Ezra

"Ezra, have you seen Riku?"

I glance up from the bag I was packing to see Sarah standing by the door. She's washed her face off since I last saw her by the door.

"Not since you guys let me in yesterday," I mumble, turning back around. I shove my gun into the duffel beside the small computer I use to hack through the mainframes. On top of that computer is a ring of stolen keycards to break into the government buildings.

"Thomas is calling our group together for this," Sarah continues. "I'll keep looking. Meet at the door in five."

I groan loudly after she leaves.

Thomas knows I would rather go alone. The group Sarah's talking about is a skeleton of what it used to be. Yet, we're Thomas' chosen few, the ones who have been with him since we were small and have been trained to fight. Sarah's been here since she was seven and Riku since he was six. They came together after their parents were executed on the same day. That was ten years ago. I was eight.

There used to be five of us, but after the incident, it's just Riku, Sarah, and I. We lost our sniper and spy after the fire. The two of them had been here since birth- Thomas' daughter and his best friend's son. They were inseparable best friends.

Sighing, I zip up my duffel and throw it over my shoulder. The two sleeping bodies on the other bunk bed roll over, away from the overhead light. As I straighten up, the boy who sleeps above me opens his eyes.

"Be safe, Ez," he mumbles sleepily, yawning.

"I'll try," I reply in a whisper. "Go back to sleep."

The little boy nods and reaches out towards me. I squeeze his hand as I turn to walk out the door.

Goodbyes are always the hardest, especially when the person you're saying them to might not be there tomorrow. Most of the younger children still have their trackers in. We send them to the city center on supply day to pick up food, uniforms, and medicine. Even if they can't work or fight, they still have to do their part.

That's why we use a orphanage as a sleeping quarters. If the younger children are found here, the matrons will cover for them, say their all abandoned and under their care. It's happened a few times, but we've always came through.

The older children without trackers sleep above ground but work below where the supplies and important data is kept scattered across the city through the maze.

I shut the door behind me as slow as possible, minimizing the sound. I don't want to wake any of the boys up. They need their rest. I do, too, but there's more important things to do.

Door slip by on both sides as I walk down the hallway. Each is solid white with a number painted in crude handwriting. Piles of dirty clothes rest outside of each door like little mountains, waiting for someone to come pick them up. The trash bins overflow with empty water bottles and crumpled up paper airplanes. Outside one door is a overturned comic book- Superman. I pick it up as I pass by. Books are hard to come by.

I skip down the stairs while I flip through the faded pages, running my finger across the grains of the paper. I can feel the ink under my thumb, the thousands of dots that make up a single picture. The noise of the girls floor greets my ears as I pass by. Someone has hung a sign on their door. No boys allowed.

It brings a smile to my face. The older kids used to complain to Thomas about the younger one's antics. He would always brush them off and say to let them enjoy their youth while they had it.

"There you are," Sarah says as I leave the stairwell on the ground floor. She and Riku stand by Thomas at the door, holding their bags.

"Where were you?" I ask Riku, ignoring Sarah's impatient foot tapping.

"Hiding from her," he says with a sigh. Sarah smacks his arm and lets out a little hiss of air. "I was just kidding. I was taking a shower. Can we just go now?"

Thomas laughs and claps me on the shoulder.

"Do you know where you're going, Ezra?"

I nod.

"The Office of Corrections and Prisons," I recite. "Three hundred forty-seven East 27th Street."

"What floor?" Thomas prods.

"Unknown, sir. We believe the data storage rooms are located on the upper floors, which will give us enough information to locate each manufactured prison."

"And how many of those are there?"

"Three. The Island is the newest."

"How will you know which coordinates belong with which?"

A laugh erupts out of me, and I nearly double over.

"Because I'm me, Thomas," I say, looking up at him. "There's not an line of data that I can't decipher. I'll know what goes with what."

Thomas returns my smile with his own side-sided smirk, a look that reminds me so much of Jordyn that my chest aches. My face returns to its worried state, and I sigh.

"We should go," I mutter, "while we still have the cover of night."

"Lot of good that'll do us while we're wearing these," Sarah spits, patting her uniform. "Remind me again why we can't wear black clothes instead."

"Because we have to blend in," Thomas and I say together.

Riku snorts.

"I swear she lives her life in a silent movie without captions," he whispers as he walks past me to the door. "Nothing we ever say makes it past her earlobes."

I fight back a dry laugh. Sarah mutters a few words under her breath as she puts on her own backpack and follows behind him. I readjust my bag straps and hurry to follow them, but Thomas grabs my shoulder. I glance back at him.

"Be careful, Ezra," he says in a low voice.

A conversation from days before returns to mind, but I just nod and hurry out behind the other two.

"Be careful, Jordyn."

"Dad, I've been watching this neighborhood for weeks. I know when the guards do their rounds. I'm not going to get caught."

She stood by the couch in her father's office. The four of us were behind her, watching the way her shoulders moved as she heaved careful breaths. The weight of what she was about to do made us all feel like Atlas, crushed and helpless.

"I've heard that before, and you're known for cutting things a little too close."

Jordyn groaned.

"This has to be done! I'm the only one that can do it, the only one quiet enough to sneak in and out."

"That's not true. Riku is stealthy."

"Can Riku start six fires that won't go out, all within three minutes?"

She glanced back at us, and Riku tensed up beside me. His lips formed a tight line.

"Well, can you, Riku?" she repeated, widening her eyes.

He just shook his head.

Seventeen years old, and the girl had us all under her thumb. We knew better than to speak against her. The consequences of that would be weeks of stolen food packets, soaked clothes, and the silent treatment. As quiet as she was, we craved to hear her voice and follow her guidance.

"I'll be with her, Thomas," the fifth member of our group said, and Jordyn glanced over at him. Her face softened, and a smile broke out. It lasted for a second before vanishing as she turned around to look at her father once again.

"The two people I love more than anything," he whispered as he walked up to her, "headed to commit a crime that could put them on the stage."

"We aren't old enough to be executed, Dad," Jordyn reminded him.

"But you know what they could do to you, and is it worth that?"

Jordyn nodded.

"My life is worth giving up to save the lives of hundreds of children wrongly placed in reform facilities, undergoing God only knows what because they were born. I would gladly go to prison if it would stop President Murano. You know this."

Her father took a long look at her and then glanced back at us.

"Just be careful," he finally said, and Jordyn sighed. She turned and left the room, the sniper's wrist clasped in her tiny hand. Thomas didn't watch them leave. Instead, he watched the three of us hold our breaths.

"May God watch out for her," he said, rubbing his temples. "He's the only one who can. To your stations."

Sarah holds her hand out for us to stop, and Riku and I peek around the corner under her arm, pushing my glasses up on my nose.

"How long until the guards change?" Riku whispers to me. I check my watch.

"Thirty seconds."

"On the dot?"

I groan.

"Twenty-two, if you're going to be picky."

"We can't miscalculate by even a second, Ezra, unless you're aiming to get caught."

"I'm not-"

Sarah smacks the both of us on the top of the head.

"Cut it out," she hisses. "They're moving."

I look up to inspect the door of The Office of Corrections and Prisons where three guards are posted. Like everyone else, they wear all white, but their outfits are well-made and thicker than ours. No flame could tear through those white suits; no knife could pierce their surface. The guards have only one weak point.

Their faces.

The sturdy white helmets leave their faces exposed, allowing them to see clearly in the thick smog of the inner city where the air isn't filtered and purified.

Above me, Sarah draws her stun gun, a sleek black weapon she picked up several years ago. Riku pops his knuckles and neck in quick succession.

"Are you ready, Ez?" Sarah asks as she raises the gun to her shoulder.

"As ever. You?"

"As I can be to be your meat shield," she says with a laugh. I shake my head, never taking my eyes off the three guards.

All they need to do is take five steps forward. One step away from the glass and towards us. Another four steps to the alleyway where we hide, where the next three guards were supposed to be. They don't know we stunned all three of them the last block over.

"Now," Riku hisses, and time kicks into fast forward.

Riku is nothing more than a blur of white as he launches himself at the closest guard. Another falls to the silent stun gun as Sarah pushes forward with me crouched behind her. I hear the brush of weapons being drawn, of Riku's expert hands hitting all the right pressure points to incapacitate a grown human, of heavy grunts and moans, and of helmets hitting the ground.

Less than a minute passes, and then, we stand back to back in the center of the doorway to the OCP.

"That wasn't so hard," Riku pants as he brushes the dirt off his hands.

"Easier than last time," Sarah agrees.

I kneel by a guard and dig through his pockets. Neither of them bother to ask what I'm doing; they know it's best to watch the streets for more guards approaching. I stand up again when I've got the guard's keycard clasped tightly in my hand.

"Let's go," I hiss, jogging towards the two. The two follow without any argument, through the double doors and into the lobby of the OCP.

An empty receptionist desk sits to our right facing the doors. A lobby full of white chairs to match the white floors and walls greets us, also empty.

"This is why we needed to come at night," Sarah whispers, awed by the still air around us. "It wasn't just the uniforms."

I laugh and walk towards the elevator.

"I told you," I say, swiping the keycard again. "I'm pretty smart."

Both of the laugh, but I just smile at them. The silver doors slide open. We pile inside.

"You were right," Riku points out. I follow his line of sight to the glowing buttons. There's a small directory on the side.

"B- Records Archive. 1- Lobby. 2- Corrections Offices A through L. 3- Corrections Offices M through Z. 4- Prison Research. 5- Data Storage. 6, 7, and 8- Control Rooms."

Sarah hurries to push the '5' button.

"Let's get a move on," she says as the elevator jerks us upward. "Before someone finds those guards and sends an army after us."

A/N: Not going to lie- I think I like these chapters a little more than Jordyn's sleepy life right now. Hers will pick up! Will Ezra find what he's looking for? Who do you think the fifth member of their squad was? All the questions!