The Rule of One (The Rule of One #1)(67)

Military spotlights.

Our intention—my intention—of crossing the border must be clear to Roth and his men; why else would we travel all the way up to Montana? These woods might be packed with dozens of drones and Scent Hunters scouring the area overhead, a hundred watchful eyes on me right now.

I stand motionless and listen for noises: a footfall, buzzing, barking, an alarm, a shout—anything. After a few silent moments, I realize my eyes were deceiving me. It was a ruse of the sunlight. I dig my nails into my palm—they’ve grown long and sharp—and press on, determined.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

My progress is slow as I pick my way cautiously through the tightly packed vegetation. Half an hour later, I’m staring at two huge white signs nailed into two trees.

RESTRICTED AREA. DO NOT PROCEED.

DANGER OF DEATH AHEAD

Using a thickset cottonwood trunk as my shield, I scan the forest around me in vain. All weaponry will be expertly hidden. I’ll be dead before I even know I’ve tripped an invisible wire, detonating my own demise. I’ve heard of videos online showing groups of people mowed down as they attempted to cross the border into Quebec. I’ll never make it past the ground sensors and automated guns.

Propaganda, Rayla assured us in the car.

I leave the protection of the tough outer sheath of the trunk and grab a jagged fist-sized rock from the ground. I lob my decoy ten feet in front of the tree like a hand grenade and brace myself, waiting for gunfire or an explosion in response.

No gunfire. No explosion. Stillness.

Maybe Rayla was right. The signs, the videos, all the horrifying rumors were just propaganda peddled by both sides to dissuade the masses from storming the border.

I gather a pile of rocks together and place them into a sling tied around my neck, fashioned from my jacket. Facing north, I seize a rock and toss it twenty feet in front of me. Stillness once more. I take a few steps forward. I reach for another rock and repeat the process.

Better safe than blown to pieces.

I’ve been walking over an hour with nothing to show for it. Discouraged, hungry, and dehydrated, I raise my water bottle to my lips. My sore shoulders sag in defeat, but I quickly straighten up to my full height.

I’ve hiked at least four miles north into the wilderness. I’m not lost. I can’t be. According to my map, the coordinates should be no more than five miles from the start of the tree line. I’ll have to run into the border eventually.

A relentless obstacle of trees stands in my way, a secondary defense before the corrugated steel wall. Along with whatever else the Canadian Border Services Agency has protecting the International Boundary Wall. Antivehicle trenches. Double or even triple fencing with a no-man’s-land monitored by bright lights, armored trucks, and cameras. Autotarget sentry guns that use motion sensors. Gray wolves.

Rumor has it that the uninhabited sections of the border are patrolled by vicious wolves who attack anyone who manages to slip past the defenses. They’re leashed to a system of implanted chips and shock sensors that stop the wild animals from wandering off their line of duty.

America wiped out most of its own endangered animals decades ago—grizzly bears, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, bison, elk, red foxes. The list is extensive, so I have no fear of meeting anything wild on this side of the border.

Humankind is everything’s and everyone’s most dangerous predator. Blindly killing its own planet, slowly wounding it over the centuries. Forcing my generation to mop up the blood.

I stash my empty water bottle in my bag and push forward.

Endless green and brown, green and brown. Everywhere I turn, no matter how far I walk. Over six miles by now. I sigh, frustrated and exhausted.

You’re going to get caught before you ever find this damn wall.

I wipe the sweat dripping into my eyes with my shirt and reach out to remove a drooping branch with flat, pointed leaves from my path.

I suddenly stop short. Metallic gray.

A twenty-five-foot galvanized-steel wall, angled at the top to prevent climbing, stands guard in the middle of an open forty-foot swath cut into the forest.

I step slowly out from the cover of the trees, my heart pounding in awe. I face east, then west. The limitless wall stretches on to infinity.

But there’s no hint of a trapdoor. No hole to slip through to the other side.

I look up, craning my neck back so the hood of my jacket slips from the crown of my head. No rope to help scale the rigid steel plates. I study the foundation of the solid structure below. No tunnel dug into the likely concrete-filled ground.

There’s no way through in sight.

For thousands of years, societies have built walls to keep their adversaries out or their populations in. But history tells us they all eventually fall. Stone, brick, wood, concrete, barbed wire, and tamped earth cannot keep a sharp mind and a desperate determination at bay forever.

My fingertips lightly touch the rough edge of a hole in the wall before me, just big enough for a body to crawl through.

When I first found it, I anticipated a siren, gunfire, or a rebellion member shouting my name—but it’s just me, the silent trees, and this colossal barrier that I was trained to think was impassable.

I’ve sat facing the opening for a full hour now, staring into the hollow space, an arm’s length away from freedom. It’s right there, waiting for me.

But my body won’t move.

Thoughts of Mira—she’s suddenly in the center of my heart again—weigh my entire being to the ground like a stone. For the first time since our separation, I look behind me, scanning the tree line, thinking every dark shape is her.