She shakes her head and puts a hand on her hip. “We don’t have time for this.”

I straighten my shoulders and grip the book so that its edge is facing toward her.

She arches her eyebrow as if to ask, Really? And this time when she punches I step to the side and with as much force as possible slam the edge of the dictionary into her stomach. She gasps and turns. I block her kick with the book. The second one lands. Shock and pain bloom in my hip as Spine shoves me to the ground. The dictionary skitters over the gravel and Spine puts her boot on top of it and says, “Get out of here, kid.”

Kid.

I stopped being a kid when my mother was killed, I think as I push myself up and look around the room. The lights scattered around the edges seem to make the dozen or so Stokers’ eyes shimmer as they stare at me. Are they waiting for me to cry? To back down?

If so, they are going to be waiting a long time.

I climb to my feet, lift my eyes to meet Spine’s, and say, “That book belongs to me.”

Spine kicks the book across the gravel. As I reach to pick it up, she says, “I’m stronger than you are. I’ve trained for years. Why keep fighting if you are going to just end up on the ground?”

“Because I have to,” I gasp. Pain and fear and anger war inside me, but that is the truth that I know. “They killed my mother for searching for the facts. They’ve taken Atlas’s father and one of my friends. People deserve to hear the truth. If we aren’t willing to risk everything to share it with them, I don’t see how we are any better than the ones who took it away.”

Sixteen

No one says a word.

My heart pounds loud as I set my feet and brace myself for another attack. Only, Spine doesn’t charge. Instead, she places her hands on her hips and studies me.

There is the crunch of gravel as Atlas crosses to stand at my side. “I know the Stokers,” he says. “I’ve trained with you—worked alongside you. I know you are never comfortable with the idea of retreating. You want to do something. Now we’re giving you the chance to do it. Instead of locking up truth, we want to spread it.”

Spine slowly turns and scans the faces of her Stokers. Then she shifts her attention to me. “You really think that we have enough of us to make a difference?”

“I do,” I say, and I mean it. If we do this right, there are enough gathered here to bring the truth to the city. And hopefully, the spectacle we create will give Rose the opening she needs to find the location of Isaac and Atticus. “The history book I was given to read gave lots of examples of how small groups of people can create change by doing something hard. I guess we’re asking you to be those people.”