by Tarah Benner
The guards led her down yet another unmarked hallway and into a creaky old elevator. It smelled like a hospital and even had the same bumpy rubber flooring, which gave Lark the impression that she wasn’t in the main administrative building anymore.
The elevator groaned as it carried them up to the ground floor, and when the doors flew open, familiarity hit Lark like a cold gust of air. They were standing in a hallway with puke-green walls and a bright-blue line running down the middle of the floor.
She cringed as she padded over the dirty tile, wishing more than anything that they would give her back her boots. They passed dozens of rooms with little brass plaques glued on the wall beside them, and Lark’s heart sped up. This was intake.
Her breathing became low and shallow, and she had the nearly overwhelming urge to run. She knew where they were taking her, but it didn’t make any sense.
“Why am I here?” Lark asked, twisting at the waist to look at the man who’d been giving all the orders.
He didn’t answer.
Lark stopped dead in her tracks, digging in her heels to keep them from pushing her forward. “Where — are you — taking me?” Lark growled, her voice rising with every syllable.
“Keep moving,” the man grunted, slamming his gun into the small of her back.
Lark winced but didn’t move.
“Let’s go!” the guard bellowed, hitting her harder.
Lark clenched her jaw and refused to budge. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me —”
But she never finished her sentence. Without warning, the guard clobbered her on the back of the head and sent her flying forward. Little stars appeared at the edges of her vision, and her head throbbed where he’d struck her. She felt a hairy arm shoot out to grab her and caught the sharp stench of cheap, spicy cologne.
“Fucking bitch,” the guard muttered, grabbing her under the arm and dragging her down the hallway.
In her dazed state, Lark heard a loud beep, and she was thrust into a room that smelled strongly of bleach. Then they dragged her through another door, and she found herself staring at a familiar Latina.
Lark studied the woman closely as the guards removed her shackles. Her hair was grayer than Lark remembered, she’d gained some weight, and the lines around her mouth were more pronounced. Lark glanced down at the name on the lady’s shirt and saw that it was M. Ríos — the woman she’d met in intake five years before.
Lark began to panic in earnest. She wheeled around to speak to the guards, but they slammed the door in her face.
“No!” Lark yelled, banging on the tiny filthy window. “No!”
An agonized yell ripped through her throat, but the guards didn’t turn around. Lark continued to pound on the door until her palms ached and hot salty tears dripped down her smock.
M. Ríos didn’t say a word. She just stood behind her computer, staring blankly at Lark.
Finally, Lark stopped shouting. Her throat was raw from screaming, and her body ached all over. She couldn’t believe what was happening. It didn’t seem real. Annalisa had seen through her lies, and she was sending Lark back to the colony as punishment.
“Name?” said M. Ríos.
Lark didn’t answer. She just stared through the window out into the empty hallway, wondering how the hell she’d gotten there.
“Name?” barked M. Ríos.
“Lark Roland,” Lark croaked. This was all her fault.
“Date of birth?”
“July seventeenth, 2024.” If she had just convinced Soren not to go to Kingsville, she wouldn’t have been there in the first place.
“Inmate number?”
“Zero-seven-five-nine-six-one-eight-zero.” She never should have trusted Agent Cole. He was just like all the rest of them.
“Strip.”
M. Ríos hadn’t given Lark any indication that the questioning was over. She just stared at her expectantly, waiting for her to remove the pathetic blue smock. Lark obliged, moving more quickly than she might have otherwise in her eagerness to be reunited with her boots.
Once she had spread her arms and legs, squatted, and coughed, M. Ríos handed her a stack of clothing and told her to dress. Lark did as she was told, and the sinking feeling inside her intensified.
The outfit was exactly the same as it had been five years before: white granny panties, white bra, scoop-neck T-shirt in mop-water gray, brown cargo pants, and a canvas jacket that was so stiff it could stand on its own. But when M. Ríos handed over the boots, Lark thought she might be sick.
The boots were used — that much was obvious. There was a thin layer of dust coating the sides and scuffs all over the toe boxes. The lining was worn. The laces were frayed. But the boots weren’t hers.
“These aren’t mine,” said Lark.
“They’re your same size,” replied M. Ríos, as if this solved everything.
“Yes, but these belong to someone else.”
“Not anymore. Those are your boots.”
“No, they’re not,” said Lark. “I had my old boots on when they brought me in. They had my initials on them and everything. Why are you giving me these boots?”
“I just distribute the uniforms,” said M. Ríos with a shrug. “These are your boots now.”
“You don’t understand,” said Lark. “I need my boots.”
“Too bad.”
“No!” growled Lark. “I need my boots. They had special insoles in them . . .” Lark pointed at the computer. “They were in my intake bag last time, and I need them back.”
“I don’t have any record of that,” said M. Ríos. “Sorry.”
“But I need —” Lark broke off, shaking with panic and fury. M. Ríos wasn’t going to help her. Lark was never going to see those boots again.
“It’s time to go.”
“No, wait!” said Lark as M. Ríos pushed her toward the door.
Her eyes darted from the feeble, slightly overweight woman beside her to the handgun tucked in her holster. Lark knew she could overpower M. Ríos easily. She could grab her gun and —
And what? Shoot M. Ríos? Shoot her way out of the entire building? Lark shook herself mentally. She wasn’t that person — was she?
A moment later, all thoughts of staging a hostile takeover were wiped from her mind. M. Ríos was shoving her into another chamber and talking to her through a speaker. This time, Lark had no personal possessions to take with her — nothing but the microchip that was slowly making its way through her digestive tract.
“Exit the building and follow the blue line,” came the woman’s garbled voice.
Lark took a deep breath as she heard the sound of an electronic lock being released. She swung the door open and was immediately blinded by sunlight.
Lark stumbled through the door and followed the crumbling concrete path through the chain-link corridor around the men’s colony. Field workers stopped whatever they were doing and gathered near the fence to watch her walk of shame, but Lark didn’t stop or spare a glance in their direction.
She set her jaw as the catcalls started, squaring her shoulders and marching through the corridor. The sun was beating down with excruciating intensity, and she immediately wished that she still had her hat.
She was back in San Judas with nothing to her name — nothing to trade, nothing to lend for favors, and no one to protect her.
Suddenly the path dead-ended, and another beep ushered Lark through the gate and onto a metal gangway suspended over the water. Lark bit the inside of her cheek and strained her ears for any sound of movement as she walked across the river.
The first time she’d come to San Judas, Mercy’s goons had ambushed her in the woods just as she’d crossed the bridge. They’d taken everything she’d owned and beaten her to a pulp.
But Lark couldn’t hear anything except the rush of the river. The sound of water surging over the rocks below her and the smell of the trees hit her with such crushing familiarity that it nearly brought her to her knees.
S
he glanced around, sure something was missing, and then she realized that she was looking for Denali.
Hot fat tears pricked at the corners of Lark’s eyes. Denali was gone. She had no idea what had happened to him. She knew he was out there somewhere — probably wondering when she was coming back for him.
At that moment, Lark felt the tug of her emotions threatening to pull her under. She desperately needed to cry, but she couldn’t afford even a scrap of weakness. She had to stuff it down into the depths of her soul and harden herself against the world.
She was on her own. She was a stranger in the colony again — more of an outcast than ever before. Mercy wanted her dead. Her daughters wanted her dead. And as soon as they learned of Lark’s return, they would make it their mission to end Lark once and for all.
Steeling herself for a battle, Lark followed the worn path along the river that led back up toward the colony. The familiar groves of trees welcomed her like old friends, their leaves whispering a greeting as the wind brushed through them.
Something about their quiet strength hardened Lark’s resolve. She had survived the colony once before, and she was determined to do it again.
Bernie was still out there. Soren was being held captive. And getting what she needed from San Judas was the only way to help him.
Without the homing device in her boot, she had no way to contact the Department of Homeland Security, but maybe there was another way. Agent Cole and Agent Reuben were waiting for her message. They knew she wanted nothing more than to escape GreenSeed’s custody, and if she didn’t respond within a few days, maybe they would realize something was wrong.
They would find a way to extract her — they had to. They needed the information she’d stolen from the administrative building, and they needed those seeds.
Suddenly the trees started to thin, and Lark saw the colony looming in the distance. It seemed farther than she remembered, but the walk from the woods to the square filled her with a familiar sense of dread.
Lark stuck to the fringes of the colony as she approached the square. Fortunately, it was the beginning of the work day, so most of the women were out in the fields. The few who weren’t working the land were holed up in their shops or tending to the chickens and goats meandering in their pens.
Lark and Bernie’s shanty was situated on the outskirts of the square, so few people walked past it during the day. Even though she’d slept there less than two weeks before, seeing it felt like being back in a nightmare.
The squat adobe building looked exactly the same. The windows were closed to keep out the rain, but she could see the flutter of curtains that Bernie had scrapped together in the crack between the shutters.
To her surprise, the door swung open easily, and a familiar earthy smell met her nostrils. Inside it was dark and a little stale, so Lark opened one of the windows and took in the house that had been their home for years.
Everything was exactly the same. Their narrow cots were pushed up against the walls on either side, with a rickety table squeezed in between them. Lark reached up to the board nailed above the doorway and felt the shiv she’d hidden there. She tucked it into her boot and walked around the tiny room.
Bernie’s bed was still draped in the hand-sewn quilt she’d pieced together from the salvage pile. Smiling to herself, Lark lifted the edge of the blanket and slid the thin mattress off of its metal frame. She reached underneath and felt around in Bernie’s secret hiding place until her fingers brushed something hard and square.
She pulled out Bernie’s dog-eared copy of The Wild Muir — one of two books that Bernie had brought with her to San Judas — and her throat began to burn with sadness.
Despite her earlier resolve to wrap her heart in steel wool and bury her feelings, Lark felt a deep ache of sadness bubbling up inside of her. She wrapped her hands around the book and collapsed onto her bed, curling into a ball and drinking in the scent of sagebrush that still lingered on the sheets.
Her tears came thick and fast, but Lark didn’t bother to wipe them away. She just hugged the book to her chest and cried.
There were worse things than being imprisoned, she realized. The worst was to be without a friend.
twenty
Lark
It took nearly a half an hour for Lark to pull herself together. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d felt so weak.
In the past two years, she could count the number of times she’d cried on one hand. That track record was the result of closing herself off completely and refusing to feel anything.
She suspected that she would have cried even less if Bernie hadn’t been around. Bernie had kept her human during the time she’d spent in San Judas. She’d made Lark laugh and feel okay about life, which thrust her into the darkest depths of sadness when her brain caught up to reality and she realized that everything wasn’t all right.
Her mind was like a fire hydrant when it came to emotions. It was either turned up to full blast, or the valve was off. If she could just shut down all her feelings, nothing would ever be able to hurt her. But the second she allowed herself the slightest bit of softness or compassion, there was nothing to stop the outpouring of emotion.
Once she was done wallowing, Lark wiped the salt from her cheeks and got to her feet. She left the shanty and made her way toward the square, ducking from one building to the next as she approached the mess hall. The sun felt warm on her face, but a gentle breeze blowing across the colony offset the heat and carried with it the scent of sage and sweetgrass.
Lark knew it was risky to get too close to Mercy’s compound, but she was starving. With a little luck, Kira would be finished with breakfast, and Lark might be able to bum a bite to eat.
But as she drew closer to the square, Lark realized that something wasn’t right. It was a beautiful day, but Mercy and her daughters weren’t lounging under the pergola. They weren’t flouncing around the square gossiping in loud whispers or fanning themselves in the shade of a tree. Mercy was nowhere in sight.
Pulse racing, Lark ducked behind Rita’s shop and sneaked around to the back of Mercy’s adobe. She lowered herself to the ground and crawled through the dirt until she was crouched just beneath a window. She listened intently for the sound of voices.
Nothing.
Lark raised herself up slowly, ready to run if she needed to, and peered in through the window. Mercy’s den looked just the way Lark remembered it: rough wooden furniture scattered around the kiva fireplace, rag rugs, and walls bedecked with other inmates’ stolen possessions.
Lark let out a sigh. The den was empty.
Straightening up, she walked around the back of the compound and vaulted the low wall hemming in the grounds behind the mess hall. She crossed the courtyard in twelve long strides, moving quickly to avoid being seen.
She was walking so fast that she didn’t see a hand shoot out from the back door of the mess hall. It closed around Lark’s upper arm before she realized what was happening and yanked her into the shadows.
Lark let out a yelp of surprise, but someone clapped a hand over her mouth. Lark flailed wildly as she tried to break free from her attacker, but the other woman was bigger and stronger. She dragged Lark through the narrow alleyway separating the mess hall from the kitchens and into a narrow doorway.
Lark wrenched out of her attacker’s grip. She swung around — ready to fight — but a familiar pair of chocolate eyes froze her in place. They belonged to a tall muscular woman with glistening ebony skin. She wore her hair in tight braids secured with a colorful scarf and was draped in a filthy white smock.
“Kira?” Lark spluttered, staring at her with a mixture of surprise and delight.
“What are you doin’ here, Lark?”
“I . . .”
“You shouldn’t be here,” said Kira, her voice coming out low and fast. “They told me you escaped.” Kira’s voice was low and serious. There was no joy in those deep dark eyes — no “good to see you” or greeting of any kind.
&nbs
p; “I did!” said Lark, rubbing her arm where Kira had grabbed her.
Suddenly she felt as though she were intruding on her old friend. The other kitchen workers were staring at her with a mixture of shock and trepidation. Kira was still staring at her, too — waiting for an explanation.
“I escaped, but I was caught a few days ago,” said Lark.
Kira closed her eyes and shook her head. She began to pace tight circles in front of Lark, her expression growing stormier by the second.
“What were you thinkin’, Lark?”
“Kira —”
“Uh-uh. Don’t you ‘Kira’ me.”
Lark let out an exasperated sigh. She didn’t know why Kira was acting this way. She and Lark had always gotten along. Kira was her friend.
“It’s not like I meant to get caught,” Lark mumbled.
“You don’t understand,” said Kira. “You never should have escaped in the first place.”
Lark stared at her, feelings of confusion and betrayal warring for dominance. She hadn’t expected a congratulations, but she’d thought that Kira would have at least been happy for her. Nobody who’d spent any time in San Judas would wish it on their worst enemy, and nobody ever escaped.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask you to come,” said Lark in an apologetic voice. “But I knew you were getting out soon and that you needed to keep your nose clean.”
“It’s not about that,” said Kira sharply, glancing around as though the walls had ears. “Mercy has been on the warpath.”
“More than usual?”
Kira’s eyes grew wide, and Lark knew it had to be bad. “She and her sons had a good thing goin’ here, but when Zachariah was killed and you all escaped . . . They’re sayin’ a lot of Mercy’s perks dried up.”
“What do you mean ‘perks’?”
“Oh, come on, Lark. Use your head. How do you think Mercy and her sons maintained power for so long? She may be a criminal, but she’s had help. I know for a fact that they’ve been feeding her information for years — information she’s used to manipulate people, blackmail them, threaten them . . . They let her rule in any way she sees fit, so long as she maintains law and order ’round here. Some say they are putting pressure on her. They want her to maintain tighter control.”
