mannequins silhouetted in their front windows. Far above me, the giant clock stared out, the second hand slowly inching toward the twelve. I ducked down the narrow hallway and saw the soldier bent forward, working at a scuff on his boot. I didn’t speak until I was within striking distance, my hand on my gun.
“I’m here to relieve you,” I said. “Little early, but I’m sure you don’t mind.”
He let out a low laugh. “Nah, not at all.” He pulled his rifle from its spot beside the door. I glanced down the hallway, knowing the other soldier would come in a few minutes. As the man sauntered off, turning left into the Palace mall, I ducked inside the stairwell, beginning the long climb, feeling the slow, painful burn in my legs.
The lower floors were unlocked, opening up to rows of small single rooms, where many of the Palace workers slept. I moved through the halls, turning in to the twentieth floor, then the twenty-fifth, switching staircases to avoid being seen.
When I reached the last flight, my legs burned, the short, sharp pains shooting through my lower back. I took slow, even breaths, trying to calm the shaking in my hands, trying not to think about my swollen stomach, now hidden beneath the jacket. I kept going back to that moment in the suite when my father had turned away as the soldiers grabbed me, looking down to the executions below. Whoever he was to me, whatever we shared, he’d grown numb to it. He didn’t feel anymore, not the way a person should. I had to hold that in my mind, that memory, to have any chance.
I peered inside the door’s small window. The corridor outside the suite was quiet. A lone figure was coming toward me, his shoulders hunched forward as he walked, studying a piece of paper. He wore the same red tie he’d had on the day I left. Before I could turn away, Charles looked up, his eyes meeting mine. I crouched back into the stairwell, waiting there, wondering if he’d recognized me.
Within seconds the door swung open and Charles ducked outside. “What are you doing here?” he asked. He glanced over the railing, into the center of the airshaft, looking for soldiers. “Where did you get that uniform?”
He scanned the jacket and cap I’d stolen from the soldier, the pants I’d found in the motel room, the boots laced up my ankles. His face screwed up in concern as he looked at the rifle slung over my back.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” I said. “You’re all right. I was worried you’d be punished for what you did.”
“I talked my way out of it,” he said. “I said you were my wife, that I was afraid, I didn’t know what you’d done. It was the truth, wasn’t it?”
“I need to find my father,” I said.
Charles checked the small window in the door, pushing us back, out of view. “You can’t do this,” he said. “They’ve been looking for you. They’ve had patrols canvassing Death Valley for the past week. You should be in hiding, not here. Especially not now.”
“I won’t spend my life waiting for him to come for me,” I said. “You saw it, Charles—you saw what he’s capable of. How many more years, decades, will this go on?”
He paced the landing. In the fluorescent light his skin looked thin and gray, and he looked incredibly tired.
“I don’t have time,” I pleaded. “Please.”
He let out a deep breath and pointed upstairs. “He’s in his office,” he said. “He’s supposed to be meeting with the Lieutenant in an hour.”
“I need the codes,” I said.
Charles let out a low, rattling breath. “One, thirty-one,” he said. “He changed it to your birthday.”
I paused, watching him, wondering if he knew the significance of what he’d just told me. I’d never known my birthday at School. Caleb and I had decided it was August twenty-eighth, and that date stuck in my head, the actual day passing while I was in Califia. Hearing it now, it was a small reminder of the knowledge my father carried. He was the only person who knew these things about me.
“I won’t implicate you,” I said, nodding to Charles before I turned to go. I didn’t reach the second step before he caught my hand, bringing me back to him. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me to his chest, so my cheek was pressed against him. He held me there, his