Rise An Eve Novel - By Anna Carey Page 0,47
Clara to follow. I grabbed the tattered map from my belt and spread it out, pointing to the route I’d marked in pencil. Clara studied it in the last of the day’s light. “If we go north there’s water along the way. A guaranteed supply every three days or so. Owens Lake, Fish Springs reservoir, Mesa Lake, Lake Crowley . . . see? All the way up.”
“Lake Tahoe?” Clara asked. “Wasn’t that where the dugout was?” She traced her finger over the fork in the road, moving up, past the line I’d drawn. I’d thought about Silas and Benny after I’d left. Moss had sent messages to the dugout when I’d first arrived in the City, stating that I was alive, that Caleb and I were together. We hadn’t heard anything back, and it was impossible to confirm they’d gotten word. As much as I wanted to know if they were all right, part of me didn’t want to suffer the reality if they weren’t. What if we found the dugout abandoned? What if they’d gone to the siege, if they were among the bodies strewn in the road those first few days? And if they were alive, if they were there, I didn’t know if I wanted to revisit it all—that time, that place. Caleb. Leif. I’d purposely had us go west before we reached the boys’ camp.
I nodded. “It would add days to the journey, though. I thought—”
“I didn’t mean we should go there,” Clara said, turning to me. Her expression was apologetic. “I wouldn’t want you to. I wouldn’t want any of us to—not after what happened to you.”
A few of the girls fell asleep, offering one another Good nights, while Sarah and Kit went to retrieve more supplies from one of the bedrooms. Clara knelt down beside the duffel bag, rooting through it until she found the radio. “I was thinking . . .” she said, holding it up. “Is there any way we could send her a message? Just to let her know I made it out of the City. That I’m safe—that I’m with you. She’s probably a mess, thinking I was killed in the Outlands, wondering if I was taken by the rebels.”
I turned the radio over in my hands, wondering who inside the Palace would be able to decode the message. I knew it was improbable that any of the rebels who still worked in the tower would risk revealing themselves to Rose—not now, and especially not to tell her that Clara, who for all anyone knew supported my father, was alive. I’d thought about it anyway, noticing how Clara’s mood had changed over the past week, the way she’d bring up her mother, or the City, wanting to know if there were any dispatches about the Palace. “Of course we can,” I said. “I just have to warn you—it’s likely she won’t get it. Now that Moss is dead, I don’t think any of the rebels would decode it and pass it along.”
Clara rested her back against the wall, pressing her face into her hands. “We’ll go back eventually,” she said, not really directing it at me. “Eventually she’ll know I’m all right. I’m sure she’s figured out what happened.”
“She must’ve,” I said. “We’ll have more resources once we reach Califia. Once you’re there we’ll have a better sense of what to do.”
The last of the day’s sun came in through the door, catching Clara’s blue-gray eyes, lighting up their depths. “I shouldn’t have just left,” she said. “It was like I was trying to punish her or something.”
“You didn’t have much time to decide,” I said.
“It was always just us.” Clara worked at a knot in her thick gold hair, pulling at the tangle until it came undone. “Ever since the plague, ever since my father and Evan died. There have been so many times that I’ve just wanted to be free of her.”
“You can’t blame yourself for leaving. What if my father had found out that you’d helped me that day? What then?”
We were both quiet. I wanted to tell her that she’d be able to go back to the City, that we could both return, but as the days passed that seemed less likely. I’d noticed a change even in the time since we’d set up camp. The nausea had lifted. Beatrice had said it was normal, that now that I’d made it to three months I wouldn’t experience the morning sickness as I had before. My midsection