“But I’m having so much fun right here,” I say, and my voice sounds light. Except that a small pit has formed in my stomach because I know what he is talking about and I know that he is right. And it isn’t that I want to take things slow; it’s that I don’t have a choice.
As he has figured out, experienced I am not. In my mind’s eye, I see his arms coiled around girls past, and the pit in my stomach grows. No doubt he is experienced, and no doubt my fumbling hands will clue him in eventually as to how uneven our matching really is.
I pull myself off him so that we sit side by side, and together we stare at the night sky, at the stars twinkling overhead as they watch us, at the moon slipping out from behind the clouds.
Don’t be foolish, Eve, I tell myself as he strings his fingers through mine. Whatever you do, don’t be foolish.
Chapter Twenty
Days pass. I train with Blue Circuit, I hang out with friends, but mostly I sneak to the Oracle to stare outside, to visualize the glass shattering into a million minuscule pieces that turn to sand under the heel of my boot. To picture the oasis I will run to, to dream about reuniting with Jack.
Another thing I do is watch the guards who patrol the Lower Mean corridors. I observe their habits, their mannerisms, their movements, my gaze locked always on the guns lodged in their holsters.
If I am going to escape the compound, if I am going to capture freedom, I need to take what is theirs. I need to make it my own.
It won’t be easy; nothing ever is in Compound Eleven. Guards tend to be male, and they tend to be large. Not the end of the world—I have fought plenty with the same traits in the Bowl over the years. I know their weak spots as well as I know my own. Still, these ones wear protective gear. They have a baton made of heavy steel at their disposal. They have the very gun I need just inches from their fingertips. No. It won’t be easy.
And then, on an otherwise quiet morning, one walks by and my pupils constrict. Melissa. The guard with the bright pink hair. The one who unlocks the feeding dock at lunch, or at least used to. Right now she unlocks for breakfast service, down that underused corridor where the lighting is particularly dim. It makes sweat slip down my back. She is an easy target, almost too easy. More petite than me and without a fighting pedigree.
A perfect mark. So why do I feel so uneasy?
I know the reason, but I don’t care for it. Guards don’t deserve kindness, none of them. I should be wiser, and I should be crueler. I shouldn’t worry about hurting her.
I shouldn’t.
Seconds pass, then minutes. I kick the wall and swear. I don’t want to hurt Melissa—I just don’t. And since inflicting the least amount of damage is not my strong suit, I have some research to do. Wren knows where to find a book on combat; all I have to do is find Wren.
At the top of the stairs I slip into the atrium, the epicenter of the fifth floor, but only after making sure no guards are close by. I tuck my hands that mark me an intruder into my pockets, where they can’t be spotted. Most of the Premes don’t notice me at all, but a few do. I can feel it in the way they glance at me—they can tell by my manner of dress and maybe by the way I hold myself that I don’t belong. Probably they won’t bother tracking down a guard, though; it would be too much effort when all I’m doing is standing here.
It is my ego that suffers the most. But then I think of kissing one of their own in the Oracle and have to stifle my smile.
I pass the time in front of the library, I work on a plan for disarming Melissa, I watch faces come and go. And then my spine straightens. Eyes widen.
Wren, with a small child even younger than Avery draped over one shoulder.
He gives me a curious look and kicks my boot. “What are you doing here, Eve?”
“Shouldn’t I be the one asking questions?” I gaze at the child, who is fast asleep. Faintly, I notice her smooth cheeks, long eyelashes, and, as I do far too often, I think of Jack.
Wren smirks. “My neighbors were in a jam. And Nell here, believe it or not, happens to like me.”
“She happens to like you? That is difficult to believe.”
His mouth twists into a smile as he watches me. “Mmm….”
“I mean, I just didn’t take you for being…you know.”
“Good with kids?”
“Bingo.”
Deadpan, he says, “I’m full of surprises.”
I cross my arms and lean against the wall, amused by this new side to him. “Very interesting, Wren. Maybe a career in computers isn’t for you. Have you considered a job in childcare?”
“Funny.”
“Maybe I should make a point of waiting around here more often. You know, to see what else I can learn about you.”
“By all means—which brings us back to you. Do you have an agenda for today’s visit, or did you just miss me?” He grins.
I bite away my smile. “Agenda. I’m after a book.”
He is distracted by Nell stirring. She lifts her head and settles it onto his other shoulder. Once her little body relaxes back into sleep, he speaks again, quieter this time. “A book. Let me guess: You want my help finding the library?”
Laughter gurgles in my throat. “I’m after something specific, something on combat. You had a book like that recently. Do you remember what it’s called?”
He shakes his head. “I can find it for you, though. Getting ready for a difficult fight?”
“Something like that.”
“If memory serves me, you don’t need any training on how to throw a punch.”
“Not looking for any.”
“So what exactly are you looking for?”
I pull myself off the wall and bump his free shoulder with my own. “Just looking.”
“What you lack in conversational skills you make up for with intrigue.” He bumps me back, and for a moment we just stare at each other, all smiles. Then he uses his free hand to push open the library door, and I follow behind him. Immediately, the sounds of the atrium vanish. It is one of my favorite things about coming here. Like I am entering a whole new world.
Wren leads me past a dozen rows of shelving to the very back wall, where books with broken spines are jammed into every available nook. He scans them silently, and I use the opportunity to watch him.
It is strange, seeing this small child asleep in his strong arms, limbs tipping around him in perfect contentedness. It is completely incongruous with everything I know about him. And yet I am not shocked. Warmth may not exude from him, not at all, but I have glimpsed it in his smile. I have sensed it in his humor. The fact that children like him, that he is helpful to his neighbors…no. That doesn’t shock me in the slightest.
A minute later, he hands a frayed and yellowing book to me. The Art of Non-Weaponized Combat Fighting, it reads. An illustration of two men throwing punches covers the front. Perfect. I am immediately refocused on the task at hand—disarming Melissa without hurting her. I flip to the table of contents and find the section on stunning an opponent. Nose, neck, throat, solar plexus, kidneys—those are my options. I tap my lip, faintly aware that Wren still stands there. Okay. The kidneys and solar plexus are protected by a heavy artillery vest, leaving me with just the nose, neck, or throat to target. I flip to those pages and begin to read.
Wren begins to laugh, quietly. It is a sound I feel in my stomach. It gives me butterflies, completely distracting me. “I take it my services here are complete, Eve? I really should get Nell back to her parents.”
I blush for no reason. “Yeah, of course. I mean, sorry, or—you know. Thanks for the help.”
He laughs harder. “My pleasure,” he says, supporting Nell with both hands now. We stare at each other a moment more, and then he is gone, and it takes a very long time before I remember why I am here at all.
Chapter Twenty-One
My skin prickles with dissatisfa
ction. This time it isn’t over a stolen loaf of bread, or even from hungry eyes. This time even I, with my unwavering knowledge of the atrociousness of the guards, have difficulty discerning who is right and who is wrong.
One of them has decided to join us in the Mean cafeteria. To lean casually against the wall near the door, to enjoy the dampening his presence has on our people as he slings one steel-toed boot over the other. No, he shouldn’t be here. He was wrong to have come. But that isn’t what causes the prickling sensation running along my arms.
It is because Sully, one of the more outspoken Lower Means, has taken it to heart. I don’t know him, not personally, but everyone down here knows his name. Famous for his dissonance, he walks a fine line between life and death, and he takes a singular pride in the fact. His arms, which are covered in sprawling ink from wrist to shoulder, are proof of it. Right now the cafeteria, which usually hammers with chatter and clattering dishes, is quiet. Right now, and just as he likes it, he has an audience.
“You can’t let it be, eh?” he shouts at the guard from a few feet away. “Can’t let a man eat his goddamn dinner in peace!”
The guard takes his time shifting his gaze. Once it lands on Sully, with his shaved head and missing finger, it meanders on. He whistles, well-skilled at insolence in his own right.
Sully’s face sours.
I knock my tongue back and forth against my teeth. Thousands of innocent people sit inside this room. There are children here. Unease prickles louder over my body; it percolates across the entire cafeteria. Hunter places an arm protectively around Maggie. Emerald frowns.
“Come on, Sully, just finish your supper,” comes a new voice.
Erick.
He should know better. He should know not to get in the middle of this.
Emerald nudges me. “What’s he playing at?” she hisses.
“I’ll finish my measly-assed supper when this piece of shit takes his business elsewhere, boy,” Sully shouts at our friend.
“There’s kids here, man.” Erick is on his feet. He has a temper, and right now, it flares. “Don’t start something if you don’t need to. Go back to your seat and finish your damn supper.”
Sully cackles. “You young punks think you’ve got all the answers. How about you shut the hell up so I can finish my big-boy conversation with our watchman here.”
All through the cafeteria, there comes a swell of noise lifting from the floor. Boots, thousands of them, stomping back and forth, back and forth. Usually it is a show of solidarity, this sound. Right now it is a reminder of it.
The guard is unfamiliar with this Mean tradition. His backside immediately lifts from the wall, and his hand hovers over his gun. When banded together, we make him nervous.
Sully can sense his unease, and he uses it to his advantage. Once Erick sits down again, Sully turns to the cafeteria. “Isn’t it enough that the ritzy-ass Premes send their watchmen down to our corridors every goddamn day? Watchmen who take what they want, who kill without consequence? Watchmen who make sure we never better ourselves, never have a voice, never get a shot at a little thing called equality?” He pauses to stare around at us, arms spread wide. Slowly, people begin to clap. Someone whistles. He is using his skills leading protests to mobilize the crowd.
“And now this. This. Into the last frontier, the one place we can put our feet up and not worry about taking a baton to the teeth.” He nods as people cheer, then drops his voice, forcing us to listen carefully to his every word: “The watchman who graces us tonight can’t even let us have that. Can’t even let us eat our goddamn morsels in peace. Know what I think?” He lifts a hand theatrically to his ear. “Know what time it is?” He is yelling now. “Say it with me, everyone! Time to MAKE. HIM. LEAVE. MAKE. HIM. LEAVE.” The chant grows so loud it swallows up Sully’s voice. It rings around my head.
People are on their feet. Arms are in the air. Anger is swelling.
“We need to go!” Hunter yells to our four. Others leave the cafeteria in droves—the smart ones. The ones with kids. The Upper Means who have no need for an uprising in the first place. I murmur my agreement but don’t move a muscle.
“Aren’t you coming?” Maggie asks me as Hunter pulls her up.
“In a minute.”
“Eve,” Hunter warns.
“I’ll stay, too,” Emerald says. “I want to make sure Erick gets out of here. You guys get going.”
“See you back at our cells in a few minutes,” Hunter says. He looks pointedly at me, and I nod.
Left alone, Emerald and I exchange uneasy looks. The guard’s hand still hovers over his weapon. His face is rigid. Whatever he was expecting when he decided to take up residence along the wall of our cafeteria, it wasn’t this.
Just leave, I scream silently at him. But of course he won’t. That would be a sign of weakness, a show of defeat.
Emboldened by the masses now firmly under his control, Sully jumps onto a table and makes a fast movement with his arm. Like he is pulling a knife across his throat. A second later, a wave of Mean resentment launches at the guard. Sully leaps from the table directly at him.
The blast echoes through the cafeteria like a punch, and I scream. But whether Sully is shot I can’t tell; the Mean wave hits the guard like a punch of its own, swallowing up Sully or whatever is left of him. It can mean only one thing. More shots are sure to ring out. Mass casualties. A tide of blood. Any second now.
One, two, three…
Nothing.
I see why a second later. It’s the way the wave tilts and turns, searching for something—and there is only one thing that could hold such sway with this court.
The gun.
Immediately, I jump over the tables and dart around the group closest to the guard, who uses his baton to beat back his attackers—the rare few not distracted by the missing weapon.
The rest, I see, are not searching productively. They are too busy watching one another. Too worried their neighbor will find it first, too caught up in the moment to remember they are all on the same team. And so from the outside it takes only seconds to lay my gaze upon it.
It hides behind a large brown boot with disintegrating laces. Any moment now, that boot will land on it. It will alert its owner to its presence, and my chance will be gone.
I move quickly, but I am not quick enough. Down comes the boot, and I see the owner freeze.
Before he can examine what rides under his heel, I scream in his ear. I curse him for stepping on my toe; I even shove him. He returns immediately to the mad scramble, no apology proffered.
Deftly, I drop, scoop up the weapon, and push it deep into the waistband of my pants.
A cool sweat slips over my body, leaving me feeling distinctly unwell. What I have just managed was reckless and risky. And it makes me a target—a big one. Now I waste no time at all heading for the exit.
But at the door I bite my lip. It isn’t Emerald or Erick I worry over; they can take care of themselves. It is the guard.
He is without a weapon to defend himself. The baton won’t be enough, not once the search for the gun is declared futile. He shouldn’t have been here. He was tempting fate, the fool. He was taunting us with his power because that is what guards do.
But without his gun, he will die.
Shit.
If I return his missing weapon, he will shoot those surrounding him. I cannot do that. And yet I can’t allow him to be killed, either.
Swearing loudly, I run back into the cafeteria and leap onto the table, just like Sully a minute prior. “The guards are coming!” I holler at the top of my lungs.
Some hear—I can see the news move across the cafeteria in small bursts. More importantly, though, Emerald hears; she understands what I am up to. With her much louder voice, she continues the call: “Guards!” Erick echoes it from his end.
The wave falters. For if a pack o
f guards find them tearing apart one of their own, hundreds of bullets will spray. My job is complete.
I tumble into the Mean corridor and see the elevator doors slide open. A dozen guards file out, masks on and guns ready. They heard the unrest, then—maybe even the gunshot. That or they were tipped off, probably by an Upper Mean. My warning call has proven legitimate.
I should keep walking, but I am rooted in place. It is the way they stare at me. The way their masks swivel in my direction. It makes the metal of the gun tucked against my skin burn like a white-hot iron. It burns so hot I almost cry out…
They let me be. My youthful features don’t look like trouble; they hide what I truly am.
My breathing is haggard and hoarse, but I am quick down the stairs and through the main corridor. It is peppered with people, those who left before things went sideways. Soon I will reunite with Hunter and Maggie, and we will wait for Emerald. We will learn what happened to Sully and the guard.
But near to my corridor, I slow. I stop completely. Fuck the Premes is painted along the concrete wall, a new addition since the last time I passed. It is nothing out of the ordinary, this message, but still it has me thinking. Under a bulb burned nearly out, I stare at this person’s small act of dissidence and think of my own. A guard’s gun is in my possession. A guard’s gun.
They won’t let this transpire easily, the Premes. A gun in the hand of a Mean, particularly a Lower Mean, is dangerous indeed. So when the guards can’t find it within the cafeteria walls, they will be ordered to search for it—they will frisk our persons, they will sweep our cells. There are no rights to privacy down here; it is a foreign concept. And so storing the gun will be a problem.
A big problem.
I touch the paint—still wet. Paint is hard to come by. There must have been some left over from an official project, stashed in a supply closet. I press my blackened fingertip against my thumb and study the transfer of pigment. Stashed in a supply closet. A supply closet.
Escaping Eleven (Eleven Trilogy) Page 16
