“I know.”

Crystal propped a leg up on the chair and rested her guitar on it. She strummed a few chords. “Like most of you, my life down here hasn’t been all that great. I’ve lost people I loved. I’ve been used in ways I never imagined possible. And I’ve been beaten.” She pointed to her swollen face. A few people wiped tears from their eyes. “Yet I wake up every morning, willingly go to work for a woman who beats me, and allow myself to be the lover of a man I detest. And not once have I ever done anything about it.” Her voice was getting husky, and she stopped to clear her throat. I could feel the tears welling up in my own eyes.

“I recently had the privilege of meeting someone very special. Someone who showed me that taking control of my own life was in my hands—not theirs! She showed me that if life is ever going to get better for us, then we’re the ones who need to change,” she shouted. “And she and her husband are trying to show you the way, too. So I wrote a song for them. I wrote this song for us all.”

The entire room was silent as she began to strum her guitar. It was a slow, haunting melody that spoke to the heart.

Nothing’s ever been right down here

We live and die under the rule of fear

Into slavery we are bound

Then they beat us down

They sentenced us to live in a rock

And if we cry they put us under lock

They promise us one day we’ll see the sun

But when we finally get one, she’s on the run

The chords she strummed became faster, louder, and she sang out with a powerful voice.

So rise up, rise up

It’s time to make a choice

Everyone here has a voice

It’s time you learned how to use it

Unite! Unite!

They’re here to help us fight

If we turn our back on them

Then we’re all condemned

Her strumming became slower then, more haunting.

You probably didn’t know

But I overheard it said

The Pit they want to blow

And soon we’ll all be dead

Don’t forget they promised us the sun

And now that we have one, she’s on the run

If we keep believing their lies

We might as well say our goodbyes

Crystal was strumming hard and fast on her guitar. The entire room was rocking with the emotion of her music. She stood up on the chair, letting her music fill the room. She sang out again.

So rise up, rise up

It’s time to make a choice

Everyone here has a voice

It’s time you learn how to use it

In a world full of wrong

They’re the only thing that’s right

It’s time to make a stand

It’s time to unite!

Rise up! Rise up!

She strummed one last chord with flourish and raised one arm in the air. The crowd went wild. Everyone was cheering and clapping. Not one eye in the room was dry. Jack gazed down at me, his dark eyelashes glistening with tears.

“She’s a hell of a songwriter, too,” he said.

I nodded, too choked up to speak.

Crystal took a bow, jumped off the chair, and started walking for the door. I didn’t want her to leave before I could talk to her. I pushed my way through the crowd and caught her just before she left.

I touched her arm. “Crystal!”

“Sunny! Did you like it?”

“Like it? It was the most beautiful song I ever heard.” I wiped the tears from my eyes. “Thank you.”

My weak “thank you” didn’t even come close to expressing the emotion her song had evoked in me. I didn’t know how to convey my appreciation in the aftermath of her beautiful music.

“You inspired it,” Crystal said. “You stood up for me when no one else ever did. You’re standing up for us all, and I love you for it. But I have to go now. I don’t have much time.”

She gave me a sad smile, kissed my cheek, and went out the door. The crowd parted to let her through and then followed her. There was an exodus of people out of the common room as others joined her entourage.

I wondered where they were all going.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

When the crowd following Crystal had left, I returned to the room to look for Jack. Despite the number of people that followed Crystal, a large crowd remained in the room, anxious for the evening’s training session to begin. I found Jack with a group of people gathered around him, sharing their life stories. Many people were still wiping the tears from their eyes. They spoke of beatings, killings, and rebellions. A group of younger people behind me was singing Crystal’s song.

Jack put his arm around me and pulled me close enough for him to whisper in my ear. “It’s happening.”

I nodded. I knew what he meant; Crystal was uniting the Pit. I should have been happy. That was what I wanted. But my mind was still on Crystal. Why was everyone following her, and why did she say she didn’t have much time? I spotted her parents sitting alone at a corner table in the back of the room. Her mother was sobbing uncontrollably. I excused myself and went to talk to them.

“Hi, I’m Sunny, a friend of your daughter.” My introduction seemed a little silly considering the song Crystal had just sung. “I wanted to say that Crystal is a beautiful singer. Her song really touched a lot of people.”

“Forgive my wife,” Crystal’s father said. “She’s very upset right now.”

“I can tell. I wonder if there’s anything I can do to help?”

“You’ve helped enough!” Crystal’s mother spat at me.

“I’m sorry?” I was taken aback by her anger.

“Crystal knows what she’s doing,” her father said through his tears. “I have to trust in that.”

“I think you need to tell me what’s going on.”

“Mr. West has forbidden her to sing down here. She’s only allowed to sing at his request,” her father said.

“But the camera is broken in this room. He’ll never know she sang here.”

“But they aren’t broken in the other common rooms. She’s going to every level to sing her song so everyone will hear it. She already sang on the first three levels. It’s just a matter of time before someone upstairs hears her,” he said, his voice laced with despair.

Now I understood why everyone was following her and why she said she didn’t have much time. If West had heard about her song, then he probably already had Domers on their way down to get her. People in the Pit had been beaten to death for lesser crimes. We needed to help her. Without another word I ran to Jack.

“We have to help Crystal!” I said, pulling on his arm.

“What’s going on?”

“Her parents just told me that West has forbidden her to sing without his permission and she’s going to every level. We have to smash the other cameras!”

I ran out the door and down the hall with Jack on my heels.

“Wait!” he said when we reached the stairs. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the communicator that Bron had given him. He made sure he was on the right frequency to reach the Alliance guards and sent out the order to break the cameras from the fifth level down to the eighth. Five guards confirmed receipt of the order.

“It’s done,” he said.

I turned to go down the stairs. “I want to make sure.”

I heard Jack’s exasperated sigh, but he followed me anyway. We passed the fifth and sixth levels and kept going until we were almost to the seventh level, but the number of people on the stairs was too thick to get through.

“We’ll just have to trust that our guards got to the rooms,” Jack said.

I heard the clatter of footsteps racing down the stairs behind me and turned to see a small army of Domers marching toward us. They were armed.

“Clear the way!” one of them shouted.

Jack grabbed me, pushed me against the stone wall, and used his body to block me from the guards.

“You don’t have your hat on, and your hair is almost back to its normal color. They’ll recognize you in a second.”

“But we have to help her!”