Run For Cover Read Free Page B

seize Evelyn’s elbow in a way that I hope says,
Shut up shut up shut up now.
“Good luck with your survival mission. See you around.” I try to pull Evelyn away, but she wrestles free of my grip.
    “We should tell them the truth!” she insists.
    “I think so, too,” Louisa agrees. Some loyalty! I thought she trusted me to make decisions for the group. But I guess when it comes to boys, she can’t even think straight. I should have learned that on our weekend trip when she sided with them over me. I glare at her.
    “What do you mean?” Ryan says, looking from Louisa to me and back again. “What truth? What’s going on?”
    Louisa hesitates, glancing at me. To my surprise, it’s Maddie who answers him. “It’s not safe to stay at CMS,” she says. “We heard something tonight. Well, Louisa did.The school is an Alliance sleeper cell. They were going to use us as hostages to control our parents. Now that Canada has surrendered to the Alliance, we’d all be in danger if we didn’t escape.”
    I notice that she doesn’t mention what happened with her ID bracelet, or that Mrs. Brewster figured out she wasn’t a Ballinger and put her in isolation. Even if Maddie trusts the boys more than I do, she still knows not to tell them all her secrets.
    “Canada’s fallen to the Alliance?” Ryan echoes. “Wow. That is — that is really not good.” He crouches and runs his hands through his short hair, taking a couple of deep breaths.
    “I knew it!” Alonso says. “I knew there was something weird about CMS! I told you!” He punches Drew in the arm and Drew rubs the spot, looking pained. For a moment I catch a glimmer on his face of the same frustration I feel whenever Evelyn is acting like a nut. Then it’s gone, and he looks thoughtful again.
    “Are you sure?” he asks us.
    “I thought you liked CMS,” Ryan says, standing up and turning to Louisa.
    “I do! I mean, I did,” she says. “That’s why you have to believe me. I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t true. I’m not —” She pauses, and I think she nearly said “crazy like Evelyn.” “I’m not happy about it,” she says instead. “I wanted CMS to be as great as I thought it was. But I know what I heard. If you’re smart, you’ll run away with us, too, for your parents’ sakes.”
    “What?” My voice bursts out of my mouth before I can think. “Louisa! You can’t just invite them along! We don’t know these guys, we can’t trust them, and we don’t need them! We’d be better off on our own.”
    “I
do
know them,” Louisa says hotly. “I know at least they wouldn’t leave their roommates behind in the woods with no compass, like some people!”
    “No, all you really know about them is that they’ll give you sandwiches,” I say. “But if that’s all it takes to make you trust them more than you trust me, then maybeyou should go with them and I’ll find my own way back to Chicago. I bet I’d be safer that way anyhow!”
    “Uh-oh,” Evelyn interrupts, holding out her hands. A fat raindrop splatters on her palm. We all look up and realize that while we were arguing, the moonlight has been eaten by dark clouds, which have rolled in out of nowhere.
    “Oh
no
!” Maddie yelps, and the skies open up.

Chapter 3
    T here’s no way to keep arguing; the thunder drowns out our voices and the wind blows them away. It’s one of those terrible storms that have gotten so much worse in the last twenty years, so every bit of rain is practically a hurricane. In moments, the storm is so strong that we can barely even stand under the deluge. I’m soaked to the skin and my backpack is a sodden weight on my back. I can hardly see the others in the dark and through the downpour.
    I’m flipping through survival skills in my mind, trying to remember anything about what to do when a busload of rain is suddenly dumped on your head.Lightning crackles above the trees and I think of flash floods and mudslides and worse. Suddenly I have the