I clench my teeth, my heartbeat too loud at my throat.Someone’s outside.It’s still dark, no light through the cracks in the barn walls—but it’s stopped raining.
Noah grabs my hand—warm palm to my cold skin—and pulls me out of the stall into the main part of the barn. Cricket quicklyunsheathes her knife, licking her lips like she’s ready for a fight, and follows Noah at his side.
I blink, trying to see, to understand what’s happening. The others in the barn are scrambling through the dark, some standing at the barn doors, open just a crack, rifles pointed out into the dark; while the rest are huddled together near the back. I spot August, standing over a group of younger kids, as if he could protect them—his thin, aging frame shaking in the cold. His eyes meet mine, then Noah’s.
Noah nods, as if understanding some silent meaning, words not spoken, and then he’s pulling me toward the back of the barn, panic cracking through me, lungs gasping, as Cricket waves an arm at someone to our left, a small girl with summer-wheat hair and a wild, terror-struck look on her face, standing in the middle of the barn.“Get down!”Cricket half screams, half whispers; and the girl drops to her stomach.
But there’s no door here, at the back of the barn,no way out.
Shit, shit.We’re hemmed in. An acrid taste claws up my throat, fear tapping at my skull.We’re going to die in here.
More screams erupt from outside, bullets explode against the walls of the barn, splintering the old wood, and several older kids dart out through the opening in the doors. Some have weapons: crude, rusty knives, long pieces of wood with nails poking through the ends—I think I even see one with a gun. But whatever is out there, I suspect, is more than they can handle.
Anothercrack, but this one sounds closer. I pinwheel my gaze back to Noah, and he’s kicked free one of the old boards at the back of the barn, now mottled with bullet holes, then yanks it away, creating an opening in the wall. “Go,” he hisses at me.
I hesitate, afraid of what I’ll meet on the other side. My eyes cut over to the far side of the barn, thinking we might be safer in here. Hidden in straw and darkness.
But Cricket yells, “What the hell are you waiting for?” Pointing her knife at the low, narrow opening.
I choke on the fear, swallowing it down, then drop to my knees, knowing:Whatever is outside will find its way in eventually.With my hands first, I wriggle through the gap in the wood, spilling out into the dark night, gasping, eyes tearing to my left and then right. But there are no figures moving through the dark on this side of the barn. They’re distracted, intent on breaking through the massive double doors on the other side, gunshots echoing through the air.
I scramble to my feet, wiping the hair back from my face, hands muddy. I was wrong about the rain—it’s still falling but only lightly, a soft patter against my adrenaline-hot skin.
Cricket is next, appearing through the tight space in the barn wall, the knife still clutched in her hand. “Run,” she shouts when she gets to her feet.
But I hesitate, looking back at the opening. “Where’s Noah?”
“He’ll be right behind us,” she barks, reaching out for me and fisting the sleeve of my coat, trying to tug me toward the tree line. Away from the gunfire. But I pull against her, my eyes snapping back down at the hole. “Come on!” she hisses, impatient.
More bangs, someone smashing through the front doors of the barn, followed by several gunshots and a long, awful scream. The air is punched from my lungs. I blink.He’s taking too long.More gunshots echo up the walls. I wipe the rain from my face, staring at the dark opening.No,my mind repeats.They’re inside the barn.A second passes and Cricket tugs on my sleeve again, urging me to move, to follow her, but then I see it. An arm reaches through the opening in the wall, followed by another, and then he’s crawling through—Noah—the space hardly large enough for his wide shoulders.
“What are you doing?” he barks, dragging himself to his feet. “Run!”
He grabs my hand, wet from the rain, squeezing tight like he’s not about to let me go, and we sprint toward the tree line, my heart a hammer, slamming against my ribs with each breath.
We’re almost to the pines when the whiz of a bullet rips through the air only a foot or so from my left ear, then explodes against a tree trunk. Noah’s eyes swing over to me, panicked, looking to see if I’m hit. I shake my head, letting him know I’m okay, even though my ears ring with adrenaline and fear.
“Shit,” Cricket shouts, ducking, then making a half dive into the crowded evergreens, into the cover of darkness. “They’re fucking shooting at us.”
In the half shadows of the trees, Noah releases my hand and I buckle over, breathing gasping, rain dripping on me from the overhead branches, but his gaze stays on me a moment more. “You okay?” he asks, touching a hand to my forearm.
I nod up at him, feeling the warmth of his palm, not wanting him to let go. “Fine.” The word is a wheeze, lost of all sound.
Finally he releases his hand and turns to survey the barn behind us, the shadowed forms sprinting through the dark—some staggering, then dropping to the ground. Injured, wounded, crying out. His friends are dying. But then I see them: men on horseback, appearingthrough the gray wash of rain, rifles balanced on their thighs, scanning the perimeter of the barn.
They tracked us from Fort Bell, just like Cricket said they would.
“They really want her,” she whispers now, out of breath, eyes darting over at me. But I don’t like the sharp, serrated way her gaze cuts through me, like maybe I’m not worth the fight, not worth their lives, and maybe they’d be better off just handing me over to those men.
But Noah ignores her comment. “We need to get moving. These trees aren’t safe.”
I straighten up, sucking in the damp air, panic itching at my skin, but Cricket doesn’t move. She taps the knife against her hip, rhythmic, in time with her heartbeat—and the motion makes me nervous. I don’t like the way her eyes keep skipping over me. “We should go to the water tower,” she says to Noah. “Tell the others, bring back help.”
Noah is quiet for half a breath, the seconds ticking in my skull, and I wish I could read the thoughts stirring inside him, masked behind his steady eyes. But finally he shakes his head, dark hair dripping with rainwater. “It’s too late,” he answers, wiping the mud from his palms onto his pants. “We have to go now.”
But Cricket lifts both hands toward the edge of the trees, to the barn. “We can’t just abandon them. We need to warn the others at the tower.”
I sense the disquiet in Noah, something he doesn’t want to say—eyes colder than the dark, wet sky. “If those men made it here—” His gaze scrapes over to Cricket, his mouth flat. “Then they’ve already been to the water tower.”
