Chapter 30

Mist’s flashtube wasn’t turned to full power, even though the woods they were walking through were dark. It seemed like they’d been walking forever, but Rain wasn’t tired. She just wanted to keep putting distance between themselves and the red dots. Every once in a while, Mist would give them an update. They were gaining ground because they’d followed Adam’s advice and headed northeast, instead of due north, but throughout the afternoon into the evening, the red dots continued to spread out, some of them traveling so far north that they were off of the device because they’d gotten too far ahead of their location.
“Do we have any way at all of hearing from the other women who escaped?” Walt asked her.
Mist shook her head. “No, we don’t. Some of the others had transmitters that would allow them to communicate with one another, but I didn’t bring one. I was afraid it might also allow the Mothers to see our location.”
“What time is it?” Rain asked. She wondered if they’d been walking for as long as it felt like they had been or if time was standing still.”
Glancing at the device, Mist said, “It’s 9:43.”
“So we’ve been walking for almost eight hours?” Adam asked.
“Something like that,” Mist said with a nod. “I don’t know exactly what time the signal went off.”
“It was around two.” Adam sounded sure of himself. “We were in the gym, about ready to go to our next rotation when the sirens started to blare.”
None of them had said much of anything that wasn’t completely necessary while they were walking, but now that there were no red lights anywhere near them, Rain felt slightly more inclined to talk. As far as she knew, the only threats out here were wild animals. This was some sort of no-man’s land, a buffer between the countries of Michaelanburg and Oklasaw that neither one of them could afford to claim and reincorporate into their own country. As far as Rain knew, most of the people who lived in Oklasaw were uneducated women, some of the descendants of those who hadn’t wanted to come south when Michaela led the women to better weather and more resources in what used to be Texas after the Claiming. There were little pockets like this all over what used to be the United States, but Oklasaw was the closest to Michaelanburg.
Now that they could slow down slightly, Rain thought about the million questions she’d wanted to ask Adam earlier, ones that had popped into her head as they fled but she hadn’t said aloud. Ahead of her, Walt and Mist were having their own conversation, so apparently Mist now thought it was safe to talk. “Did all of your men make it out okay?” she asked Adam.
He looked a little surprised, as if he didn’t realize she was speaking to him at first. “Uh… no. There were a few who didn’t want to go at all. Some got shot as they ran out of the building. That’s what happened to Walt. He was running so fast, he ran right out of his shoes,” Adam chuckling uncomfortably.
Overhearing him, Walt turned slightly. “Damn right I did.”
“What happened to your shirt?” Rain asked smiling at the way they could joke about it now.
“I took it off to hand to a guy who’d gotten shot in the face.” The laughter was gone. “He was trying to stop the bleeding. That’s how I got shot. Helping him. After that, I couldn’t help him anymore, and I needed to run. Adam caught up to me by then. A few of the women who were involved in the rebellion took out the Mother who shot me.”
“That gave us enough room to run,” Adam said, picking up where Walt had left off.
“By the time we got to the woods, we could hear them on our heels. We knew we didn’t have too much further to go, but I was bleeding and out of breath,” Walt continued.
“So we ran for the bushes, but that didn’t work very well.” Adam ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “If you guys hadn’t come along….”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Mist said, turning around and walking backward a few steps so she could look from Adam to Walt and back again, not looking at Rain at all. “We were looking for you.”
“You were?” Walt seemed surprised. Adam didn’t look quite as shocked as his friend did.
Turning around so she didn’t trip, Mist said, “Yeah, of course. I knew Adam would be last because he was the leader, and no good leader would leave a man behind if he could help it. And I hadn't seen you yet, so, I figured you had to be with him.”
“How did you even know what he looked like, though?” Rain asked. “Had you ever seen him without his shadow sock on?”
“No,” Mist said with a shrug, like what she was saying made perfect sense. “But I knew who Walt was the moment I saw him.”
Walt was looking at her the way that man on the book cover had been looking at the woman, except he was also smiling. Mist turned and grinned at him, and despite the fact that they were both carrying guns and Mist had a tracking device to keep hold of, they took each other’s hands.
Rain raised an eyebrow and then looked at Adam, who was laughing softly. When he realized she was looking at him, he turned a little red. His hand went to his hair again.
She looked away, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. Of course, she didn’t expect him to reach over and take her hand. That would be silly. It was obvious Mist and Walt had some sort of bond, that when they’d been together in IW, it had meant something to both of them. She didn't have that with Adam. He might’ve been her favorite, but it wasn’t as if they’d made some sort of spiritual connection or had growing feelings just because she mounted him more often than anyone else.
Still, he was here now, and she did think he was fascinating in many ways. She wanted to talk to him, wanted to get to know him better. It wasn’t every day she had a chance to talk to a man. “What did you think when you saw the sky for the first time?” she asked him, keeping her voice down and side-stepping slightly so that she was closer to him, just so she could hear him better. Not because he smelled so good or because his hand might accidentally brush hers this way.
“Honestly, it was so bright outside, I was a little surprised. I didn’t take too long to look up because, well, we were getting shot at, after all, but when I had a moment to look at it later, after we came out of the tunnel, man, it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in real life.”
“One of the most beautiful things?” she asked, not sure what he meant. “What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”
It was dark, and Mist’s light was ahead of them now, so it was hard to see, but she thought his face turned red again. “Oh, you know,” he shrugged. “This and that. Anyway, the forest is really pretty, too. It’s too bad we can’t slow down and appreciate it.”
“I guess we’ll have to slow down eventually. We can’t just walk forever.” Her feet were definitely beginning to hurt, despite the cushioning devices she had in her military boots that were designed to keep soldiers from having foot fatigue. She hadn’t ever walked this much in her entire life.
“I am guessing Mist has a plan for that. She seems to have a plan for everything.” His voice was soft so that Mist wouldn’t hear him talking about her, not that anything he said wasn’t spoken out of appreciation. He smiled when he said it.
“Yeah. I had no idea she was such a… beast,” Rain said, smiling. “I know she’s passionate about plants and things like that, but I never would’ve imagined she was capable of everything I’ve seen her do today.” Her voice was a whisper, but again, there was no animosity. She was in awe of her best friend and what she’d accomplished. If it hadn’t been for Mist’s quick thinking, Adam and Walt would definitely be dead, and she would probably be sitting in the woods somewhere, rocking back and forth, waiting for the Mothers to end her. It was still surreal to think that her friend had actually killed at least three people, but she’d done what she had to do in the moment, and they all had Mist to thank for the fact that they’d made it this far.
“I think I got lucky to bump into the guy she was trying so hard to rescue,” he said, a crooked smile on his handsome face. “I have a feeling she was looking for him, not me.”
Rain shook her head. “No, she was looking for you, too.”
“Why would she be?” he asked with a shrug. “Just because I was organizing this group from the inside? Unless she had orders to get me out of there.”
“While I’ll admit I have no idea what Mist’s orders are, even if no one else had told her to get you out, she would have. She helped organize the hand-off of the password between you and I, you know?”
“Because she was your roommate, and that was the only way I could get information from my inside contact to you. Once you stopped coming to see me.”
“Stopped coming to see you?” Rain turned to look at him. His blue eyes looked stormy. She’d had no idea it had offended him that she’d stopped choosing him. It wasn’t as if they were friends—or more, like Walt and Mist. “You make it sound like we were supposed to have lunch together and I cancelled.”
Adam shrugged. “I guess… I looked forward to seeing you, Rain. I told you--you’re one of the nice ones. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Mist didn’t know me from… well, Adam--isn’t that the saying? Until she saw me with Walt.”
“She knew you,” Rain assured him. “She’s my best friend, Adam. I told her about our conversation. She knew that it was important to me for you to get out.”
He was quiet for a long moment before he asked, “Why is that?”
Her head whipped around. “What do you mean? You’re surprised that I wanted you to get to see the sky? To get to taste water out of something other than a shower head? That I’d want you to be free?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess… you didn’t really seem too excited to see me the last time you were there. Or many of the times before that, so I guess I just assumed you were indifferent.”
His words stung deeper than she wanted to acknowledge, but that wasn’t his fault. Everything he was saying made perfect sense from his perspective, anyway. It was impossible for her to put into words what she felt when she thought of Adam. He was someone she’d been with intimately in the most un-intimate way imaginable. More than that, though, they’d shared the sort of conversation she’d only had with a handful of other people in her life. And it wasn’t just because she was trapped in a small room with him for several minutes. It was because he was interesting. He was intelligent, kind, the sort of person she wanted to be around. He was definitely more than a number, more than a Dick.
“I was really excited to see you this time,” Rain said, finally turning to face him, hoping he believed her.
“Not as excited as I was to see you,” he said, that crooked smile back as the storm in his eyes dissipated.
Rain laughed, the temptation to reach over and take his hand, the way Mist had Walt’s, so pervasive, it made her palm itch. But she didn’t do it. Hopefully, there’d be time for that later, once they left Michaelanburg far behind them.