39

LEO AND RUBY JOGGED side by side for as long as they could, Leo trying to hold the flashlight steady. The tunnel in front of them stretched on without any markings apart from the occasional spray-painted green arrow on the cement walls. They kept up a good pace for as long as they could, but eventually they both tired out and had to alternate between jogging and walking.

Every so often, Leo turned the flashlight to see if anyone was coming up behind him. It was always a quick glance, and Ruby didn’t ask who or what he was looking for. They went on silently in this way for a long, long time, the only sound that of their feet scuffing against the cement floor, and their breathing, heavy when they ran, slowing and relieved when they walked.

Leo stole glances at her, taking in how much she had grown since he had seen her last. She was nearly a young woman. She was strong—he could see that in her eyes and the way she held her chin. She wasn’t the kind who gave up easily.

When he looked away, peering into the never-ending tunnel that stretched ahead of them, he shook his head, still barely believing it was her.

“So,” Ruby said, breaking the silence during a walking spell. “Can you tell me anything about our mom?” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

Leo cleared his throat to speak, stopped, tried to start again. “Mom isn’t doing well,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Ever since Dad ran off with you, she’s had . . . a rough time.”

“But now that I’m back?” Ruby asked.

“We’ll see,” Leo said, but there wasn’t much hope in his voice. “Ruby, she doesn’t speak. She hasn’t said a single word for seven or eight years now. She stares out the window. There’s nothing. Nothing there.”

Leo felt an old familiar bitterness fighting to rise to the surface, always accompanied by the question of why he hadn’t been good enough for his mom. Why he hadn’t been enough. Sure, they’d lost so much when they lost Ruby, but they’d still had each other. But that hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t been enough.

“I can’t wait to see her,” Ruby said hesitantly.

Leo tried to be positive. “It’ll be good,” he said, looking at her and smiling. “It will be good for both of you.”

“Look,” Ruby said, pointing at the walls. They were no longer smooth concrete—they were made up of cement blocks. For some reason this felt like a good thing, like they were making progress. Of course, they had no idea if this tunnel went anywhere, if it had ever been finished. They could be walking toward a dead end. Then what? But the change encouraged them both.

“Want to jog again for a little?” Leo asked. Ruby nodded.

The sounds of the warring city had died out a long time ago. It was easy to forget all that they had escaped, but Leo found himself thinking about Sandra and her small band of friends.

“Our father isn’t all bad,” Ruby said quietly. Leo pursed his lips but didn’t say anything.

They walked a little farther.

“What was it like, where we grew up?” she asked.

A small smile touched Leo’s mouth. “Before Mom and Dad split up, it was nice. We lived close to the water. Dad always wanted a boat. That’s all he ever talked about! But he was never able to afford one. Sometimes he’d take both of us out to the end of the dock, and the three of us would sit there and watch the boats go by. He knew all the names, the lengths, the kind of motors they had. Everything.”

Leo’s voice trailed off in the tunnel.

“Sometimes, if we stayed out there for a long time, Mom would bring food out, and then it would be all of us. But when Mom was there, Dad never talked about the boats. He just watched them, and he’d smile or shake his head in amazement when he saw a nice one. But the water! When the sun set, Ruby? It was amazing.”

They came to a section of the tunnel where the walls were stone, individually placed by some master craftsman. Leo ran his fingers over the stones. Some of them were wet from underground springs. His flashlight flickered and went out. Ruby turned hers on and handed it to him. Not long after that, the walls became dirt walls, the tunnel nothing more than a hole bored through the earth. The ceiling was lower in this section, and Leo had to bend over in order to keep his head from hitting the ceiling.

Hours and hours after they had entered the tunnel, it widened out, and the two of them came to a stairway and walked up into a small house. The same small house where Leo and Abra had peered into the windows so long ago. How long? Leo had no idea.

“Where are we?” Ruby asked.

“I don’t understand,” Leo said. “When Abra and I came into the city, it took us at least two or three days to walk from the house to the city. But you and I, we’re here after what, a day?” He paused, muttering to himself. “Something’s changing about this place. Something isn’t right.”

They walked out and continued along the dirt road toward the darkness, where he hoped they’d find an open door in the crypt, the door that opened up in New Orleans.

Ruby started asking something but stopped herself.

“What?” Leo asked.

“What’s it like out there? Where we’re from?”

Leo chuckled. “Very different from this, that’s for sure.”

“Like what?” She smiled.

“Well, for one, the sky is blue, not red.”

“What?” she asked, disbelief in her voice. “Blue? Like the blue in people’s eyes?”

“Kind of,” he said, nodding.

“Wow,” she said. “What else?”

“Hmmm. Well, it smells different.”

“It smells different?”

“Yeah. I think everything here smells newer. Back where we live, it’s old. Really old.”

He could tell she was having a hard time imagining what he meant.

“The water tastes a lot better here,” he said, laughing. She laughed too, and he loved the sound of it, the sound of her happiness, the sound of being carefree.

“So, why are we leaving?” she asked playfully. “The water is better here, it doesn’t smell as bad, and the sky is a beautiful red instead of a strange, icy blue.” He could tell she was kidding, but there was also a tiny, subtle trace of seriousness there. He realized for the first time that it would be hard for her to leave.

“Good question,” he said, looking at her, feeling an overwhelming compassion and love for her like he hadn’t felt before. He realized she was leaving everything she had ever known. “Mother is there, for one. You might be able to bring her back. Two? This place is falling apart, the war is awful, and the Tree complicates things. Apparently. That’s what Abra says.”

Ruby looked over at Leo. The sky was a dark red, nearly black. The flashlight died.

“Who is Abra?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know. But I hope she’s okay.” He looked over his shoulder and stopped walking.

“What?” Ruby asked.

“Is that her?” Leo asked, staring harder into the darkness behind them. A figure approached slowly, limping up the road.

“Abra?” Leo called into the darkness. But the person, ever closer, laughed, gasped in pain, laughed again.

“No, no, no,” she said, and they both knew immediately that it was not Abra. It was Beatrice. She stopped about twenty feet away from them, bent over, coughing. She clutched her side just below her ribs. When she stood up, she wiped her mouth and coughed again.

“I am most certainly not Abra,” she said, still managing a smile.

“Leave us alone,” Leo said, trying to keep his voice steady. “We’re leaving. You can have whatever you want in this world. We don’t care. We just want out.”

“This world?” Beatrice asked, her voice rising. “This world? You’re oh so generous, aren’t you? I can have whatever I want in this world?”

She stared, and she stopped smiling. Her eyes were gaping black holes and her face transformed to something hideous, something like a human face but also something completely different. Something hollow.

“There is nothing left in this world. As more and more people die in the war, this world will shrink back down to nothing. Once the gate is locked, those who ate from the Tree will be stuck here, perhaps for eternity. Koli Naal’s plan has failed, thanks to Abra. Thanks to you. There is no hope in this world, not for the dead, and certainly not for the living.”

She gathered herself.

“And there is no hope for you.”

She shot into the air like a bullet. One moment she was standing in front of them, the next she was rising into the red darkness. When she fell back toward them, her path was white-hot.

Her movement screamed through the Edge of Over There. She moved like a falling star. Leo saw what was coming. He shoved Ruby to the side at the same moment Beatrice slammed into him. It was like being hit by a freight train. The force of her impact knocked Ruby unconscious and bent all the trees outward.

The road was silent again. Beatrice stood up and moaned. It had taken nearly every ounce of power left in her to do that. She limped away from where Leo and Ruby lay, then she fell to her knees, breathing deeply. She tried to gather her strength.

She crawled toward the door, back into the darkness.