Rise An Eve Novel

could feel Clara’s eyes on me. I pushed past her, into the room. “Where’s Bette?” I reached down and squeezed Helene’s shoulder, startling her awake. “Did you know about the radio? Did you know she was using it?” I looked at a few of the girls who were curled up on the floor, catching glimpses of their shadowy faces, trying to distinguish one from the next. I didn’t see Bette anywhere.
    Helene shook her head. “I don’t know where she is,” she said. But she clasped her hands together, her face tense. “I don’t . . .”
    “What was she doing with it?” I asked. “Tell me.”
    Helene brushed her braids away from her face. “She said she was going to get me help. She promised me.”
    I took off down the dark hallway, past the old motel rooms. Some of the beds were turned over on their side. There were dusty suitcases filled with clothes, rotting ceiling tiles, a pile of toys that had been abandoned by people who’d left in a hurry. I spotted a figure in the broken mirror at the end of the hall. I tensed, taking a moment to realize it was my own reflection.
    Standing there in the dim hall, I listened to each one of my breaths, trying to figure out when Bette had seen me with the radio. She had to have gone through our bags, searching for it. How long had she been trying to send out a message? Who did she possibly think would come?
    Far away, beyond the shattered windows, I heard a small voice calling out, the words indistinguishable. I turned down the hall, not stopping until I was outside, rounding the back of the building. I darted past the parking lot, filled with rotting cars, and when I cleared the corner I finally saw her. She was just a black silhouette against the purple sky. She was waving her hands frantically, back and forth, a pathetic signal fire by her feet.
    It took me a moment to see what she was looking at. My hands went cold. Coming up the ridgeline, only a half mile away, was a motorcycle, its headlamp a small pinprick of light.

twenty
    BETTE KEPT WAVING BACK AND FORTH, JUMPING UP AND DOWN , trying to signal to the motorcycle. “Over here!” she yelled out. “We’re here!”
    I ran as quickly as I could, throwing my arms around hers, pinning them to her sides. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
    The moonlight cast strange shadows on her face. “I did what you wouldn’t,” she said. “She needs help. You said yourself she could die.”
    The motorcycle was coming closer, zipping along the ridgeline. I kicked dirt over the fire, a tiny pile of twigs and brush, scattered with a few burned matches she must’ve stolen from the supplies. Then I grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the motel. It all came back to me, rushing in, washing away every other thought. In an instant, I could see Marjorie and Otis on the cellar floor, her body slumped over his, her braid soaked with blood. I’d recognized the risk of bringing the radio along, knowing what could happen, knowing how much danger we would be in if one of the girls used it. I’d buried it in the bottom of the bag where only Beatrice, Clara, and I would know to find it.
    Bette dug her heels in the dirt, pulling us both to a stop. “I’m getting her help,” she repeated. “We need someone to bring her a doctor.”
    “That’s not how it works,” I said. She struggled against my grasp but I held on, not letting her go. “When did you send out the message? What did you say?”
    The headlight sped closer. The soldier was just a dark figure silhouetted against the sky, his back hunched slightly, the motorcycle packed with supplies. I’d never seen just one soldier, but I’d heard the boys at the dugout speak of it, how sometimes they’d run surveillance from storehouses or government checkpoints. If he was canvassing, that meant there were others close by, not more than fifty miles off.
    “Yesterday night,” she said. “When you were sleeping. I said where we were.”
    I pulled her back toward the motel, using my full force. “You need to hurry,” I said, looking at the small cluster of buildings ahead of us. There were only three wooden structures and an abandoned store, the parking lots scattered with cars, their tires torn away from the metal rims. It wouldn’t take the soldier more than a few minutes to search the buildings. Our only advantages were that there were more of us, and we knew the layout of the motel.
    I picked up the pace, running toward the back of the building, Bette close behind. The