“Walk where?” Marnie protested as Gabi hustled her down the hall and out the front door. Gabi’s pace was incompatible with the complaints of her ravaged body, but another glance at her watch propelled her.
“Don’t you want some fresh air? You’re so pale you’re starting to look like me. Why did you confess?”
“They tried a few threats, all lame, but then they said if I didn’t sign the confession, they would automatically fail you and Jordan and neither of you would make a team. Beth must have told them we got close during camp. It was already over for me. Even if I did confess, there’s no way they were going to let me be a Witness. It seemed dumb to drag you all down with me, so I signed the stupid thing.”
“Was it the council that interrogated you?” Gabi asked as she hauled Marnie down the street.
“Nah, that’s way beneath them. It was that hatchet-faced lady from registration and her Minder thugs. The specifics weren’t important to them, just as long as I admitted to breaking doctrine. I have to get tutored privately until I get my diploma, then I can start my exciting new job in custodial services at the temple complex. I have to stay in the group home until I’m eighteen or until I can afford my own place, which, judging by what temple custodians get paid, should be about thirty years from now.”
“Well, I failed anyway, all on my own,” Gabi huffed as they race-walked toward the plaza parking lot where a convoy of Witness shuttles were lined up at the edge of a crowd of well-wishers.
“You did? Oh, shit, Lowell, I’m sorry. What happened? Why are we at the plaza? I would think this is the last place you would want to be today. Unless Mathew passed?”
“Of course he passed,” Gabi said as she towed Marnie through the crowd. “So did Jordan. He got the second-highest score on the written part.”
“What!” Marnie yelled over the noise.
“I said Mathew and Jordan passed!” Gabi shouted as she ushered Marnie to the front row where they had a clear view of the Witnesses. Burton Ames, Apostle General for the mission, stood in front of his team with the swell-chested pride of a new father. He was a short, thick man. The top of his head came only to Mathew’s shoulder, who stood beside Ames looking humble but dashing in his khaki travel uniform. Jordan was a few places down the line, looking more like a misplaced package. Bradley was among them too, doing his best imitation of Burton Ames, while Noel watched with tortured longing from the crowd. Sam stood in front of the Witnesses, wrapping up his bon voyage address beside Messenger Nystrom and the other councilmembers. Sam noticed Gabi making her way to the front and spoke the rest of his speech directly to her.
“And so in this time, it is not Armageddon that we approach, but Armageddon in which we live. The word Armageddon refers to the gathering place on the mountain where all came together to give their testimony before God and be counted among his flock. Some have rested easily at the mountaintop, while others must be carried up in the arms of their loving fellows. As they venture forth, we pray for the protection and good keeping of our brave Witness teams. In God’s great name, amen.”
The band struck up on the crowd’s amens as the Witnesses began to board their shuttles with a final wave to friends and family.
“All right, Jordan!” Marnie yelled, pumping her fist in the air as the crowd clapped encouragement. She stopped cheering abruptly and seized Gabi by the arm. “Hey, wait, you didn’t get to say goodbye to Mathew!”
Gabi gripped Marnie by the shoulders and spun her around so they were nose to nose. “Listen to me, Marnie. I don’t need to say goodbye because I’m getting on one of those shuttles, and so are you. You, me, and Jordan are all going, and we’re going together.” Gabi needn’t have worried about Marnie interrupting. She was dumbstruck. “We have to get on a shuttle, and we have to do it now. It’s not Willow. It’s the Pacific Northwest, it’s dangerous, and it’s actually in the complete opposite direction from where you want to go, but it’s our only chance to get out of here.”
They were carried along as the crowd pressed toward the vans to get a better view of the departing Witnesses. Gabi could feel Mathew’s eyes searching for her, craning for a chance to wave goodbye to his kid sister. Marnie’s mouth stretched wide in a smile that showed every one of her teeth.
“Come on, Randolph,” Gabi said, giving Marnie’s shoulders a shake. “It’s this or custodial services. What do you say?”
In one movement Marnie broke Gabi’s hold and spun her friend around until she faced the van, putting her mouth close to Gabi’s ear. “I say get your scrawny butt on that shuttle so we can get some decent seats. No offense.”
Chapter SEVENTEEN
“THEY’RE TAKING us through Spruce,” Jordan stated hollowly as he watched busloads of refugees blur by outside the windows of the shuttle. Though Gabi, Marnie, and Jordan had been talking for nearly three days straight, Jordan had become increasingly withdrawn as their van made its way northwest. His parents, if they were still alive, would be on one of the buses on its way to the hastily assembled refugee camps in the central branches. All the outer branches were being evacuated, their populations funneled into emergency shelters in Alder, Birch, and Cedar. Within twenty-four hours of the big send-off in the plaza, Tribal insurgents reinforced with lethal Lilim troops had launched coordinated attacks from the West Coast. The few navigable interbranch roads were clogged with refugees, and the Witness shuttles’ progress had been slow.
“I guess Unitas finally got what it wanted,” Jordan said as wind-bitten women with young children clinging to
