The coffee shop is too bright, too crowded. I feel heat emanating from my cheeks, like my face is glowing, a beacon. My brain sends some urgent message to my legs and before I fully realize it, I’m up and through the door. I hear Harp scrambling to her feet, but I don’t wait. Every second we hesitate we become more visible.
Outside, the wind picks up, scattering dust, stinging my eyes with cold. I try to tuck into myself, to shrink. I don’t know where I’m going—my instinct is just to get away from that screen. But I must be on thousands by now. Walking past these buildings, I glance into open windows and see the ghostly bluish glow of screens inside; it seems impossible they could show anything but my face, spreading like a virus through links on Twitter and Facebook, until every person in America has it memorized.
I’ve reached the end of the block before Harp catches up. I notice a laptop under her arm that she did not have when we walked into the coffee shop.
“I know, I know,” she mutters. “I’m aware that petty larceny is not the most inconspicuous way to handle this development, but I panicked, okay?”
I pick up my pace, steering us down a side street—darker, uphill, lined by trees. I don’t want the laptop’s owner to catch up. My hand throbs. The posting of our faces means no hospital for me. No motels, no stopping at a gas station to ask directions. No food. I didn’t realize until this moment how good we had it, being anonymous. I didn’t realize how much we’d been able to get done. Realistically, I think, we have a small window—maybe until the evening news. After that, our best hope will be to part. The Church’s reach is wider than anyone’s—there’s no way the two of us together are getting out of this city alive.
“Look, Apple.” Harp pauses to catch her breath. “We’re in deep shit here. I know you’re Vivian 2.0 now; I know you want to move forward. But we need to hide, quickly, before we bump into someone who’s seen the feed. Do you think your sister would keep us safe?”
I press my palms to my face—partly to think, partly to feel less exposed. “I don’t know. I barely spoke to her. I didn’t exactly get a fugitive-abetting vibe from her. She seemed like kind of goody-goody. She quoted the Bible at me. But I guess I don’t think she’s actually a Believer. And, anyway, my mom will vouch for us. She’ll want to keep me safe. But it might only be a temporary solution.”
“A temporary solution is better than nothing,” Harp says.
“I know. But if Winnie can’t be trusted, we’ll need a backup plan.” I finally lower my hands to look at Harp’s worried face. “We’ll borrow money from my mom—she’s got to have something, right? Then we’ll make our way back to Wambaugh’s parents’ house.”
It seems hard to believe the last time we saw my old history teacher was just yesterday morning, in Sacramento. So much has happened since. But Wambaugh will know we’re not actually dangerous; Wambaugh will keep us safe. My head runs through other possibilities—we could return to Keystone and again seek shelter with the New Orphans, among them our old friend Edie; we could move east, searching for anyone who knows us well enough to trust us. But that number is far fewer now. Raj is dead. Dylan Marx, his old boyfriend, is missing. If Winnie’s apartment doesn’t work out, Sacramento is the best option we have.
“Okay.” Harp touches my elbow. “Let’s move.”
I lead us to the top of the hill. I recognize the park ahead, grey-blue in the gathering dusk—we’re on Winnie’s block again. This morning I walked up to her building, hopeful at the prospect of a sister. But then Mom was there. I still feel a flicker of distrust towards them both, jealous of the bond they’ve shared these last months, while I mourned a mother I thought was gone forever. But I’m too afraid to let that hold me back. Cars zoom between the park and us, and as their drivers switch on their headlights, we’re illuminated in the glow. We keep our chins tucked in to our chests and sprint to Winnie’s building. I try the door—locked—and then I press the buzzer for Apartment 3.
Silence for a long moment, then a crackle of static. My mother’s uneasy voice hits me like a blow. “Hello?”
“Mom,” I say. “It’s Viv. I’m out here with Harp and we need your help.”
Immediately, the buzzer sounds. I push open the door and we burst into the lobby; we retrace my footsteps from this morning. A few hours ago, I left my mother here without telling her where I was going, but now she stands at the top of the steps, waiting for us in Winnie’s doorway. She wears a blouse buttoned to the collar and her long red-blonde hair hangs loose around her shoulders. It’s still a shock to see her there alive, after months of trying to get used to her being gone, but I let out a breath I’ve been holding—we’re safe. It’s not until I’m eye to eye with her that I notice the expression of intense anxiety on my mother’s face.
“What did you do?”
She seems paralyzed with fear, and I stop short. The hair on the back of my neck stands up, the way it did once a few months before the Rapture, when she caught me sneaking in after a tipsy night with Harp—the anticipation of imminent punishment.
“Your face,” my mother continues. “Your face is on the Church of America newsfeed.”
“I know. It’s a big misunderstanding,” I assure her, hoping I sound convincing. “We need to lay low a day or two. I swear we’ll get it sorted out.”
“What kind of a misunderstanding?” My mother seems at the point of tears. “They’re offering a reward, Vivian! A million dollars! This is serious!”
I hesitate. I know I should tell her the truth. But a small part of me fears she’s not strong enough to hear it—I fear the news that the Church of America helped kill my father will destroy her. And a bigger part imagines that even if I tell her the truth, she won’t believe me. She won’t want to believe me. I’m trying to think of another way to dodge the question, but then my mother’s face softens. She steps forward and lays her palm against my cheek.
“Listen. You don’t have to tell me now. Come inside and settle down. When Winnie gets home, I’ll come up with something to tell her—but I know she’ll want to help protect you. We’ll figure something out, okay? We’ll figure this out together.”
I nod and move into the apartment, but I quickly realize my mother has not moved with me. She stays in the doorway, blocking Harp’s entrance. Over her shoulder, I see Harp’s eyes grow wide.
“Mom,” I say. “Let her in.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Vivian.”
Her voice is quiet, but firm. I move forward and put my hand on her arm. I try to pull her away so Harp can pass through, but my mother doesn’t budge. My best friend takes a step back, the fear draining from her expression. A cold resentment takes it place.
“It’s not Harp’s fault,” I say. “What we did was my idea. Okay? If you’re going to protect me, you have to protect her too.”
I watch my mother struggle with this. She’s never been Harp’s biggest fan—“a little too much,” she called her just this morning—and I know she’s got some lingering Believer in her. “Honor the Church above all earthly things,” the Book of Frick says, “and beyond it your own flesh and blood only. Man has no obligation to fight the wolves scratching at his neighbor’s door.” It’s not a guarantee my mother would let Harp in even if Harp was an upstanding young citizen, a badge-earning Girl Scout.
“I can’t!” Mom practically whispers now. “Vivian, what if they find out I took her in? I could still make it onto the Second Boat. I could see Ned again. I can’t risk that!”
“It’s fine!” Harp interjects before I can argue. She tightens her grip on the laptop. “I’ll figure something out. I really hope you make it to heaven, Mrs. Apple.”
I watch her turn on her heel and stalk down the steps, and though I call her name, I hear the front door slam behind her. I push past my mother to follow, but she grabs my arm.
“Sweetheart, please! Stay. Let me help you work this out. We’ll call the Church of America hotline. I’m sure we can convince them you’re no threat to them.”
I’m still, disbelieving. “Harp’s my best friend.”
“I know, honey.” Her eyebrows pinch together—she looks, more than anything else, like she pities me. “But she’s more trouble than she’s worth.”
“How can you say that? You don’t even know her!”
“I used to be just like her!” Mom practically shouts this; her voice trembles. “And I know first-hand the kind of destruction she can cause. The kind she already has! I don’t want her to take you down with her, Vivian. I love you and you’re better than that! I know you don’t want to abandon your best friend, but—”
“No, I don’t.” My heart pounds painfully. “That’s the kind of thing you do, remember?”
She doesn’t get it at first. But then her concerned expression turns to stone and she jerks back, like I’ve slapped her. I wait for her to slam the apartment door in my face, but she seems too stunned to move. Before I can say anything else, before I can think to apologize, I turn and race down the stairs.
Pushing open the front door, I’m hit with an icy blast of air. The sun has set, and this night in San Francisco feels as cold as Pittsburgh winter. I’m so surprised that at first I don’t notice her in front of me, surrounded by three young men. But then I see the whites of Harp’s eyes. One man holds her lightly by the shoulder. I wonder if it’s an attempt to Magdalene her: a popular custom among good-looking male Believers, to seduce unmarried girls and women and guilt them into converting. But these men don’t look like Believers, and anyway Harp would never fall for such a thing.
The door slams behind me and the men look up. With a lurch, I realize the man holding Harp has a smartphone in his other hand. He glances at the screen, smirks.
“Is this you?”
He holds the screen out to me and I approach cautiously. I peer at my own face, magnified and pixelated on the phone, as though I’m really curious. My pulse is so loud I’m sure they can hear it. How did they find us so quickly?
“No?” I say, sounding far too uncertain.
Another man laughs and grabs my injured hand. When I cry out, Harp moves, shoving the edge of the laptop hard into the teeth of the man holding her. He reels back, howling, and she goes running down the hill. I wrench myself from the other’s grasp, feeling the pain shoot up my arm, feeling it behind my eyes, in my teeth. I run after Harp, catching as I go a brief glimpse of the man with the smartphone’s awful bloody grin.
I hear their shoes slap the pavement behind me, an unsettling tug at my hair as one attempts to grab me. I’m dimly aware of a black car halfway up the block screeching and swerving to trace my path. At the curb, Harp slows to see where I am. “Keep going!” I scream. But then the black car zips in front of her, blocking her path, and I push myself to reach her just as the passenger throws the back door open. Harp moves to dart around it, but I grab her, because I recognize the woman inside the car, waiting.
“Get in!” Winnie shouts.
We climb in quickly and Harp slams the door shut. The car peels off. One of the men chasing us was closer than I realized—I hear a bang on the window as we drive and turn to see him standing in the street with his fist raised.
Winnie watches us catch our breath. She wears a leather jacket and blood-red lipstick I’m sure she didn’t have on when she left her apartment this morning. I glance beyond her to the driver, but I can only see the woman’s blue-framed glasses in the rearview mirror, a freckled nose.
“And to think for a moment I honestly thought,” Winnie finally says, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice, “that my long-lost baby sister had come all the way to San Francisco just to pay me a visit. I’m Winnie,” she tells Harp, sticking out a hand.
“Harp.” My best friend shakes it, startled.
“Where are you taking us?” I ask once I can breathe.
“Somewhere you’ll be safe,” Winnie replies. “Listen, maybe we can circle back to the pleasantries in a bit, because right now I’m dying to know—how exactly did you manage to get yourself on the Church of America’s shit list?”
Another shock of cold fear—Winnie’s seen the feed, too. Is there anyone in this city who hasn’t? When I look at my half-sister, I see she has a wry look in her eye. This morning in my haze of grief and envy, I’d taken her to be prim and a little precious, like a hipster kindergarten teacher. But now her personality seems like a different beast entirely: bold and playful and a tiny bit reckless. I’m confused. Was she playing a part this morning, or is she playing one now?
“I’m … not sure what you’re talking about.”
Winnie smiles. “Vivian, I appreciate that you’re in a situation here. You probably don’t feel inclined to trust a relative stranger—no pun intended—but really, I’m here to help. I can help. It’s just nice to know why I’m helping.”
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
In the front seat, the driver laughs. “Little sis is feisty, Win. But I’d guess you’d have to be to piss off the Church as much as she has.”
“Yeah, Birdie, let’s definitely go with ‘feisty’.” Winnie’s voice is still light with sarcasm. “That sounds a lot nicer than ‘a real goddamn handful’.”
I feel a retort on the tip of my tongue but stay silent. I am being a handful—I know it. I feel a fierce urge to punish Winnie for the mistakes our mother has made. It isn’t fair, and I can’t afford to indulge in these newfound bratty little sister instincts. We’ve only been driving a few minutes, but when I glance out of the window, I see we’re far from the affluence of Winnie’s neighborhood. Outside is a park, bigger and wilder than the tame patch of green across from her apartment. On the other side of the street are houses abandoned or in disrepair, and the sidewalks in front of them appear to have become a mini-civilization—dirty nylon tents set up in small circles, dark figures surrounding meager bonfires. San Francisco is in a desperate state. Harp and I are not safe wandering around it blind with a million-dollar reward on our heads.
“How do you know we’ll be safe where you’re taking us?” I ask, trying to keep it from sounding like a challenge.
“Fair question,” Winnie replies with a nod. “I’ll give it to you straight—Birdie and I are part of an organization dedicated to the destruction of the Church. A kind of volunteer militia.”
I feel Harp glance sharply at me but I’m too shocked to look back at her. For months, the only resistance movement I’ve been aware of has been the hapless New Orphans. The discovery of another, and the fact that Winnie is a part of it, plants a seed of hopeful energy in me. But the word “militia” makes me pause—is she saying she actually means to do battle?
“We have a wealthy benefactor funding our efforts,” my half-sister continues. “She works hard to keep our operation cloaked. I always monitor the Church’s feed—they inadvertently give out a lot of valuable information. Luckily I saw the picture of you the second it posted. I recognized you right away, considering your memorable appearance at my front door this morning. I left for home the second I did.”
“We appreciate it,” Harp says. “Right, Viv?”
I nod, overwhelmed. Winnie waves a dismissive hand. “Truly our pleasure. Anyone the Church is looking for, I’m happy to help hide. But still … do you mind telling us what happened? We could protect you better if we knew what we’re up against.”
I feel as though my head is spinning. I want to trust Winnie—I’m working hard to trust her—but something holds me back. Right now our information is our only currency, and I’m afraid to give it all away at once. Especially since I don’t yet understand who Winnie is working for, or what kind of work she does. I take a breath.
“Last night, Harp and I broke into a secret Church compound outside the city. I guess it must be very secret, because they sent people to capture us. We barely made it out alive.”
“Where’s the compound?” Birdie’s voice is eager.
“Not sure, exactly. North of here, in a forest—maybe an hour away?”
“That’s … interesting.” Even in the dark, I can see Winnie’s suspicious expression. She already knows me well enough to know I’m not telling her everything. “Can you remember anything more specific? Maybe what you found inside?”
I pause like I’m trying to remember, then shake my head. “I don’t know. I’m really tired. I’d have to think about it for a while.”
“I ask because I imagine it’d be the same compound to which Mara and your dad were summoned—the place they were going to receive Frick’s blessing, pre-Rapture.”
I look up at Winnie, surprised. Somehow I’d forgotten she stood in the room this morning as my mother told me her whole sorry ordeal.
“I’d never heard Mara’s story until today,” she explains. “She showed up about a week after the Rapture, no explanation. She led me to believe she’d hopped a plane to San Francisco after being Left Behind. But I had a feeling she knew more than she was letting on—I wonder if she even realizes how much.”
“So the last known location of the Raptured was this compound? No wonder the Church want you dead.” Birdie laughs gloomily. “How’d you find it? How’d you even know it exists?”
I open my mouth to answer but my throat goes dry. I don’t want to tell them about Peter. Somehow he feels like the most valuable piece of information I have. There’s a boy, and his name is Peter, and he likes me, and we don’t know where he is. I touch the pendant of my sledgehammer necklace and feel relief when Harp answers for me.
“We got a tip from the New Orphans in South Dakota,” she says, not exactly lying.
“The New Orphans gave you that info?” Birdie balks. “Shit.”
“I’ve heard about that chapter,” says Winnie. “Goliath, right? He’s supposed to be a visionary. Built a powerful anti-Church sanctuary in the middle of one of the Sacred Sites. I wonder if we could recruit him … ”
“Depends on the quality of your coke supply, I’d guess,” Harp mutters.
I don’t want to answer any more questions about Frick’s compound—I’m not sure how long I can feign ignorance. “So what more can you tell us about this ‘militia’ of yours? Or is it too top secret for our tender civilian ears?”
Birdie laughs again. In the glow of a passing streetlamp, I see Winnie grin.
“I can give you the basics,” she says. “Our benefactor, Amanda, recruited us over the last year, based on a shared commitment to taking down the Church. Amanda funds the operation, keeps us hidden from the community at large, and plans future attacks.”
“When you say attacks … ” I trail off, not sure how to proceed.
“Am I saying that we kill people?” Winnie supplies. I notice a tartness in her tone—some annoyance or defensiveness I can’t quite decipher. “That’s not outside the realm of possibility. But our scope is pretty broad.”
She pauses. I realize she doesn’t intend to elaborate further. I glance out my window at the tent cities lining the block. “I guess your benefactor’s pretty rich?”
“Very. But not as rich as she could be. Amanda’s a genius; she’s been building tech start-ups from the ground up since she was seventeen. Two years ago, the Church tried to buy her most successful venture. Surveillance software—very powerful, dangerous in the wrong hands. They offered billions. But Amanda said no. She knew what the Church would use it for. She sold it to another company for slightly less, then the Church turned around and bought them.”
The road ends and Birdie turns right; now beyond my window lies the Pacific Ocean, vast and dark, the full moon’s reflection sparkling. Harp presses closer to stare across me.
“But that wasn’t enough for them—they were angry she turned them down. I imagine it was a slap in the face, to have been spurned by a successful young female.” She hesitates, then her voice goes cool. “About a week after the company Amanda sold to folded into the Church, she and her partner were attacked outside their home. Her partner died. Amanda suffered a spinal injury—she doesn’t walk anymore. There’s no proof the Church arranged it—there never is—but it was enough to convince her to funnel her money into something more powerful than an app.”
Listening to Winnie, I feel a flare of righteous understanding. All day I’ve been trying to bury thoughts of my father, for fear if I let myself start to grieve him, I’ll never be able to stop. But Amanda’s story has brought it all up to the surface: my father is dead. The Church killed him. Maybe I used to be the sort of person who could work to forgive them, but I know at this moment that I’m not anymore. I have the distinct impression that Amanda’s militia is a force far more dangerous than the New Orphans—as violent as they are organized. And right now, with no idea where Peter is or what is being done to him, I can understand the appeal of such a weapon. In the dark, I curl my good hand into a fist.
The car climbs an incline, the road hugging a rocky cliff side on our right. There’s an orange barrier, a sign reading ROAD CLOSED, but Birdie blithely swerves around it up the cliff. The other side of the road drops steeply into a beach, and beyond that, the inky ocean. Before us is a large, bone-grey building, half of which rests on the level of the road, half hanging below, built into the cliff this road travels up. On the roof are thin letters spelling out CLIFF HOUSE. Birdie slows and parks.
Harp and I follow Winnie out of the car and down a few yards to the edge of the cliff beyond the building. The cold is even more bitter by the sea, and Winnie grimaces in solidarity when she sees me shiver. “I’ll bring you some layers as soon as I can. It’s been like this for months now: inexplicable red sky during the day, freezing temperatures at night. Really makes you feel optimistic about the Earth’s future, doesn’t it?”
When we reach the cliff’s edge, I stop in my tracks. Beside me, Harp gasps. It’s hard to understand exactly what we’re looking at. At our feet is a long green downward slope giving way at last to a flat pool of still water, the moon casting a weird glow on its surface. The pool is separated from the white crash of the Pacific by a low rock wall. Beyond the pool are weird stone structures and above them, cliffs higher and steeper than the ones on which we stand. Behind us, before she heads into the place called Cliff House, Birdie explains this used to be the site of a popular old-fashioned bathhouse that burned down long ago—we’re looking at the ruins of its largest pool. It’s strange and beautiful. I see small figures pacing the rock wall. One turns in our direction and stops, waving up at us. Winnie waves back, then turns to me, a shy smile playing across her features. She looks so much like my mother at this moment, I could cry.
“Hey, little sis—want to meet my boyfriend?”