Resist

A blast throws me forward and onto the ground, where I smash my face against stones and scrape the skin from my hands. The air is suddenly gray. I stand up, but the steward doesn’t, so I roll him onto his back. He groans. “You all right?”

“My leg,” he says. But I can’t help him, be with my father, and go back and deal with whatever caused that explosion.

I have to make a choice.

“Stay there,” I tell the steward, and run to my father and Ronan, who are sitting in the open by one of the stations. Ronan’s hand is against my father’s neck.

“Is he alive?” I ask.

“He’s slipping in and out of consciousness,” Ronan says. The gunfire in the distance stops. Ronan and I look at each other. Can it be over?

“Dad,” I say. “Dad?”

He pulls off his facemask and coughs blood all over himself. “Quinn?”

“It’s me.” I use the sleeve of my jacket to wipe the blood from his face. I try to move his mask back into place, but he rolls his head from side to side to stop me. Ronan lets go of the fabric he’s pressing into my father’s neck, revealing a sinewy wound.

“He was shot,” Ronan says, like I can’t figure that out for myself.

My father moans and coughs a jellied blood clot into his hand. This time he doesn’t resist when I try to refit the facemask. “The stations have faucets in them for filling tanks,” he wheezes. “Even if they manage to . . .”

“Don’t talk,” I say, seeing how the effort hurts him. “Let’s try to get you inside.”

“Quinn . . .” Ronan begins, and puts a hand on my arm.

“Help me!” I tell him, and together we lift my father onto the stretcher. On the ground beneath him is a dark puddle, dry at the edges. I’ve never seen my father bleed, and in some childish way I thought he couldn’t.

Blood pools on the stretcher, and it’s too hard to carry him because he’s struggling so much. We put it back down and I kneel next to him.

“The twins. Your mother,” he says.

“They’re fine,” I say, or at least I hope they will be. “Mom had the baby.”

My father squeezes his eyes shut and when he opens them, they’re wet. He raises a finger and gestures for me to move closer. I put my ear to the blowoff valve in his mask. “I’m not the best father,” he says.

It’s true; he’s been an awful father at times. But it kind of felt as if he just didn’t know how else to be. I pull back and meet my father’s eyes. “Ronan told me you sent him to find me. Thank you.”

A shot breaks the stillness and Ronan lifts his rifle. “We’re sitting ducks,” he says. He tries to lift the stretcher. I don’t help him. There’s no point.

“You said once that in another world we could have been friends.” I pause and wait for him to show he’s heard me. I have to know he’s listening.

“Stop,” he whispers.

“And I think you were right.” He rips the mask from his face and this time flings it several feet away. Blood trickles from his nose. His eyes are vacant.

Ronan jumps up to get the mask. But my father won’t need it.

I place a hand on his chest. He looks at the sky and then at me. “Quinn,” he says. His breath is short and soft. “Quinn,” he repeats, and closes his eyes.

60 BEA

Sequoians, Resistance, and Ministry stare at the black vapor filling the sky. I’m behind a bombed-out buggy, scrabbling to stop Jazz from joining the fray. Lennon and Keane sit on her to keep her down, and we watch Silas sprint toward the explosion. Gideon and Harriet are close behind. Alina is nowhere to be seen.

“The tower!” Vanya blares into the megaphone, reminding her troopers of their mission. And then she vanishes from the balcony of the station. She wants them to storm it, but there are too few of them to do anything. I peer over the hood of the buggy. Only four Sequoians are still standing, their backs to the tower, their hands in the air. The others are supine, Ministry soldiers and Resistance members pinning them down with their boots. If Vanya thinks she still has a fight on her hands, she’s delusional. She’s already lost.

“Charge!” Vanya screams, rising out of the dust and storming our way.

Before I can stop her, Jazz has my gun and is aiming it at Vanya. If what Quinn said is true, she’s about to shoot her own mother. No matter how crazy and dangerous Vanya is, I can’t let Jazz do it. I knock the gun from her hands and it lands next to Lennon. He looks down at it, horrified.

“The pod is mine!” Vanya screams. She has no gun, only the megaphone. Two members of the Resistance who lived in Ronan’s attic with me march toward her.

“Shoot her,” Jazz tells Lennon, reaching for the gun.

“No,” I say, and stand on it. Maybe I should tell Jazz why, but I don’t. That can wait for another day.

The Resistance members pull Vanya to the ground and stomp on her megaphone. She kicks and claws at them.

Silas, Gideon, and Harriet are specks. And I still can’t see Alina. “Stay here,” I say.

Jazz holds on to my leg. “Take me with you.”

I shake my head. “I’ll be back. Keep an eye on Lennon and Keane.” She looks at the twins, who are sniffling, and rolls her eyes.

“Fine,” she says.

I take off as fast as I can, repeating the words Alina is alive, Alina is alive in my head over and over. She is the toughest of us, and when the time comes, she’ll be the last to go.

As I reach Gideon and Harriet, a strong chemical smell penetrates my mask. The ground is covered in confetti pieces of metal. They are crouching beside Alina. Silas is standing over them. They look up at me as though I’m a ghost.

“Alina?” I say. Her face is blackened, her hair charred at the ends. I wait for her to open her eyes and say something cutting. “Alina.”

“The blast . . .” Silas says, and stops. He can’t speak for choking.

“But she’s okay, isn’t she?” I kneel next to her and touch her hand. It’s warm. There’s a nasty gash above one of her eyebrows.

“She’s gone,” Silas says.

“No, she isn’t. . . . Give her some air.” I put my hands over her chest and begin compressions, pushing hard on her heart like I did with Old Watson. It has to work—Alina’s always survived.

I lean over to blow into her mouth when Harriet lays her hand on my arm. “Stop,” she says. “Please.”

And I do. Because Alina no longer looks like herself. She’s completely serene.

She’s dead.

Gideon takes off his facemask and kisses Alina’s forehead, then uses the heels of his hands to wipe away tears.

It’s too much for Silas; he walks away and bellows into the sky.

I brush Alina’s face with the back of my fingers. Her skin is soft. The last time I saw her was at The Grove. It was the briefest good-bye. It wasn’t enough.

Tears trickle over my facemask into the earth.

I’ve felt this before, like someone was ripping out my heart, but it doesn’t make it any less painful.

I am crying so hard now, I can barely see. I squeeze Alina’s hand.

I want to tell her what’s happened. I want to tell her who she is and what she’s done. For me. For all of us.

But there’s only one thing that would matter to Alina.