Read Regret for Free Online

mind, including the one that asked: Did Jag make it out of the city last night?
    I watched the house for ten minutes, looking for clues as to whether anyone was inside or not. The foliage around each window had been trampled, and geared tracks tore up the dirt. The Greenies had brought their robots with them. I swallowed back a curse.
    Stepping in someone else’s footprints so I wouldn’t leave my own, I crept to Jag’s bedroom window. Steeling myself for the worst, I peered over the lip. My breath caught in mythroat at the sight of the emptiness.
    Everything was gone. Totally and completely gone.
    The house held a sense of desolation, like no one would be using it for a very long time. A strange sensation rippled across my skin, and I knew I wouldn’t be entering the house again. And now I would need a new location for the Resistance efforts.
    As I made my way home, I kept thinking, At least Jag was gone too.
    Gathering clothing, food, water, and medical supplies took much longer than I anticipated. Resistance supporters sent any excess they had, but most didn’t have much lying around to begin with.
    My mother helped, cleaning out Irvine’s room and using it to store bottled water and canned peaches. Medical supplies took up four crates in his closet, and jeans and jackets lay in heaps across the bed. After two solid weeks of gathering supplies, I stood in my brother’s bedroom with a checklist, chewing on the tip of my pencil.
    “Not enough,” I murmured, comparing the list of people I needed to evacuate with the supplies I’d gathered. “Nowhere near enough.”
    I wasn’t sure how to get more. In the Goodgrounds, thepeople were allotted identical supplies and food stores. Only enough for their needs, nothing more. Everything was provided by the Thinkers.
    I didn’t know what to do, but I did know one thing: I was running out of time.
    “The evacuation team will take the medical supplies we have and leave tonight,” I instructed everyone that night at the Resistance meeting. An itch I couldn’t satisfy skimmed just below my skin. “My mother will be acting as lead on this mission, as she has the next three days off work.”
    The five people on my mother’s team nodded, their faces grim. I appraised them with sharp eyes. Two fourteen-year-olds with the stamina of lions, two interns at the hospital who’d been able to secure another bucket of first-aid supplies, and my mother.
    I tried to have faith, and ended up rubbing my eyes instead. “Lex, organize our people into groups of five or six. We’ll start leaving in shifts at the end of the week.”
    He nodded as the evac team pushed back from the kitchen table and headed down the hall to Irvine’s bedroom. The items we’d collected had been bagged and organized. Between the five of them and one hoverboard, they loaded up.
    I waited until everyone had left except my mother; then Iclutched her arm and gripped her in a hug. “Be careful, Mom,” I said, my voice low and thick in the first display of emotion I’d shown in almost two months.
    “And you, Indiarina.”
    I stood in the doorway and watched my mother shoulder the heavy backpack of bandages and antiseptics. I joined my father at the front door, and together we watched her disappear into the night.
    A frantic hand shook me awake. “Indy, wake up! Thane Myers is here.”
    Those words spoken in any voice would startle me from sleep. They’d startle the dead. That’s how far-reaching—and terrifying—Thane Myers was. I leapt up, nearly knocking heads with Lex. His blue eyes were wild, and the panic I felt was clearly written in his stature.
    “Time to go,” I said automatically. I grabbed the backpack I’d prepared last week. “Send the word, Lex.” All communication that concerned locations was passed verbally, thus no rendezvous points would be sent. Lex simply messaged the code word for evacuation; anyone reading it wouldn’t know what it meant.
    For a brief moment, I considered