“What channel did this come in on?” I manage to ask.
“Our internal one. I think it’s real. I think it was Teresa who called.”
Teresa is my sister. She’s one of the few people who know this channel other than Ben’s family beyond the border and a couple of our close compatriots who have settled into homes in the past few years.
“What if it’s another ambush?”
“It could be, but that would mean they’ve somehow discovered your identity and who your sister is and managed to force her to call in the message. In more than six years, they haven’t been able to do that. I doubt they’ve miraculously figured it out in a couple of days. I think this is real.”
I’m shaking inside again—for a different reason now. The scrawled words on the scrap of paper blur briefly before they clarify again.
Mother is sick. If you want to see her before she’s gone, come now.
I look back up at Ben, my fingers tightening around the note until it crumples. “W-what should I do?”
“That’s up to you. Do you want to see her?”
My mother walked out on my father, my sister, and me a long time ago. She didn’t like my father’s dangerous rebel activity—writing pamphlets that questioned the government—and she wanted a safer, more comfortable life. She claimed to love her two daughters but not enough to stay or take us with her.
I understood even then that dragging two teenage girlswith her would interfere with her goal, which was finding another man who could give her the life she wanted.
Anger clouded my feelings toward her for a long time. So much that it never felt like I really grieved for the loss.
When Ben gave me a way out from my marriage and we left the Capitol, I stopped by to say goodbye to Teresa and see my mother one more time before we crossed the border.
I’m not sure why I went to see her then. Closure or something. It was a wasted effort. She pretended to care but then spent the entire visit chiding me for breaking off an affluent marriage and sneaking out of the Central Cities illegally.
I didn’t want to leave like that, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to be completely out of Chad’s reach and gone long enough that my old identity couldn’t be connected to my new one. The year we spent in the wilderness wasn’t wasted. Ben taught me to fight. To shoot. To hunt. To drive. To strategize like a military commander.
He settled back with his family in the rural region that isn’t nearly as uncivilized as everyone here believes. He could have been safe and free and content there, so I never expected him to return to the Central Cities when I did.
But when a year passed, I was getting restless, and one day I announced I was leaving at the end of the week. He nodded and said he’d be ready.
So we returned together.
And here we are today.
My mother is dying, and I need to decide whether I want to see her once more or not.
“I… I don’t know.”
“So just think about it,” Ben murmurs. He shifts briefly like he’s about to touch me, but he doesn’t. “We can’t leave till the mornin’ anyway, so take the evenin’ to think about it and decide.”
I swallow hard. He’s right. I don’t have to decide this minute. Then I realize what he said. “We?”
He frowns. “Yes, we. What else?”
“It might make sense for you to stay and make sure things are running smoothly here.”
“No. I’m comin’ with you.” He shakes his head like I said something unforgivably foolish. “Always.”
11
I decidebefore bed that evening that I’m going to see my mother one more time, so Ben and I wake up at dawn so we can start off as soon as there’s some light at the horizon.
We’re not taking anyone else. It’s easy to fly beneath the radar if there’s only the two of us. I put on the little dress again along with a red wig I always wear for the particular fake identities we’ll be using, and Ben leaves off his heavy belt with all the holsters as well as the strap for his rifle. He wears a flannel shirt and a wide-brimmed hat he borrows from Georgie.
He looks like a village trader, and I look like his little wife.
