The Bleeding Crowd (34 page)

“You can talk to me, you realize, not just
about me.” Dahlia crossed her arms.

“Well, no offense, Lia,” Jude said. “My vote
would be keeping you away from the front lines, too.”

“I didn’t realize my actions were up to a
democratic vote.”

“We do what is best for the group,” Heather
said, “and that’s keeping you back where you can help people who
are hurt.”

“Out in the forest is a little extreme even
if you want to make that argument.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Heather said.
“Go keep a look out for Jack. We don’t want your boyfriends
fighting.”

“We don’t even know if he’s coming.” Dahlia
shook her head.

“The runner said he saw him,” Des said. “He’s
got to be on his way by now.”

Dahlia shook her head, but moved over to
where Ben sat.

“Am I still banished?” He looked at her.

“Yeah,” she said, “and now I am too.”

“Why’s that?”

“They don’t want me to go into town.”

“Well, I’d say the same thing.”

“Luckily you’ve cheated yourself out of a
vote,” she said.

“Apparently you have too.”

“They just want me to be here in case Jack
shows up and I have to break up a fight.”

“Why would you have to break up a fight?” Ben
raised an eyebrow. “I have the girl, don’t I?”

“Don’t try me right now, Ben?” She shook her
head.

He touched her hand, rubbing his fingers
along the side of it. “You aren’t going to be mad at me forever,
Lia.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty good with keeping
grudges.”

“Take a walk with me,” he said softly.

“Why?” She looked at him.

He cupped her face, rubbing his thumb over
her bottom lip. “Because you want to.”

She took a shaky breath looking down at his
thumb. “Stop it before I bite that off.”

“You bite me and it’s just more for you to
have to bandage up.” He smiled. “Come on, we could die tomorrow.
You really want to hold in whatever you have planned to scream at
me?”

She released a deep breath. “You’re really
transparent, you know that?”

He just looked at her.

“Oh, come on.” She stood.

He smiled, and sprang up using his good
arm.

Chapter Twenty

Dahlia woke with her eyelids heavy and her
head foggy. She sat up, fighting off the sense of vertigo. The camp
appeared empty. “Hello?”

Abel came out of the tent looking sheepish.
“Hi.”

She blinked, her eyelids rising much too
slowly. “Where is everyone?”

Abel didn’t answer. She stared him down.

“They went to the tunnels,” he said.

“The tunnels,” she repeated.

He shrugged, looking at his feet. “Des said
they were as ready as they were ever going to be, so they needed to
get going.”

“So, they’re gone.” Dahlia stood, taking a
second to steady herself. “Gone gone?”

Abel nodded.

“Then why are you here?”

“They said you’d need help when they brought
back wounded.”

Dahlia frowned. “They just left without
talking to me?”

“I think that was Heather and Ben’s
ideas.”

Dahlia opened her mouth, shut it again. “You
know, I’m not surprised in the slightest.”

“You aren’t supposed to be standing.”

“What?” Dahlia frowned.

“They said not to let you stand for at least
ten minutes after you woke up.”

“What?” Dahlia frowned. “Why would they...”
Something clicked. “They drugged me?”

He shrugged.

“Mother...” She took a step trying to steady
her legs. “How long ago did they leave?”

“I don’t know. An hour maybe.”

She took off.

“You aren’t supposed to be walking.” Abel
followed her.

“I swear to god, Abel, if you try to keep me
here, I’m going to make you wish you had gone with everyone else,
because anything they could do to you won’t begin to measure up to
what I will do to you.”

“But...someone needs to watch the camp,” Abel
said.

“Then sit there and wait,” Dahlia said. “I’ll
be back later.”

Abel hesitated but didn’t attempt to stop
her.

She walked as fast as she could with her head
still swimming. By the time she reached the edge of the tunnels,
she was steady enough on her feet to not worry about falling. She
brought her hand to her neck. The chain with the key was gone.

“Heather...” Dahlia seethed, but passed the
tunnels and headed for town. By the time she broke through the
trees, the streets were already filled with women staring at the
sky. Dahlia turned seeing the large smoke plumes rising up above
the tree line.

“What do you think it is?” One of the women
frowned.

“The camps,” Dahlia answered without turning
her head.

Everyone turned to stare at her.

“The men are revolting,” she said in a
matter-of-fact voice. “If you head over to the government
headquarters you’ll see. The place is filled. Full on battle.”

The women paused. “Seriously?” someone
said.

Dahlia nodded. “Just came from there. Go and
see for yourself.”

The crowd hesitated and then began to
move.

A woman approached her. “How do you
know?”

“I was hiking.” Dahlia nodded towards the
forest. “Saw that and then went by the building.”

A ripple went through the last women hanging
around and they joined the crowd heading to the seat of
government.

She caught one of the younger girls. “Could I
borrow your comm unit? Mine’s dead.”

The girl nodded, glancing at the crowd and
then the smoke. “Is it really men?”

“Yeah.” Dahlia nodded. “I’m going to get out
of the crowd so I can hear. Do you want to wait...?”

The girl shrugged. “Are you going there?”

Dahlia nodded.

“I’ll meet you there,” the girl said. “I’m
Kristie, with a K.”

“Great.” Dahlia nodded. “Thanks.”

Kristie moved off and Dahlia headed for the
edge of the crowd. She typed in Cassandra’s number.

“Hello?”

“Cassie?” Dahlia held a hand over her ear to
try to hear better.

“Who is this?”

“It’s me,” she said, “Dahlia.”

“That’s not funny,” Cassandra answered. “Who
is this?”

“I’m serious, Cass. It’s Dahlia. I’m in New
Zealand.”

“New Zealand?”

“Cass, it’s me.”

Cassandra paused. “Seriously?”

“No,” Dahlia sighed. “Humorously.”

“Holy crap, it is you! Li, what are
you...how...?”

“I’ll explain later. Are there fires again
there?”

“Gas leaks.” Cassandra nodded. “Yeah.”

“They aren’t gas leaks,” Dahlia said. “It’s
the camps.”

“The camps,” her friend repeated.

“Yeah, the men are rebelling. It’s what I’m
doing in New Zealand.”

“You’re with the men?”

“I seem to have ended up that way. I haven’t
got a whole lot of time. If the men blow this...well, I’m not dead
at the moment, so I thought I’d let you know.”

“How did you end up with the men?”

“If I make it through this, I’ll let you
know, I promise,” Dahlia said. “I have to go now. Say hi to Claire
and the twins for me.”

“But Li...”

Dahlia disconnected. She looked at the comm
unit for a long moment and then something popped into her mind.
Opening Kristie’s address book, she next typed up a message and
sent it to everyone listed. She then clipped the comm to her belt.
She turned to another woman in the crowd.

“Hi, my comm unit just died. Would you mind
if I used yours?”

The woman handed it over without
question.

Dahlia gave silent thanks for trusting women
and sent a message to all the people in the woman’s address book
before returning it. “Thank you so much.”

Working her way through the crowd, Dahlia
borrowed comm units from anyone who would let her. Wearing
legislator colors was probably once again working in her favor.

The crowd circled the government building as
women tried to get as close as possible to see. Emergency squads
did their best to disperse them. A woman standing on top of a
planter tried to assure the crowd nothing was happening and they
should all leave.

Dahlia waited a moment before taking a
breath. “Someone just screamed!”

The crowd started to turn to her voice, and
she moved to another spot.

“What was that? Someone just fell over! Look,
don’t you see that?”

Without much urging, women in the crowd began
seeing things, real or imagined, putting the crowd in a frenzy.
Somewhere near the emergency workers, a punch was thrown, breaking
the last semblance of order. Dahlia made her way out of the crowd
to avoid the worst of the shoving. She took a picture with the comm
unit and sent it to the full address book with the caption:
Emergency Squad turns violent on crowd. Citizens being
beaten!

She pressed send, not really caring whether
the emergency squad had thrown the first punch or not.

The balcony caught her attention. She had
seen that balcony more than once on the Independence Day broadcasts
or any broadcast where Patience had spoken. She looked around,
trying to get through the crowd with as few bruises as possible.
She slid her hand along the wall outside the building pulling at
any breaks in the marble. Finally one shifted. She smiled to
herself before slipping in as fast as she could and shut the
passageway behind her. She ran up the stairs as fast as she was
physically able to the fifth story. Finding the door unlocked, she
paused a moment wondering why. Maybe the rebels had used it.
Pushing the door open, she heard shouting and gunfire outside the
room. The room itself was silent. She paused, looking at the back
of the man’s head.

“What are you doing here?” Jude spun.

“Helping.” She looked at the body at his
feet. “What did you do to her?”

“She seems to have had a heart attack,” Jude
said. “Most of the heads of government it seems.”

Dahlia frowned, squatting to check her pulse.
“She’s dead.”

“Patience slipped out, but the rest of
them...”

She checked Lisa’s mouth, looking at the
green specks in her teeth. She stood again. “That wouldn’t happen
to be oleander, would it?”

Jude shrugged.

“Where’d you get oleander?”

“Ben had it.”

“Where did he...

?” She stopped. “When he stole my medical
supplies?”

Jude shrugged in answer.

“I swear...” She waved it off. “I’ll deal
with that later. Can you hack the computers?”

“What?”

“Can you hack into Patience’s computer?”

“Probably,” Jude said. “Why?”

“We’ve got a near riot on the streets. We
stir up the women enough...” Dahlia jumped at the shouts near the
door.

“It’s locked.” Jude sat down. “So what?
You’re going to...?”

“Give a broadcast,” Dahlia finished for him.
“Patience does it from that balcony. There have to be cameras set
up.”

“So you want me to figure out how to do a
broadcast, then.”

“Optimally, yes, and before something breaks
down those doors.”

“Give me a second.” He typed something. “It
isn’t exactly an exact science.”

“Are things going—?”

“I need to concentrate,” he said in a terse
voice.

“Sorry.” She looked around, the body on the
floor caught her eyes again. She squatted, folding the arms over
the corpse’s chest and shutting the mouth. She was warm, not stiff.
She hadn’t died long ago. It made Dahlia check the pulse again,
just to make sure Lisa was dead.

“I’m in.” Jude finally looked up.

“Can you do two things at once?” She
stood.

“Depends on the two things.”

“I need to you to get the broadcast up and
running, however you do that, hopefully so it can broadcast
everywhere. I also need for you to find any files you can to send
out to make it so it isn’t just my word against theirs. Send that
out to everyone in the address book.” She paused. “You can read,
yes?”

He sent her a look. “Yeah.”

“Just asking,” she said. “Can we
broadcast?”

He typed something, a screen opening and dots
lighting up on a map. “I think we’re broadcasting.”

She nodded. “Keep those doors closed and look
for files.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re going to
say?”

“I’m just sort of making this up as I go
along. The truth I guess. Get searching.”

Jude nodded, turning back to the
computer.

She took a deep breath and opened the door to
the balcony. A screen on the banister was on, giving her a picture
of herself standing there. A button reading ‘mute’ was illuminated.
She pressed it, an unpleasant squeaking sound echoing around the
yard.

She winced as eyes started to turn toward
her. “Sorry about that.”

Slowly the noise of fighting died away.

“Hi, everyone.” Dahlia ran a hand through her
hair. “Sorry for the crudeness of the broadcast, but we don’t
exactly have AV people up here, so it’s just a one woman operation
up here...well, one woman, one man. My friend Jude’s in there
working the computer right now.”

Nobody said anything.

“Um, I’m Dahlia, if you don’t know me. You
might have gotten a rather rushed, cryptic message from me a little
while ago on your comm unit, so...yeah. Um, I, well I don’t know
how long I have out here, since I’m sort of on the wrong side of
this fight and if the men end up getting mowed down I’m going to be
carted away soon enough. The men have started a bit of a riot,
that’s what the smoke out there means.

“The camps are signaling each other I guess,
I never really got what the fires were for. Maybe they’re just
torching things for the hell of it. All the noise in here is the
women who are trained fighters for the government fighting the men
rioting in the building. There are these things called guns that
are used for killing people and they make a really loud banging
sound when they’re shot at someone. So, that’s that. I just wanted
to make sure that everyone knows that it’s not really the men’s
fault. I mean, they’re fighting back since, well, they’re men, but
they aren’t the only ones. Women are fighting too. I think they
have been taught how to fight since they were little, so it was
women teaching women violence, not just the men.