Rise An Eve Novel

beside ours. I could hear the girls’ quiet breathing, and Bette tried to say something to me, her words muffled under my hand. Then, in an instant, the room’s shadowy insides were lit up. For the first time I could see every tear in the wallpaper, the way the ceiling buckled in places, how filthy the floor was, covered with dust and sand. Worn, beaten shoes were scattered beneath the bed. We sat there, silent, squinting against the unbearable light, watching as it passed.
    The Jeep continued on. Clara pressed her face against the wall, her eyes on the road. “They’re leaving,” she said after a long while. “I can barely see the taillights anymore.” She looked down at Bette, who was tense under my grip. It was only then that I noticed how tightly I was holding her.
    I released her but held on to her arm, even as she tried to pull away. “If you want to leave, leave now,” I said, pointing to the door, which was resting on its side, the hinges broken. “But no one is going with you.”
    I let her go. She sat back on the floor. Against the dim light from the window I could see how small she was. The T-shirt she wore was three sizes too big, her arms bony and thin. She didn’t get up to leave. She didn’t even acknowledge what I’d said. Instead she picked at her bottom lip, the silence swelling around us.
    “She didn’t mean it,” Helene finally said. She slid down off the bed, offering Bette the towel she was holding.
    In some other place and time I would’ve gone to her, helping her up, telling her not to get upset. But I felt nothing now, even as she cried. If they’d heard her, seen us, as she wanted, I would’ve been taken back to the City, three of us—Clara, Beatrice, and I—hanged as traitors.
    I settled down in the chair in the corner, trying to relax into the thin cushions. It was Clara who helped her, who assembled the rest of the girls’ beds so they each had a spot to rest. “We’re all tired” was the only thing I managed to say.
    As the room quieted, Helene comforted Bette, whispering something to her before they went to sleep. The rest of the girls lay down, giving in to exhaustion. I waited until my breaths slowed, the sound of the Jeep fading in the distance as it climbed the road.
    Even if nothing had happened tonight, I had the horrible, sinking feeling I’d made a mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought them here, thinking they’d be better off. Maybe in some ways, Bette was right. All of us making it to Califia, alive, would be impossible.

seventeen
    THE ROAD SPREAD OUT IN FRONT OF US, RUNNING ALONG THE ridgeline and out into the sky. As we started into Death Valley we kept climbing, higher into the mountains, the salt floor hundreds of feet below. I tried to steady my hands, but they still shook, the sour sting of bile in the back of my throat. My legs ached; my feet were cracked and swollen. The tender spot between my shoulder blades hurt from carrying the bag for so many miles. I’d tried to stay on a schedule, drinking some of the boiled rain-water every three hours. But with every mile my thoughts returned to the baby, wondering if we’d both survive.
    Each day that went by, each morning I woke up with the same queasiness, was another confirmation that she was still alive, that we were together. It was easy to go there, whenever my thoughts wandered, to imagine what she would look like, what she would be like, if she’d have Caleb’s pale green eyes or my fair complexion. Sometimes I’d let myself imagine the possibility of Califia, of a life like the one Maeve had assembled for Lilac. I’d think up a houseboat or imagine one of the abandoned cabins that were perched in the mountains over the bay, trying to picture what those dark rooms would be like if they were cleaned and restored, the thick vines cleared from the windows.
    On my clearest days, when the truth kept presenting itself to me, I knew that life in Califia was part fantasy. As long as my father was alive he’d always be looking for me—for us. I was probably already on the billboards inside the City, listed among the rebels. However hard it had been to avoid the soldiers before, it would be even harder now.
    “I can’t walk anymore,” Helene called out. She knelt down a few yards ahead, her eyes squinting against the morning sun. “When is the next stop?”
    “We just started,” Clara pointed out. “We’ve been on the road for less than an hour.” She slowed in front of me, the