He frowns. “She’s a waste of food and a danger to Concord.”
“She’s getting better.”
“She attacked you.”
“That was five days ago. She didn’t even ask me for dust the last time I saw her.”
Burn clears his throat. “I’ve agreed to everything you’ve asked. I’ve kept your secret. But I’ve got more experience with Shredders than you do. You have to leave this decision to me.”
I nod. “Okay.” Once he sees Caroline’s improvement, he’ll agree.
Nerves twitch in my stomach as we walk the remaining distance. But no matter what Burn does, in the long list of my current problems, Caroline falls to the bottom.
Besides, after reading that journal, it seems kinder to kill her than to leave her locked down there forever. What if I’m killed at the camp? What if no one opens that cellar door for another eighty or ninety years?
Burn pulls up the door.
“Caroline?” I call. There’s no answer. I start down the stairs, but Burn pulls me back up.
“Me first.”
I hand him the crank torch and he descends, each step clanging on the metal stairs.
“Go away,” Caroline yells. “Go away!” The second time it comes out like a screech.
I push past Burn. She’s standing in the corner of the cage, her eyes glowing brightly.
I raise my hands. “It’s okay, Caroline. This is my friend Burn. Remember? We’ve come to bring you some food and water.”
Burn holds me back. “She got out of her bindings.”
“I untied her,” I tell him. “She’s better. You’ll see.”
Caroline steps forward, shaking, and I pass her one of the water bladders from my pack. Her eyes, trained on Burn, only close slightly when she takes a long drink.
“She’s thirsty,” I say to Burn. “For water. Is that enough proof for you? She’s not a Shredder anymore.”
He grunts. I drop my pack and dig out the food I brought for her. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you yesterday.”
The brightness of her eyes decreases and I can see her better. She rubs her dry lips. “I need to get out.”
Burn shines the light around the cage. The bones have been moved.
I grab the torch from him and shine it toward the pile of skeletons. “What did you do?”
Caroline moves over to the pile, picks up some bones, and cradles them protectively, like a baby. Gasping, I recognize what she’s done. She’s made dolls. Using scraps of clothes, and maybe some soot from the ground, she fashioned figurines.
“This is my—” She looks down. “I’m taking care of them.”
Burn’s face is shrouded in shadows.
I open the cage and she steps toward me.
Burn rushes to my side, but I hold up my hand. “I’m fine.” Guilt clogs my throat. “Caroline, I have to take a short trip. I might not be able to visit tomorrow.”
“Take me with you. Please.” Her voice breaks. “I need to be in the light. I need fresh air.”
Burn moves out of the shadows. “If you’re from Haven, what do you know of fresh air?”
“I had a taste.” She points above. “And I can feel it every time you open that hatch. It’s so dark down here.” She coughs.
I touch Burn’s arm, and his muscles are flexed, like he’s ready to attack. “She’s not lying about being from Haven. I met her in there. Her daughter—” I see the sadness in Caroline’s eyes, but she nods, so I continue. “When Clay died, he was saving Caroline’s daughter.” Clay, my former contact with the FA, begged me to go with them that night. If I had, would they still be alive? Or would I be dead, too?
Burn stares at me.
“Please,” Caroline says, “at least let me go out for a walk.”
“There’s no time,” Burn says. “We’ve got to go.”
“Where?” Caroline asks.
“We’re going to a Shredder camp.” I nod at Burn. “She might be able to help. We should bring her.”
“No!” Caroline yells and backs away. “Don’t take me to a Shredder camp.”
“Then you need to stay here,” I tell her. “You should have enough food and water for a few days.”
Caroline trembles. I feel terrible but also relieved that she seems resigned to her fate. While I’m away I’ll have to come up with a long-term plan.
I take Burn’s hand. “We should go.”
Caroline bolts past me toward the stairs. She’s on the third step before Burn grabs her around the waist and lifts her.
Her legs kick; her arms flail. “Please! If you won’t let me out, just kill me. Please.”
Carrying her, Burn strides toward the cage.
“Don’t hurt her!” I yell.
He adjusts his hold, freeing one of his arms, then bends to pick up a length of rope. She swings back, trying to hit him, but she doesn’t have a chance against Burn.
He places her face down on the floor, more gently than I expect. Putting his knee on her upper thighs, he pins her with his weight.
“Burn, don’t,” I whisper. Is he going to crush her? Strangle her?
“Help me,” he says.
“I won’t. I won’t help you kill her.”
“I’m not asking you to.” He looks up at me. “You were right. We’ll take her with us.”
Chapter Eighteen
THE THREE OF us walk for hours. Burn keeps hold of the rope that’s bound tightly around Caroline’s waist, and she keeps up in spite of our blistering pace. For the past hour we’ve been going steadily uphill and the route has grown rockier, trickier. We haven’t seen a forested area for the past few miles, and we just traversed a rocky ridge to avoid what looked like a vast pool of dust in a valley. Burn seems to know the route well.
“Will this camp be like the one we saw in the hot zone around Haven?” I ask Burn.
“No,” he says. “Not the same.”
“Better or worse?” Please say better.
“Better in some ways, worse in others.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
“That’s no answer.” I wait, but it’s the only answer I get, so I ask, “Why have you been to the camp? Did the FA send you?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Exploring.” He leaps onto a boulder that’s nearly five feet up, then offers me a hand.
I nod toward Caroline, then start to climb up on my own. Burn takes the hint and reaches to help her, and I don’t know whether I’m more surprised that he does it, or that she accepts his assistance.
“So, do you believe me now?” I ask Burn a little while later.
“About what?”
“That Shredders can recover.”
“Recover?” He looks over his shoulder. “You think that’s what this is?”
“What would you call it?”
“Forced starvation. You’ve kept her from getting what she wants.”
“I gave her a little bit of dust. It made her better.” I glance back, and Caroline’s trudging along, her head down. “You’ve got to admit that dust helps people heal.”
“Stay away from it,” Burn says.
“I do.”
We scramble over loose rocks and boulders. Caroline falls, landing hard on her hands and knees. Burn stops to help her. The blood on her scraped knees is still thick and dark, still more Shredder-like than human.
“Look.” Burn points down to the space between two rocks. “Dust.”
Caroline’s eyes open wide and she stares down at it, not moving.
“Go on,” Burn says, “you know you want it.”
She shakes her head and backs away.
“Burn, don’t.” I move between them. “Is that why you brought her? To test her?”
“Once a Shredder, always a Shredder.”
Caroline’s shoulders drop, but she doesn’t turn away from the dust.
I touch Burn’s hand. “Give her a chance.”
His ja
w hardens, but he checks to make sure that Caroline is ready before he starts walking again.
On our way up a steep slope, Burn stops. “We’re nearly there.”
I climb the final section ahead of Burn and Caroline, and when I reach the top, I see the camp. I duck down. I was hoping we’d run into Drake and Jayma on the trail, or even better, on their way back with my dad. But at least we’re here.
Burn comes up beside me, flattens himself against a boulder, and then stretches slowly to see over the edge. Just behind us, Caroline leans against a rock and closes her eyes, clearly exhausted and not wanting or caring to see what’s ahead.
I slide up the boulder to peek over the edge.
Ahead, the ground is flat compared to what we’ve climbed, and in the distance there’s a large concrete-block building that’s about three stories high. Its only windows are high up, in a single line like a row of teeth.
Burn whispers to me, “What spooked you before? Why did you duck?”
“Isn’t that the camp? It’s right there.”
“You didn’t see anyone?”
“No, but they must have lookouts or guards or something.” He rises. I reach up to grab his hand. “What if they see you?”
He looks down at me. “I come here all the time.”
“All the time? Why?” What else don’t I know about Burn? I climb over the rocks. Caroline follows, but her shoe slips and she slides back down. I kneel, planning to go down to help her, but Burn grasps her under the arms and hoists her up.
As we stride forward, the smaller rocks crunch underfoot, and my shoulders tense. Between us and the building stretches a wire mesh fence, sharpened coils at its top.
“Is that some special kind of wire?” I ask.
“It’s called razor wire,” Burn says. “It’s from BTD.”
I shiver. If there were no Shredders BTD, then why did they need something like razor wire?
There’s a gate in the fence, and a row of long dark objects hangs from the razor wire at intervals. I squint to focus, then nearly gag.
They’re dead bodies—dangling from the fence like decoration. The deep maroon of what little flesh remains makes me think they were Shredders. Most of the bodies are hanging by the neck on loops, and the wire has cut all the way through to one Shredder’s spine. It looks like the body might separate from the head at any moment.
“Do you think Jayma and Drake are in there?” I stand beside Burn, willing my legs to stop shaking.
“I’m not sure.”
“What’s inside the building?”
“No idea. I’ve never been past the fence.” He tugs on Caroline’s rope. “Come on.”
She looks at me nervously.
“I need to find my family,” I tell her. “But we won’t leave you here, I promise.” I’ve yet to see any sign of life beyond the fence—only death all over it.
“Where are the Shredders?” I ask Burn.
“Inside the building or around the back.”
“I thought you hadn’t been past the fence,” Caroline says, and Burn grunts.
I smile inwardly. It’s the first time she’s spoken on the entire trip.
“I’ve walked the perimeter,” Burn says. “If we keep our distance, the Shredders won’t bother us.”
“That doesn’t sound like Shredders,” I say just as a door in the back of the building opens and someone comes out.
Burn raises an arm to stop me, but I stop on my own. I hold my chin high and plant my feet firmly as the Shredder—or man?—approaches the gate in the fence.
His skin is deeply tanned and lined from the sun, and his gray hair is shorn close to his head. The day’s worth of stubble on Burn’s chin seems longer. A sleeveless shirt made from a coarse fabric hangs loose over his torso, and his pants are leather, sewn together with large stitches and belted at the waist with a woven rope. Scars snake up his muscled arms, and I realize some of the lines on his face are scars, too.
He’s not carrying a weapon, but there’s a band of leather across his chest and the handle of what must be a sword thrusting up over his left shoulder. The handle is a deep ivory color and might be made from antler or bone.
He looks more human than Shredder, but I’m no longer sure I fully understand the difference. His expression is stern but not threatening—exactly. As we approach, the man steps up to the gate. “Welcome to Simcoe,” he says. “I’m Houston. Who are you?”
Welcome? “I’m Glory Solis. This is Caroline and Burn.”
“Burn.” Houston repeats the name as if he’s expecting a reaction, but he doesn’t get one. Do they know each other?
“If you’re dropping her off”—Houston nods toward Caroline—“intake is around back.”
Whimpering, Caroline moves as far away as her rope allows.
“No.” I give her a reassuring glance. “We’re not leaving her here.”
“Come closer.” Houston leans onto the fence. “So we don’t have to yell.”
I slip past Burn’s arm.
“Careful,” he whispers, but he follows with Caroline.
“How long has she been off the dust?” Houston asks.
“About a week.” Not counting her slip up, which I decide to ignore.
He raises his eyebrows. “I would have guessed longer.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s what we do here.” He sheathes his weapon. “We help folks get off the dust. No one on dust is allowed to live in Simcoe.”
“Are you a recovered Shredder?” I ask.
“That’s an interesting way to put it.”
I grab Burn’s sleeve. It is possible to recover. I’m almost vibrating with excitement. I want to learn more. My gut says to trust Houston, but as he unlocks the gate, one of the bodies moves.
“Are you looking for Hector?” Houston asks.
My breath catches. I draw my knife. “Where is he? Do you have him? Let him go!”
Houston laughs and raises his hands. “Whoa, there. No one means you harm.”
“But my dad—is he here in this Shredder camp?”
“Nope. Wish I could help you,” Houston says. “And by the way, Simcoe’s not a Shredder camp.”
I’m about to argue—they have bodies hanging from the fence—but Burn steps in front of me. “How did you know we were looking for Hector?”
“Her name,” Houston says. “And she looks like him.”
“We’re looking for someone else, too. A boy about this tall”—I hold my hand up several inches higher than my head—“and a girl. My age, red hair, a few inches shorter than me.”
He steps through the gate. “I did hear about a couple of kids coming through. Might be inside.” He gestures behind himself. “Come in and look around.”
“No.” Burn stays between Houston and me. “We’ll wait out here.”
“Your choice,” Houston says. “But you look tired. We’ve got food and water. And you don’t want to be out here past nightfall.”
“Why do you have bodies hanging from the fence?” I blurt.
“Ah.” He shakes the fence and the bodies move. “Camouflage.”
“What does that mean?”
“Disguise, subterfuge,” Houston answers. “They help ward off unwanted guests.”
“Like us?” Burn asks.
Houston frowns. “I invited you in. If you don’t want to . . .” He starts to close the gate.
I tug on Burn’s sleeve. “What if they’re inside?”
“It might be a trap,” he responds. I know he’s right, but finding my family is worth the risk.
“Are you coming?” Houston asks. “You can bring her.” He nods at Caroline. “Just don’t let her out of your sight.”
Caroline’s eyes glow.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Comforting her makes me feel braver as we walk through the gate.
Chapter Nineteen
BURN TAKES MY hand as we walk down the path toward the building. A woman with long
, dark hair and brown eyes steps outside the door and watches us intently. There’s something oddly familiar about her. Perhaps she came from Haven, too.
In the building, it’s almost as bright as it was outside. The high windows let in more of the late-afternoon light than seems possible given their size and height. I stop and look up in awe. The ceiling is covered in shiny metal or painted with some kind of reflective coating. I suspect they’ve done something with mirrors or panels to direct and maximize the light.
The center of the space is open, the air is fresh, and there are carts and tables set up where people are offering food. I smell cooking meat. People are all around us. Most of them have thick, leathery skin and bear scars that make them look like Shredders. But no one is acting like a Shredder.
“This is the market,” Houston says. “And up there”—he points to the three levels above, all with railings along the edges—“are the residences.”
At the camp in the hot zone, the Shredders were screaming, torturing one another. I’m so amazed by this place that I almost forget to scan the faces for Dad, Drake, and Jayma. We pass an open door and I stop short. Children. Playing. And they don’t look like Shredders at all.
Houston steps up beside me. “That’s our school.”
“Were the kids all born here?”
“Most of them. A few we rescued.”
I look toward Burn, but his gaze is focused down as if he doesn’t want to acknowledge what he’s seeing.
“I’ll head up to my office,” Houston says, “and make an announcement to ask if anyone’s seen your friends.” Houston touches my back.
“Don’t touch her.” Burn says.
“Relax,” Houston says. “You can let go of your friend’s rope if you like. She doesn’t look like a runner.”
I take Burn’s hand and pull him a few feet away. “Is this really your first time past the fence?”
He nods.
“It’s not what I expected. You?”
He shrugs.
I lean in close. “I get that you’re wary. So am I. But I think we should give Houston the benefit of the doubt—at least until he gives us a reason not to. So far, he’s been helpful.”
“Morag,” Houston says to the woman who followed us, “will you take over the tour while I make the announcement?”
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