Dissidence (10 page)

The spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl
,
and when I bring it back to my
mouth
,
I taste nothing but metal.
I keep my hand moving anyway
, though,
because I’m not sure what the next step is yet. Meal time is reaching an end
,
and I still haven’t seen the moment we were looking for. Connor has to literally pry the spoon from my tense fingers when he takes our dishes. But instead of heading for the receptacle
,
he makes a wide arc
around the room
,
intentionally passing the guards corner. Nerves cramp my stomach as I watch him. This was definitely
not
part of the
plan.
Just as he passes the guards, he ‘trips’ sending brown gravy splashing all over the
queen’s
uniform.

She cries out in disgust, and Connor is rewarded with a stiff jab to his jaw which sends him the rest of the way to the floor. I’m on my feet with no idea how I got there
,
or what I intend to do about it now that I am. All I
can
do is watch him peel himself back off the
floor. Is he smiling? Sometimes
I’m not entirely convinced of his sanity.

Behind him
,
every other guard in the room is fussing over the large brown stain on the woman’s uniform, blotting it and offering her napkins. Not one of them is looking at the rest of us. Even the workers are
thoroughly distracted. Suddenly
Connor’s grin becomes infectious
,
and I find myself smiling too, or maybe I’m just as crazy as he is.

It’s do-or-die time, and I’m not entirely sure that’s not literal. I have no idea what the punishment is for attempting to escape, but making an example from our deaths doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility. That cheerful thought makes it
much
easier to convince my feet to work.

During the commotion, Connor rejoins Lori and
I
, and the three of us slip out of the
pavilion. W
e use the deep shadows cast by the dorm buildings in the moonlight to cover our progress toward the gate. I glance behind us so often that I get a crick in my neck, but no one is following us. Connor’s distraction did the job perfectly. Now, if only the front gate would be so easy.

From the front of the dormitories
,
we can see the gate
and, just as I expected
, the lock is hanging loose. A couple of guards are already standing there
,
but a
minute later
,
there’
s a shift rotation. The next gr
oup arrives within seconds. We’
re not going to have much of a window
,
and we’re only going to get one shot at this.

We wait anxiously for the next rotation
for several minutes until
the guards step away from the gate,
and
we make our move. ‘Our move’ is really more like a mad dash across open space, hoping and praying no one happens to notice us.
My
brilliant
plan in action.

The metal is cold in my hand as I swing the gate open a couple of feet, just wide enough for us to slip out. With a soft clank, Connor pulls it shut again behind us. We actually did it. We’re out. Tha
t was almost too easy, and then—

Chapter 9

“
Come on
.
Let’s get this thing to the dining hall, so we can eat some time tonight.
”

“I’m going as fast as I can.”

Damn karma. I freeze,
like literally freeze. It feels like there’s ice water in my veins. The only
thing that penetrates my panic-
stricken mind is the creak of the gate. I spin around, fully expecting to find us surrounded, but it’s only Lori. She’s
slipped
back inside the fence.

“Where are you going?”
Would have been nice of her to include us in her little retreat.
The voices are drawing closer.

“Hide,” Lori whispers urgently.

Easy for her to say.
There is absolutely nothing at all out here to hide us, just several straight yards of well-maintained grass in front of us, and a fence at our backs. Whose idea was this
,
anyway? We can’t move forward, and even if the guards coming back from the train somehow miss us, no way the patrols won’t notice us this close to the fence. We are entirely screwed. Pulling Connor along with me, I duck into the shadows further along the fence line. Now we’ve got about ninety seconds, give or take, to come up with a better plan before th
e next rotation of guards leave their post and stroll
right past us. No problem.

I scan the area, frantically searching for anywhere to hide, but this place is a work camp
and
a prison. It was designed with escapes in mind.
There’s no way they won’t notice us racing across at least fifteen yards of open space, unless . . .

“Hey!” Lori calls out from just inside the gate. “Over here!”

There’s a dull thud as whatever the guards were carrying is abandoned, and then shouts as they come running right at her. Well, that worked, except
. . .
they’re
running right at her.

“Don’t move! Get down!”

The next set of patrols has arrived on the scene, and, along with the two from outside the gate, have her surrounded.

“The gate was unlocked. I—
I just wanted to tell you.  I wasn’t going to
go
anywhere. I wasn’t going to
go
.” Emphasis on the last word, she glances briefly in our direction.

Go? She seriously expects us to just leave her there? Everyone’s shouting, the guards have all produced weapons, we can’t just leave her. My mind is racing, but before it can reach any sort
of coherent destination
,
I’m pulled out of my crouch and away from the fence. Connor refuses to relinquish his grip on my arm even as I struggle against him. He drags me towards the forest. With all the noise and tension at the gate
,
no one hears our footsteps as we move right past them away from the fence
, away from the camp,
away from Lori, our friend who sacrificed her freedom for ours.

***

I don’t know how long we’ve been running, or how far we’ve gone.
Far enough for my brain to finish computing everything that has just happened, but that can take a while sometimes.
When it finally does, I come to a skidding halt.

“We have to go back.”

“What?” Connor asks breathlessly, coming to a stop beside me.

“We can’t just leave her there. We have to do something.”

“Girlie, she did that so we could get away. We wouldn’t be doing her any favors by just going right back.”

“What if they kill her?”

“I don’t think they’re going to kill her.” He is far too calm about all of this for my taste
,
and I’m finding myself wanting to smack him again.

“Did you see those
guns
?!” Shouting may not be wise right now, but at the moment
,
I have bigger concerns, like the possibility of my friend standing at the wrong end of a firing range right about now.

“You mean the ones they were
not
shooting her with?”

Okay, I can give him that. I don’t know much about guns, but I’m guessing if one was actually fired, we would have heard it. Still, who’s to say they’re going to buy her story
,
and even if they do, then what? We’ve only left her behind for a life in the mines instead of death. I’m honestly not sure which is worse.  I give up my battle with gravity
,
and drop onto the cold, hard ground.

“She’ll be all right, Girlie.” Connor takes a seat beside me, still panting with the effort we’ve both just exerted.

“I can’t believe we’re going to just leave her there.”

“I don’t like it any
more than you do, but it’s what she wanted us to do. You heard her, the same as me.” Too bad that doesn’t make it any easier. “What we need to do now is figure out where we are, and where we’re headed.”

“We’re headed for colony D.”

“Why
D
?”

“Firstly, because it’s the closest colony.
If Lori was right
,
then
we need to head east
about a hundred miles.”

“And, secondly?”

“I have a friend there
,
Peter. If anyone can help us, he can.” Peter told me that if anything happened
,
I should get back to him. This all started because I didn’t listen to him in the first place. I won’t be making that mistake twice.

***

Traveling covertly though the woods under the cover of darkness would be the ideal choice, but the further we get from the camp
,
the thicker the forest floor grows around us. There are
just too many obstacles. If we’
re going to make it all the way
to colony D without one of us—
probably me—
breaking our necks, then traveling by night is definitely out. Instead
,
we find a spot to hunker down until morning.

The first thing I notice about the woods, besides how impossible they are to navigate, is how noisy they are. For an abandoned space
,
they are obscenely loud. The insects chirp and buzz, bats and other winged nocturnal animals flap through the branches, and all manner of small creatures scurry about the forest floor. That’s . . .
comforting
.

Connor and I agree to sleep in shifts. I have no idea what other kinds of beasts might be roaming the woods, but I’d rather not wake up in the middle of the night to find out. It would really suck to escape the camps just to end up something’s meal out here. Connor offers to t
ake first shift, but with
all
the
ruckus, it’s nearly impossible to get any sleep anyway.

In the morning, things only get worse. I’ve always known that birds rise with the dawn, but I’ve never been surrounded by so many of them before. What a racket! Between all of the screeching, squawking, and tweeting going on
,
it’s difficult to hear myself think. And I thought my cat clock was bad.

Since we’
re both certainly awake now, and there’s nothing else to be done, we set out again. I tilt my head back as we walk, watching the rays of light dance through the canopy of leaves above us. It’s almost hypnotizing to the point that
I come very close to walking in
to a tree face first. I don’t care enough to be embarrassed. How long has it been since I’ve seen the sun? The air smells fresh and warm
,
and I breathe it deep into my lungs. We push on for another day and then another.

Every night we continue to rest in shifts
,
even though the scariest thing we’ve seen is a pack of chipmunks.
There are other dangers though,
quieter ones. One’s you don’t hear or see coming until it’s too late. In the pale early morning light, I can just make out Connor’s figure ahead of me trying to blaze a trail through the brush. That’s how I know something’s wrong when he suddenly falls to the ground. 

Chapter 10

At first I think he tripped—it wouldn’t be the first time—
but when he doesn’t get back up, laughing about his two left feet, I rush over. Branches slash my legs as I pus
h through them to where Connor i
s feebly trying to push
himself
upright.

“What’s wrong?” I tuck my hand under his shoulder
,
and help him into a sitting position.

He collapses back against a nearby tree trunk shaking his head, unable or unwilling to voice hi
s complaints. It doesn’t matter.
I already know what the p
roblem is. It’s been over forty-
eight hours since either of us has had anything to eat, or
worse
,
to drink. The hunger sort of passed after a while as I got used to the empty hollow feeling in my stomach, but the thirst has been getting worse and worse. My throat has been itchy and dry since yesterday, and I woke up with my tongue feeling like sandpaper this morning. I haven’t even been able to moisten my lips
,
which are now cracking, and Connor is moving a lot more weight through these woods than I am. There’s not a chance we’re going to be able to make it all the way to colony D without any water. Change of plans.