I wrap my arm tightly around the bluecoat’s neck and press hard while he tries to shake me off. I chance a look at Findley and see that he is frowning, yet he makes no move to help either side. Meanwhile Pace and Levi are grappling with two more bluecoats. Findley moves to my father, and I pray that he is going to help us. I hear yelling in the tunnel and the sharp bark of a gunshot. Jilly shrieks, and out of the corner of my eye I catch the swirl of her skirts and the bright flare of her hair.
The bluecoat I am fighting tries to throw me off. I wrap my legs around his waist and he backs into the tunnel, hard, knocking the breath from me. I do not let go and he staggers forward. He has to be running out of air. His momentum carries him forward and we crash into a post. The post breaks and he flies forward, off balance, and we tumble into the stand of trees. He falls headfirst and the momentum of his fall pitches me off his back so that I fly off and land in front of him. I put out my hands to break my fall and he careens into me and we roll together, down the hill. The way he flops around makes me realize that he is unconscious, finally, from my strangling him. That does not help with stopping either one of us, as I am tangled up in his limbs. I manage to push him away as we roll over and over and he slams into a tree. I twist around so I am feet first and manage to stop myself. I hear a crunch of bones and know that the bluecoat will wake up to find something broken. If he wakes up at all.
I lay still for a moment, to catch my breath and take a mental inventory of my injuries. Aside from some bumps and bruises, I feel fine. Still, my heart is pounding as if it is trying to beat its way out of my chest. I stare up at the treetops and at the way they sway in the breeze. After the weeks in the dome I was beginning to wonder if I had imagined the outside. My heart finally slows down and my breathing levels out and the scent of fresh dirt and evergreens fill my senses.
That is when I realize I don’t hear anything up above me. I flip over on my stomach and crawl back up the incline. Levi, Pace, Colm, Jilly, and Tobias sit with their hands behind their heads and guns aimed at them. Ellen is still tied to the post. Bill and the other four shiners are in their death throes. One is on his hands and knees gagging up a thick black substance before he collapses, face down. My father stands over him and nudges him with the toe of his boot.
Something jabs me in my back and I look over my shoulder to see Findley poking me with a rifle. “Really?” I say.
“He’d never believe that you’d take off without your friends.” He jerks his head, signifying I should get up. “Who has the knife?”
“I do,” I lie, because right now I am not sure if I can trust him. “I lost it down there.”
He pulls one from his pocket. I immediately see it is not the same one that Levi slid into his boot. “Oh look. I just found it,” he says. “Let’s go.”
“Are you going to burn us?” I stand and put my hands on top of my head like the others.
“No,” Findley says. “He has other plans for you. He wants you to disappear, so he’s telling everyone you escaped.” He grimaces and then looks at me. “His way of saying he loves you, I guess.”
I shake my head. I am certain my father does not know how to love anyone or anything, except for his position. “Someday his lies will catch up with him.”
“For your sake, I hope it is sooner than later.”
I have no idea what to make of that comment, so I continue on until we join the rest and Findley gives me an encouraging shove so that I fall in line between Levi and Jilly. He then goes and unties Ellen from the post and forces her to kneel beside Pace.
“What are you doing to us?” Ellen says as soon as Findley removes her gag. “You have no right.”
“I have every right,” my father says.
“You lied to me!” Ellen exclaims. “You said if we cooperated everything would be fine.”
“Your son chose not to cooperate.”
Ellen opens her mouth to protest but stops suddenly when Pace simply says, “Stop.” I cannot see his face when he looks at her, but hers shows her devastation and disbelief at the hand fate has dealt her.
Findley hands my father the knife he showed me. “She had this on her.”
My father walks up to me. “Where did you get this?” he asks. “Did someone give it to you?”
“I’ve had it ever since I came in,” I lie. “Your man missed it when he searched me.” I am not about to give up Findley. Not when I think he can still help us. Actually helping us now would be wonderful. My father gives Findley a look and he shrugs. “What are you going to do with us?” I ask.
“Believe it or not, I do have some use for you.” He waves at two of the bluecoats who stand off to the side. They kneel and one lights a fuse. A small tube shoots up in the air, much like the flare I used the night we were attacked. Who could they be signaling?
Levi looks at me and grins. I don’t know where we are bound, but I do know that Lyon will surely check on the flare. Or perhaps it is Lyon that is being signaled. Still, I cannot forget Findley’s parting words to me. I do not think our escape will be so easy.
The bluecoats who are not guarding us pick up the bodies of the shiners who died and pile them off to the side behind us. Bill and the other four, whose names I cannot recall since they were not of my generation. There were just faces to me, some I passed in my work, others I saw in the village. They saw me as Elias’s girl and that’s what they called me. I was never Wren to them; I was more an extension of my grandfather. And that was fine with me. But now I feel bad because I have nothing to call them as I pray for their departed souls. So many of us are lost that it is easier to count the survivors.
I look at Colm and Tobias. Their faces are grim and pale, and I know they are wondering why they lived while the others died. I should have warned them. My life is so full of should ofs that it is impossible to count the mistakes I’ve made. Warning them would not have changed the outcome, no matter what.
The sun is just now reaching the treetops. Jilly looks around in wonder. “Don’t look at the sun,” I warn her again. “Colm, Tobias, it will blind you if you look at it. Jilly, keep your skin covered as much as you can.” She is still in her pretty party dress, but she has the use of my shawl that she tied over her shoulders before we left the prison. It droops to one side now after her tussle.
“I never dreamed it was real,” Colm says.
“Quiet,” Findley growls.
My hands, like everyone else’s, are still placed on the back my head. “May I put my goggles on?” I ask. “To protect my eyes?”
Findley nods. “You can keep your hands down,” he says to me. “You too,” to Jilly.
Jilly gratefully puts her arms down and immediately rubs her upper arms before rearranging the shawl over her shoulders. I wonder how much physical stress she will be able to handle. Her skin is very fair and I know the sun will fry her. Hopefully that will not be such an issue once Lyon arrives. “What about my parents?” Jilly asks my father, who is growing impatient with the wait. “Are they prisoners also?”
“Nothing will happen to them,” my father says. “They have done nothing to cause any problems.”
“Because you wouldn’t dare touch the gentry,” Ellen spouts angrily. “What about me? I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I thought it was your wish to be with your son,” my father intones, as if he is now bored with all of us.
“He dares too much,” Pace says to his mother. “If Jilly’s parents protest too much they will be the next ones to fall victim to his lies.” Pace looks at my father and says the words I’ve repeated to him over and over again. “When will it be enough? How many more good people are going to die to protect your lies?” Pace turns his head at an angle as if to see my father better. “Is it all about power for you? Because, in all honesty, you cannot continue to believe that staying locked up inside is for the best.”