Day 21

CHAPTER 26 Glass

Hundreds of bodies were packed onto the launch deck, with hundreds more pushing against them from the ramp. In total, there were more than a thousand people shoved into the bottom of the ship, filling the air with a choking mix of sweat, blood, and fear.

Glass and Sonja had made it onto the deck, but just barely. They were standing all the way in the back, pressed up against the ramp. Sonja couldn’t put any weight on her ankle, so Glass had her arm around her, although it was hardly necessary. The crowd was so dense, Sonja could lose her balance and she still wouldn’t fall.

Every few moments, the sea of bodies would surge in one direction or the other until the anxious Phoenicians, Arcadians, and Waldenites seemed like nothing more than a tide of flesh.

Rising up onto her toes, Glass could see people trying to force their way into one of the six remaining dropships. They were already crammed far beyond capacity, and bodies kept spilling back out.

Glass tried to blink away the tears obscuring her vision to count again. Six. There were supposed to be seven dropships. The one she’d escaped from, that had supposedly carried Wells and the other prisoners to Earth, was gone, of course. But what had happened to the seventh?

Even if there were a dozen dropships, Glass and her mother wouldn’t make it off the Colony unless they kept pushing their way toward the front. But Glass felt weak and immobile. Every time she moved, pain ripped through her as she thought of the look of disgust on Luke’s face, and the pieces of her heart she was trying so hard to hold together would slip from her grasp.

But as she turned to look at her mother, Glass knew she had no choice. She couldn’t think about what had happened with Luke, not now. Sonja’s own heart had cracked long ago, but the difference was that she hadn’t bothered to catch the pieces. Glass had done it for her. Without Glass, her mom wouldn’t fight for a spot on the dropship, and Glass wasn’t going to let that happen.

She tightened her hold around her mother’s waist. “Come on. Let’s keep moving. One step at a time.” There was nowhere to move, yet somehow, Glass and Sonja managed to wedge themselves between shoulder blades and around elbows.

Glass gasped but didn’t look down when she stepped on something fleshy. She kept her eyes fixed on the front of the launch deck, and gripped her mother’s hand tightly as they carved a path through the wall of bodies.

They slid alongside a woman whose dress was damp with blood. From the way she clutched her arm, Glass guessed she’d been hit by one of the guards’ bullets. Her face was pale and she was swaying back and forth, although there was no room for her to fall.

Keep moving.

Glass swallowed a cry as she shoved past the woman and felt her bloody sleeve brush against Glass’s bare arm.

Keep moving.

A man was holding a little girl in one arm and a bundle of clothes in the other, rendering him too bulky to navigate through the crowd. Drop the bag, Glass wanted to tell him. But she said nothing. Her only job was getting her mother on the dropship. That was all she could afford to care about.

Keep moving.

A young boy, hardly older than a toddler, sat on the ground, too shocked and scared to do more than whimper and wave his chubby arms in the air. Had he been jostled out of his parent’s grasp? Or had he been abandoned in a moment of panic?

She felt a tug deep inside her chest, a jolt of pain in the empty space behind her heart that never fully healed. Glass tightened her grip on Sonja, and extended her other arm toward the little boy. But right before her fingertips brushed against his outstretched hand, there was another surge, and Glass found herself being swept in the other direction.

She let out a gasp, and scrambled to find her footing. When she turned back to look for the boy, he’d disappeared behind a wave of bodies.

Keep moving.

By the time they made it to the center of the launch deck, the nearest dropship was overflowing with bodies, far more than it was meant to accommodate. People were standing in every centimeter of available space, packed as tightly together as they could fit around the seats. Glass knew that jamming people in like that was extremely dangerous—anyone who wasn’t strapped in would be thrown violently against the walls during the descent. They’d certainly die, and would probably end up killing some of the seated passengers as well. But no one was stopping them, or forcing the extra passengers off the dropship. No one was in charge.

A new sound joined the chorus of wails and shouts. At first, Glass thought she was imagining it, but when she glanced over her shoulder, she spotted the musician from earlier standing at the top of the ramp. He’d tucked the violin under his chin and was drawing the bow across the strings. With nearly one thousand people between him and the nearest dropship, he must’ve realized he wasn’t going to make it. And instead of succumbing to panic, he’d chosen to end his life doing what he loved best.

The man’s eyes were closed, rendering him oblivious to the confused stares and angry jeers of everyone around him. But as the melody dipped and soared, their faces softened. The bittersweet trills swept the pain out of their chests and into the air. The crushing fear became a shared burden, and for a moment, it felt like something they could bear together.

Glass turned from side to side, searching desperately for Luke. Growing up on Walden, he’d never attended a Remembrance Day concert, and she wanted him to hear this music. If he had to die tonight, she needed to know his last moments would be marked by something other than heartache.

A loud beeping suddenly echoed through the room, breaking the spell of the music, as the door on the farthest dropship started to close. The few people who’d been trying to force their way inside began to frantically claw their way forward, desperate to get on the ship before it launched.

“Wait!” a woman screamed, breaking free from the crowd to run toward the door. “My son is in there!”

“Stop her!” another voice bellowed. A few people rushed forward to grab the woman, but it was too late. She slipped into the airlock, but didn’t make it into the ship. When she realized what had happened, she spun around and pounded frantically on the sealed airlock door. There was another, louder beep, then silence.

Behind her, the ship detached from the Colony and started toward the blue-gray orb of Earth. Then a wave of horrified gasps rippled over the crowd.

The woman was floating past the window, her face contorted by a scream none of them could hear. Her arms and legs thrashed wildly, as if she thought she could grab the ship and pull herself back inside. Yet within a few seconds, she stopped moving, and her face turned a deep purple. Glass turned away, but not quickly enough. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a sickening glimpse of an enormous, swollen purple foot before the woman drifted from view.

Another beep sounded as the next dropship began to launch. Now only four remained. The frenzy of the crowd had reached a fever pitch, the launch deck echoing with the sounds of death and grief.

Gritting her teeth, Glass pulled her mother forward just as the sea of bodies swept them even closer to the ramp. The third dropship detached from the ship and launched. A redhead shoved past them, and it was only after she was gone that Glass realized it had been Camille. Did that mean Luke was close by? She started to cry out his name, but the shout died before it even left her throat.

“Glass,” her mother’s voice came from behind her. It felt like an eternity had passed since the last time Sonja had spoken. “We aren’t going to make it. At least, not together. You need to—”

“No!” Glass cried, seeing a break in the crowd and moving toward it. But just as she did, she saw Camille push a skinny boy off the dropship and take his place. His shocked mother’s anguished wails echoed through the deck as the doors closed with a final click.

“Move aside!” a harsh voice shouted. Glass spun around and saw a line of guards jogging down the ramp, their boots thudding in perfect unison as they escorted a handful of civilians onto the launch deck. One of them was the Vice Chancellor.

No one heeded the guard’s orders. The mass of bodies continued to push toward the remaining dropships. But the guards continued to surge forward, pushing people aside with the butts of their guns to clear a path. “Move it!”

They shoved right past Glass and Sonja, pulling their charges alongside them. As he was led past, Vice Chancellor Rhodes’s eyes settled on Sonja, and a look Glass couldn’t quite identify came over his face. He stopped, whispered something to a guard, and then motioned toward Glass’s mother.

The crowd parted as three guards stormed toward them. Before Glass had time to react, they’d grabbed her and Sonja and were herding them toward the last dropship.

The angry, violent shouts that followed sounded very far away. Glass could barely register anything but the sound of her own frantic heartbeat and the feel of her mother’s hand holding tight to hers. Were they really going to make it? Had the Vice Chancellor just saved both of their lives?

The guards pushed Glass and Sonja onto the final dropship with the Vice Chancellor. All one hundred seats were full save for three in the front. Rhodes beckoned them forward. Glass moved like someone in a dream as she seated Sonja next to the Vice Chancellor, then sat down in the last seat herself.

But Glass’s relief was tempered with a sharp, aching sadness at the thought that Luke probably wouldn’t be on Earth with her. She couldn’t be sure he wasn’t on one of the earlier dropships, but she didn’t think so. Luke would no sooner have knocked someone out of his way for a spot on the dropship than he would let a friend die for his own crime.

As the final countdown began, Sonja clutched Glass’s hand. All around them, people were crying, muttering prayers, whispering good-byes and apologies to those they were leaving behind. Rhodes was helping Sonja with her harness, and Glass began to fumble with her own.

But before her trembling hands could lock the buckle into place, a guard appeared in the door. His eyes were wide and darting madly as he held his gun in the air.

“What the hell are you doing?” Rhodes shouted. “Get off! You’ll kill us all!”

The guard fired a shot into the air, and everyone fell silent. “Now, listen up,” the guard said, looking around. “One of you is getting off this dropship, or everyone dies.” His terror-filled eyes settled on Glass, who still hadn’t managed to lock her buckle into place. He took a few steps forward and aimed the gun at her head. “You,” he spat. “Get. Off.” His arm was shaking so violently, the barrel of the gun almost scraped against Glass’s cheek.

A disembodied voice filled the pod. “One minute until departure.”

Rhodes fumbled with his harness. “Soldier!” he snapped, in his most commanding military voice. “Stand to attention!”

The guard ignored him, grabbing Glass’s arm. “Get up or I’ll shoot you. I swear to god I will.”

“Fifty-eight… fifty-seven…”

Glass froze. “No, please.” She shook her head.

“Fifty-three… fifty-two…”

The guard pressed the muzzle of the gun to her temple. “Get up or I’ll shoot everyone in here.”

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, but somehow, Glass was rising to her feet. “Bye, Mom,” she whispered, turning toward the door.

“Forty-nine… forty-eight…”

“No!” her mother screamed. Suddenly, she was at Glass’s side. “Take my seat instead.”

“No,” Glass sobbed, trying to push her mother back into her seat. “Stop, Mom!”

The man waved the gun back and forth between the two of them. “One of you better get the hell out of here, or I’ll shoot you both!”

“I will, please, hold your fire,” Glass pleaded, shoving her mom down and turning toward the door.

“Stop!” A familiar form came barreling forward, jumping onto the ship at the last minute.

Luke.

“Thirty-five… thirty-four…”

“Drop your weapon,” Luke shouted. “Just let them go.”

“Get back,” the guard spat, trying to shove Luke away. In a flash, Luke had jumped onto the man from behind, locking his arm around the man’s neck and wrestling him to the floor.

A deafening, bone-shuddering crack filled the dropship as the gun went off.

Everyone screamed. Everyone except for one person.

“Thirty… twenty-nine…”

Her mother was slumped on the floor, a dark red stain blooming on the front of her dress.