Once (2 page)

We started up the road, pedaling in silence, the only sound the wind rustling the trees. Parts of the mountain had crumbled onto the pavement, leaving piles of rocks and branches that threatened to burst our tires. I concentrated on maneuvering through them.

Somewhere far off, a shout split the air.

I glanced over my shoulder, trying to figure out where it had come from. The beach was empty and the tide was coming in, the rocks and sand caught in the endless churning of the waves. Quinn moved off the road, finding cover behind the thick trees, and gestured for me to follow. We huddled together in the overgrowth, our knives out, until a figure finally appeared on the road.

Harriet slowly came into view, her face twisted and strange as she rode toward us on her bike. She was one of the gardeners who distributed fresh herbs and vegetables to Califia's restaurants. She always smelled of mint. “Harriet—what's wrong?” Quinn called, immediately lowering her knife.

Harriet hopped off her bike and walked toward us, her hair a wild mess from the wind. She leaned forward and rested her hands on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath. “There's been movement in the city. Someone's on the other side of the bridge.”

Quinn turned to me. Since I'd arrived, guards had stood at the entrance to Califia, scanning the ruined city of San Francisco, looking for signs of the King's troops. But no lights had been spotted. No Jeeps, no men.

Until now.

Quinn grabbed her bike from the underbrush and started up the road, pulling me along. “They've found you,” she said. “There's not much time.”

HARRIET PEDALED AROUND THE BEND. “THIS IS WHY WE HAVE A
plan,” Quinn said, speeding alongside me so I could hear her. She glanced sideways, a few matted black curls blown in her eyes. “You're going to be fine.”

“I don't feel fine,” I said, turning so she couldn't see my face. My chest was tight, each breath short and painful. I'd been discovered. The King was close, and coming closer still.

Quinn leaned into a sharp turn. The edge of the pavement, a crumbling cliff fifty feet high, was only a few feet away. I held tight to the handlebars, now slippery with sweat, as we climbed the road to the bridge. It was rumored that the regime knew about the community of women nestled in the hills of Sausalito. They believed it to be a small group of female Strays, not a hidden depository for the Trail. The last time they had come through to check on the settlement was nearly five years ago, and the women had scattered into the hills, hiding out for the night. The soldiers had passed their houses and apartments, not noticing the shelters camouflaged by blankets of overgrown ivy.

The bridge came into view ahead. The towering red structure had been the site of a huge fire. It was piled with burned cars, debris from fallen beams and cables, and the skeletons of those who'd been trapped there while trying to escape the city. I held onto Quinn's words:
This is why we have a plan
. If troops were spotted, Quinn and I would leave Sausalito, not stopping until we were deep in the labyrinth of Muir Woods, where an underground bunker had been built years ago. I would stay there, relying on stockpiled supplies, while the soldiers swept through Califia. The rest of the women would move west, up toward Stinson Beach, where they'd wait out the invasion in an abandoned motel. They'd be in enough danger if the settlement were discovered … much more if the soldiers found out they'd been hiding me from the King.

“There's movement on the other side,” Isis called out from Califia's entrance, hidden behind a patch of dense shrubs. She was leaning over the stone ledge, her black hair tied back with a bandanna, a pair of binoculars in her hand. We let the bikes fall and gathered around her. Maeve was perched over the trapdoor behind the ledge, doling out extra rifles and ammunition.

Maeve pressed a gun into Harriet's hands, then handed another to Quinn. “Line up against the wall.” All the women followed her lead. She was one of the youngest Founding Mothers, and the most vocal about what was expected of everyone in the settlement. Tall, with ropy muscles and braided blond hair, Maeve looked exactly the same as she did the day I'd first met her, standing outside Califia's entrance. She was the one who'd turned Caleb away. I'd accepted the room in her house, the food and clothing she'd given me, the post she'd found for me at the bookstore, knowing it was her way of saying what couldn't be spoken:
I'm sorry, but I had to
.

I took a rifle and joined the rest of the women, feeling the cold weight of the gun in my hands. I remembered what Caleb had said, back when I was staying at his camp:
Killing a New American soldier is an offense punishable by death
. I thought of the two soldiers I'd shot in self-defense. We'd left their bodies on the road beside their government Jeep. I'd held the third soldier at gunpoint, forcing him to drive us toward Califia, his hands trembling on the wheel. Caleb had slumped against the backseat, his leg bleeding where he'd been stabbed. The soldier had been younger than me—I let him go when we were right outside San Francisco. “Maeve, do we need the guns? We shouldn't use—”

“If they discover the escapees they'll drag them all back to their Schools, where the girls will spend the next years pregnant and on so many drugs they won't even remember their names. That's not an option.” She walked along the row of women, pressing each of their shoulders forward to adjust their aim.

I looked down the barrel, out across the bridge and the gray ocean, trying not to dwell on Maeve's omissions. She didn't mention what would happen to me. Instead, the statement had the slight tone of an accusation—as if I had personally invited the soldiers here.

We kept our eyes ahead. I listened to the sound of Harriet's breathing as the figures made their way over the bridge. From such a distance I could only see two dark shapes, one smaller than the other, moving between the burned cars. After a moment, Isis set down the binoculars. “There's a dog with him,” she said. “A Rottweiler.”

Maeve took the binoculars. “Keep your aim, and if there's any aggression, don't hesitate to shoot.” The two figures moved closer. The man was hunched over, his black shirt camouflaging him against the charred pavement.

“He isn't wearing a uniform.” Quinn eased her grip on her gun.

Maeve kept the binoculars to her face. “That doesn't mean anything. We've seen them out of uniform before.” I studied the figure, looking for any resemblance to Caleb.

When he was less than two hundred yards away he stopped to rest beside a car. He squinted at the hillside, searching for signs of life. We crouched further down behind the ledge, but the man didn't look away. “He sees us,” Harriet hissed, her cheek pressed against the stone. The man reached into his knapsack and pulled something out.

“Is it a weapon?” Isis asked.

“I can't tell,” Maeve replied. Isis moved her finger, resting it lightly on the trigger.

The man stalked forward, a new resolve in him, and Quinn aimed her gun. “Stop!” she yelled out to him, keeping low so he couldn't see her behind the ledge. “Do not go any further!” But the man was running now. The dog was right beside him, its thick black body heaving with the effort.

Maeve inched forward, whispering in Quinn's ear. “Don't let him get off the bridge. No matter what.”

Her eyes betrayed no feeling. The day I came across the bridge with Caleb, we were unbearably tired, the past weeks weighing us down, making every step difficult. His pant leg was soaked through with blood, the fabric stiff and wrinkled where it had dried. Maeve had stood at the entrance to Califia, an arrow aimed at my chest, the same hard expression on her face. No matter what threat this man posed, at that instant he was only guilty of trespassing—nothing more. I took the binoculars from Maeve's hands.

The man was quickly approaching the end of the bridge. “Do not go any further!” Quinn yelled again. “Stop!” I steadied the binoculars, trying to catch a glimpse of him. Then, for only an instant, he looked up. His face was like a corpse's, with sunken eyes and hollowed cheeks. His lips were gray and chapped from days without water, and his hair was cropped close to the skull. But I felt the pull of recognition.

I looked at Quinn's gun, and then at the figure racing toward the end of the bridge, moving steadily around overturned cars and piles of charred debris. “Don't shoot!” I yelled.

I started down the hill, the thick brush scratching my legs. I ignored Maeve's shouts behind me. Instead, I tucked the rifle under my arm, my eyes on the figure as I moved closer. “Arden,” I whispered, my throat choked. She had stopped, one arm resting on the hood of a truck, her back hunched from the effort of breathing. She looked at me and smiled, tears spilling down her cheeks. “You're here.”

The dog lunged at me but Arden held it back, whispering something in its ear to calm it. I ran toward them, not stopping until we were together. I wrapped my arms around her frail body, enveloping her. Her head was shaved, she was twenty pounds lighter, and her shoulder was bleeding—but she was alive.

“You made it,” I said, squeezing her tighter.

“Yes,” she managed, her tears soaking my shirt. “I made it.”

THAT EVENING, I TOOK ARDEN TO MAEVE'S HOUSE. THE
narrow two-story home was connected to six more, the whole row of them nestled into the side of the hill. Residences in Califia were easier to conceal if they were spread out, so of the six, hers was the only one that was occupied. The walls were patched in places, the floors a mosaic of mismatched tiles. Arden and I were in the small bedroom upstairs, our skin rosy in the lantern light. Maeve slept in the next room, Lilac beside her.

Arden stripped off her long black shirt and stood before the dresser in her tank top, pressing a wet towel to her face and neck. “When I arrived and you weren't here, I thought the worst,” I said, leaning against the bunk bed where I slept. The room's flowered wallpaper was peeling in places, a few strips held up with tacks. “I thought the soldiers had found you. That you were being held somewhere, tortured, or …” I trailed off, not wanting to go on.

Arden worked at her skin with the towel, clearing away patches of dirt on her arms. In the lantern light I could see each of her vertebrae, tiny pebbles trapped beneath her skin. I remembered her face the last day I had seen her, when we were hiding behind the shack. Her cheeks were full, her eyes alert. Now she was so thin her shoulder blades jutted out of her back. Fresh scabs dotted her scalp.

“They never caught me,” she said, not turning around. She watched herself in the cracked mirror, her reflection split in half. “The day I left you by Marjorie and Otis's house, the soldiers chased me through the woods. I got a lead on them when I reached the outskirts of town but there wasn't anywhere to hide. I found this metal door in the street, a sewer, and went underground. I just followed the tunnels, moving through the sludge, and kept waiting for them to track me there. But they never did.”

The giant dog lay at her feet, its chin resting on the floor. I kept my eyes on it, remembering all those warnings we'd heard at School about people being mauled by the packs of wild dogs roaming the woods. “Where'd you find him?” I asked, nodding at the animal, whose head was nearly as big as mine.

“
She
found me,” Arden laughed, setting down the towel. “I was roasting a squirrel. I guess she'd been separated from her pack and was hungry. So I gave her some food. And then she started following me.” She kneeled down, taking the dog's head in her hands. “Don't judge Heddy by her appearance—she's really sweet. Aren't you, girl?”

Arden looked up at me, smiling, and I noticed the thick red scar that snaked down her collarbone and over her right breast. It was still bleeding in places. Just the sight of it made me wince. “You're hurt,” I said, standing to get a closer look. “What happened? Who did this to you?” I grabbed her shoulder and turned her toward the light.

Arden swatted me away. She fished the towel from the washbasin and covered her neck. “I don't want to talk about it. I'm here now and I'm not missing an arm or an eye. Let's just leave it at that.”

“Let's not leave it at that,” I said, but Arden was already climbing into the bottom bunk. She threw herself down next to Lilac's old dolls. Most of them were naked, their hair matted from years of neglect. “Arden,” I said again, pleading. “What happened?” The dog followed me to the ladder and whimpered, trying to get up on the mattress.

Arden sighed. “You don't want to know.” She pressed the wet towel to her chest, willing me away, but I didn't move.

“Tell me.”

She turned to me, her eyes glassy in the lantern light. “I got lost,” she said, her voice soft. “That's why it took me so long to get here. I went north out of Sedona and then I found Heddy. We'd been together a week when it got so hot I could barely walk during the day. Heddy kept darting under the bushes, trying to avoid the sun. Finally I decided we'd just wait out the heat wave. Find a place to rest.” She moved the wet towel over her cracked lips, sloughing off the dead skin. “We took our supplies into this underground parking lot. As we went down each ramp it got cooler, more bearable, but darker, too. I was trying to get this car door open when I heard a man's voice. He was yelling, but nothing he said made any sense.”