The Rule of One (The Rule of One #1)(53)

In an isolated town outside Casper, Wyoming, I exit the bus behind Mira and step into a sleepy downtown composed of a handful of outdated stone buildings lined in a neat, lonely row.

A few structures are scattered against the slope of a small mountain range, the only indication of the mining that once made this town prosper. The old mineshaft was sealed over long ago, and shiny plaques declare the site a national historic landmark.

Rayla led us to a ghost town populated by phantoms. And to someone with sympathies for the rebellion. Why else would we be here?

The empty bus pulls silently away, and Rayla signals for us to reopen our umbrellas.

“Keep close,” she says, surprising me by turning away from the town.

She heads east toward a vast shortgrass prairie, shepherding us into what must be the edge of the Great Plains. Using her jacket to pad the sharpened steel of a barbed wire fence, Rayla beckons for Mira and me to follow.

“Father was found guilty,” Mira says openly now that we’re once more in remote land. “Why are we out in the middle of nowhere walking around when we should be trying to save him?”

She pushes back her bangs and takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself. I walk beside her, Rayla just ahead, forcing a quick pace.

“Are you even trying to help him?” Mira asks.

“It’s important not to distract yourselves with things you cannot control,” Rayla says without slowing down. “You both must focus on the task at hand.”

“And what is the task at hand?” Mira snarls.

“Making it across this prairie,” Rayla answers.

Mira bites her tongue. I feel like I should act as a moderator between the two, but I don’t know how, so I remain silent, following our grandmother. I have to trust that she’s leading us somewhere Father would want us to go.

Each step produces a loud crunch beneath my feet. I take in the sweeping grassland surrounding me, all yellow and withered, finding it hard to believe this land used to be a part of America’s bountiful Great Plains, once boasting over thirty million acres of life-sustaining farmland.

The moment the first person planted a seed in the earth thousands of years ago—ending the hunter-gatherer way of life—the world changed forever. No one nation is to blame for the climate crisis. This outcome was inevitable.

The former Secretary of State Emma Alvarez used that poignant statement to defend the United States against the East’s vehement and widely supported accusation that America was responsible for the starvation of our planet.

I glance at Mira, fists balled up tight, walking beside me.

“Are we going to another safe house?” I ask, loud enough for Rayla to hear in front of me, aiming to initiate conversation on neutral ground.

“We are,” Rayla answers, unhelpfully short and to the point.

“You said you retired from the Common,” Mira says.

“I did.” Her brisk stride is unrelenting despite having walked for hours.

“Did you abandon the movement when our mother died?” Mira probes further.

Rayla tilts her head to the sky and looks directly at the bright sun as if to gauge the time. She continues moving, ignoring Mira’s question.

Mira suddenly stops marching. I whip my head around as she closes her umbrella and leans on the hilt for support. Is she staging a protest?

“Keep walking, Mira,” Rayla says, not glancing back, accustomed to being obeyed.

I pause four steps ahead of my sister, hovering between the two. The look on Mira’s face tells me she’s searching deeply for something inside herself and that she won’t back down until she roots it out.

“Father would never confirm what happens to people like us . . . to multiples,” she says, raising her voice to make certain she’s heard. “Or what would have happened to our mother if she were caught.”

Rayla’s body goes rigid and she stops.

“Will you tell me?” Mira asks, looking past me straight at Rayla.

In the half second it takes for our grandmother to turn and face Mira’s question, I brace myself for whatever truths she may reveal.

“Less than one percent. There’s a less than one percent chance a woman’s only pregnancy will result in multiples,” Rayla says, lowering the full-sized umbrella that doubles as her walking stick. “Twins. The Achilles heel of the Rule of One.”

Mira presses forward, drawn in by Rayla’s hushed words.

“If a woman is in that unlucky percentile, she will be quickly taken away by the Family Planning Division, by men and women like your father,” Rayla continues. “After she has given birth, she is denied the right to see both her newborns. The doctors swiftly and brutally tell the mother to choose.”

I close the distance between my sister and me, wanting, needing, to be next to her as we finally learn the harrowing fate we were both spared.

“The mother always chooses her firstborn. They encourage this,” Rayla says, a dark shadow crossing her face.

“And the second-born?” Mira demands. She locks eyes with Rayla, unflinching.

My stomach lurches and my palms break into a sweat. I turn away, focusing on the faint mountains in the distance, afraid to know the answer.

“The official lie of the Family Planning Division is that the illegal multiple goes up for adoption to infertile couples willing to spend the money . . . and not ask questions,” Rayla recites the rumor Father would never authenticate. “A bullshit fantasy most Americans choose to believe because they were told to.”