Rise by Anna Carey Page A

the crowd was dispersing into the Outlands. The sky above was a smothering gray, which rolled and cracked with thunder.
    â€œI have to go,” I said. “They’re after me.” I swiped at my cheeks, for the first time noticing that I was crying. I squeezed her hand, feeling the warmth of it in my own, and then turned away, back down the main strip, moving south along the road.
    I lost myself in the shifting current of the crowd. I caught glimpses of the fountains outside the Bellagio, of two older women in front of me who were holding hands, of the man who pressed his cap to his chest, against his heart.
    I was just beyond the Cosmopolitan tower when Clara found me, her breaths slowing as her steps synched up with mine. “I’m coming with you,” she said.
    I glanced over her shoulder, but there were no soldiers in view. The sky rocked with thunder, and the clouds let loose their first heavy drops. Ahead of us, people held their jackets above their heads to shield themselves from the coming rain. I pulled my hair down around my face, trying to hide from a soldier standing to the east, just beyond the metal barricades. “Now that the siege is over, you won’t be hurt. You don’t have to come; you—”
    â€œI won’t live here,” she said. “Not like this.” She glanced back at the Palace, where the wooden platform was still visible. Two more bodies were being cut down from the ropes.
    â€œYou can’t,” I said. “They know about what I did. If you’re found with me, you’ll be killed, too.” I hurried my pace, turning right, crossing the main road, where the crowd thinned out. The tunnel couldn’t be more than two miles off. I could leave the City within an hour, even if I wound through the Outlands, avoiding the stretches of open road.
    â€œWhat’s the option?” Clara asked. She kept along, not taking her eyes away from me. “Stay here? Wait until there’s another attack? Wait until they tell me they’ve found you? You can’t go alone, Eve.” The last part of her sentence somehow held a question, as if she were asking me: Why would I let you do that? I pressed my face into her neck, clinging to her for just a moment before breaking away.
    â€œThe tunnel is in the south,” I whispered, leading her down a narrow alleyway, where old shops were boarded up, graffiti scrawled across their sides. A FREE CITY NOW was written in red paint. Without Moss, it was impossible to know if the tunnel would be clear or if the remaining rebels would be using it for escape. But what choice did we have?
    I brought my hand to my face, trying to breathe through my mouth, anything to dull the smells that came off the road. A body lay among the burned ash and ruin, its back toward us, a thin plastic jacket fused to the skeleton.
    We kept moving, the sound of a Jeep’s engine splitting the air, the tires kicking up dust and sand as it flew past the road behind us. The rain came down. Some of the residents in the Outlands ducked in doorways or under the shallow overhangs of buildings. A group scattered into a parking lot, sitting in the hollow shells of cars, waiting for the storm to pass.
    I held the bag tight to my side, keeping my head down. It was only when I turned, watching another Jeep disappear into the Outlands, that I noticed the hospital, no more than a hundred yards off.
    â€œWhat is it?” Clara asked. She kept up her pace, leaving me there at the edge of the road. She shielded her eyes from the rain.
    I couldn’t look away. Now that the siege had ended, the girls would be taken out of the City, back to the Schools. It could be years before they were liberated, if ever. How many of them would be taken to those buildings? This was their only chance to get out of the City. I wouldn’t be able to take more than a few, if I could get in at all, but I couldn’t leave them without doing something