“If time’s a factor, why tell us to come here? Why not give us the real location of the meeting?”
Stef smirks. “Like you and your friend here would tell me the exact location of wherever the Stewards hang out? This way.” She trots down the sidewalk of a two-story white house trimmed with yellow and blue—windows completely darkened—and heads to the gate that leads to the backyard. She glances back at the street, pauses for several heartbeats, then says, “I swore they could trust you. Don’t make me a liar.”
She grabs hold of the fence, places her foot in one of the chain-link sections, and climbs. Atlas grins as Stef awkwardly swings her leg over the top and eases herself to the other side. I return his smile. We both take several steps back. He nods and I race toward the fence first, judging the distance and the height the way he instructed. When I am about two feet from the barrier, I inhale and leap up and catch the top of the fence with my hands and stick one foot in the links over halfway up. Without pausing so I don’t kill my momentum, I use my foot and arms to push myself up and over the fence. I land with an oof on the other side.
I have to take two steps forward to regain my balance. Within seconds, Atlas sticks his own landing.
Stef gives us a long look. If she’s impressed, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she turns and walks along a stone path through a garden of flowers toward the back door of the house. She raps three times. There is a scuffling noise followed by two knocks. Stef knocks one more time and the door swings open. She jerks her head and we follow her inside a narrow laundry room with a door to our left that empties into a dimly lit kitchen. Another well-lit entryway with a set of stairs leads downward.
A stocky young man is there—maybe Atlas’s age or a year older—with a sharp chin, deep brown skin, and narrow glasses. He crosses his arms over his chest and blocks the steps. “You didn’t say there would be two.”
“I didn’t say there wouldn’t be,” Stef says sharply. “Are the others still here?”
“Most of them,” the guy says, not moving from the doorway. A line of diamond studs in his right ear twinkle as they catch the light. “Jake and Chris left. Joy and her cousin are going to have to head out in a few minutes. It was hard for any of them to get away tonight. A lot aren’t sure the risk was worth it.” The guy shifts his attention to me. “Stef says you saved her from the Marshals. They must have been punier than the ones I’ve seen.”
Atlas stiffens. I smile. The words aren’t the same as those spoken by Dewey on our first meeting, but their purpose is similar. “Are you trying to insult me?” I ask sweetly.
The guy’s dark eyes narrow behind his metal frames. “I am if it’s working.” He steps out of the way and performs an arm flourish toward the steps.
“You’re going to have to work a whole lot harder,” I say as Stef walks past him and down the stairs. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been insulted by the best.”
He gives me a slightly crooked smile. “I’m Ari. You’d better get down there or you’ll lose your audience to curfew.”
I glance at my watch. We still have several hours before the mandatory overnight road curfew, which makes me think some of our audience must have come from a distance if they are worried about making it home.
The government claimed the curfew—which prohibited driving between the hours of midnight and five—was put into place because so many crimes were committed during that time of the night. Once crime was no longer an issue, the curfew remained to allow the City Pride Department to make road repairs without threat of creating traffic jams.
Before learning the word “verify,” I believed the curfew contributed to the safety and prosperity of the city. Now . . . I’m not sure what I believe. Maybe once it was about safety. Now, I suspect the rule provides cover for the moving of people and things under the radar.
Atlas’s father? Rose’s brother? They might already be miles away. We won’t be able to find either of them unless others around the country understand what is happening—what has been taken—without them even being aware.
Which is why I’m here.
I head down the brightly lit, unfinished, and slightly unevenly spaced steps. Voices float up from below as Atlas’s footsteps sound behind me. My nerves stretch taut.
I know Stef wants to fight back. It’s the reason she thinks less of the Stewards—because they have always operated on the fringes—storing and protecting the truth instead of exposing it. She had heard rumors of the Stewards, but her group wasn’t interested in waiting in the shadows. They wanted to create change no matter the cost. That’s why Stef was shocked when she saw the symbol of the Stewards tattooed on Atlas’s arm. We had prevented Marshals from taking her off the streets and almost were killed in the process. It was the first time anyone had heard of a Steward risking anything to come to the aid of someone who wasn’t one of their own.
I follow the stairs as they turn into the basement doorway and take the final scarred wooden step onto the concrete floor of a large unfinished basement filled with faces that are all turned toward me. The reason Ari mentioned the curfew hits me square in the chest.
“You can’t be serious,” Atlas says from directly behind me.
I can’t help thinking the same thing because several of the people crammed into the underground space are younger than I am. They aren’t worrying about the driving curfew. Their curfews are imposed by parents.
Stef’s friends, the ones I have been counting on to help fight the government—are children.
Four
At least a dozen twelve-year-old kids are sprawled on black-and-white zigzagged rugs or seated on sunken blue and brown couches. There are some my age standing along the gray, pocked concrete walls. Here and there are a few that appear to be older, like Stef. But not many.
“These two helped me escape from the Marshals,” Stef says, draping her arm around a girl with a cascade of long, dark braids. In her oversize orange-and-white football jersey she looks maybe as old as thirteen. “They’re Stewards.”
A low murmur of disapproval colors the tense room. A pair of twins with slightly angular hazel eyes and mops of curly red-brown hair sit cross-legged to my left. They might be as old as fourteen, and they glare with open hostility. One of them says, “Is that supposed to make us trust them?”
“Only if you’re foolish,” I shoot back, taking a step away from the stairs. Atlas moves to stand at my side. “I doubt you could know what you know and still be sitting here if that was the case.”
The twin boys roll their eyes, but the girl standing at Stef’s side grins. Considering some of the dumb things Rose and I did a few years ago, I’m not sure that’s a positive sign. But I’ll take what I can get.
“Stef says you fought the Marshals for her.” A scrawny boy with a bruise blooming sickly yellow near his left ear pushes away from the wall. He crosses his arms in front of his puffed-out chest. “She said you know how to beat them, but how do we know you didn’t just get lucky?”
“Really?” We don’t have time for this, but it’s clear by the way the others are nodding that they think we do.