Three (Article 5 #3)(101)

He fell face down in the ring of his own creation, and didn’t move again.

Jesse closed his eyes, a look of peace on his face. I didn’t watch him fall, but I heard the shots. A dozen, at least, before I finally heard him hit the ground.

There was one final beat of stunned silence, and then chaos erupted.

More shots rang out. Some of the girls near me screamed, and a soldier to my left was hit in the crossfire and fell to the ground. I shoved through the bodies, clambering to get closer to the ring and the prisoners. As I neared the gate where the soldiers were crowding, I was sandwiched between two bodies. I shoved through them, my dress ripping.

The chain-link fence slammed against the supporting beams, sending a high reverberating clang through the night.

“Dead!” men were shouting. “The chief is dead!”

It would only be a matter of time before they turned on the prisoners.

Finally I found Chase. He’d risen to a stand but the young soldier I’d seen managing Wallace was now behind him, facing the opposite direction.

“Get off him!” I screamed, and with all my strength, threw him aside.

Billy fell to the ground, a silver ring of keys skimming across the pavement away from us.

I cursed myself and dove after them, but another man snatched them up first. Wallace, his hands already free, snatched them up and raced for the other prisoners. Strong arms spun me, and in the next moment I found myself pushed down as Chase ducked the blow of a baton. The soldier was pushed into us, and Chase kicked him aside, barely staying upright.

“We have to get out!” I shouted. “Now!”

He didn’t ask questions, he only nodded.

“Cease fire!” shouted one of the soldiers as another shot rang out. “We’re too close! Cease fire!”

Soldiers were shooting soldiers in an attempt to kill the prisoners, but with so many bodies rushing the stage, we were packed like sardines.

“Help!” Billy was swallowed beneath a wave of blue. Chase dove in after him, never hesitating to give anyone in a uniform a chance to attack.

“Chase!” I screamed. I shoved toward where they’d disappeared.

A whistle reached my ears, a soaring, high-pitched song like the hiss of the microphone, only more distant, like a kettle of tea finally reaching the boiling point.

And then the world exploded.





CHAPTER


25


MY breath pulled in and out, in and out, like the waves at the ocean.

My vision was blurry, or maybe it was the cloud of dust surrounding me. Bright lights flickered, lighting the world for seconds at a time. It was difficult to make out my surroundings. Behind me was a hard surface, above me, some kind of warped chain fence.

As if someone was turning up the volume, the sound gradually increased until my chest vibrated with a rumbling, like the world was about to cave in on itself. Groans of pain punctuated the air, and above it all, the wail of a siren, low at first, but getting higher, and louder, just like it had during the air raid drills in the War.

In elementary school, the drills had come once a week. At the sound of the siren screeching over the loudspeakers, we were to duck under our desks, wait for the lights to turn off, and then run for the nearest exit. The teachers had made a game out of it.

Rabbit hides under a tree for Fox to hunt his prey.

Rabbit waits for dark, then rabbit runs away.

I thought of that now, as the blood pumped through my veins and my eyes turned skyward in search of an aerial attack. But as I shoved up to a stand, I realized the attack had already come. The memories slowly returned to me. Jesse, killing the Chief of Reformation. Chase, just beyond the entrance to the ring.

I was missing a shoe, and the heel of the other had broken off. A pale layer of dust coated my skin, and I was bleeding from half a dozen scrapes on my knees and right arm.

The stage that had meant the deaths of Marco and Polo, of Jesse and the Chief of Reformation, and who knew how many others, had been flipped on its side, though it looked like it would cave in on me at any moment.

Sharp gravel dug into my feet as I stumbled through the cloud of dust in search of the prisoners. They were not far away, mixed in with soldiers strewn across the ground. Some stood, others toppled over or remained on their knees. Some—most—did not get up at all.

“Chase!” I rasped.

I picked my way through the bodies, finally finding him halfway buried beneath another body—a soldier, lifeless as a doll. In a surge of effort, I pushed him aside and to my relief Chase rose to his elbows and slapped a hand against the side of his head as if his ear was filled with water.

“What…” He looked up and met my gaze.

“We have to get out of here,” I said. I glanced up, only to find a gaping hole in the side of the building. Where the stories of soldiers had climbed skyward, now there was only a pile of rubble. Half the base had been blown away.

“My uncle…”

“We have to go,” I said.

Chase’s face twisted in pain just for an instant before he packed it away with a curt nod.

I helped him to a stand, but he staggered. There beside us, on the ground, was the soldier I’d pushed aside. His blank eyes stared upward, unseeing, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

“Billy?” I fell to all fours. I shook him, but he didn’t move.