The Rains

ENTRY 39

I had no time to think.

Lifting Alex off her feet, I dumped her in the back of the pickup, then hoisted myself up and slid in next to her.

We lay curled into each other so our foreheads touched.

Her whisper was so quiet I could barely hear her. “What if they saw us already?”

“It’s still mostly dark.”

Dozens of feet rasped across pavement toward us.

“But what if they did?” she said.

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Closer. Closer. Then I sensed shadows flicker past us on either side. The group of Hosts had split around the truck. If any one of them paused or looked to the side, they would see us there, holding our breath and hiding in the bed of the truck.

But they didn’t.

Being single-minded had its advantages.

But also its disadvantages.

Alex dipped her face into the hollow of my neck, and I held her, breathing the smell of her hair. The wave of Hosts kept coming and coming, split by the prow of the truck.

Finally the stream thinned, and a brief time later we heard nothing at all.

A spill of light came from the east, making the treetops glow.

“We should go,” Alex said.

“We need to wait, give them time to get a few blocks away,” I said. “We can’t lead them into the school.”

“Okay. Okay.”

I could feel her breath against my throat. Somehow our arms had wound up around each other.

“When I was four,” Alex said, “I got lost at Disney World. There were people everywhere. But I could only see their knees. And then, through the crowd, I saw my mom’s skirt. But I couldn’t get to her. People kept walking between us, and I’d lose her and lose her again. There were people all around, but I was so lost.” Her voice caught. “It was like that at the cannery. When they had us in cages, when they strapped me to that assembly line, I was surrounded by kids but completely alone. I might as well have been the only person left in the world.” She lifted her face to mine. “And then there was you.”

Her lips, so close. I thought about what might have been between us in some alternate universe where I was the older brother instead of Patrick.

I tore my gaze from her green, green eyes and looked at the lightening sky. “We should go before it gets too bright,” I said, and she nodded her agreement.

Cautiously, I eased to the sidewalk, checking the street, and then helped her out. Leaning on each other, we rushed toward the school. We reached the gate at the northeast corner, and I spun the combination lock, opening it. Then we ran for the building.

It wasn’t until we’d reached the shadows that I allowed myself a full exhale, seating the Stetson more firmly on my head. We kept close to the building until we got to the door by the picnic area. I gave a tap.

The lookouts, two of Ben Braaten’s crew, let us in.

“Man, you guys look like hell,” Mikey Durango said.

We ignored him, hustling through the halls, eager to see Patrick. Alex stopped leaning on me. As we neared the double doors, she straightened up until she was limping on her own two feet. She took my hand. Gave it a squeeze.

Then let go.

We burst through the doors.

Everyone looked sluggish, just stirring in the light of the new day. Dr. Chatterjee stood by the dry-erase board, writing down the latest unidentified particulate readings. The numbers hadn’t gone down, not at all.

JoJo and Rocky jumped up and waved at us. JoJo ran over and clung to Alex’s side. JoJo’s eyes moistened as she hugged Alex, her guilt melting away. Eve peered over the rows of cots at us, her arms crossed, wearing a half smile of relief. Atop the bleachers Ben stood lookout, the early rays catching in the scars on his face. He turned at our entrance, his features falling back into shadow, conveying a quiet menace.

My eyes swept the gym for Patrick.

Chatterjee looked up and saw us. “Chance! Alex! You did it!” His initial expression of delight was quickly replaced by regret. “You just missed Patrick.”

All the air whooshed out of me, leaving me deflated. I’d never felt so tired in my life.

“What do you mean we missed him?” Alex said.

“The extra oxygen tanks you got, turns out they were empty,” Dr. Chatterjee said. “Only the portable one you refilled at the hospital was good.”

“No,” I said. “I checked them. They were all in the green.”

Rushing over to the stack of H tanks, I looked at the meters. Every needle was pegged in the red. The valves had been loosened ever so slightly. A drumroll of fury started up in my gut.

“He only discovered it this morning,” Chatterjee was saying. “He was down to his last hours. So he took the portable tank to make a run for the last tanks at the hospital.”

“By himself?” Alex limped over to the nearest cot, but before she could get there, her left leg gave out and she collapsed onto the floor. “None of you would go with him?”

In the back Rocky stepped out from behind the other kids. His voice came, high-pitched and young. “I wanted to go. But Patrick wouldn’t let me. He and Dr. Chatterjee said I couldn’t.”

“Nobody but a ten-year-old?” Alex said. “Nobody?”

A shame-filled silence.

“Not in broad daylight,” Ben called down from the bleachers.

“He’ll be killed,” Alex said. “He’ll be killed before I see him.”

“Probably,” Ben said. “But he was gonna die anyways once that tank ran out. So he didn’t have much of a choice, really.”

I glared up at him. “These tanks were tampered with.”

“Come on, Chance,” Ben said. “Who would want to do that?”

“You.”

He looked directly at me. “I didn’t touch those tanks.”

“Then you had your lackeys do it.”

“I will talk to my guys, and if any of them messed with those tanks, they will answer to me.”

“Liar!” Grabbing her hockey stick, Alex tried to get up to charge Ben, but her leg wouldn’t hold her weight anymore. She fell over, the stick clattering away.

“If I was you,” Ben said, his eyes never leaving mine, “I’d go help your brother. And fast.” He turned his face to the window again. “Doesn’t look like he’s doing so hot out there alone.”

My rage boiled over. Firming my grip on the baling hooks, I started for the bleachers.

Eve stepped in front of me, her hands planted on my chest. “Patrick needs you.”

Every fiber in my body was pulling me up those bleachers to add to Ben’s scars. But she was right.

I turned and ran out, hammering through the double doors, darting past the lookouts, grabbing a key from the windowsill. Charging through the front door, I jumped over the steps, unlocked the padlock, and slipped through the gate. There were no Hosts nearby, but even if there had been, they wouldn’t have stopped me.

The sky brightened as I sprinted through the teachers’ parking lot, hurdling the hedges. Heading toward the hospital, I scanned the front yards for movement. Though a few weeks ago running down a street in broad daylight would have been normal, it felt bizarre now. Exhaustion and stress dragged on me. My chest was heaving, but I kept on.

I was driven by love, sure. But also by guilt.

I hurdled a flower bed, ran across the Everstons’ porch, and leapt over a tricycle on its side. Above the rooftops I could see the rise of the hospital. I shot through a side yard, darting beneath a carport, knifing my body so I wouldn’t slam into a silver Airstream trailer parked in the front driveway.

Squeezing between the trailer and a row of trash bins, I popped out into the front yard.

I heard movement behind me.

When I glanced over my shoulder, three Chasers flew out of the shadows beneath the carport. I must’ve sprinted past them without even noticing.

They’d caught me off guard. As I twisted around, raising the baling hooks, my feet tangled, spilling me onto the ground.

They barreled at me, muscles straining through their skin. There was no time to get up and fight. I crossed the hooks protectively over my head. It was the only thing I could do.

All of a sudden, footsteps hammered overhead.

I squinted up to see a figure flying across the roof of the house, backlit by the rising sun.

Between the portable tank rigged onto his back like a scuba tank, the shotgun angled across his chest, and the heavy-duty mask erasing his features, he looked like a superhero.

The shadow took flight off the roof, passing directly over the heads of the Chasers, swinging the shotgun around so it aimed straight down between his legs.

Thunder.

The scattered buckshot blew the Chasers to pieces on the driveway before me.

The form continued overhead, landing on the Airstream with a thump, cratering the metal.

I was on my back, my arm raised against the morning glare.

“Chance.” My brother’s voice was distorted through the mask. “Get up here now.” Leaning over, he stuck his hand out for me.

Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed it, and he hauled me up.

“Back onto the roof of the house,” he said. “Before others come.”

I ran down the length of the Airstream, dodging the open sunroof, gaining momentum to leap across the gap to the top of the carport. I made it easily. I turned to watch my brother.

The weight of the tank pulling down on him, Patrick sprinted across the Airstream after me. Just as he was about to leap, a clawlike hand shot through the sunroof, grabbing for his ankle, tripping him.

He stumbled, kept his feet, his force carrying him to the end of the Airstream. Somehow he managed to jump across the gap, but he landed hard, rolling over his shoulder.

One of the straps snapped, the tank spinning away from him. The mask pulled free of his mouth, yanked down below his chin, exhaling a hiss of oxygen. The tubing popped free. The tank rolled and rolled toward the edge of the carport roof.

Then it went over.

A second later I heard a clang as it hit the driveway below.

Patrick was holding his breath, his cheeks already turning red, veins standing out in his throat. The collision had knocked the air out of him. I was a few feet away, standing over him, paralyzed.

It was all happening so fast.

I saw his lips part.

Then he pulled in a breath.