Page 114 of Chaos

A soldier grabs Duane by the arm, yanks him out of the way.

“You don’t even know she has contraband.”

Suddenly, everyone is shouting, everyone is moving, motions sharp and jagged, the first ripples of true violence scattering as soldiers shove ex-townees backward, and they bump into each other, jostling forward, shouting in what feels like understandable outrage.

Yorke and Jacquetta left with Ebundi, but Church and Rey were meant to stay behind to run things here.

But I don’t see Church.

Nor do I see Colleen.

I do find Rey across the way, her short bob of light brown hair pinned back under a patrol cap, her jaw tight as she watches all of this, rigid, unmoving.

I get about three steps away before I remember Shasta can’t see, so I run back and grab her hand. “Rey’s here. We need to help Ephie.”

Shasta doesn’t question it.

She knows about Shane and Ephie’s burgeoning romance.

We break into a jog as the shouting ratchets up in volume.

And for once, I agree with the ex-townees. Whyisa soldier going after Ephie? What does Duane mean by contraband? And why do the lights look so hazy? Is something burning in the kitchen? And where thehellis Colleen?

I shout that at Pearl who’s plastered against the wall now, her knitting a tangle on the floor, her face a twist of brown wrinkles and fear. Hank is still snoring in his chair.

She doesn’t hear me, so I shout it again. “Where’s Colleen?”

“On the wall,” she cups her hands around her mouth and calls back.

Rey’s disappeared in the crowd so I grab a different soldier by the arm. “Go get Church and Colleen! They’re on the wall.”

Miraculously, he obeys, running off down the hall toward the stairs.

Rey’s still nowhere to be found, so Shasta and I follow the group as it floods down the hallway to the right of the lobby, into the promenade toward the shops.

I hear the words, “Contraband,” and “Ephie,” several times. Who decided to tell the soldiers Ephie has contraband, and why now? With half the army gone? The mob surges into one of the home decor boutiques.

Inside the cramped boutique, too many bodies bump against one another. A lamp falls off a table and smashes, along with a mosaic picture frame and a small sculpture of an owl. The pieces shatter across the floor, and someone bumps into me, and I lose Shasta’s hand in the crowd.

My nose stings with a smell I can’t place.

Two soldiers attack the frame of the door to a small closet. The wood splinters. A padlock snaps, its ends hanging open as the door splits in half.

When I grab another soldier by the arm and shout, “Stop this,” she ignores me. “Where’sChurch?”

No response.

I catch a brief glimpse of Rey across the boutique, her face tight with something I can’t read, before I’m shoved against a wall, and can do nothing but watch helplessly asEphie is dragged from the closet, her young face twisted up in anger that only thinly masks her terror.

She swings with a screwdriver, but a soldier, a foot taller, strapped in gun belt, boots, and thick canvas gear, blocks it with the nose of his rifle, while another takes her forearm in a tight grip.

The screwdriver falls to the floor, the sound swallowed up by the crowd and disappears under people’s shoes.

She’s still wearing her purple sweater dress from last night, and her legs are bare, her toes naked on the floor that’s covered in broken shards of the glass owl and picture frames. A disco ball rolls across the floor, and a sheaf of papers sprays out under a soldier’s foot.

There’s more shouting about, “Contraband,” and “Search the closet.”

Across the swarm of people, I catch a flash of Shasta’s red lips. She’s lost her sunglasses, and her unseeing eyes are wide. I shove my way toward her, throwing elbows into ex-townees and soldiers with abandon, and find her hand. It’s shaking. I can’t imagine being blind in the sounds and feeling of this crowd; the jostling, the screaming, the strange energy.

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