Resist

Her spirally red hair, singed at the ends, blazes like fire against the snowy backdrop. You’d never know she was the one survivor we found in the rubble that was once her home.

Quinn takes my wrist and forces me to look at him. “Against the odds, we got out alive and found each other.”

“I just wish . . .” I think of my parents’ motionless bodies, their blood spreading across the stage as the fighting broke out. I was all they ever had and they worked every day of their lives just to pay the air tax, so I could breathe. Thank goodness I have Quinn . . . but I want them, too.

“Do you think Maude made it?” I ask.

“That scrappy lunatic? Of course. Jazz said as much, didn’t she?”

I am about to say that Jazz can’t know for sure that anyone made it when there’s a shrill scream followed by a thud. We spin toward the sound. “Jazz?”

She’s gone.

In a second, Quinn is off. I trail after him, unable to keep up. He halts on the tracks and desperately glances around. “Jazz!” he calls. “She was right here,” he says, as I catch up. We stand and listen.

Silence.

We zigzag back and forth over the track, stopping when we reach a barbed wire fence on one side with old bits of plastic bags caught in it, and a procession of rusting train carriages on the other. Then we inch toward the tunnel, calling Jazz’s name into the dusk. After everything awful that’s happened, I brace myself for the worst.

I pick a red hair from my coat, and it floats to the ground. “Let’s split up. We’ll find her quicker,” I say.

“And lose each other? No way.” He takes my hand and we peer into the tunnel without going inside. The light at the end is a semicircle of gray.

“Do you have a flashlight?” I whisper, so my words won’t rebound.

“I don’t have anything.” He sighs, and I touch his hair with my gloved hand.

“You have me,” I tell him. “And we’re going to find Jazz.” I peer into the tunnel. “But there’s no way she’s in here. She wasn’t that far from us. Let’s go back.”

He puts a finger to his ear. “What was that?” he says. I stay as still as I can, but all I can hear is my own breath and the faint ticking of the airtanks.

Quinn turns and charges along the tracks.

“Careful!” I tell him, following and almost tripping. Quinn stumbles and circles his arms wide at his sides to steady himself. As I get to him, I see what he almost fell into: an opening.

The manhole is protected by a heavy, circular metal plate, which is tilted slightly. Quinn clutches one side of it, while I take the other. On the count of three, we haul the leaden covering away from the hole and it lands with a clang. And there she is, several feet below. “I’ve been calling and calling,” Jazz groans.

“We didn’t hear you. But we’re here now,” I say. I sit and swing my legs over the manhole.

“Are you kidding?” Quinn says, grabbing me.

“It isn’t far to jump,” I say. He snorts. I shrug him off and feel my eyes harden, but I don’t know why; he’s just trying to protect me.

“I’ll go,” he says. He sits, then uses his arms to lower himself slowly into the hole, careful to avoid landing on Jazz. He adjusts her facemask, so she can breathe easier. “I’ll lift her and you pull her.”

Jazz’s bruised face appears through the opening. I sit in the snow, take her under the arms, and lean back, using my full weight to drag her out. She whimpers the whole time.

“Now me!” Quinn calls. I stroke Jazz’s forehead, leave her lying on the frosty ground, and bend over the hole. Quinn raises his arms toward me. I strain against his weight, but he’s so much heavier than Jazz he doesn’t budge when I try to lift him.

My temples throb. “I’m not strong enough,” I mutter, crumpling at the edge of the hole. I hate having to admit this, even to Quinn. “I’m going to find something for you to stand on.” I might be weak, but I’m not stupid.

I rush toward the decomposing train to my right. When I step aboard, the floor buckles under me. I hold on to a rusting fire extinguisher attached to the wall, then creep inside. Most of the seats have been ripped out of place or knifed open, their frothy green innards spilling onto the floor. Only two seats are intact. I shut my eyes, but it’s too late; I’ve already seen the parched bones, one set significantly larger than the other. And on the floor next to them are two skulls: a large one and a small one. And a knife.

They probably took their own lives: one slice to the throat is all it would have taken, and I learned in history class that people resorted to worse during The Switch, when they were gasping for air and starving to boot. But who were they? A parent and child, perhaps? No one will ever know. Two lives wiped from the face of history as though they meant nothing—like so many before and after them.

Quinn calls my name. I need to focus.

I reach for a seat, mildewed and broken, and tow it from the train, my arms burning.

I force the seat down the manhole, and it lands with a whump. Quinn puts it on its side and, wobbling, uses it as a stool. After two attempts he pulls his chin and elbows aboveground before finally crawling out. He lies on the ground and breathes heavily. “I need to start doing more push-ups,” he says, and I can’t help smiling.

But beside us, Jazz’s whimpers have turned into sobs.

Her corduroys are ripped open below the knee. “You have to be quiet, Jazz,” I say. We can’t know who’s lurking. The whole area could be crawling with drifters. Or the army could be out hunting for me already.

I pull at the flap of Jazz’s pants, then turn away so I won’t be sick. She isn’t just bleeding: a deep, jagged gash runs all the way up her leg to the knee and a piece of bone is sticking out.

Quinn appears at my side. He stares at the wound, his jaw slack. I untie my scarf and tightly bind Jazz’s leg. She bites on her fist. “It hurts . . . so . . . much,” she says.

“What are we going to do?” I ask.

“We’ll get her to the station and then. . .” He trails off. “Do you have the strength to carry her?”

“I have to.”

“And we can’t stop, even if she screams,” he says.

“I won’t scream,” Jazz says through tears. But she does scream. And scream and scream and scream.

By the time we’ve carried Jazz through the pitch-black tunnel, and all the way into St. Pancras station, she’s unconscious. And I’m barely able to walk myself. Our oxygen is never going to last all the way to Sequoia if we keep exerting ourselves like this.

We set her down beneath a marble clock and slump next to her. She doesn’t stir. I slide my hand into her coat and place it against her chest. I relax when I feel the heartbeat.

“It’s bad,” Quinn says. I can’t speak through my panting, so I sit catching my breath and gaze at the station’s vaulted glass ceiling. Stars speckle the night sky. It’s beautiful.

Quinn bends toward me. “We’ll make it through this, you know,” he says. He’s trying to be positive. But Jazz’s leg will get infected, and then what? We leave her here to rot and move on?

“She’ll die, and then we will,” I say.

He shakes me. “Why are you talking like that?”

I push him away. “Because in case you hadn’t noticed, everyone dies, Quinn.”

“We’re alive.” He removes his facemask, then pulls mine from my face so he can kiss me quickly on the lips. A few weeks ago, I wanted nothing more than to know Quinn loved me. When he kissed me for the first time, it was like an elixir—but today, his lips don’t revive me. “You have to be strong,” he says firmly, sliding both facemasks back into place.

And he’s right. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have wanted me to give up. They would have wanted me to fight, like they did in the end. Even if the fighting kills us.

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