“Just get a move on,” Maks says, pulling open the cell door and grabbing me by the back of the neck. I don’t struggle, because I could be in for it if I do. Besides, I have a better chance of finding Alina and getting out of here and back to the pod if I’m not locked in a prison cell.
The boy and girl watch me go. They look afraid.
And I should probably look afraid, too.
33
ALINA
I wake in a sweat, sure someone has his hands around my throat. Silas is sitting on my bunk. “It was a dream,” he says.
I push my hair out of my face. “What time is it?” I ask. Everyone else is up and dressed.
“Six in the evening. We’re getting ready for this stupid Pairing Ceremony,” he says.
“I’ve been asleep all day?”
“I told Vanya you had an iffy stomach,” he says.
I think of Crab’s foaming mouth as he tried to kill me and I am breathless again. “Did you tell them?” I whisper. I can’t remember anything that happened after we snuck back into Sequoia. Silas had to half carry me to the cabin.
Silas slides closer. “They know we saw a body being buried. We’ll tell them what we did, if we have to. Keep it together, Alina. You’ve killed before.” I shake my head to contradict him. “At The Grove. You think none of your bullets hit those soldiers?”
But it was easier then—the troops were far away; I couldn’t see their faces, and I didn’t have to bury them.
Silas turns to the others. “Seeing the body last night leaves us in no doubt. . . . We need to get out of here. Our main concern is oxygen. Song?”
Song bites his lips. “I can find a way to store oxygen and pump it into an airtight space, but we need trees to produce it or the formula for manufactured air . . . plus the chemicals.”
“Well, that’s impossible,” Silas says. We’re all silent. Our options are meager. “I have the map that Inger was putting together, which has the locations of solar respirators on it. We can survive on those and wait for Song to design something better.” He looks at each of us in turn. I want to have a better idea, but I don’t.
“We was fine on solar respirators before you lot showed up,” Maude lies. If it was fine, she wouldn’t have tried to kill me for my airtank the first time she saw me.
Dorian puts his hands on his hips. “We buried people at The Grove, you know. I don’t know why this dead body should change anything.”
“This wasn’t a one-off, Dorian. There were dozens of graves,” I say.
Dorian pulls his red robe over his head and faces us, defiant. “I don’t agree with pairings any more than you, but I’m not spending the rest of my life drifting and barely clinging to life.”
We all watch Silas and wait, willing him to find a solution to Dorian’s fears. Fears that are ours, too. But he has no answer for this. “We have to leave Sequoia now,” is all he says.
“We won’t make it a mile before they’re on top of us,” I say. I don’t mean to contradict Silas, who is glaring at me, but we have to bide our time, run when they least expect it. Besides, if we run now, they’ll know we were the ones who killed Crab. “We found a way out. It’s a narrow tunnel under the wall at the back, about fifty feet from a steel door. Anything heavy goes down, we leave that way and wait for one another on the other side. There are only a few places back there to hide,” I say.
Song goes to the door, takes the rest of the robes from the hook, and hands them out. The sleeves are too long, eating up our hands.
Silas goes to the wall and punches it. Dorian pulls up his hood and it covers his entire forehead, right down to his eyes. “Red ain’t my color,” Maude says. She tries to struggle out of the robe, but Bruce stops her.
“It’s just for an hour or so, Maddie.”
Somewhere beyond the cabin a shrill whistle sounds.
“Pairings,” I say.
Before being led into the orangery where the pairings will be performed, we’re held in a waiting room with narrow benches running the length of it. Silas is on my one side, Dorian on my other. Apart from those of us from The Grove, around ten people are with us. Abel sits opposite me. When he smiles, I smile back. He’s always been able to make me do this, even when things were dire.
I scan the bench and the faces of the other boys. They don’t look particularly menacing; I’d be willing to fend off any one of them.
A door opens and another candidate is pushed into the room. “Quinn!” I say, and go to him. “We were worried,” I whisper.
“I’ve just had a three-hour test followed by the most humiliating physical exam of my life,” Quinn says.
“Where are Bea and Jazz?”
He edges closer. In the past I might have moved away, but he isn’t flirting. “They’re alive,” he says, and suddenly joy and hope fizz through me. If Bea’s alive, and Jazz too, there’s no excuse for any of us to give up. “Bea was with Ronan Knavery. They’re planning a new rebellion in the pod. They have my father on our side this time and think they can take control of the army. But we need you.”
“Cain Knavery’s son?” I ask. He nods. It’s a lot to take in, and I have a hundred questions, but I haven’t time to ask any more because a bell rings, and Maks enters from the opposite end of the room wearing a skintight red shirt.
“Excited?” he asks. He rubs his hands together. I don’t like the gesture, or his leering expression. After what I saw in the stairwell, I pity poor Jo and her life with him. “Let’s do this,” he says. My gut tightens and I pull back the lower half of my facemask, so I can bite my nails.
“So the first civil war in the pod didn’t achieve anything?” I ask, taking Quinn by the arm.
“Well, it was enough to make my father and Ronan turn against the Ministry. Will you come back with me?” he asks.
“Yes,” I tell him. “Of course, I will.”
The orangery is an enormous conservatory attached to the east wing of the main house. Along three sides are rows of Sequoians gawking at us, and on the remaining fourth side is a stage decorated with a red banner that reads
Vanya is standing under the banner wearing a red robe, although hers has no hood and plunges at the neckline where it’s held in place with a metal pin. Maks steers us to some empty chairs, then steps up onto the stage and stands next to Vanya.
We sit.
“A Pairing Ceremony is our most valued celebration,” Vanya says. “Through pairings, we preserve the human race from extinction. Along with pairings, these candidates will learn their vocations. They will become troopers, responsible for the group’s physical needs; academics, responsible for the group’s mental needs; or benefactors, responsible for the group’s spiritual needs.” I look around the room. I haven’t met anyone here who seems particularly spiritually enlightened, and she must have forgotten that humans and overpopulation was the reason for The Switch in the first place. Cut down the trees to feed the people—what a good plan that turned out to be.
“I marvel at what we have achieved,” Vanya continues. “We’ve made mistakes and sacrifices along the way, but we are stronger for it, and unlike other groups who have fallen, we prevail.” Vanya looks down at our group and I nearly give her the finger. It isn’t our fault The Grove perished. “Many of the candidates are refugees. Sequoia is the last stronghold against the Ministry and we defend our right, not only to breathe, but to
