Taken (Erin Bowman)

answers on a walk?”
    “Who knows. Walls talk sometimes. Think of how much we learned from Harvey’s wanted poster the day we arrived in Taem.”
    The dining hall begins to empty out, Order members returning to their duties.
    “Will you always be obsessed with the truth?” Emma looks at me, her brows raised.
    I shrug. “Until I see it with my own eyes, I guess. And you said you wanted answers just as badly, back when you followed me over the Wall.”
    “I did. But now look where we are. I want it to be like it was before we left. If I could do it over, I’d stop searching and just be with you, Gray. You weren’t Heisted and so maybe we could have been together in Claysoot. Forever. Like the birds.”
    “I would have been Heisted when I turned nineteen,” I point out. “And we’re not birds.”
    “I know. But I wish we were. We could fly away. Right now.”
    She stares at her tray again, and for a second, I’m afraid she might start crying. I reach out and take her hand in mine. “We can’t do that. Not yet. But some more answers, the truth, and then I promise we can fly anywhere you want.”
    Her customary half smile comes first, the one I can never fully read. And then she leans across the table and kisses me, a quick, tempting thing that leaves me hungry for more. As we leave the dining hall, my heart races, and not because of answers waiting to be discovered.
    It’s Emma. It’s always been Emma.

SIXTEEN
    OUR WALK FROM UNION CENTRAL, through the corridor littered with Harvey’s wanted posters, and to the public square downtown is much longer than we anticipate. Emma and I find a small piece of shade blanketing a bench and sit. I face the golden statue, but Emma leans her back against my arm, swings her feet up onto the seat, and gazes off in the opposite direction. Her hair no longer smells like Claysoot soap—that scent is long gone, replaced with something foreign—but I kiss her head anyway. We sit there, in a comfortable silence, for quite a while.
    “You know, I haven’t found any answers yet,” she jokes. “It’s very disappointing. I’m starting to think you just wanted an excuse to spend time with me.”
    I smile as she twists around to sit properly. “Maybe I did.”
    The square has steadily filled with civilians since our arrival. Now, their numbers border on crowded. They shuffle in, forming a line leading up to the platform and pushing each other aggressively as they jockey for position. A wall illuminates with a familiar message: Water distribution today. Segments 1 & 2 only. Must present ration card.
    The Order members come next, filing from between various buildings, cars bringing up the rear. Those on foot take their place on the raised platform, weapons ready. The instruments are the same as the ones I saw during our initial drive into Taem, and again, the Order points them at the growing crowd. Taem’s citizens are a steady pulse, filtering by our bench and surging toward the stage. They all hold red slips in their hands, papers that must be their ration cards. A middle-aged man, looking desperately nervous, races by us, crushing my feet as he does.
    “Watch it,” I say.
    He looks back at me, eyes livid, and mumbles something. Then he runs off, disregarding the line and pushing his way through people. The bag slung across his back swings wildly, hitting anyone standing too close. Up ahead, the distribution begins, a single jug of water handed to each civilian in turn.
    Emma and I decide to leave—it’s getting far too crowded—but our progress is slow. We are fish going upstream, an unyielding current of bodies pressing against us. Just when we have reached the outer perimeter of the square, I hear the shouts.
    “Stop him! Stop that man.”
    Behind us, things remain relatively calm, the crowd still moving toward the stage. And then a ripple, a small steady thing in the center, which grows larger and larger, people parting in its wake. The voices keep yelling. “Stop him! Thief!”
    And then I can see him, the same man that trampled over my feet. He is sprinting from the crowd, pushing over anyone in his path. He clings to not one jug of water but two.
    The Order members on the stage are frantic, fighting their way into the crowd and after the thief. I look back to Emma and see the man barreling toward her. She is blocking the alley he approaches.
    She attempts to jump out of his way but is too slow. The thief throws his shoulder into her and she crumples. As