls. “I just want to go on record as saying that pod ministers come and go, but the Ministry has always ruled. They won’t give up power without a fight.”
“And that’s exactly what they’re going to get,” I say. I make it sound easy, though it will be harder than anything I’ve ever done. “Have you advertised for soldiers?”
“We’ve had hardly any applications. The lure of living with the other civic workers in Zone Two doesn’t attract anyone anymore. Not now they suspect what’s going on.” He scrapes his hair back with his fingers.
“In a few days, you’ll have hundreds of applicants. Maybe thousands. Bea and I are going to find what’s left of the Resistance and explain the plan. They’ll get people to sign up.”
Jude chews on his thumbnail. “I’m endangering my family,” he says.
“But you’re already involved.” I raise my voice without meaning to and Jude puts a finger to his lips. He can’t back out now—we need him. “You’re harboring a wanted terrorist.”
He looks at Bea like he’s only just realized who she is and what she represents. He hangs his head, defeated. “I know,” he says.
“Where’s Jazz?” Bea whispers.
Jude rubs his temples. “She’s recovering in the infirmary.”
“And her leg?” she asks.
“She almost lost it, but she’s okay.”
“Did they question her?” I ask.
“She said she was a drifter’s daughter and her parents died at The Grove fighting the Resistance. She claims to hate the Resistance for killing her parents. She’s quite the actress.”
Bea laughs and we both look at her, surprised by the sound. “She’s a performer,” she explains. “Can I see her?”
“I don’t think so,” Jude says. He opens a metal locker in the corner of the cell. He pulls out a steward’s uniform and hands it to Bea. “You’ll have to wear this,” he says.
“We also need to find a way to keep the Resistance who are on the Ministry’s hit list out of jail,” I say.
“Old Watson will know where they are,” Bea says.
“Who’s Old Watson?” Jude asks. Bea presses her lips together and inspects the steward’s uniform. She isn’t ready to trust him.
He rolls his eyes. “Where are we hiding you, anyway?” he asks.
“We’re taking her to my house,” I say.
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The room I’m to share with Maks contains a double bed, a couple of nightstands, and a dresser. He closes the door, locks it, then runs his eyes up and down the length of my body. Whatever I’m expected to do isn’t going to happen, so I turn my back on him, take off my robe, and stuff it into the trashcan. “Anything else you’d like to take off?” The floor creaks, and when I wheel around, he’s so close, his breath is warm against my forehead. “You don’t have to be frightened,” he says. He pushes my hair away from my face, and I shudder. I don’t want him near me. I push him back and try to look tougher than feel.
I do a quick scan of the room in case there’s anything I could use as a weapon, and hone in on a clock with a stone base. If he tries anything, he’ll get it to the back of his head. “Stay on that side of the room,” I say, pointing. He rubs his mouth, and before I can get anywhere near the clock, he comes at me, grabbing the back of my head and pulling my face close to his.
“You think I’m going to pop your cherry without permission?” he says. With his free hand, he untucks his shirt from his pants.
Is it that obvious I’m a virgin? I stay very still. “I don’t want
you
,” I say. Regardless of how scared I am, I mustn’t let him see it.
“Oh, come on. I’ve noticed the way you look at me.”
I hold his stare. “Where’s Jo?” I ask.
He licks his top teeth and sucks on them. “You heard Vanya. She’s a benefactor now.”
“Her
and
your baby?”
He releases me, goes to the window, and throws it open, breathing in the night air like I never have. “You think you’ve got us figured out. Well, you don’t. If anything, you’ve got us all wrong.” When he looks back at me his eyes are watery, but I don’t buy it. I saw him manhandling Jo. And Silas and I saw his lackeys burying a body. It’s impossible we’ve got them wrong.
“I’m sleeping on the floor,” I say.
“Fine,” he says. “Jo did that for a year. Eventually she jumped into bed with me, and it had nothing to do with the cold.” He pulls his shirt over his head and reveals his chest. Maybe he thinks I’ll be won over by his body. I look away and lie down on the floor.
We should never have come here.
And the only thing to do now is to get back to the pod and make it the home it should always have been.
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Niamh isn’t at home, and I manage to smuggle Bea through the garden unseen. When Wendy opens the annex door she smiles and waves us inside, and within minutes of getting to know Bea, she offers up her own bed. She was the only person I could turn to.
I try to convince Bea to rest for a few hours, but once she’s eaten and showered, she’s back in the steward uniform and ready to find the Resistance. “I’ll sleep when I don’t have to do it with one eye open,” she says. She might not have trained with the Special Forces, but she’s every bit as fired up to fight as I ever was.
Bea presses the buzzer on Old Watson’s door. “You stay hidden or he won’t let us in,” she says. She takes off the steward’s jacket and hat and stands back from the peephole so he’ll get a good view of her.
“Watson,” Bea says, as he opens the door wide and grabs her hands.
“What in Mother Earth’s name are you doing here? And what’s with the bloody uniform?” Old Watson says. He’s about to pull her inside, when he spots me. He lets go of Bea’s hands and tries to close the door, but Bea has her foot wedged in it.
“He’s on our side,” she says.
We follow Old Watson as he retreats into his dingy flat and sits on a lumpy couch. I peer into the room’s dark recesses and gasp. He has rows and rows of what look like real plants growing in his living room. “What are those?” I ask, stunned he’s managed to achieve something like this right under the Ministry’s nose.
“They grew from clippings from the biosphere,” Bea says matter-of-factly. And she never thought to mention it? I go to the plants, pull a leaf from a one of them, and rub it between my fingers. It’s waxy and green on one side, rough and gray on the other.
Bea sits next to Old Watson and gives him an awkward, sideways hug. I clear a stash of cups and glasses from a side table and sit on it. “Do you know where the Resistance is hiding?” Bea asks.
Old Watson scratches his head. “No idea what you’re talking about,” he says, and looks at me.
“The Grove’s gone,” I say. “The only option for people now is to fight back.”
Old Watson’s chin trembles. “What about . . . Silas and Alina?” he stutters.
Bea takes his hand. “They made it out. And Quinn’s bringing them here. Together we’re going to free everyone, Watson.” She sounds certain, but before he even hears the plan, Old Watson drops his head in his hands and groans.
“You haven’t been here since the riots, Bea. It’s pointless trying to win.”
“We have Ronan now, and Jude Caffrey,” Bea tells him.
“Jude Caffrey? Why would you trust him after what he did to his own son?” Bea swallows hard. There’s no need to remind her about Quinn or what Jude Caffrey’s capable of. “And why would you trust Cain Knavery’s son?” he says like I’m not in the room.