The Capture

They run through the night. As the sky brightens from black to gray, Hope thinks of Book, trying to reconcile these very different pictures she has of him. The one who kissed her so passionately. The one who stalks her at night. The one who’s leaving Cat behind. They’re like pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit.

And what’s the real reason he abandoned his friend? Could it have anything to do with jealousy?

They speed down a hill and come to a skidding stop. Below them is a raging river—all these days of rain have swollen it past its banks. Dead trees are swept downstream in a muddy froth of spewing rapids. There is no way to get across.

At that same moment, the soldiers crest the hill behind them, half a mile back. They kneel and fire. Bullets whisper overhead. Some pockmark the earth like hailstones. The Sisters and Less Thans crouch on the riverbank.

“Well?” Dozer demands. “What now?”

Hope looks into the river. It’s pure white water, pounding the rocks and cutting away at the banks. She pities anyone who falls into it.

As they’re about to do.

“As soon as you hit the water, pull your knees up to your chin,” she instructs. “Don’t try to swim—just float. Face forward and use your feet as springs.”

Eyebrows arch in surprise.

“Wait a minute,” Flush says. “We’re not going to jump in there, are we?”

She doesn’t bother to reply. Sometimes it’s better just to demonstrate a thing than explain it.

She leaps to the very middle of the stream and the current sucks her under, tumbling her head over heels until she is completely upside down, disoriented. Her arms take her to the bottom of the river, where her fingers scrape a thick layer of silt and mud. The murky current throws her against a boulder, and what little air she has in her lungs is pushed out. Stars blink.

It’s the flooded tunnel all over again.

Sunlight sparkles on the water and Hope reaches for it, following a trail of silver bubbles and straining for the sky itself. She breaks the surface and gasps for air. She’s gotten only a small breath before the river pulls her back under, dumping huge mouthfuls of water down her throat. She rises back up, hacking and sputtering and retching until her lungs are on fire.

But she’s on the surface.

She brings her knees to her chest, and her feet bounce off one boulder after another like a marble in a maze. The Sisters and Less Thans are still on the riverbank, paralyzed with fear. A bullet catches a Sister in the back, and she crumples to the earth.

Book and Argos jump into the raging river, then all the others. In no time, thirteen bobbing heads poke above the surface.

The water is icy cold, and Hope’s feet and fingers grow numb. She flails her arms to get some circulation going. When the river widens and slows, she paddles, both to warm herself and to put even more distance between her and the Brown Shirts. Then the river narrows, sluicing through tight gorges in a rush of whitewater. It’s just Hope and the water and the towering canyons.

She bobs along like a cork for hours, the river taking her farther and farther south. Finally, it widens for good. Green grasslands lie on either side, and a sandbar juts in front of her. Her feet find the pebbly riverbed and she stands up. Her legs are stiff from cold, and it’s all she can do to lurch toward shore.

The first to join her is Book. They barely look each other in the eye.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

She nods. “Just cold. You?”

“Same.”

An awkward silence follows. “Look, about what happened,” he starts to say, but soon the others appear.

They drag themselves out of the river on frozen limbs, trembling from cold, their lips icy blue. Argos gives his fur a shake. The Sisters’ dresses cling to their bodies like a second layer of skin.

“Why’d you do it?” Dozer demands, emerging from the water like some Creature from the Black Lagoon. “Why’d you kill our friend?”

“He was my friend, too,” Book replies.

“So why’d you kill him?”

“I was trying to save him. He would’ve died otherwise.”

Dozer weighs a good fifty pounds more than Book, and when he grabs Book’s shirt with his two meaty fists, there’s no way Book can squirm free. “Cat could’ve lived. All we had to do was bring him with us.”

“I’m telling you, he wouldn’t’ve made it if we’d carried him.”

“And I’m telling you, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Now he’s gonna die for sure.”

Book opens his mouth to speak, then thinks better of it.

“So now what, Limp?”

“Same as before,” Book says. “Return to Camp Liberty and free those Less Thans.”

“You really think we can get past Hunters and Brown Shirts with slingshots and arrows? After what just happened?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

Dozer spits and shakes his head from side to side.

It occurs to Hope they should be relieved. They survived an ambush from the Brown Shirts. But a single glance makes it clear they’re stuck in the middle of a barren wilderness—far to the south from where they want to be. And they don’t have Cat.

“Let’s get a fire going and dry off,” Hope says. “We can talk about this later.”

Dozer’s gaze flicks between Hope and Book, as though he can’t decide if they’re crazy or just plain idiots. Then he turns and calls out to the others, “Let’s get a fire going and dry off!” Like it was his idea all along. He begins digging a pit in the sand.

“Not on shore,” Hope points out. “Somewhere hidden behind a hill, so the Brown Shirts can’t spot us.”

Dozer stares her up and down. “Whatever you say, Last Hope.”

As he walks away, he mutters to Red, “First this crazy Camp Liberty plan, then abandoning Cat, then jumpin’ in that river. I’m tellin’ ya, these two are dangerous.”

The more Hope surveys her surroundings, the more she realizes how dire their situation is. There’s not a single tree in sight. It’s bald savannah for as far as they can see. Thin grass bending under a blazing sun. No trees. No shade. Just undulating grasslands beneath sky, sky, and more sky.

As Flush puts it, “This place is as bare as my butt.”

Because of the endless acres of dry grass, tinder is no problem, and they’re able to get a flame going fairly easily, propped up with driftwood. Hope is surprised to see a separate fire fifty yards away: Dozer and three others. Perhaps it makes sense. Twelve is too many to crowd around a single flame.

That’s their new number now: twelve. In addition to losing Cat, two Sisters died as well. Rosa was shot down by Brown Shirts, and Taran drowned. So even though six Less Thans and six Sisters have made it, there is a somber atmosphere throughout camp. Survivor’s guilt. Hope knows it well.

They huddle around the meager fire, drying out wet and ragged clothes. No one speaks, their eyes lost in the waving flames. Hope feels responsible for the two Sisters’ deaths. She didn’t protect them.

It’s not the first time she’s felt this way.