starts walking, but stops after a few steps and turns back to me. “Since when did they start sending out teenagers?” he snaps. “They are going to have a field day with her.”
My eyebrow shoots up and I know I should keep quiet, but I’m really tired of being treated like a child.
“I’m not a teenager,” I say. I meant to snap, but let’s face it … I don’t have enough courage for that. “I’ll be turning twenty in a few months. I would’ve gotten married. I would’ve started working.” I snap my mouth shut. Where did that come from? Am I losing it?
Chance walks over to me and I shrink back into the darkness when he reaches for me. His fingers are firm around the back of my neck. He pulls me closer and I take two stumbling steps, until I feel the heat of his breath on my face. I try to swallow my fear down.
“You need to keep quiet. That’s all you need to do.” His face looks grimmer than ever. “They are expecting Ethan and Aaron, not you. They know where I’m from. I’ve paid my dues to get in. I’d like to keep my brother from paying the same dues, understand?” I swallow the dusty lump down. I don’t want to know what he had to pay. “Now keep quiet. Just do what I say and you might just make it.”
Might? My thoughts get stuck on the one word. I don’t like the sound of it. I’d like to hear a firm ‘will’.
Chance takes hold of my ponytail and in one swift movement he pulls the tie out, along with some hair. I rub the back of my head where it’s stinging.
“Put this away. The rebels don’t have these,” he growls as if he’s using the last bit of his patience with me.
I gulp down the words Rebels. What rebels? A breath shudders through me. No one mentioned any rebels to me. I put the tie in my back pocket with the photo of my mom. Only then do I remember the clips – I forgot them in the jacket! I know they won’t wait for me to go and get it. Now I only have my mom’s photo. A pang of sadness overwhelms me at the loss of the clips.
They start towards the dark metropolis in the distance. I suppress the urge to smooth my hair out and follow close behind them, my eyes jumping from their backs to the buildings looming in the distance.
There are no lights, only shadows of the towering buildings that once were a great Ecocity. We’re crossing an overgrown road no longer in use when popping sounds echo in the distance. Of course I shriek, only proving once again that I’m a coward, and I run to catch up to the men.
I’ve never heard those sounds before but instinct tells me it’s nothing good. I keep glancing over my shoulder, searching in the darkness for whatever made that sound. I’m too busy looking over my shoulder to look where I’m going and I smack hard into Aaron’s back. He looks as nervous as me. He must’ve put up a good act this morning. There is no sign of the formal metropolis official that came to fetch me at my house. He can’t be much older than Ethan, or myself for that matter.
“That’s a pity.” Chance says, but he doesn’t stop walking. I have to run to catch up to him.
I notice Ethan counting on his fingers as more pops echo into the night. I can only count nine, but there were those in the beginning. Four, it could’ve been six.
“It sounded like seventeen sho-“
“Don’t” Chance stops Ethan from finishing his sentence.
I can’t hold it back. I have to know. “Seventeen what?” I whisper, daring a look in Chance’s direction.
“Seventeen shots, okay. Seventeen are dead! Ethan, you have to learn to shut your mouth!” He snaps at him, but I stopped listening when he said the word dead.
I could have been one of them. I immediately feel guilty for thinking of myself first and not of the people who just lost their lives. Ruth can be lying dead out there and no one will know. My lips start to tremble and I try to square my shoulders. I can’t cry, not now. I didn’t even know them all that well. But still, I saw some of those people every day. They didn’t deserve to die like that.
“We need to move