Rise

sixteen

"HOW LONG DO WE HAVE TO WAIT HERE?" SARAH ASKED. SHE stood by the window, her silhouette just visible against the sky. The moon was covered by clouds, the rain still coming down, pummeling the ledge outside.

"Just for the night," I said. "We'll leave tomorrow." After walking for more than two hours, we'd stopped in a neighborhood at the edge of the mountains, hiding in the upper floors of an abandoned house. I stepped around the broken floorboards and reached Clara just as she came up the stairs. She was trailed by two of the other girls, Bette and Helene, a few towels in their hands. "You haven't found any more?" I asked, pointing to the small pile of blankets on the floor. There were barely enough to keep three people warm for the night, let alone twelve.

"Most of the supplies have been picked over already," Clara said. She looked at the ripped, stained fabric in her hands. "These aren't ideal either . . ."

Bette, a tall girl with wide, deep-set gray eyes and dense freckles, threw one of the towels down. "They're disgusting," she mumbled. "And we only found one can-just one. That's not enough for all of us."

"We can look for more tomorrow," I said. "And we'll hunt if we have to. We're lucky, though-we have water. That's the most important thing."

Sarah watched the plastic containers sitting on the roof's edge, waiting for them to fill. Her hair was still soaked from the rain, empty plastic containers piled by her bare feet. "Don't," Beatrice said, as Sarah reached through the broken windowpane, maneuvering her thin wrist to avoid getting cut on the glass. "Let me."

"I'm fine," Sarah replied, holding up her hand. "See?" She picked up a white container with faded writing on it, careful not to let too much water spill over the sides. She brought it in off the window ledge, slowly replacing it with an empty carton.

Beatrice leaned back against the wall, her eyes meeting mine for just a moment. I could see glimpses of her features in Sarah's. They both had round, heart-shaped faces and a dimple in the center of the chin. Sarah was shorter and more athletic looking than most of the girls, and the only one who hadn't complained yet-about the rain, about leaving the City, about the abandoned house.

We'd gone seven miles, maybe less. The girls had tired quickly, and the rain was coming down sideways, the wind pushing against us. I knew we wouldn't get far, but these first few miles outside the City were the most dangerous. As soon as the flooding subsided, the soldiers would be back on the roads, canvassing, looking for us. We'd have to rest now and take one of the back routes out of the development the following morning, before the sun came up.

The second story of the house was mostly dark, with dim light coming in from the broken windows. One corner of the floor was warped, the wooden boards rotted. A few of the girls sat on a bare mattress, covered by the one sheet we'd found. "I don't understand," Helene, the girl with tiny black braids, said to no one in particular. She'd found a pack of T-shirts in a basement closet, and some of the girls had put them on, looking strangely uniform now, with the exception of three girls who'd discovered sweaters in a bottom drawer. Nearly every surface was covered with wet clothes-jumpers and socks laid over the back of the armchair, mud-caked shoes strewn by the bedroom door.

"It's impossible to understand," Beatrice said. She squeezed the ends of her hair, trying to get out the last bit of water. "Lord knows, I have tried."

I picked one of the blankets off the floor, opening it up toward the window. Then I passed it to Bette and Lena, the two girls sitting closest to me. "I've seen what happens in that compound-I was at my School for twelve years," I said. "And after I left, whenever I felt scared, or confused, or worried, I just came back to one fact-the Teachers there lied. It was never our life; we were always under their control."