Rise Read Free Page A

considering it. I turned to Charles to see if he could sway her. His word still meant something inside the City walls, even if my loyalty was in question. “We can wait here for them,” he said quietly, stepping away from the building.
    â€œWe have to finish bringing the last of them inside,” she finally said. Then she moved from in front of the glass doors, permitting us entrance. “Ten minutes, no more.”
    ONLY A FEW LIGHTS WERE ON IN THE FRONT LOBBY. MOST OF the bulbs were broken, but a few flickered incessantly, stinging my eyes. Beatrice walked closely behind me. Some of the chairs in the waiting room were overturned, and the thin, tattered carpet smelled of dust. “Back in your rooms, ladies,” a woman’s voice echoed in the hallway. A shadow passed on the wall, then was gone.
    Someone had made hasty attempts to wipe down the floors, but it had only moved the grime around, covering the hall tile with black streaks. Equipment on rolling metal racks lined the hallway, beside old machines covered with paper sheets. I turned down a side corridor, where an older woman wearing a red blouse and blue slacks stood, scribbling something down on a clipboard. I stared at the Teacher’s uniform I’d seen thousands of times at School, then at the woman’s narrow face. It took me a moment to realize I didn’t know her—she must’ve been from another facility. “I’m looking for the girls from School 11,” I said. For years I’d known my School only by its geographic coordinates, before finding out the City had numbers for them all.
    Beatrice took off down the other side of the corridor, pausing in one doorway, then the next, looking for her daughter, Sarah. I started past the woman, into the dimly lit hospital room behind her. Low cots covered the floor, the thin curtain drawn. The girls were all younger than fifteen. Most were curled up in their uniform jumpers, pilled cotton blankets over their bare legs. They hadn’t even taken off their shoes.
    â€œI’m not certain,” the Teacher said. She studied my face, but there was no sign of recognition. In the sweater and slacks I looked like any other woman inside the City. “Not this floor, but maybe upstairs. May I ask what you’re doing here?”
    I didn’t bother to answer. Instead I walked past her, pushing into a separate corridor blocked off by double doors. In the first room a girl sat on the high bed farthest from the window, another girl on a rusted machine with wires snaking out of it. The blond girl held a paper fortune-teller in her hands, like the ones we had made at School. When they heard me they jumped down and hurried under their blankets.
    I moved quickly down another hall, double-checking the rooms on either side of the corridor. Occasionally a Teacher slept on one of the musty hospital beds or in a chair in the corner. None of the students were pregnant. I knew they had to have housed the girls from the birthing initiative separately from the rest, but it was impossible to know where.
    I ran up a side stairwell. It was mostly dark, the headlights from the Jeeps outside casting a dim glow on the walls. I went up one flight and started past the doors—it was the same as the first wing. I wound my way up to the next corridor, then through it, not stopping until I’d studied all the rooms. The girls were just as young as the others, their faces unfamiliar.
    When I reached the sixth floor landing, a female soldier was stationed outside the door. I’d hardly noticed I was running. My eyes were down, my hair clinging to my damp skin. “Can I help you?” she asked. A scar cut through her top lip, the skin white and raised.
    â€œI need to find girls from one of the Schools,” I said. “I’m looking for a girl named Pip—red hair, fair skin. She’s five months pregnant or so.”
    The soldier went to the edge of the banister and peered