Wyatt's Choice

He came to her the next night with the plan already made, and she saw in his face that he had spent the day crossing over from a boy who owed a debt to a boy who had decided to die if he had to pay it, and that the crossing had aged him the way the crossing aged everyone.

"There's no quiet way," he said. "I looked at every quiet way for a year, for myself, and there isn't one. The wire sings and the dock chains rattle and there's always three sets of eyes on the floor. You don't get out of here quiet. You get out of here loud, in the one minute nobody's looking inward." He crouched with her in the dark among the sleeping Lost and drew it in the dust with a finger, the floor of the store, the fires, the dock. "Tomorrow night the far-side gang runs the fuel dump on the east edge. They do it every few weeks, a raid, a fire, and every gun in this place goes to the front wall to watch the glow and wait to see if it's coming here. Two minutes. Maybe three. Every eye pointed out." He looked at her. "That's your minute. When the wall lights up, you go for your brother. I'll have the dock chain off. You come across the back with him and you go through the dock and you don't stop and you don't look back for anything, you hear me. Anything."