“You can?” I ask and she nods her head. “Can you tell me who you all are?”
“May and April are sisters,” she says, pointing to two blonde-haired twins sitting by each other. Then, she points at the other two girls, one blonde and one brunette and says, “Lilly and Sam are sisters. All of our mothers worked together at the food storage units. One day their mothers brought them to my house and then my mother brought all of us down here. She told us that we had to stay here no matter what. We’ve been here for about, wait what’s the date?”
“5019. It’s mid-July. Now nearly August,” I say hesitantly back to her.
“Three months,” she responds, not believing it.
“You’ve survived down here for three months?” I question.
“When my mother brought us we had lots and lots of baskets with food and water, but we just ran out of the food yesterday,” her voice draws distant as her mind surely reminds her how hungry she is.
I look at the hollow cheeks on her face, turn back to my group, and ask, “Do we have any food?”
“I have some berries,” Cinder says, reaching into her bag. She pulls out a skin full of berries.
“Let’s stop and rest for a minute,” Mio says and everyone takes a seat, sipping on their water. This part of the tunnel is dry from the liquid we’d been previously running through. Mio and Cooper walk off from the group and I watch as they move a few paces deeper into the tunnel. Cooper takes off his dark shirt and turns around. I see the gash on his back from fighting with Paylon. I hear Mio ask him if he was hit anywhere else and Cooper says he wasn’t. Mio pours water down Cooper’s back and cleans the wound a bit before wrapping it in a white fabric. It immediately dyes red with his blood, but it seems to stop the bleeding from progressing.
“What happened to him?” The one who speaks asks in a soft voice as she works on the berries we’ve given them.
“We were being chased by a bad guy,” I say and her eyes widen, “but he saved us. He’s my brother.” She looks from me to Cooper before turning back to her berries. She doesn’t say anything else for the moment and just focuses on filling her empty stomach.
I turn back to the other girls and see that Cinder is handing out more of the berries. I walk over to Zavy and ask, “You could talk to these girls, right? With your gift? You said you were a Communicator, right?”
“Yeah, I could try,” Zavy says, her eyes not meeting mine.
“What’s wrong, Zavy?” I ask. She doesn’t respond and I realize that she also doesn’t know how to use her gift. “You don’t know how to use it do you?” I ask her, not able to believe it. Zavy made me feel stupid for not being able to use mine and she can’t use hers either.
“I said I could try,” Zavy says, brushing me off. The five girls devour the berries. I move to sit next to the girl who I was talking to and Zavy moves to the pairs of sisters. “So what’s your name?” I ask.
“Molly,” She says between mouthfuls of the last of her berries. When she finishes eating she says, “Can you take me back to my mother?”
“Well, I’m not actually from here, so I’m afraid I don’t know where your mother is, but I think we can take you to someone who might know,” I say and glance up to Mio and Cooper who have rejoined the group. I look to him for his approval, not that I’ve needed it before to bring new people with us. He gives me a nod of approval and I look back to Molly.
“Okay, her name’s Eleanor Fisher,” Molly says in a small voice.
“I’ll make sure to find out where she is,” I promise her.
Then Mio’s voice echoes through the tunnel saying, “It’s time to start moving if we ever want to get out of here.” I stand up and help Molly to her feet. Her thin little legs can hardly hold her own body weight. She moves and walks with her friends huddled together at the front of the group.
“We might want to take it slow Mio,” I say, worry on my face. They seem frail, even for being children. We start walking at a steady pace further into the tunnel.
Cooper comes in step with me and asks, “How’d you know they couldn’t understand us?”
“It was something in their faces,” I explain. Titus had a similar look a lot when mother and I would talk in the cell. He really only knew how to ask for more food.”
“I’m sorry,” Cooper says and looks at me.
“It’s okay,” I say, breaking his gaze.
Zavy comes in step with us and I ask her if she was able to talk with the other girls. “A little bit. They can talk and understand some of what we say. Food and water. Family.”
“Did you find anything else out about them?” I ask.
“All of the sisters are only five. Molly is the oldest. She’s ten,” Zavy says.
“How can they be five, but not be able to understand much?” Cooper asks.
“They never went to school,” Zavy says. “Their parents all hid them in their homes. I couldn’t tell, but I think I was getting that Molly’s mom was a Future Holder. I could have been reading it wrong, but I think that’s what I was sensing.”
“What do you mean by sensing? How does your gift work, Zavy?” I ask her for the first time.
“Like this,” she says and takes my hand in hers. “Hey, Adaline.” I hear in my
