Hunted (Parallel Series, Book 3) (Parallel Trilogy)

by Christine Kersey

  It hurt more than I remembered, but maybe that was because last time it had taken me by surprise and I hadn’t even realized she’d poked me until it was over with. This time I was just glad she didn’t notice my fading scar from where I’d cut out the last chip.

  She placed a small bandage over the spot where the chip was now embedded, then went to her computer and typed something.

  “You said the chip does other things besides track my heart rate. What else does it do?” I was all curious innocence—the voluntary resident who only wanted to lose a few pounds.

  She smiled at me. “It’s important that we know where our residents are at all times, so it helps with that.”

  “Oh.” I nodded, like this was something one would expect in a F.A.T. center. “You mean, like a tracking device?”

  She looked up from the computer screen. “Yes.”

  “Do you have one?”

  The question seemed to startle her, but she quickly recovered—and ignored my question. “Hannah, it’s important that you weigh yourself each morning before going to breakfast.”

  Obviously she didn’t want to admit that only the residents of Camp Willowmoss were tracked.

  “Can you make sure and do that?” she asked.

  I nodded, wondering why she hadn’t given that explicit instruction to me the last time I’d been processed. I remembered how I’d been punished—as had my roommate—when I’d failed to weigh myself daily. I dreaded weighing myself the next morning. If my contact lenses didn’t trick the retinal scanner into thinking I was Hannah Jacobs, I’d be in serious, serious trouble.

  She took a small vial out of the cabinet, along with another needle, then stepped toward me. “I’m going to take a small sample of blood.”

  This was new. “What for?”

  “We like to have a baseline for all of our residents.”

  “A baseline of what?”

  She put a band of rubber around my upper arm, then swabbed the inside of my elbow with a small, moist pad. “Make a fist please.”

  “What do you mean by a baseline?”

  She ripped open the packaging which held the needle, then glanced at me. “Cholesterol and things like that.”

  I could only assume the “things like that” included the drugs in the power bar.

  She slid the needle into my vein and a moment later dark red blood began filling the vial. When it was three quarters full, she pulled the needle out and pressed a cotton ball to the inside of my elbow. “Hold that there please.” She finished her task and placed a strip of tape over the cotton ball. “You may change back into your clothes now and someone will come get you and help you get settled.”

  “Okay.”

  She took the vial of blood and left the room.

  As I changed into my clothes I wondered if it would be Kiera who would come and get me like the first time I’d been here. Though a familiar face would be nice, I was scared to see someone who knew me—what if my true identity was immediately revealed?

  A few minutes later the door opened, and when a girl I didn’t know came in, relief swept over me. She was about my age and looked vaguely familiar. I assumed she had been at Camp Willowmoss when I was here before—someone with her privileges had to earn the trust of the people in charge—but I hadn’t known that many people, and certainly didn’t know her.

  “Hi there, Hannah. I’m Katy”

  “Hi.”

  “Grab your bag and follow me, okay?”

  I grabbed the handle of my small suitcase and wheeled it out of the room as I followed Katy. We went to the elevator and she waved a card in front of a reader.

  She held the card out to me. “This is yours. You’ll use it to get to the places where you need to be.”

  I took it from her. It looked just like the one I’d had before—an unbroken canvas of blue. I wondered if they’d made any changes to security since Billy and I had escaped. The door to the elevator slid open and we stepped inside. As she waved her card in front of the reader and pressed the number eight I remembered that the last time I’d been here I’d been assigned to the sixth floor. I wondered what floor Amy was on—girls were either on the sixth or eighth floors—so perhaps she’d be on my floor.

  A moment later we arrived on my new floor and Katy led me through a foyer and down a hallway that looked just like the one on the sixth floor. No one was around and I knew that was because everyone was either in class or doing their assigned jobs. Even though I was worried about being outed as Morgan Campbell, and even more worried about not getting out in time to get to the tunnel in Fox Run, I enjoyed a small measure of comfort in that I already knew how things worked around here. Last time I hadn’t known anything and had made many mistakes.

  We stopped in front of room eleven and she knocked, then opened the door. No one was in the room. “Put your suitcase in the closet.” Katy pointed to an empty closet, then pointed to a neatly made bed. “You’ll sleep there.” She paused, giving me a moment to take in my surroundings. “Let me show you where the bathroom is.”

  I followed her down the hall to a nearby bathroom.

  “There are three other bathrooms like this on this floor, but this is the one you’ll use.” She pulled out the complimentary bag of toiletries and handed it to me and a feeling of deja vu washed over me.

  I took the bag from her and tried to act like this was all new to me.

  “This is free of charge, but if you need anything else, it will be charged against the money you earn.”

  “I earn money?” I asked.

  “Sort of. It’s placed in an account that you can draw against to buy the supplies you need. It’s not like they give you the money.”

  “Oh.”

  She grabbed one of the thin, scratchy towels that were stacked on a shelf and handed it to me. “Here is the towel you’ll use. Once a week you’ll get a fresh one.”

  “Okay.”

  “For now, you’ll wait in your room until your roommate comes to get you for lunch. She’ll show you where the cafeteria is.”

  We went back to my room and Katy left me there to get settled. I unpacked the few belongings from my suitcase, then wondered what to do next. I had half an hour until lunch—and until I met my new roommate—so I decided to do a little reconnaissance. I left my room and went into the hallway, then walked toward the bathroom Katy had shown me. I went past it and followed the hallway all the way around. I only saw one girl—it must have been her assigned time to do homework or work out—but I didn’t recognize her and she barely acknowledged me.

  I found myself back in the foyer. I knew better than to venture beyond my own floor—the chip in my arm would alert the Enforcers if I went somewhere I shouldn’t. Plus my key card wouldn’t allow me to go very many places anyway. I hadn’t seen anything useful and I hadn’t found Amy. I went back to my room to wait for my roommate.

  A short time later the door opened and my new roommate walked in.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling. “I’m Lori.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was the Lori I’d known when I’d first arrived in this world. The Lori who’d sat next to me in class. The Lori whose father was the head of the local F.A.T. squad. The Lori who’d been so jealous of my budding relationship with Connor that she’d done all she could to get me committed to Camp Willowmoss. But she wasn’t overweight. And her father was the head of the F.A.T. squad in Timber Hills. Why was she here?

  I opened my mouth to speak and almost blurted What are you doing here? But I stopped myself in time. “Hi,” I said instead, my eyes wide.

  She stepped toward me. “You’re Hannah, right?”

  I nodded, almost afraid to speak. She didn’t seem to recognize me—the glasses, the colored contacts, the new hair color and style, not to mention the way my face had filled out with the weight gain, all helped to hide my real identity.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  I’d been too nervous to eat breakfast, but now I was starving. “Yes.�
��

  “Great. Let’s go get some lunch.”

  I followed her to the elevator and stood next to her as we waited for a car to arrive. “How long have you been here?” I asked, still trying to digest the fact that my new roommate was my old nemesis.

  “Three weeks.”

  So she’d arrived sometime after Billy and I had escaped. Interesting. She didn’t seem upset about being there and I wondered if that was how she really felt or if the compliance drug in the power bars had taken the edge off any anger she might have felt.

  We rode the elevator in silence and a moment later the doors opened to reveal the cafeteria. It was exactly as I remembered it. The smells and sounds washed over me, giving me an overpowering sensation of deja vu.

  “You get in line there,” she said, pointing to the line that had formed. “Then you wave your card in front of the reader and the workers will give you your food.”

  “Is the food any good?” I asked, playing the role of newbie.

  “It’s not too bad,” she said. “My favorite is the power bars we get with each meal.” Her face seemed to light up at the mention of the power bars.

  “Bars?” I asked. “How many do you get?”

  “Most people get two, although some people are lucky and get three.” She laughed. “But then they get less of the regular food.”

  Oh no, I thought. And figured it was probably the criminal types who got three. I wondered if Amy was getting three—as a stand-in for me, it seemed likely. Physically she was small, so even two per meal would have an impact on her. We went to the end of the line and I searched for Amy’s face among everyone in the room.

  “Who are you looking for?” Lori asked.

  “No one,” I said, realizing I was being too obvious. “I was just wondering if anyone I knew was here.”

  “And?”

  I smiled at her. “Nope.”

  She smirked. “I guess you’re stuck with me then.”

  Yeah, I thought. And I’m not too happy about it.

  “Your turn,” she said, nudging me in the back.

  I bristled at her touch, but moved forward and waved my card in front of the reader, pretending her presence didn’t bother me. A short time later we had our food and I followed her to a table. She sat by a gaggle of four girls who all seemed to look to her as their leader.

  “This is Hannah,” she said, motioning to me with her head as we set our trays on the table.

  “Your new roommate?” a girl with long blonde hair asked.

  “Yes.” Lori’s gaze went around the table. “Introduce yourselves, girls.”

  I tried to remember their names as they rattled them off: Emily, Taylor, Brittany, Madison.

  “Hey,” I said as I began eating my tofu.

  “Where are you from?” the blonde—Taylor— asked.

  “Edgewood, “ I said, giving the name Jack had told me. “What about you? Where are you from? How long have you been here? What’s it like here?” I hoped the list of questions would get them talking about something other than me and I was right. I barely listened as they spoke, my awareness focused on finding my sister, although I tried to be subtle in my search.

  Then I saw her. She had just gotten her food and was walking in my direction. I stared at her, not able to pull my gaze away. She looked okay—not the zombie I’d feared—but the slump of her shoulders told me that she wasn’t enjoying her stay at Camp Willowmoss. As she got closer to my table, I felt a sharp jab in my side and turned to see Lori smirking.

  “That’s Amy Campbell,” she said in a low voice. “You’ve heard about that pathetic little story, haven’t you?”

  Anger at her cavalier attitude welled up inside me, but I focused on my sister. “No.” I looked back at Amy as she passed nearby. Then I saw her sit at a table by two girls I hadn’t seen before. They seemed to be friends with her, which made me glad.

  “I knew her sister,” Lori said. “Maybe you’ve heard of her? Morgan Campbell?”

  I noticed the other four girls at the table looking at Lori with admiration—she knew someone who was now famous. “The name sounds familiar,” I said. “What was the deal with her again?”

  Lori made a sound in her throat, like she couldn’t believe I was so ill-informed. “She was only the person who escaped from this place.”

  I could hear the duh in her voice. “Oh yeah. Now I remember. She and some boy got out of here.” I crinkled my nose. “Why’d they leave anyway? This place seems okay to me.”

  Taylor, the blonde girl, laughed. “You just got here, sweetie. Give it some time.”

  “I was talking,” Lori said, glaring, and Taylor immediately closed her mouth. Lori ignored her and turned back to me. “Like I was saying, she escaped. But the part that most people don’t know, the part that I find most interesting, is why she was here in the first place.”

  This should be good, I thought. “What do you mean? I thought everyone was here to lose weight.”

  Lori looked me up and down. “Well, you obviously need to.”

  Heat flooded my face and I wanted to slap her—even though it was true. But she didn’t have to say it like that. And right to me.

  “I, on the other hand, look good and don’t need to lose a pound.”

  “Then why are you here?” This time my question was sincere. I was intensely curious as to why in the world she was here.

  “That’s not important right now.” She waved her hand as if shooing away a pesky insect. “Right now what’s important is my connection to Morgan Campbell, infamous criminal.”

  At least she was honest about the fact that her importance only came from her ties to me. Inwardly, I grinned, thoroughly enjoying my notoriety. And my little secret of my true identity. “So how are you connected?”

  “Girls?” Lori said, granting permission for her posse to speak.

  “For one, they went to the same school,” the girl named Madison said. Her bright blue eyes widened when she spoke. “For two, Lori knew Morgan personally.”

  “Yeah,” Brittany said. “Lori actually invited Morgan to join the track team. And she did.”

  “Oh.” I tried to act suitably impressed. “That’s really cool.”

  “I know, right?” Brittany smiled, obviously pleased to be associated with Lori.

  “There’s more,” Taylor said, leaning forward, clearly enjoying the build-up to the big reveal.

  This is the part I was interested in. “What?” I glanced at Lori, who seemed to be basking in the glow of everyone’s obvious worship and admiration.

  “There was this boy—” Taylor said.

  “Isn’t there always?” Madison said, looking at me like I would know all about this.

  Taylor frowned, evidently not liking to be interrupted. “Anyway,” she said, stretching out the word to emphasize the fact she’d been interrupted. “There was this boy. Connor.”

  My heart pounded at the mention of his name and the whole story came flooding back to me.

  “He’s super hot,” Brittany threw in.

  “So you’ve met him?” I asked, puzzled—because I already knew what she said was true.

  “Well, no,” she said. “But Lori told us about him.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Like I was saying,” Taylor said, rolling her eyes. “Connor and Lori were dating and getting pretty serious.”

  I almost shouted What?! But managed to stop myself in time.

  “And that’s when Morgan showed up,” Taylor continued. “She was the new girl at the school and she went after Connor. Hard. Of course Connor wasn’t interested.”

  “He was in love with Lori,” Madison added, glancing in Lori’s direction.

  I looked at her and she was leaning back in her chair, smiling as the story unfolded. I wondered how many times she’d told this particular fairy tale, and if she’d told it so many times that she’d actually come to believe it. I picked up my skim milk and took a sip.

  “That’s right,” Taylor said. “But Mor
gan didn’t care. She would appear at the most inconvenient times. Like this one time, at the end of track practice, Connor was about to kiss Lori, but Morgan showed up and got right in the way.”

  I almost choked on my milk. Lori had taken the truth and twisted it around. I’d been the one Connor had been about to kiss and Lori was the one who’d gotten in the way. Everyone was looking at me, evidently expecting a response of some sort. “That’s awful,” I managed to utter.

  “This other time,” Taylor said. “Connor took Lori on a date and Morgan actually showed up at the same place.”

  “Maybe she didn’t know they’d be there.” Even though they were spouting lies, I felt a need to defend myself as if what they were saying was true. It was so messed up.

  “No, she knew,” Lori said.

  I had a hard time looking at her. How was I supposed to live with her? Suddenly I missed Alyx, Piper, Cassidy, and especially Billy. We’d been a family. This was just a group of snarky girls who had nothing better to do than tell lies disguised as truth. “How do you know?” I asked.

  She sat up straight then leaned toward me. “I just do, Hannah.”

  I was taken aback by her aggressiveness. Clearly, she was not used to being questioned. Everyone was probably so enthralled by her tale that it never occurred to them that it might all be lies. Then I remembered the way she was back in Timber Hills. She didn’t like to be questioned then either. Evidently the power bars didn’t do much to change that about her. “Okay.”

  She slouched back in her chair. “Go on.” She directed this to Taylor, her hand flitting in the air.

  “So Lori and Connor are having this intimate date, and Morgan walks right up to them and starts talking to Connor like Lori isn’t even there.” Taylor shook her head, like she couldn’t believe it. And she shouldn’t have since it was all a lie.

  I could hardly stand to listen to them slander me any longer. “So why was she sent here?”

  Brittany pushed her short, dark hair behind her ears and picked up the story. “So Morgan has the nerve to bring homemade cookies to school and pass them out. And get this,” she leaned forward for emphasis. “They were made with real sugar. Can you believe that?”