Here Skies Surround Us Read online

  “I noticed a boy being hit for stealing some food,” I say. “Is that freedom?”

  “Like I said,” Remy explains, “within reason. There are rules in Dome 569. Do not steal is one of them.”

  “What other rules are there?”

  “Do not kill is another big one,” Remy says. “They’re all painted on the base of the dome walls. We can check them out sometime if you want.”

  “Sure.” It’s nice to have someone who can spend time with me. However, I feel a little guilty looking forward to spending more time with Remy while Evan is busy working. I chalk it up to loneliness.

  “Nat?” Quinn asks me quietly. “Do you like your brown eyes?”

  I look down into his inquisitive face and see his brown eyes staring back at me. “I never really thought of it. My mother had brown eyes, and my dad did too. I guess I like them. Do you like yours?”

  “No,” Quinn complains. “In my family, everyone has gray eyes. Evan says mine make me special, but I think they’re weird.”

  “Do you think mine are weird?”

  He thinks for a moment and then smiles at me. “No, now that I met you I think I like mine.”

  “That’s nice to hear,” I say. “I think they make you handsome.”

  Quinn starts to giggle and walks over to Remy. “She’s silly.” He hides his face behind Remy.

  “I think she’s nice.” Remy smiles at me.

  “You must get your blond hair from your dad too,” I say, comparing Quinn to Evan. Evan’s wavy black hair matches his mother’s.

  “I don’t know,” Quinn says. “I pretty sure it’s all me.”

  Remy and I burst into laughter. A wave of relief washes over me. For the first time since I got here, I feel like I’ve connected with someone.

  We pack up and leave the park. On our way back, I drop off Remy and Quinn at Quinn’s home. Quinn gives me a big hug before I leave. “Nat,” he says, “I think you are the nicest new person I ever met in the world.”

  “I like you too,” I say, ruffling his hair.

  “You sure you know the way home?” Remy asks. “We could walk you. Alec told me he wants you kept safe.”

  “I’m good,” I say. “Thank you for the afternoon.”

  I turn away and walk down the street alone until I’m out of sight, then into an alley and hide behind some boxes. While we were in the park, I saw Wheezy watching me again. I know he must be somewhere behind me, following my trail. I’m going to find out what he’s looking for and get some payback at the same time.

  Sure enough, within a couple minutes I can hear him enter the alley. His telltale gasp for air intensifies as he shuffles quickly, looking concerned he’s lost me. As he passes by my boxes, I spring out and tackle him to the ground.

  I misjudge his strength and he pushes me off, but I’ve still managed to wrestle his gun out of its holster. I jump to my feet and point it at him unsteadily. “Why are you following me?”

  He stares at me with fear in his eyes, obviously not used to being on the other side of his gun. “Please don’t hurt me,” he whimpers.

  I pause and loosen my grip; this is not how I expected things to go down. Wheezy sees the chance and kicks me in the gut. I fall back against the wall of the building behind me and gasp for air. The gun scatters somewhere out of sight. Well played, Wheezy.

  He hoists himself up and towers over me. “You think you’re so smart, little girl. Well, I have a lesson to teach you about the rules around here. I could report you for attacking a member of the New Order and you’d most likely go to the gallows. Or I could teach you the rules my own way.” He begins to undo his belt, and I scramble to catch my breath and get away, unable to imagine what he has planned next.

  “My father used to use the belt on us when we didn’t listen, and I learned to obey the rules quickly. I think your uncle will thank me for saving him the trouble.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Remy’s voice comes from the alley’s entranceway. He’s holding Wheezy’s gun. “Here’s what’s going to happen. She’s going to get up and come over here to me and then I’m going to give you your gun back. You’re not going to report this to anyone, because if you do the entire city will know that you had your weapon taken by a girl. No one will trust you to protect the dome ever again.”

  “I know you,” Wheezy snarls. “You and your friends have that place for those little bastards to hang out. I think you’re more trouble than Caroline cares to admit.”

  “That’s your opinion.” Remy smiles. “At least I don’t get my rockets off beating a girl. So what’s it going to be: a life full of ridicule, or you forget that all this happened?”

  “Get outta here,” Wheezy growls at me. I don’t need to be told twice. I scramble to my feet and run behind Remy. We begin to walk backward, out of the alley.

  “Hey!” Wheezy calls out. “What about my gun?”

  “Come and get it,” Remy says, and drops it in a dumpster. We turn and run down the street. By the time we reach my uncle’s house we are both so out of breath we can hardly talk.

  “You are way more trouble than Evan said you were.” Remy bursts into laughter.

  “Evan said I was trouble?” A twinge of disappointment shoots through my gut.

  “Not in a bad way.” Remy laughs again. “Just that you have a mind of your own. That’s a good thing; you don’t see much of that around here anymore. A word of advice? Had he reported you, you’d end up at Court. I don’t see how they wouldn’t have found you guilty. Thankfully, his ego is much larger than his brain. No more ambushing New Order members in dark alleys. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I agree.

  I stay up late, waiting for Alec to get home in the hopes that Evan is with him. Since my escapade in the alley, I’ve drawn all the curtains and barricaded the door. Finally, the knob turns, and I brace myself, waiting to see who it is.

  The boxes shift as the door pushes against them, and Alec’s voice comes from the other side. “Nat, let me in.” I jump off the couch and move the barricade aside.

  He walks in with a raised brow, eyeing the barricade. “Do I want to know?”

  I shake my head and look past him, but he’s alone. My excitement drops and I frown at Alec. “Where’s Evan?”

  “Things didn’t go as planned out there,” Alec explains. “Caroline’s mad, things are tense, so I thought it best Evan went home. We have to leave early in the morning on another expedition.”

  Disappointment grows in the pit of my stomach, along with exhaustion from waiting up for so long. I concede, retreating to my room where I try to sleep. Instead, I spend half the night tossing and turning. The other half is full of broken shards of dreams, mashed together like clips from different movies.

  The next morning, I wake up to banging at the front door. Grudgingly, I drag myself out of bed, noticing Alec’s room is empty on my way to the door. I pull the curtain to the side, and see Quinn and Remy. What time is it?

  When I open the door, Quinn jumps into my arms. “I can’t wait to take you on an adventure today, Nat. It’s a surprise.” His little face beams up at me. Then he looks me over. “Why are you still in your pajamas?”

  I laugh, letting go of my feelings from the night before. “Give me a sec,” I say, running to my room, where I quickly pull my hair up into a ponytail and change my clothes.

  When I come out, Remy is holding up a note at the table. “Fortify the house?” he asks, holding it out to me.

  I grab the paper and look it over.

  Nat,

  Hope to be home early tonight. You shouldn’t need to fortify the house before my return.

  Behave.

  -A

  What would Alec do if he found out why I did it?

  “Alec wasn’t mad when you told him about Karl?” Remy asks.

  “Who’s Karl?” I ask, putting the note down.

  “The guy from last night,” Remy says. “He’s a sicko
.”

  He’s also one of the guys Evan recognized when we first arrived here.

  “Alec came home late.” I put on a smile. “There wasn’t time to rehash the day.”

  “Let’s make today less eventful, then,” Remy says. “Plus, it’s better to let Karl forget about you and move on to a new target.” The three of us leave the house, and I don’t see any sign of the hooded Karl anywhere.

  When we get to the dome entrance, Quinn runs to the right. Remy and I follow. Soon I see what the surprise is—the rules of the dome. They run around the bottom ring of the dome, raised about three feet from the ground. Scrolled onto the shielding metal are the warnings, put here by the people after escaping their dome. The words stand as a reminder that not even man’s laws can penetrate the dome.

  “Do not kill,” Quinn reads. “Do not steal. Protect Dome 569 at all costs. Protect the people of Dome 569 at all costs. An attack on the New Order is a threat to the dome. Threats to the dome are crimes. All crimes go before the Court. All sentences are final.” The rules end here and then repeat over and again, all the way around.

  “Good job, Quinn.” I smile. “You’re as smart as Evan says.” He excitedly high-fives me, reminding me of Xara and her unbridled enthusiasm. Even though she’s my age and not Quinn’s, she always knows how to stay positive.

  “Can we take Nat to her real surprise now?” Quinn asks.

  “Absolutely.” Remy smiles.

  We continue walking past the dome to the opposite side of the city. The buildings here are smaller, reminding me of the one-room shacks we built outside of my dome. Kids run around the streets, unwatched by parents while the elderly sit on the ground in the shade, propped up against houses as they lean back in the heat of the day.

  A man passes by us, pushing a cart holding a backpack and a bag of garbage. He hunches over the wagon, using it to support his wobbly legs. This man seems nearly eighty years old—something I’ve never seen before. Back home you never live past seventy due to the population limitations of our dome. When resources are scarce, hard choices must be made.

  “Hi, Ray.” Remy greets him. “Looks like you’re keeping the streets clean today.”

  “If I don’t do it no one will,” the old man croaks. “No one cares about the north quarter. We’re the forgotten people.”

  He stops and takes a long drink from a bottle he has hidden in his backpack.

  “That’s moonshine,” Remy says. “They brew it on the other side of the north quarter, in the forest somewhere. Man, Caroline would love to find their hiding spot. She hates that stuff.”

  “How can he drink it like water?” I ask, remembering the bitter whiskey the Director had in his office back home. It was laced with a truth serum when he was trying to get information out of me one evening. It burned my throat as it went down, and you couldn’t pay me to try anything like it again.

  “People like Ray drown themselves in their sorrows,” Remy says. “It’s sad, but he’s still a part of this community and an important component of the north quarter.”

  “Why did he say they ignore the north quarter?”

  “All the misfits get put here,” Remy explains. “Children without parents, the elderly who can no longer contribute—you know, people who don’t fit in the scheme of things with the New Order and all.”

  “So, they’re left to fend for themselves?”

  “They still get access to all the same food and services,” Remy explains, “after the other quarters have had their fill. But look at everything they accomplish. They build their own homes and learn to recycle items cast off by the south quarter. I’d say no matter how young or old, anyone can still contribute something to society.”

  I turn back and see the same young boy from the bakery in the middle of the street. He’s staring at me, open-mouthed. I raise a hand to wave, but he turns and runs.

  “Hi, Georgie!” Remy calls out. Too late. The boy has disappeared into a large building at the end of the street, nestled under the shelter of an old, broken-down bridge.

  “Wow, look at that structure,” I say in awe. I’ve only seen photos of bridges in the Learning Institute.

  “It’s one of the survivors of the Cleansing War.” Remy beams. “Pretty cool, huh? They think it survived because the dome protected it.”

  “I’ve never seen anything this big that survived.” On our expeditions, we came across some items buried under decades of soil, but this bridge was too big to bury. The concrete is cracked, and the beams lie broken across its posts. It’s a giant, akin to the dome itself, both linked to a past that exists no more, yet their existence alone proves what happened was real.

  Quinn runs ahead and disappears into the same house where Georgie went, and I follow Remy inside. Surprisingly the house is not a house after all. It is simply a façade of a house that once was. Beyond the door, kids peek down at us from nooks and crannies hidden all over the underbelly of the bridge.

  “This is the hostel,” Remy says, lifting his hands. “Everyone come and say hi to our new friend Nat!”

  Kids come running from all directions, overwhelming me with their welcome. I realize most of them are trying to pick my pockets. I should have brought the money my uncle gave me—they could use it more than me.

  Georgie approaches me. “I know you,” he yells. “You’re the lady who paid the baker.”

  “Yes, that was me.”

  “Why’d you do that?” He keeps his distance, almost as if he’s afraid to get too close to me.

  “Because if I didn’t he would have kept hitting you.”

  Georgie shrugs, as if a beating is no big deal. “It was my fault I got caught.”

  “Well, I would do it all over again, if I had to.”

  He frowns and pushes his brows together, studying me. “I didn’t ask you for help.” He crosses his arms, as if getting ready for an argument.

  I stare at him and try to place his age. He couldn’t be older than ten. I cross my arms, mirroring his stance. “I didn’t say you did.”

  “Well, I don’t owe you nothing, got it?” Georgie says, challenging me with his stare.

  I smile back and unravel my arms. “I don’t want anything.”

  “Good,” Georgie says. “Then we can be friends.” He sticks out his hand in my direction, showing his dirty skin and blackened fingernails, and I reach out without hesitation and shake it. Georgie nods before letting go and walks to his bunk.

  A little girl comes up to me and pulls on my shirt. “Quinny tells me you are nice.”

  “I think Quinny is nice too.”

  “I like Quinny.” She laughs and then runs away giggling. She can’t be more than five.

  My gaze follows the girl, so young and innocent. I turn to Remy, unable to hold back my questions. “How did she make it without parents?”

  “Who, Molly? She’s lucky we found her before someone else did,” Remy says quietly. “The scout teams make sure there aren’t a lot of roamers outside of the dome. But the odd time we hear about attacks. That’s what happened to Molly’s home—obliterated. She’s just a byproduct of survival of the fittest.”

  “There are more kids out there? How do these kids survive before they get here?”

  “They have street smarts,” Remy explains. “It’s the only way they made it this far. Sometimes I wonder how many are out there wandering, or worse. At least these kids have my team and me to help them out.”

  Two girls walk out from the back. One has short spiky black hair, the other a brown ponytail and glasses.

  The one with the spiky black hair introduces herself first. “Hi, I’m Jess,” she says, shaking my hand. “This is Shell.” Shell smiles and waves. “So, you’re Evan’s friend?”

  “I’m Nat.” I smile back.

  “I heard what you did with the baker.” Jess grins. “You sure are gutsy.”

  “So I hear,” I say. I’m starting to realize no one else would have saved Georgie
from his lashings. “You guys help these kids out?”

  “Yeah,” Jess says, looking around. “We make sure they’re eating and learning. Eventually, they will be functioning members of the city. Remy helps them get jobs and stuff.”

  “It sounds like a lot of work,” I say, looking around at all the tiny faces.

  “It’s just something we stumbled onto.” Jess shrugs. “At first, it was one kid who used to follow Shell around. I think he had a crush on her. Then they hanged him. It was a shame, but it was his third strike; the Court is more lenient with kids. We realized if no one taught them to follow the rules there would be more to follow.”

  “They hang children?” I ask. My chest tightens, remembering the gallows Alec showed me.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Jess says.

  “That’s sick, how could anyone allow it?”

  Shell walks away. “Don’t mind her. She’s not good with people. Kids, yes, she can totally relate. Adults, not so much. And no one wants to see a kid hang. That’s why we teach them the rules and do our best to protect them. Got it?”

  Jess’s face twitches as she lets her smile drop. I’ve obviously struck a nerve, so I drop the subject and nod.

  “Have you known Evan long?” Jess asks.

  “A couple months.”

  “He’s a good guy, you know? I can tell he really likes you.”

  “Really?” I shift my weight between my feet. I should be happy, but now I’m even more irritated. “When did you talk to him? because I have barely seen him.” I awkwardly add, “He and Nico have been inseparable.”

  Jess looks surprised for a moment and then laughs. “You don’t know about their sordid past?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ah well, it’s not my place to say then.” Jess winks as a smirk plays across her lips. “But they’ve been promised to each other since, like, birth.”

  I can’t help but feel irritated at Jess for providing me with information that makes me want to throw up. Promised to each other? That’s pretty much like being engaged. It sometimes happened in Dome 1618, but not often. Why did he lie to me and tell me she was just a friend?