44

“WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?” DANIEL ASK. We be winding our way through the woods, the Super Saver behind us. The trees be bigger the deeper into the woods we get. Soon we be coming out the other side.

“The Charity Gate,” I say. “You ready to go?”

“We’re ready.”

He say we and it hit me that Enola don’t belong to me no more. She ain’t looking up at me with her mama’s big brown eyes; she looking at him. It make me fold my arms against my empty chest. I want to hold her again, but then I might not let her go. It gonna be all right, I tell myself. Daniel know what to do. He got the Coopers’ address in San Diego. He got they e-mail address, too, so they can know he coming. Baby Girl be all right, as long as we get them out of Orleans.

We hear the Wall before we see it. The trees be so close together here, there ain’t no leaves on they trunks except for at the top. Ain’t nothing to muffle sounds, so we extra quiet, in case there still be ABs around. That be the only reason I hear it: a burst of radio, like a louder version of Daniel’s voice filter.

“Hold up,” I hiss, putting my hand up for him to stop. Radio static. Only folks I know who got radios be Mr. Go, Father John, the Ursulines, and the Professors. None of them be here now. Daniel crouch next to me and I signal for him to stay put. He nod, and I inch my way out to the edge of the trees ’til I can see it. The Wall.

Surprise me every time, how short it be. Maybe twenty, thirty feet high. Look like you could climb it with rope or something. But it almost as wide as it be high, and between the soldiers and the razor wire, you’d be stopped before you made it across. That be why Mr. Go so clever. The Wall ain’t as kept up as it could be, this close to the gate, and a crack in the mortar be enough to get a body through.

No more than a couple yards downslope from us be the moat, where they dug a channel for the bayou to go along the Wall. To my right, across the muddy channel, be the Old Charity Gate. The army checkpoint still there, a big concrete bunker squat in the middle of the Wall, like a frog sitting on a log. It look like it always do, covered in vines and crumbling around the edges. There still be searchlights mounted on the roof on both sides of the gate, and a drawbridge, too, where there used to be a road out of the city. The old highway been blown to bits long ago to make way for the moat. I used to come here with my parents when I been little, just to look at it all. I liked to see the people, the soldiers in they black jumpsuits and camouflage hats, they guns strapped across they chests, new ones every month ’cause they don’t be lasting out here for long. The outpost been empty for a long time, with just a sniffer drone to keep watch. At least, it supposed to be.

I guess we been wrong about that.

Soldiers. Two of ’em I can see, and that burst of radio mean there be more somewhere I can’t lay eyes on. Cigarette smoke drift toward me. There be more of them, all right. The two on the Wall ain’t smoking.

Then the searchlights come ’round, bright as stars against the gloomy afternoon. I scuttle back into the trees.

“Fen?” Daniel ask when he see me coming back.

I shake my head. “Change of plan.”

I lead him deeper into the trees so we can talk without being heard. “Mr. Go say there be a way through just south of the gate.”

Daniel pull out his map. He point at a spot on the drawing of the Wall, marked on the paper with an X. He take a deep breath. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“It’s what I be telling you that you got to listen to, Daniel. The gate being watched. Not just drones, neither.”

Daniel don’t say nothing, and I know it ’cause he scared. But I need him not to be. I need him to do this for me, for Enola. I squat down next to him.

“Listen to me. You take Enola back downstream outta sight of the gate and wade across. The moat ain’t too deep. If it was, they’d risk losing stuff that fall in by accident. I seen it happen.”

Daniel shake his head. “They’ll see us. I heard their radios, too, Fen. This place must be crawling with soldiers. Jesus, this is stupid.” He run a hand over his hat, like he be smoothing his hair if he not been in the suit. He be worrying like an old woman. I want to slap this boy. I close my eyes.

“Course it be dangerous, but it be necessary. Look at the Wall. You see what Mr. Go be talking about?” I point through the trees. Maybe thirty yards downstream from the gate with its old drawbridge welded shut in the raised position, the Wall ain’t reinforced with steel sheeting like the gate. Whatever been there done rusted away and it be just concrete now. Vines be growing, eating at the Wall like acid. Where the vines be thickest, Mr. Go found a hole.

Daniel nod and look at me. “Fen? Don’t make me do this. I’ll stay. We can find a cure together. I promise.”

I look at him; I look at Baby Girl. She be sleeping in her sling. I fight the urge to wake her, have her look at me one last time. I didn’t know I had any heart left to break ’til she come along. But there ain’t no use in crying on it now.

“Say you stay here, you and Enola. And them vials you dropped in Rooftops break open. We all be dead then. Say they don’t break, and we stay the same. You been in a blood farm once. You think it can’t happen again?”

Daniel hang his head and nod, like he be convincing himself. He know I’m right. We both do.

“It ain’t what I want, Daniel. But it got to be. Now, give me your coat.”

“What?”

“Give me your coat. But don’t wake the baby.”

Daniel hesitate a second, but he do it without asking why. That a first. I smile at him, but I don’t feel it. I glance at his encounter suit, seeing it fully for the first time. Thick as gator skin, with fluids that be pulsing and pumping inside. It nasty and uncomfortable-looking, but it going to save two lives. I bundle Daniel’s jacket up ’til it just about Enola’s size. Then I tuck it into my arms.

“Wait for my signal. The moat ain’t wide. Just start moving. When you hear me, run.”

“What are you going to do?” he ask, looking at the bundle.

I sigh. This boy never learn, but I forgive him this last time. “They won’t shoot a woman carrying a baby. Now, listen for me, and hustle.”

Slowly, Daniel rise to his feet. “Keep her above the water,” I tell him, and I squeeze his arm through the bulk of his suit. “It been nice knowing you, tourist. Take care of your souvenir.” I nod at Enola and head north, toward the gate.

Away from my tribe.