chapter 16 the long stumble we ran I can't really recall what the packing up was like or if I even contributed or but we were gone from clearing and into the darkest part of the woods before the sun was fully up I know I held on to the gun still warm in my palm for most of the run until we heard the whistles far away echoing off that cliff and I swung it back behind me and snapped out of it a bit just enough to take whatever Rose had in her arms in addition to her pack and to run behind her to keep Pace we ran for hours chiboy and Meg taking turns carrying Minerva like a child on their backs while she wailed and sang and muled in Cycles we zigged and we zagged and when he wasn't packing our distraut Elder chi boy was off leaving false Trail leads for any potential followers his arm held closed with duct tape since there was no time to properly Stitch It Up by evening we were exhausted we we'd run and mourn for hours each one of us crying out when the image of Riri came to mind Riri in one shiny pink boot dropping off the edge of the rock held onto the body of her would-be kidnapper by the iron bar of his arm instead of a captor he became her anchor dragging her all the way to the bottom camp that night was two tents thrown up hastily in the middle of a dense Bush so with the spring bugs newly awake buzzing at the tears that we hadn't had time to repair we slept with our shoes on piled together like sticks falling unconscious more than to sleep Rose curled around me and I could barely feel her something had changed since I fired the gun since I had killed Travis it it was like color had ceased to exist and now the world seemed dull Riri was dead I had killed a man and there was no taking either of those things back for the first time in several years I missed my parents as physical pain at the bottom of my stomach and under each kneecap that's where the loss lived to those strangely normal spots on my body I didn't think I deserved to rub them so I fell into a dreamless sleep with a throb and a pull in my body the next morning wob made sure we ate each ate a bowl of lukewarm mush in the cold hour before the sky started shedding layers into lighter blue she spoon-fed Minerva who was now unresponsive and rag washed her face in her hands before taking her into the bush to pee then bundling her back up her card had been left at the clearing so she made a kind of Sling to balance the woman's weight on chiboy's back a bit warmer now tree spoke to zieguan and Whispers they needed to hear each other's voices it was part of their coping it will be full spring soon saw some green on the brown trees that's good we didn't have much to pack up and soon we were on our winding path again heading everywhere nowhere frantic to get away the next two days and nights were much of the same tree and zigwan commented on the weather getting warmer and the bugs coming back Minerva rode catatonic on our strongest carriers and I was numb it was the fourth day when Meg called to me from the front of the line French get up here boy I made my way up while he waited before I would have rushed but now I wasn't even sure I wanted to join him I wasn't really sure of anything I wasn't sure I even wanted to run anymore maybe I could just sit and wait for the recruiters to pick me up maybe I could use my last bullet I had in my gun to just go away I fell in stride beside him and at first he said nothing I didn't want to live after Isaac didn't make it out of the school he said I'd escaped sure but why I had no life without him the only thing that kept me going was the promise I'd made to myself to go back to get Isaac the first chance that I got at first I had to run of course the second they realized the lawn laundry boy is no longer in the laundry room they would calm the area so I ran for two days and two nights in my bare feet in a uniform that looked like men's pajamas it's not as bad as it sounds at night I found nooks and holes to crawl into and anything is better than living in a maze of hallways and sterile rooms not knowing it the person you care most for in the world is alive or dead or hurting knowing only that he's close by but impossibly Out Of Reach knowing only that your people could be strapped into some kind of machine that chews them up and spits out bone mush and sticky sap it's much better to freeze and bleed a free man after that I found a Cree family that was on the run too they let me camp with them for a bit gave me food and clothes and information told me about small pockets of anishinaabe still huddled around here and there and back then there were smaller communities like the one you lived in and that's when I met your dad walking into a settlement by Huron with the crease I felt a sharp jab in the guts of the mention of my father like a poisonous bubble bursting one that I've been trying to protect and the soft wet of my insides I ate real food and I slept for a week and then I began bartering trading game and knowledge for clothes and Camp gear all I needed was a gun for that I had to promise to show your dad and his counsel to the Capitol they have this crazy notion that there was goodness left that someone somewhere would see just how insane this whole school thing was that they could dialogue that they could explain the system had to die and a new one had to be built in his place like that wasn't scarier to those still in the system than all the dreamlessness and desert wastelands in the world I brought them to the Borderlands and I drew the final roads in the I couldn't walk all the way with them I was a fugitive from the school and I needed to get back I still had to find Isaac so your dad he shook my hand gave me the rifle and walked away I remember the way my mother had changed when my dad didn't return her skin turned to paper and on it was written all the worries that crossed her mind and heart I saw his back walking away from Mig wands out of the safety of the woods and into the unknown of the city and I knew he wouldn't have gone if he hadn't been driven by his love for us me and Mitch I was listening with every cell desperate to pick up a new piece of information or add new color to the picture that was my father's last days of course make it told me this story before more than once when I bugged him but it always ended right here this time he continued after that day I walked back to the school it took about 11 days and in every hour of those 11 days I imagined what I would do when I got there there was murder fantasies and romantic reunions I imagined snapping necks and then picking up my bae and running into the woods of course it was all when I got to where the trees thinned into forced Meadow devoided grass the air empty of birds I could barely keep myself from pissing my pants so I sat down what I just sat I sat there for two days watching the windowless walls what for what I'm not sure I wasn't sure of anything I didn't even cry I just sat I knew damn while there was no way in and there was not even a window to break in through what was I going to do it was a suicide mission that wouldn't get me any closer to Isaac than I was sitting in that Woods the morning of the third day a pickup truck rumbled past me I waited near the fence gate for it to leave again and jumped in the back squeezing in between two piles of wooden crates under blue tarp I rode along for hours until it stopped on the side of the road and the driver got out to relieve himself when he was finished zipping up I snuck behind him and put a gun to his spine he raised his hands in the air oh what you want take the truck keys are in the ignition I don't want the damn truck I wanted to the school and I know you can get me there he turned then curiosity getting the better fear took in my appearance from a shaved head to the gun I held steady in my steady grip dude what do you want to get in that's into the school for you're an Indian Indians go there to die what do you mean Indians go there to get harvested he Shrugged his shoulders and struggled without mirth what do you think harvesting is they work them I mean you until there's enough demand built up and then they hook you up and game over man it's it's done I punched him in the gut a cheap shot so angry I couldn't hold it in the air rushed out of him and he fell to a knee in his own piss where are they where in that God forsaken building are the people it took him a minute to catch his breath I wound up to kick him in a side before he put his hand up to stop me gone what do you mean gone where the hell are they then I did kick him and he fell to his side and held both of his arms up and to protect his head they're gone there's no one there now last group was used up they're waiting on new recruits he yelled it at me from behind his arms I paced in a small circle hands on the back of my head gun clattering against my skull then reeled back to the driver he was still in a defensive curl eyes closed I don't believe you he pointed to the truck check in the back I kicked at his legs just grazing a shin don't get smart with me dude just look in the back that's the last of them I look behind me at the truck then back to the prone man don't move he lifted both hands in the air as a gesture of surrender and stayed on the ground keeping the gun pointed in in his Direction I walked back to the truck and lifted the side of the tarp just crates I yanked it off completely still only crates I took two steps back towards the band before he called out look in the boxes man the boxes I pulled the crate off the top of the stack and dropped it by my feet I yanked the top and the nails gave way insides were rows of glass tubes held in a metal rack and cushioned by plastic wrap what the I took one out it was a frosted test tube with the shadow of the liquid inside a thick viscous liquid that was neither cool nor warm I turned the tube and on one side there was a paper label 67541b 23 year old male Ottawa McMac I grabbed another 46522y 64 year old female metis no 67781 F 15 year old male Inuits No 66542g 41 year old male Euro Cree I didn't think I didn't consider I walked back to the driver and started shooting it wasn't even his fault he was just a cog in the system not that he didn't know what was going on but still we slowed down the sun was setting make motion for chiboy to go ahead and discount the next campsite then continued I didn't kill him not right there I heard him bad though shot him in his arm and a thigh he was bleeding pretty badly and crying he cried hardest when I drove away his truck leaving him there all alone that was the worst part he pleaded with me to take him but I was deaf to him then not that I wouldn't hear him clearly when I tried to sleep I loaded the crate in the back and just drove away with them all knowing leaving the driver mean he would die slowly and without dignity there on the side of the road what did you do with it with the dream stuff I couldn't help myself I had to ask it was too late to save Isaac I took too long I had to live with that but I couldn't live with the people being served up like club sandwiches to the dreamless so I tried to take them home I drove to the lake one of the last ones that I knew still held fish got as close as I could from the road and then trekked in back and forth one box at a time then I camped there for four days I sang each one of them home when I poured them out and it rained a real good one too so I made no they made it back chiboy looped back and guided us to a Swatch of even ground under a ridge of thick Pine where we'd spend the night the group started unloading I stepped forward to drop my pack and set up but Meg grab my shoulder holding me there for a moment thing is French sometimes you do things you wouldn't do in another time and place sometimes the path in front of you Alters sometimes it goes through some pretty dark territory just make sure it doesn't change the intent of the trip he put his right hand in the center of my chest as long as the intent is good nothing else matters not in these days son