Read Dark Parties for Free Online Page B

hadn’t told me. I can’t look at him without wondering who else is listening and watching and tracking our
     every move. I want to tell him everything will be all right, but that would be a lie. I don’t want to touch him anymore.
    “Neva, eventually you’re going to have to face facts. This is the future we get, and it’s not so bad.” He fumbles in his tan
     canvas backpack, the same one he’s carried since kindergarten. He removes a few crumpled sheets of paper and smoothes them
     on the table in front of us. It’s a printout of the morning news. “When are you going to realize you are in the minority?”
     He points to a headline. “See, people support the Protectosphere. They want more government protection. Why can’t you just
     be happy with the way things are?”
    I read the headline: N IGHTTIME V ANDALS P AINT C ITY R ED WITH P LEA FOR H ELP . I grab the papers and read asfast as I can. According to the story, these vandals wrote the words “Protect Us” more than one hundred times throughout the
     City. The police are quoted as saying they believe it’s a plea for the government to strengthen the Protectosphere. Some right-wing
     Protectosphere-loving group has claimed responsibility.
    “Oh, my God.” I collapse into my chair. The government has transformed our protest into a statement of support. All our work
     last night—our planning for weeks—hijacked.
    “Neva, what’s the matter?” He’s reaching for me, but I wrench myself away. I stumble backward, knocking my chair to the floor.
     Everyone stares at me.
    “I’ve got to go.” I wad the story in my fist and dash out of the coffee shop.
    “What the hell happened?” I ask when Sanna opens her front door. I shove the printout into her chest. She takes the papers
     and studies them.
    “Don’t know.” She shuts the door behind her, and we sit on the top step of her front stoop. “This is a colossal catastrophe.”
    “How did they erase… I don’t understand.” I shake my head as if trying to jostle the pieces into place.
    “All that work for a big zilch.”
    “Worse than nothing. Now it seems there’s growing support for the Protectosphere.” I can’t stop picturing someone wiping out
     all our hard work, making our statement of freedom the government’s rallying cry.
    Sanna and I sit side by side staring at the boarded-uphouses across the street. I remember when those houses had families. Someone has stolen the plywood from the lower windows.
     The houses don’t seem solid anymore.
    We don’t speak. I don’t know what we expected to happen.
    Sanna leaps to her feet. “What we’re forgetting…” She’s pacing as she’s talking; I can almost see the pinwheels spinning in
     her brain. “Oh, God, Nev, this is really awesome. What we’re forgetting…”
    I’m leaning forward, feeling her excitement build. “What?
What?
”
    “Someone has seen our message. They had to coordinate the cleanup. There must have been these manic calls zinging back and
     forth last night. They cared enough to counter our attack. Don’t you see?”
    And the part of me that was deflated gets a breath of air. She pulls me to my feet. “We’ve got to check it out. See for ourselves.”
    We take a train and exit into the stale air of the City. I know where I want to go. I lead Sanna toward the embankment. I
     follow the same path that Nicoline and I took last night.
    As we walk along, I’m almost afraid to look. I grab Sanna’s arm. I can’t believe it. “Over there. On the bench.” We slow down,
     but we don’t stop. We nudge each other again and again. We are trying not to smile, but we must look like we are in pain by
     restraining our euphoria. P ROTECT U S . The words I wrote in red still remain, but someone has book-ended the red with bold, block capital letters—N O and F EA R—in a brownish gray paint. Someone has littered the walkway with flyers that say “No Protect Us Fear!” Someone has scratched
     the words into the