Run For Cover (7 page)

I
guess it’s the quiet that wakes me.

I open my eyes slowly, confused about why my legs and back are aching and my clothes feel uncomfortably heavy. The flashlight battery has died, so it takes me a moment to figure out why I’m in the dark with people squashed all around me. It’s especially confusing because there’s no rumbling or jolting underneath us. The truck has stopped, and everything is quiet outside. I fumble around until I find my own flashlight and click it on.

The others are all asleep. Louisa and Maddie are curled into each other; Ryan and Maddie are both snoring gently. Alonso is definitely going to wake up with a
sore neck from the way he’s positioned. Evelyn has her head on her pack, which is in her lap, as if she’s asleep at her desk in school.

Somehow in my sleep I’ve shifted around, so my feet are tangled up with Maddie’s and I’m leaning against Drew. I shake feeling back into my fingertips and carefully wriggle without jostling the others until I’m sitting upright.

Then I realize that Drew isn’t asleep. He smiles and shades his eyes when I swing the flashlight toward him.

“How long have you been awake?” I whisper, turning the light down to the floor.

“Since the truck stopped,” he whispers back. “I think that was a couple of hours ago.”

“Oh,” I say. “Sorry I fell asleep on you.”

“That’s okay,” he says. “It’s kind of fascinating to see you look so peaceful. Not your normal expression.” He grins and stretches his arms, and I realize he’s probably been keeping still so he wouldn’t wake me.

“Well, don’t get used to it,” I say, but I try not to sound unfriendly. “I wish I had my watch. What time do you think it is?” My watch was confiscated on the first day at CMS, along with everyone’s electronic devices. I spent the first week checking my wrist fifty times a day. It was really annoying.

“I bet it’s nighttime,” he says, “although I’m just guessing by how hungry I am.”

“Oh, yeah,” I say, and my stomach growls in agreement.

“She’s probably stopped somewhere to sleep.”

“So maybe if she doesn’t come back soon, we could try sneaking out to see where we are,” I suggest.

“That’s what I was thinking. Maybe find some more food, too.”

“Definitely.” There’re about a million things I would like to do if we could get out of this truck. Stretch my legs. Change my clothes. Brush my teeth. Run and jump and yell and breathe deeply. And find a phone to call my parents.

If they’ve gotten a ransom demand from CMS, they must be totally freaking out. It’s possible Mrs. Brewster could get something out of them even though I’m not really there, although I hope my parents are smart enough to do that movie thing where they’re like, “Prove to me that she’s alive! Send me a photo of her with today’s newspaper!” Except there aren’t newspapers anymore, so maybe it would have to be someone’s updated blog instead.

Drew leans over and pokes Ryan’s knee. Ryan wakes up with a startled snort. His reddish-blond hair is squashed over to one side from being slept on, kind of like my cat’s fur when she first wakes up.

“Let’s start moving boxes,” Drew whispers to him. “So we can tunnel out.”

It’s like one of those puzzles where there’s an empty space in a bunch of tiles, and you have to slide the tiles around until the picture lines up right. Drew and Ryan and I carefully shift the boxes around us, freezing every time we make a loud noise. We hear nothing at all from outside the truck. I’m hoping Gladys is inside a motel
somewhere, snoring away. Worst-case scenario would be she’s sleeping in the cab, and then she’ll probably catch us any minute … but surely she’d rather be in a bed, right?

Anyway, we have to get out, so if she does catch us, we’ll just have to run for it.

Soon the movement around them wakes the others, and they get up to help us. Even with all seven of us working, it takes a long time to move all the boxes until there’s a tunnel to the back door. By then I’m pretty sure we must be stopped for the night, so I decide it’s safe to get out and take a look around.

I have a small heart attack when I first look at the back door and it occurs to me that it might be locked, or bolted, from the outside. What if there’s no way out, and we’re going to be trapped in here all the way to New York, where they’ll open the truck to find us all suffocating, starving, and losing our minds?

But Louisa finds a latch at the bottom of the door almost right away, and when she pulls on it, the door slides right up. It creaks and rattles and rumbles like an
El train roaring over your head in downtown Chicago. I can’t believe it doesn’t wake everyone in a half-mile radius, especially since the night outside is so quiet.

Moonlight filters down through scattered gray clouds, illuminating a mostly empty parking lot. I jump down to the pavement and stretch my arms and legs like I’m getting ready for a marathon. Everything aches and twinges. I’m not used to sitting all day; normally I make time for soccer or basketball or running or Pilates somewhere in the afternoon. Even on the rare occasions when my parents turned on the TV back home, I liked to stand up and lift weights or jog in place while we watched the news.

As I’m stretching, I scan the area around us. We’re in the parking lot of a run-down motel, in a back corner under some trees where the two sputtering fluorescent streetlights overhead don’t reach. The truck sits in a pool of shadows by a chain-link fence, across from a long stretch of faded orange doors and windows with curtains tightly drawn across all of them. On the other side
of the fence is another empty lot surrounding a warehouse.

I pivot to see the road that runs past the front of the motel. There are a couple of stores and a gas station across the two-lane street, but all the lights are off except for the glow of a lamp inside the gas station’s convenience store.

“I think it’s safe to come out,” I say. “I don’t see anyone around. It must be pretty late.”

Drew hops down beside me. Louisa and Maddie stop for a moment on the edge of the truck, and I reach up my hands to help them down.

“Ow, ow, ow,” Evelyn groans as she hits the ground, hunching her shoulders and twisting her neck to work out the kinks.

“Tell me about it,” Alonso agrees.

“We shouldn’t all stay out here,” Louisa says. “What if Gladys looks out the window? Or a cop comes by and wants to see our ID bracelets?”

“Good point,” Ryan says.

“I’ll go scout around,” Drew offers. “See if I can figure out where we are, or find some more food.”

I can’t stop myself from thinking he’s really going to find a phone so he can turn us in. I know — I feel guilty about it. I mean, he scared an ostrich for us. What more does the guy have to do? But at the same time, there’s just something about the way he looks at me, or the way he smiles and ducks his head, or something, that makes me feel jittery and anxious.

“I could go with you,” Louisa offers.

“No, I’ll go,” I say, too fast. I know I’ll keep an eye on him better than anyone else can. If he
is
planning something, I’ll be the most likely to catch him at it.

Louisa raises her eyebrows at me, then smiles in this girl-conspiracy kind of way. “Sure, okay, Rosie,” she says. Her eyes are sparkling, and it takes me a minute to figure out what that face means.

Oh
no.
She thinks I
like
him. Like,
like
him in a boy-friendy way. I want to say,
Man, Louisa, don’t you know anything about me yet?
I’m not interested in guys like that.
Mostly they just annoy me. I don’t have time for handholding and guessing games and flirty jokes and waiting around by the phone and moping over how confusing boys are. Plus I’ve seen how badly it can all turn out, from watching Wren and Ivan. Really, it can’t get much worse than having your boyfriend betray you to the Alliance.

I don’t know if the guys notice, but Louisa and Maddie are definitely giving each other those silly matchmaker smiles I’ve seen on other girls. Thank goodness it’s so dark, so no one can see how much I’m blushing. At least Evelyn seems oblivious — her keen nose for secrets seems uninterested in relationship stuff.

“See if you can find anything else to drink,” she says. “And find out what road that is over there. And if we’re near any big highways. Here, use this to write down whatever you find.” She hands me her small notebook and pencil, then pulls out her map printout and tries to find a patch of moonlight where she can read it.

“Have fun,” Maddie says with a grin I just want to mash into her face.

“Yeah, take your time,” Louisa agrees. I think she’s trying to wink at me. AAARRGH.

“Well, don’t take too long,” Alonso says. “We should get back into hiding as soon as possible.”

“That’s true,” I say. “You guys stay hidden. Come on, Drew, let’s get this over with.” I shove Drew ahead of me toward the road and stomp away from the others, trying to ignore Louisa’s giggle. I pray to all the spirits of the universe that the others don’t gossip about me and Drew while we’re gone. That’s all I need — five people ooglygooglying over my imaginary romance when they should be focused on hiding and surviving.

We hurry across the lot and head for the main road, staying in the shadow of the motel. Drew keeps looking at my face as if he’s trying to figure out whether I’m mad and why.

“Was that weird?” he asks. “Or was it just me?”

“It’s really,
really
not important,” I say. “Keep an eye
out for signs or even scraps of paper that might give us a clue about where we are.”

The big sign in front of the hotel isn’t lit up — that would be a waste of electricity — but between the moonlight and the few functioning streetlights we can see that it says
camelot motel. vacancy.
A glass door leads into a small lobby at the front. We peek inside, but we don’t see anyone at the front desk. Two candles burn quietly on the counter. There are a couple of sad potted plants, a spinning leaflet holder, and a few orange plastic chairs around a coffeemaker and an unplugged vending machine.

“Do you think it’s safe to go in?” Drew asks. “What would we say if someone came out to offer us a room?”

I glance around at the deserted street behind us. From the way it’s angled, it looks like the view from the desk wouldn’t cover the gas station across the road. “We say our parents are across the street getting gas, and they sent us to ask how much a room costs.” Not many people drive nowadays, but the ones who do are pretty wealthy, so I’m
hoping that’ll encourage the clerk to be friendly to us, or, more important, informative.

“Nice,” Drew says, nodding approvingly. He doesn’t mention how we don’t exactly look related, since he’s Asian and I’m Hispanic, but I’m betting the motel clerk won’t be rude enough to ask. We also have to hope that curfew isn’t as strict here as it is in the cities, or else I’ll have to come up with a reason why we’re traveling so late at night.

It turns out our cover story isn’t necessary, though, because nobody appears behind the desk when we walk in. There’s a little silver bell on the counter, and we debate ringing it, but I decide it’s safer not to talk to people if we can avoid it. I’ve pulled my sweatshirt sleeves down over my wrists, but I still feel like it’s really obvious that I’m not wearing an ID bracelet, which would be just about impossible to explain. Drew keeps his hands in his pockets most of the time, so I bet he’s worried about it, too.

A clock on the wall over the coffee machine says it’s a little after midnight.

I turn the leaflet holder, flinching at the squeaky noise it makes. I keep my voice quiet. “My mom told me these used to hold brochures about fun places to go, like amusement parks and museums and stuff.”

“Amusement parks,” Drew says wryly. “I bet those were awesome.”

“But a huge waste of fuel,” I point out. “Not to mention perfect targets for bombs and stuff like that. It’s no wonder they all got shut down when the War started.”

“I know, I’ve heard the propaganda, too,” he says. “But I think that stuff’s true of most places where lots of people go. My dad says we shouldn’t spend our lives being afraid. Like, if we never do anything fun, and if we spend all our time cowering inside our houses, then the Alliance might as well have won already. You know?”

Spoken like someone who’s never had to run for his life from angry men with guns. It’s easy for guys like him, who don’t have to worry that every knock on the door is the end of the world. I’d give up roller coasters any day for the chance to feel safe, just for a few hours. They sound
kind of pointless, anyway, from what my mom’s told me about them. I’ve had plenty of real scares and near-death experiences in my life; I don’t need to pay for fake ones.

Of course, I don’t say any of that to Drew.

I pull out one of the leaflets. Nowadays the government issues these almost every week, and they tell us about new curfews, new restrictions, new things to worry about. This one looks a few weeks old, and it talks about reporting any suspicious activity along the Canadian border and keeping an eye on anyone coming from that direction. It must be from before Canada surrendered, but clearly the government was already worried about Alliance activity over there.

There’s nothing on the leaflet to tell us exactly where we are, though. I turn around as Drew leans over the counter to check the desk behind it.

“Mail,” he whispers, glancing back at me. He hefts himself up on the counter and grabs a couple of envelopes that were lying in a black plastic in-box. The address on
them tells us we’re in Wisconsin. I write it down in case Evelyn can find the town on her map.

“Smart thinking,” I say, handing the envelopes back to him.

“You would have thought of it in another minute,” he says.

I nod. “True.” He laughs, but it is. That’s the way my brain works, too.

“I like trying to keep up with you,” he says. “There aren’t many people I’d say that about.” In the candlelight his face looks warmer, cuter, all the angles smoothed out and the smugness wiped away. In this moment he doesn’t look like Ivan at all, in fact.

“Well, keep trying,” I say, patting his shoulder. “You might catch up eventually.”