“Grab their gear!” I yelled, and we loaded up with as much as we could carry without slowing ourselves down. I snagged an automatic rifle off one soldier that was much nicer than the gun the Resistance had given me. Finally, exhausted and bloody, I found a tiny break in the flames that got closer to us with every second.
“We just gotta go through,” I said. They nodded grimly.
I took a breath, then shielded my face with one arm. Of course, I had to go first—I was squad leader. Ducking my head, I plunged into the fire and ran through as fast as I could, wincing at the scorching heat that felt like it would peel my skin off. In seconds I was on the other side and Bunny was close behind me.
“Drop and roll!” she shouted. “You’re on fire!”
I dropped and rolled. Nate tore off his jacket and smothered the embers in my hair as the others ran through in my wake. My face felt sunburned and there was a horrible smell of scorched hair, but no one had anything worse than that. We’d been lucky.
A minute later we were back on the road, sticking tightly to the line of trees, fairly invisible from above.
“No one’s following us,” Nate reported.
“All those guys we left there,” Mills said, coming up beside me. “Do you think the fire will get them?
“I’m counting on it,” I said grimly, and hitched up my new rifle.
39
CASSIE
“YOU’RE SLACKING OFF!” MS. STREPP yelled, and threw my latest reports on the floor. “You should be getting through thousands of items every day! Yesterday was what, three hundred? Today only two-eig
hty? What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” I said tersely. “Every single thing needs to be looked at and a decision made about it. Then we have to log it, maybe put it on the time—”
“Excuses!” she shouted. “You losers are just wasting time! Are you napping up here?” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you fooling around up here?”
“Oh, God, no!” Tim said.
My face flushed with heat. Did she think the four of us were just interchangeable?
“No. It just takes time.” I didn’t mention that Tim was still pretty slow at reading and I was doing 98 percent of the logging work.
Her face was hard and suspicious. “Speed. It. Up.” She kept the glare going all the way down the rope ladder.
Tim quickly closed the hatch and this time didn’t forget to lock it.
“I’ll try to get faster at the preliminary sorting,” he said, looking embarrassed.
“It would help if we had something specific to look for,” I said, settling next to some stuffed garbage bags, thinking I should probably just take crap out of this bag and transfer it right into a new one. “It’s impossible deciding whether a menu is crucial or a postcard some important clue.”
“Yeah,” he said, sitting on the floor several yards away. The attic had four low windows that began at the floor and came up to his knees. Some of their panes were cracked and all of them were caked with ancient dust and dirt. He rubbed a spot clean and gazed out.
I bet he was wishing he was out there with Becca. Well, so am I, pal.
Precious Treasure Bag #702 held crocheted doilies that were stained and fraying, a broken china shepherdess statue, dried-out tins of shoe polish, some half-burned candles, and a cracked jar of candy all melted together and disgusting. I did in fact simply transfer all this to a new garbage bag.
Last, I pulled out a box of small frosted cakes. By God, yes! Let’s squirrel this away forever! This, this will hold the key to United civilization! I was getting bitter.
He looked over, saw the box in my hands. “Twuh—” he sounded out, scooching closer. “Tweennn-kye?”
“I think Twink-ee,” I said, and ripped open the box. Inside, each cake was individually wrapped. I’d never seen anything like this and tossed one to him. “Here, try it,” I joked.
He held the package up and looked at it from all angles. After a long examination, he tore open the cake package.
“Not really!” I shrieked. “Don’t eat that!” I stared in horror as he took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “You are gonna die,” I predicted.