The Kid’s face cleared, he grabbed the bar, and at the last second he swung himself up. One leg dangled and the big wheel glanced off his shoe before he snatched his foot out of the way. But at last he was clinging like Nate was, bracing his feet up and holding on to the bar with all his might.
Nate sent him a furious, tight-lipped glare.
The Kid grinned back at him, even taking one hand off the bar to give Nate a thumbs-up.
The truck drove through the gates and rumbled down a narrow alley. A bit of grimy oil dripped onto Nate’s face, and he shook his head so it wouldn’t roll into his eye. When the truck squealed to a stop the Kid started to get down, but Nate shook his head urgently. Booted feet passed them and opened up the truck’s cargo area. Voices shouted about unloading.
The Kid looked anxious. Nate’s muscles were starting to shake and burn. He tried to send the Kid a mental message—hang on just another minute—but the Kid was looking distinctly uncomfortable.
This was an awesome plan, Nate congratulated himself bitterly. What now? Just hang on until the freaking truck drove right back out the gates and into the darkness? Why did the stupid Kid have to follow him here, anyway?
The vehicle jolted as the rear doors were slammed and bolted. The Kid looked over at Nate with wide eyes.
The driver climbed back into the cab and started the engine.
Nate made a quick decision: when the truck rolled forward he dropped down, staying carefully between the sets of wheels. The Kid didn’t wait for instruction but dropped down, too, lying on his stomach and covering his head with his hands as the heavy truck rolled over them.
If they could just run and find cover…
“Hey! You there!”
The Kid’s head jerked up as Nate scrambled to his feet. He grabbed the Kid’s arm, half dragging him toward the open door of the building. They hadn’t gotten five yards before they were surrounded by guards holding rifles.
“You!” one of the guards said unnecessarily. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Nathaniel looked around wildly, weighing his options. Which were zero, and zilch.
“His name is Nathaniel Allen,” a woman’s voice called.
The guards parted respectfully as a pale woman in an olive-green suit, her brown hair coiled up into a bun, strode toward them. She gave Nate and the Kid a chilly, serpentlike smile.
“Welcome, Nathaniel,” she said. “We’ve had our eye on you for some time. Now you’ve saved us the trouble of fetching you. And you brought a little friend.”
The Kid started to speak angrily, but the woman held up her hand.
“Save it,” she advised. “My name is Ms. Strepp. I’m in charge here.”
“Where is here?” Nate asked bravely.
Ms. Strepp smiled again. “You just broke into prison. Welcome to death row.”
74
CASSIE
BECCA AND I CAME UP with the next steps in our plan, agreeing to keep it to just the two of us.
“What about Hot Tim?” I asked.
She made a rueful face. “Hot Tim will be merely decorative until I know him better. I mean, it seems like I can trust him, but—”
“Yeah,” I said.
The sound of the door lock opening made us jump apart and immediately put scowls on our faces.
“It’s about time!” Becca snapped as the guard stood aside to let us out. “How long were you gonna make me breathe the same air as her?”
“At least I shower sometimes!” I snarled, shoving her shoulder.
She wheeled on me, face contorted with amazingly convincing rage, and the guards pulled us apart.
“I see your time in the pen didn’t have the desired effect.” The Strepp’s voice was dry and brittle, like a tin can rolling down a street. “It looks like I’ll have to take further measures.” She gave the guards a crisp nod, and they hustled Becca and me down the hall.
I expected us to be separated into our usual rooms, but instead we were taken to a hall that was new to both of us. It was smaller than the others, lower ceilinged and darker, as if it never saw fresh air or light.
I tried not to look at Becca as the guards shoved us toward the end of the hall. As we approached, rats scattered with angry squeaks, and I felt a chill penetrate down to my bone marrow. I’d been beaten up, seen executions of innocent kids, been tested to within an inch of my life—and here I was, finding that Strepp had found an even lower level to sink us to.
Glancing around, I saw that most of these rooms were empty. The few kids that were here looked more neglected: skinnier, more ragged, their eyes more hopeless, if that was possible.
The guard had trouble sliding open the rusty barred door, but finally it was barely wide enough for us to get through, and we were pushed inside. This cell had no bunks and no open toilet—just a bare concrete floor and a plastic pail. I was shaking but trying not to show my fear. On the wall across from us, a rusted sign hung by one screw. I could barely make out the words ORDER + DISCIPLINE = A HAPPY, HEALTHY CELL.
With effort the guard closed our door and made a show of locking it. She sneered at us, showing cracked, yellowing teeth, and then marched down the hall. For a minute Becca and I stood silently, seeing the rats start to cautiously come closer.
“Shit,” Becca breathed, barely loud enough for me to hear.
I nodded in agreement. Shit, indeed.
The one bare bulb halfway down the hall flickered out, leaving us in almost total darkness. I reached out and felt for Becca’s hand. Her grubby fingers interlaced with mine.
We were facing something even worse than we’d had so far, but at least we were together again. Too scared to keep up the pretense of being enemies, we simply stood in the darkness and waited, listening to the scurrying rats and the slow drip of water somewhere.
Then a voice floated across the hallway to us: “Cassie? Becca?”
75
BECCA
CASSIE AND I IMMEDIATELY PRESSED our faces to the peeling, decrepit bars, peering into the darkness. Across the hallway a figure stepped closer to the bars of the opposite cell.
“Nate!” Cassie gasped.
“Nate?” I echoed in surprise.
“Who’re those chicks?” said a voice next to him, and then a smaller figure appeared. I couldn’t make out what he looked like, but he was just a kid, one of the youngest I’d seen in this hellhole.
“Nate, what are you doing here?” Cassie asked. I remembered her saying she’d wanted to make out with him.
Nate shrugged, though his face was tense. “Skipping out of a hybrid corn test.”
My sister smiled, her teeth almost luminous in the dimness.
“So what is this joint?” the little kid asked.
“The crazy house. It’s—” I started to answer him but was interrupted by the harsh buzzing of the alarm. Cassie and I knew what to expect, stepping back fast so our fingers wouldn’t get pinched by our door opening automatically. But Nate and the kid looked startled, snatching back their hands at the last second.
“What’s happening?” Nate asked.
All down the hallway, doors opened with grinding creaks. Cassie and I had to push against ours, but finally got out and filed down the dank hall with the other kids.
“Well…” Cassie began reluctantly.
“It’s… actually, it’s an execution,” I said quietly. “This is a prison just for kids. It’s death row for everyone. And… kids get executed pretty often.”
Nate looked horrified and the little kid’s pale, pinched face grew whiter, if possible.
“Whaddaya mean, executed?” the kid asked.
“I mean… killed,” I said. “Put to death. Usually for no reason at all.” No sense in prettying it up—they’d have to get used to the idea, and the sooner the better.
“Wait,” Nate said, shaking his head as we streamed upstairs and down another hall, heading to the ring. “What are you talking about?”
Cassie looked at him with pity. �
�It’s true,” she murmured, since we were now surrounded by guards. I was scouring the place for Tim, but stealthily.
“First you’ll get tested,” Cassie explained in a low voice. “Try to do your best. How well you do determines how long you last in here.”
Nathaniel looked a bit green.
“Okay, when you says, ‘killed,’” the kid said, “ya mean, like—”
“What’s your name, kid?” I asked.
He frowned and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Yeah what?”
“Yeah, that’s my name,” he said. “They call me the Kid.”
“Geez,” I said. “That’s original.”
“You there!” barked a familiar voice.
I narrowed my eyes and turned to see Tim in his guard suit, brandishing his billy club. “Shut up and keep moving!”
“Eff you,” the Kid began angrily, but I clapped my hand over his mouth and dragged him along.
There had been a glitter in Tim’s eyes. My face ached with wanting to smile, but of course I didn’t, just shuffled up into the bleachers with the others to await some fresh horror.
My life sucked more every day.
76
IT WAS MERRY.
Today’s victim was Merry.
My heart seized and I sucked in a shocked breath when I saw my roommate getting hauled onto the canvas floor of the ring. As usual, there was a gurney and two “nurses,” who were checking the equipment, filling syringes, getting ready to kill a kid.
Merry’s small face peered into the bleachers, but I knew she couldn’t see anyone past the lights. I wanted to shout out to her, which would be fine if I didn’t mind getting dragged out of the bleachers, beaten, and possibly tossed up on the stage next to her for a double feature.
All I could do was send her thoughts—pointless, I know. But it was all I had.
It’s okay, Merry. It won’t hurt. It will all be over soon. I didn’t know if I was trying to comfort her or me.
“What the hell they doin’?” the Kid whispered next to me.
“Shut up!” I hissed between clenched teeth. “Unless you want the crap kicked out of you.”
They put Merry on the gurney and hooked her up to the machines. I remembered how young she was, how hard prison was for her. I wondered where Diego and Vijay were. I thought about Robin, how she and Merry had helped me. Glancing over the Kid’s head, I saw Cassie staring somberly at the ring. Her face was still, her eyes heavy with unshed tears.
Merry was scared, her eyes wide with fear. Her fine, mouse-colored hair hung limply over the side of the gurney. She had parents. They didn’t know what had happened to her. Now she was about to die, and they would never know.
“Jesus H. Christ,” the Kid muttered next to me. When his wiry little hand gripped my arm, I took pity on him and let it stay there.
It was the usual, the machines, the injections. I’d seen it several times before, but I wasn’t getting used to it. It was still terrifying. It still made me feel frantic, sick, enraged, and helpless. My throat closed when I saw Merry’s eyes go blank, and I forgot to breathe as her heartbeat flattened out and stopped. I tried to ignore what was happening, tried to think about anything else instead, but found tears spilling out of my eyes and my nose stuffing up. Angrily I wiped my sleeve over my face.
“Every ending is a beginning,” Strepp announced, standing in the center of the ring. “Remember that.”
I’d never hated her more, never wanted to kill her more than right then.
As we got up to file out, Nate suddenly doubled over and threw up. Inmates shrieked and jumped away from him. Cassie patted his back.
“People die in here,” she told him, and the angry, hard tone in her voice didn’t sound like Cassie at all. “People get beaten and tased and broken. Better get used to it—you don’t know how long you have left.”
Nate was heaving and gasping, but managed to straighten up and get back in line just as two guards came over.
“One more thing,” Cassie muttered as we joined the hundreds of other somber kids. “Don’t eat the food. I think it’s drugged. It’s another way for them to control us.”
Next to me, the Kid looked like he was about to pass out. I jabbed him in the ribs and he blinked.
“Wise up, Kid,” I said, not unkindly. “Let’s see how long you last.”
He nodded and looked straight ahead, as did I. We didn’t speak again, and when they locked us back in our room, Cassie and I sat down on the damp concrete and didn’t look at each other. In the darkness I let my tears come again, but kept perfectly silent as the sobs wracked me.
Merry. Merry, like Merry Christmas. Dead.
77
I’D SWORN TO REMEMBER ROBIN forever, and now Merry. How many names would I have to memorize before I either got out of here or got killed myself?
Our new room was so oppressive and horrible that being let into the cheerless “exercise yard” actually seemed like a treat. Bare dirt, chain-link fence topped with electrified razor wire—I was glad to see it.
Of course, it was hard avoiding the Cassie Fan Club when we were outside. As always, people were drawn to her and wanted to be near her. It used to irritate the living daylights out of me. Come to think of it, it still did.
“Jesus, we need two seconds of privacy here,” I muttered as another kid came up to us in the yard.
Cassie looked at me solemnly. “I’m sorry I’m popular.”
I made a face at her and turned away as she dealt with the latest suck-up.
“I’ll come play with you in a couple minutes,” I heard my sister promise, and rolled my eyes.
When she was free we went back to planning.
“I’ve seen the dragonflies in two different halls,” Cassie murmured.
“I saw them in the hall leading to the ring, and in the hall toward the infirmary,” I whispered, then immediately tried not to think about the infirmary. Every so often, when I least expected it, I suddenly flashed on the pain, the terror, the despair of that day. The day when I’d lost the baby I hadn’t wanted and had refused to acknowledge. It had scarred my soul, and that scar would be there till I died.
“But in the actual buildings, I haven’t seen any holes or broken windows,” Cassie went on. “Nowhere they could get in or out.”
“Nowhere who could get in?”
I jumped slightly—hadn’t heard Nathaniel come up behind me. As the Provost’s son and an Outsider, he had finely honed sneaking skills.
“Not who—what,” said Cassie. “Dragonflies. We’ve seen dragonflies in some of the hallways. And if they can get in—”
“Then we can get out,” Nate said, catching on immediately.
“We need to get organized about remembering where we’ve seen them,” I said. “And try to search as many halls as possible.”
“That won’t be easy,” Cassie said. “It’s not like we get a lot of unsupervised wandering time.”
“No,” Nate agreed. “Though this morning I got a tour of the classroom.” He grimaced and I looked at him with sympathy. We’d heard them come for him this morning. More than almost anything, it was being powerless to help others that was making me nuts.
“Once we find a crack in a window somewhere, then what?” I asked impatiently. “Did everyone remember to bring their magic spell so we can just fly out of here?”
“I brought mine,” Nate said seriously.
I gave him a look. “Nate, the last place someone would find a magic spell is Cell B-97-4275.”
“I know a way out,” said the Kid, but of course we all ignored him.
“Okay, everyone scout around as much as possible,” Cassie said. “Tomorrow we’ll meet back here and compare notes.”
“I know a way out,” the Kid said more insistently.
“Did you ever see them in the mess hall?” Cassie asked me.
“I know a way out!” The Kid’s small, pointy chin stuck out aggressively, and he wedged himself between me and Cassie. “’Cause I know
how them bugs got in!”
78
CASSIE
I HAD NO IDEA WHERE Nate had found this boy, but he was a character. I’d barely paid attention to him before now—my senses were still all squirrelly over seeing Nate again. On the one hand, I was so, so glad to see him. On the other hand, I was so, so, so bummed that he was in here, and was praying that I wouldn’t have to watch him die.
Now I looked down at the Kid in his heinous yellow jumpsuit—way too big for him, rolled up at the sleeves and ankles.
“Yes?” I said politely, figuring we’d humor him for a minute so we could get back to business.
“Yeah,” he said, sticking his chin higher in the air.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Becca said, crossing her arms over her chest. “How did the dragonflies get in?”
“There’s a tunnel,” the Kid said.
“A tunnel,” Becca repeated, obviously not believing him.
“Yeah. I live around here, see? And when I was little, this is where they put crazy people.”
I didn’t point out that in fact he was still little. At least comparatively.
“Crazy people?” Cassie asked.
“Yeah. Nowadays they do them mood-adjusts,” the Kid said, not knowing that the three of us all had firsthand knowledge of that. “But back then they just locked crazy people up. People who talked bad about the cell and all. There was a guy who was crazy, and they put him in here, and he dug his way out.”
“Wait… what?” I asked. Guess I was right—it really is a crazy house.
“He dug hisself a tunnel,” the Kid said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was around. “From in here to out there.” The Kid pointed to the scrubby pines about fifty yards outside the prison fence.
“You’re… almost making sense,” Nate said, frowning.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“He got out, didn’t he?” said the Kid, shrugging.
“He escaped?” Cassie said.
“Well, nah, not really,” the Kid amended. “Like, he got out, but they caught him. And then the tunnel sort of fell in, at least partly.”
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