The Rule of One (The Rule of One #1)(26)

I tilt my gaze at the collapsed vending machine that lies beside the table and stare at the pixie blonde glaring back at me through the glass. With the collar of my fresh linen shirt, I wipe the dark stains from my face, grab the eyeliner from my vest pocket, and reapply the black wax along my lids in thick, chunky lines. This simple action is transformative, accentuating the color of my new contacts. Gunmetal blue.

I shift my gaze back to the hollow, seemingly endless ceiling and try to listen for the bird I heard singing earlier. I hear only the faint click of a lighter opening, the muted pops of rising flames, and the quiet work of Ava tossing all evidence of our makeover into her hobo fire.

The public doesn’t know Roth is hunting twins. They will be on the lookout for only one Ava Goodwin, but how much intelligence did the governor disclose to the Guard or his agents? What is his strategy behind keeping my existence a secret? He knows the announcement would set off a bomb, and the shock wave would be felt all across the country. He knows he could stand behind a million screens and point to me as the terrorist who triggered the detonator. So why not set the mob on us and just end the game?

He has Father. And we’re just two city girls stumbling across no-man’s-land with high odds that at least one of us will starve or get killed before his soldiers even find us.

He thinks he’s already won.

I hear a creak of wood, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Ava drop her rucksack to the floor. She slides onto the table and lowers herself down to lie in the circle of light beside me, bringing with her the strong smell of antidrone spray. Mesquite, to mask our scent in the desert. I wait for her to tell me everything is packed and we need to leave, but she remains still, staring up at the ceiling.

“How do you think they’re treating him in prison?” I say, breaking the silence.

She takes her time to answer. “Father was—is—beloved in the city,” she concludes. “He’ll find his allies.”

I don’t know if I believe that. Or if Ava even does.

“Those ideas in the poem . . . They’re words of treason.” I whisper the last word, absurdly afraid the admission might somehow summon a drone or soldiers.

Ava doesn’t respond, just lies stiffly beside me. I know she’s repeating the words of Whitman in her head, speculating what they might mean.

Obedience. Enslaved. Resist.

“Father hid a lot from us,” I say, interrupting her private thoughts.

She turns her eyes toward me, but I keep my own on the ceiling. “He would want us to focus on what’s ahead,” she says.

I release a long sigh through my nose and pull myself up to sit. Hugging my knees, I visualize the details of the map. The path, the houses, all so carefully planned. He knew this would happen.

With another sigh, I finally turn to face my sister. I jolt backward, genuinely startled by the stranger staring up at me. A blunt part splits her raven-colored hair that stops short just above her collarbone. Her bangs slicked to the side, she’s unrecognizable beneath the paint of exaggerated thick brows and dark-red lips. She notices me scrutinizing her new disguise, but she holds her stare and I hold mine, and the more I look, the more I see Ava behind those russet-brown contacts.

She places her palms on the warm metal table and lifts herself to sit level with me. Her fingers lightly touch my shoulder. “Mira, we’re both out of that basement.”

I let her words sink in. They’re so surreal, my head spins. But as their meaning makes its way down past my heart, landing deep in my gut, all I feel is the weight of guilt.

Our freedom for Father’s imprisonment.

“My ankle is better,” I lie, reaching for my rucksack. Ava’s hand slips from my shoulder, and I slide off the table, the dust flying wildly around me. “We should get to the safe house before nightfall.”

We walk side by side, two apparitions in a ghost town.

Beneath our umbrellas we pull our hoods low, but the sun always finds its way in, and Ava’s nose and cheekbones are already turning pink.

I squint down at the wristwatch I found in Father’s box. 7:04 p.m.

I need to forget the sting of my right foot. I need to forget the ache of no sleep. We need to move faster.

“If we lose the light, it will take us twice as long to find the house in the dark,” Ava says, reading my mind.

She stops, and like a magnet I draw back, keeping close. She unfolds the map hidden in the waist of her pants, and even though I know she memorized the address before we left the factory, her lips read over the street name and number for the sixth time. “3505 Esmond Avenue.”

I squat beside a fallen street sign buried in the ground. Ava grabs the other end of the aluminum sheet, and together we yank it from its grave. We brush aside the grass and dirt until we make out the letters E and D. Encouraged, I wipe the middle letters clean with the sleeve of my shirt.

“Emerald Street,” I read aloud. I throw the sign back into the dirt, and we both stand, hiding our worry from one another.

Ava pulls out the map again and studies the key, expecting to discover some missing clue that will pinpoint exactly where Arlo Chapman is waiting for us. It’s frustrating not being able to zoom in for a closer view of the city or to locate our exact position via satellite, especially having to rely on a paper map as our only navigation tool. But it can’t be traced, and it’s Father’s guide, leading us to somewhere he thinks is safe. And it’s the only thing we have.