Read Online The Revival by Chris Weitz - Free Book Online Page A

did you come for?”
    Me: “Do you have to ask?”
    Jefferson: “I thought… I didn’t want to assume anything.”
    Is this the same Jefferson? The boy who made a little home with me in a metal corner of the carrier? Who declared his undying love for me in the Reading Room, with the coffered paintings of heaven above us?
    No. He’s older. He’s defeated. I can tell that much from his face, and from what Peter said. Jefferson’s dream of Utopia is done. He’s a hunted man. So it bears saying.
    Me: “Jeff. I came for you.”
    I want that to be enough to change the look in his eyes; it isn’t. What’s happened?
    I ask him something I’ve neglected to until now.
    Me: “The tribe. What happened to the rest of us?”
    He takes a while to answer, a strange look on his face.
    Jefferson: “Washington Square is gone, Donna. I don’t know where most of the tribe went. Holly, Elena, and Ayesha were still alive when the Gathering started, at least.”
    Me:
“Gathering?”
    Jefferson: “I tried to get all the tribes together. I—we—wanted to make a united front, before the grown-ups arrived.”
    This is Jefferson, all right. Always trying to fix the world.
    Jefferson: “We almost did it. Then Theo and Kath showed up and told everybody that there were places where the Sickness hadn’t hit.”
    Me: “Wait—what?
You
didn’t tell them?”
    Jefferson: “I was going to. We just needed a little time. We needed to get the new constitution
first
.”
    I’m trying to weigh that in my mind, but I still want to know about the others.
    Me: “And everybody else from the Square?”
    Jefferson: “A lot of the boys are dead. And the Uptowners have the girls, the ones they didn’t kill…”
    Jefferson looks off, and I realize what the strange expression on his face is. It’s shame. Our breath billows out like steam in the freezing air. Wakefield hovers nearby, clearly waiting for a moment to break up the funeral.
    Me: “What do you mean, the Uptowners
have
them?”
    Jefferson: “They took them away, before we even got back to the Square. They’d taken the place over. Brainbox made a bomb… We brought down one of the buildings on the north side. Killed some of the Uptowners. But the girls were gone.” He scrapes away at the snow with his foot, uncovering the dark, wet grime below. I can hear the twins screaming and laughing as they toss snowballs at each other, and Kath, amusingly enough, tells them no aiming for the head.
    Me: “Took them
where
?”
    Jefferson turns, looks around, as if he might see our missing girls somewhere by chance. Nothing but the squaddies gearing up.
    Jefferson: “I don’t know. The Bazaar, maybe. I don’t know.”
    Me: “This ‘Gathering’ of yours—were the Uptowners there?”
    Jefferson won’t meet my eyes. I’m dreading the answer. If he actually
worked
with them,
compromised
with them…
    Then he looks me in the eye.
    Jefferson: “Yes.”
    My heart sinks. It goes down about a thousand feet underwater, where you have to wear a special suit to keep from imploding.
    Me: “And you… you
knew
that they had our people?” No answer. Which means yes. “Jefferson… you didn’t try to get them back?”
    Jefferson: “I was going to.”
    Me:
“When?”
    Jefferson: “Once the doc was signed. The constitution. That needed to come first. We needed to have the Uptowners be part of it, Donna. Or the whole thing wouldn’t work.”
    Me: “So you just—what—hung around with those…
monsters
, while our people were somewhere getting… with God knows what happening to them?”
    Jefferson: “I
had
to. I had to deal with them. For everyone’s sake.”
    I think of what the Uptowners stand for and what they do to girls. The