Ending Eleven


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. 
 Copyright © 2023 by Jerri Chisholm. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
 Entangled Publishing
 644 Shrewsbury Commons AveSTE 181Shrewsbury, PA 17361
 [email protected]
 Entangled Teen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
 Edited by Stacy Abrams
 Cover design by LJ Anderson/Mayhem Cover Creations
 Cover photography by Hzpriezz and Natalia0307/Shutterstock
 ISBN 978-1-64937-299-4
 Manufactured in the United States of America
 First Edition March 2023
 
 
 
 At Entangled, we want our readers to be well-informed. If you would like to know if this book contains any elements that might be of concern for you, please check the book’s webpage for details.
 https://entangledpublishing.com/books/ending-eleven
 
 
 To j.a.p.
 
 
 Chapter One
 With bruises on knees and blood on my feet
 Yo! Ho! Blow the man down
 You name the place for us to all meet
 Give me some time to blow the man down
 Pain pushes against the inside of my temple; it pulls at my smashed-in ear. I try to bring up the image of Justice Andrews, of his fists colliding with me, or Sitwell driving the butt of his gun into my skull—events that happened just a couple hours prior—but the dark and unknown world spins too quickly. Too disorienting, too much swirling ink. I can’t think of anything, and through the blankness, that tune, hollered by an unknown chorus, swells again. 
 Give me some time to blow the man down
 I know the song like the back of my hand. I just can’t place it. Where is it from? And how will I get to Michael if I’m not thinking straight? If I’m losing my mind? I try to focus on the feeling of the weight propped over my shoulder, the ragged breaths that come out in quick, shallow bursts. Breaths from my lungs. And Long’s. Nothing from his. 
 His. Him. Wren. 
 Through patches of moonlight that turn the world silver, Long and I push harder, faster, following the boy who had been watching Eleven’s lid when we emerged. I had wanted to study him, to assure myself it’s the boy called Tuck, the silent one from Michael’s camp I’d been searching for before the series of events that led us here. I had wanted to examine his face for a sign his birth name was Jack, that he is my brother, the one expelled from the compound at the age of three. But the bloodstain on Wren’s shirt had been expanding too quickly, the boy’s eyes were too wide as he stared at it, and there wasn’t time to do anything but rush through the night. 
 Long groans as the boy’s shoulder stumps into the trunk of a tree. A second later, its branches catch the skin along my cheek, slicing it like tissue paper. Right now, it feels like my entire body is constructed of it. Vulnerable to damage.
 As blood dribbles down my face, I hear that tune again: 
 You bring the masses and I’ll bring the booze
 Yo! Ho! Blow the man down
 You find the salt and I’ll find the noose
 Give me some time to blow the man down
 On and on we go, a seemingly endless journey of cracking twigs and shuffling boots, but finally corpse-like buildings strangled by vines flicker into view. A noise escapes my lips, a whisper of relief. Because when we fled Compound Eleven, Wren was clinging to life, the hole in his side wrenched apart from the climb to the top of the storeroom, and now…
 Now things are more dire. Now I don’t know if he’s sleeping, or unconscious, or dead dead dead. But I can’t stop to consider that last possibility; I can’t bear to even think it. All I can focus on is shifting my weight forward. Again and again and again. 
 … 
 The metal cylindrical building catches the moonlight so it looks like bars. Rings of light and dark, like a cage. The air quivers, and residents of this strange new world holler at us to stop—they think we’re intruders, full of ill-intent. But the boy runs ahead, and above all that comes Michael’s name, a hoarse and strangled scream, and even though I know it comes from me, it sounds so foreign, so distant—I barely recognize it. But I must, because nobody else could sound so desperate. Nobody else could be so close to the edge. 
 And then, as the cage disappears and the towering corpse-like buildings begin to tilt, there’s a rush of heat close enough that it singes my clothes. Fire, I realize slowly, orange and electric, and just as I feel my flesh melt, a hand lands on my shoulder and pulls me upright. The pain behind my eyes erupts with the movement, like a hot, pulsating knife.
 “Eve. Eve!” The sound of Michael’s voice echoes through my head. Just like always, it ebbs and flows in a peculiar way, an accent I am not familiar with. An accent that’s soft and yielding. Usually, there’s a touch of humor to it, but not right now. Right now he mutters under his breath, and I know it’s Wren’s condition that does it. The dangling head. The bright patch of red soiling his shirt. The clammy skin the color of plaster that Compound Eleven would smear on the upper floor ceilings.
 “Find Lizbeth!” Michael shouts to one of the members—a middle-aged woman. As she disappears inside the building, he drops the lantern he’d been holding and positions his fingers alongside Wren’s neck.
 It should be relief I feel, because my burden has become