Music Box (The Dollhouse Books, #4) by Anya Allyn

him to the ground.
    Sam comes running out. From the look on his face, I know he expected the worst—that a load of rangers were barreling in to take everyone prisoner. We don’t have long before that scenario becomes a reality.
    Rory crawls away and sits with his back against the wall, no longer willing or able to talk. Sweat trickles in the soft fuzz of his jowls. Jack doesn’t leave his post by the door.
    The other three kids poke their heads out of the room.
    Jack leans back against the door, like he isn’t sure his legs will hold his weight. “Jesus... my family are down there in the camp.”
    Deandra’s mouth trembles. “What on earth do we do? We can’t risk the kids getting taken anywhere by these people.”
    Jack looks like all the blood has drained from his face—the frost-nipped patches contrasting on his grayish skin. “I don’t know.”
    “We have to get out of here,” she tells him.
    “I have to get word to Mike... somehow.” Jack exchanges glances with me. There’s a question in his eyes and I know what that question is.
    Purposefully, I look away. In Jack’s view, I’m one person on their own and he’s a guy with a family who needs to protect that family. But if I risk going down to find Jack’s brother, then I risk getting caught. I risk not getting back to Cassie.
    Sam eyes the view beyond the window anxiously. He wants to keep running—get far away. But he and his brother won’t get far before they either die of exposure or they get picked up again by rangers.
    I picture the scene over the hill as I saw it when Sam and his brother came tearing away from the rangers. Trucks parked on the ice. A dozen or so rangers guarding the buildings where the people were waiting to be taken to the next camp. That was not a large number of rangers—compared to the thousands of people held there.
    I take a deep breath, wondering if I’ll regret my next words. “The best way of getting your brother out... is by getting them all out—everyone.”
    Deandra’s dark eyes are piercing, intense. “How?” That’s all she says. It’s not a word said in some kind of hopeless despair. It’s a request for the specifics—she’s already on board.
    I exhale slowly. Nothing is clear in my head. But the best I’ve got is the best I’ve got. “When they drive the trucks away, we ambush and take control of them. We take the people to wherever we can where there’s others to defend them. To the city. We bring back truckloads of rebels to the camp—whoever we can find who’s prepared to fight.” I hesitate. “And then I leave.”
    The look on Jack’s face is as though I’ve just told him we need to drive the trucks to the tip of Mount Everest and back. “This can’t work. They’ve got ammunition—lots of it. We’re three adults with two—no, four—kids in tow.”
    I shake my head. “Once they drive the trucks away, the only people we’ll be dealing with are whoever is in the front seat—no more than two or three of them in each truck. And they seem to only have two trucks at their disposal. If we know which truck your brother gets put on, we can get into the back, find him, and tell him what’s going on. Then convince some more of them. We won’t tell them the whole story. Just enough so they understand that they’ve got to help us.”
    Jack swallows hard. “Tell me—what is the whole story? What are we really dealing with here?”
    Four sets of small faces turn our way. I indicate to Jack to walk with me toward the kneading machines.
    “Look,” I tell him, “America is frozen solid. All of it. And maybe most of South America. And Europe. And Asia. Are you getting the picture?”
    He chews his cheek from the inside. “That would be an ice age.”
    “Yeah. But not a natural one.”
    “So, you’re saying this,” he jerks a thumb towards the snow-encrusted scene outside the window, “is man-made?”
    “No.”
    “Then what are you saying?”
    “You heard me ask Rory to tell you