“There’s enough time, if we hurry.”
“Enough time to what?”
“To drop by the Uglyville art school. They have bungeejackets in the basement. A whole rack of spares.”
David took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“You’re not scared, are you?”
“I’m not . . .” He grimaced. “It’s just that I’ve never seenthis many people before.”
“People? We haven’t seen anyone.”
“Yeah, but all those houses on the way here. I keepthinking of people living in every single one, all crowdedtogether like that.”
Tally laughed. “You think the burbs are crowded? Waituntil we get to Uglyville.”
They headed back, taking the rooftops at top speed. Thesky was pitch-black, but by now Tally could read the starswell enough to know that the first notes of dawn were onlya couple of hours away.
Reaching the greenbelt, they turned back the way they’dcome, neither of them speaking, concentrating instead onnavigating through the trees. This arc of the belt broughtthem through Cleopatra Park, where Tally threaded theslalom poles for old times’ sake. Her instincts twitched asthey passed the path down to her old dorm. For a split second,it felt as if she could make the turnoff, climb in throughher window, and go to bed.
Soon, the jumbled spires of the Uglyville art school roseup, and Tally brought the two of them to a halt.
This part was easy. It seemed like a million years agothat Tally and Shay had borrowed one of the school’sbungee jackets for their final trick, Shay’s leap onto the newuglies in the dorm library. Tally retraced her steps to theexact window they’d jimmied, a dirty, forgotten pane ofglass concealed behind decorative bushes, and found that itwas still unlocked.
Tally shook her head. This sort of burglary had seemedso daring two months before. Back then, the library stuntwas the wildest prank she and Shay could dream up. Nowshe saw tricks for what they were: a way for uglies to blowoff steam until they reached sixteen, nothing but a meaninglessdistraction until their mutinous natures were erasedby adulthood, and the operation.
“Give me the flashlight. And wait here.”
She slipped in, found the rack of spares, grabbed twobungee jackets, and was out in less than a minute. When360 Scott Westerfeldshe pulled herself out of the window, she found David staringat her with wide eyes. “What?” she asked.
“You’re just so . . . good at all this. So confident. Itmakes me nervous just being inside city limits.”
She grinned. “This is no big deal. Everyone does it.”
Still, Tally was happy to impress David with her burglaryskills. In the last few weeks he’d taught her how tobuild a fire, scale a fish, pitch a tent, and read a contourmap. It was nice to be the competent one for a change.
They crept back to the greenbelt and reached the riverbefore the sky had even shown a sliver of pink. Zoomingpast the white water and onto the vein of ore, they sightedthe ruins just as the sky was beginning to change.
On the hike down, Tally asked, “Tomorrow night, then?”
“No point in waiting.”
“No.” And there was every reason to attempt the rescuesoon. It had been more than two weeks since the invasionof the Smoke.
David cleared his throat. “So, how many Specials doyou think will be in there?”
“When I was there, a lot. But that was during the day. Iassume they have to sleep sometime.”
“So it’ll be empty at night.”
“I doubt that. But maybe just a few guards.” She didn’tsay more. Even one Special would be more than a matchfor a pair of uglies. No amount of surprise would makeup for the cruel pretties’ superior strength and reflexes.
UGLIES 361“We’ll just have to make sure they don’t see us.”
“Sure. Or hope they’ve got something else to do thatnight.”
Tally trudged ahead, exhaustion taking over now thatthey were safely out of the city, her confidence ebbing withevery step. They’d traveled all this way without thinkingvery hard about the task ahead of them. Rescuing peoplefrom Special Circumstances wasn’t just another ugly-trick,like stealing a bungee jacket or sneaking up the river. It wasserious business.
And although Croy, Shay, Maddy, and Az were probablyall prisoners in those horrible underground buildings, therewas always the possibility that the Smokies had been takensomewhere else. And even if they hadn’t, Tally had no ideaexactly where they’d be inside the warren of puke-brownhallways.
“I just wish we had some help,” she said softly.
David’s hand settled on her shoulder, bringing her to ahalt. “Maybe we do.”
She looked at him questioningly, then followed his gazedown toward the ruins. At the top of the highest spire, thelast few flickers of a safety sparkler were sputtering out.
There were uglies down there.
“They’re looking for me,&r............