Though he knew Mr. Greenfield couldn’t see him, Nate still tried to keep the shock off his face as he looked down at the frail man hooked up to machines. He knew what had happened—everyone did—but he hadn’t imagined the ruined face, the shattered shoulder, the slow, rasping breath.
“Mister,” Nate began, then cleared his throat. He went closer to the bed, drawing up the plastic chair from beside the bed table. What the hell should he say? Sorry I got your daughters disappeared? Here’s hoping they come back before you die?
Or…
What had Cassie called him? Dad? Pa?
“Pa,” Nate said, keeping his voice light. “It’s Cassie.” He reached out and patted Mr. Greenfield’s hand, trying not to flinch at the paper-thin skin. “I just wanted to let you know that everything’s okay. School is fine. The All-Ways is fine. The farm is fine.”
What else? What else could he say to this man who had been disgraced because he’d wanted to die by his own hand?
“Pa. It’s Becca.” Nate thought—what would Becca say? “I got a sixty-seven on a math test. The teacher says I can retake it.”
Nate patted Mr. Greenfield’s other hand. “But everything is fine. Um, a window accidentally got broken, but Cassie can fix it. Don’t worry. You just get better, okay?”
Mr. Greenfield would never get better. His labored breathing told Nate that the end he’d sought months ago was at last drawing near.
God, this was all a mess. His own mother, Cassie’s dad—the twins. How many more people would his father ruin?
“Okay, Pa,” Nate said. “I gotta go. My shift is starting at the All-Ways. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Feeling overwhelmed by a sudden grief, Nate stood and stumbled past the nurse coming in. The ride home had never been so long.
64
MS. STREPP
“SHE’S FITTING IN SURPRISINGLY WELL.” Warden Bell’s dry observation echoed what Helen Strepp had been thinking.
“Look here,” Ms. Strepp said, pointing at one of the screens from a bank that almost covered the wall. It was focused on the inmates’ recreation yard—an outdoor, chain-linked rectangle as gray and grim as the rest of the prison. Cassie Greenfield was sitting cross-legged on the cement, surrounded by fellow prisoners. She had the nerve to be playing one of those patty-cake hand games that Ms. Strepp had never gotten the hang of. Prisoners were gathered around, watching and raising their hands to be next. Some of them were actually smiling. In the past several weeks, Cassie Greenfield had become unusually influential.
“She’s… quite dangerous,” Ms. Strepp said.
“Yes,” Warden Bell agreed. “Just as we hoped. Don’t get attached to this one, either, Strepp. You know the one-way path she’s on.”
“I know.” Ms. Strepp was irritated at the Warden’s suggestion that she was getting soft, sentimental. It was nothing like that.
“How are the experiments going?” The Warden’s shrewd gaze seemed to look right inside Ms. Strepp’s head.
“They are… ongoing,” Ms. Strepp said shortly. In fact, she was concerned. The video feed showed Rebecca Greenfield standing by the chain-link fence, sullenly watching her sister. Ms. Strepp had expected the twins to immediately join forces, combining their strengths. Instead, the opposite had happened, against all her expectations.
“Okay, now watch this.” Ms. Strepp pointed at a screen showing the same scene from a different angle. The two women watched as a hulking behavior problem strode up to Cassie and kicked her none too gently in the back.
Cassie stood slowly, her once-animated face turning expressionless.
“Her sister beat her easily in the ring,” Warden Bell murmured.
“Yes. But that was weeks ago. She’s made progress.”
“Let’s hope this lunk doesn’t cripple her.” The Warden’s voice held a note of warning, telling Ms. Strepp not to push things too far.
Ms. Strepp was too tense to answer as the action unfolded on the screen. The guy outweighed Cassie by at least fifty pounds, and was six inches taller. Some inmates backed up to give them space, while others came to watch.
The guy made a fist and drew it back to give himself maximum power, but before he could even swing, Cassie launched herself at him as if she were a windmill in a hurricane. He was much more powerful, but she was lithe, hard, and fast. She flitted around like a mosquito, getting in multitudes of sharp, angry, well-placed jabs. It seemed only seconds before both of his eyes were swelling, his lip was split, his nose broken and bleeding. He limped from where she stomped on his instep, and was grimacing in pain from the killer kidney punch she had nailed him with—twice.
It was over quickly. The bully limped off to the jeers of the prisoners, his fists still clenched as he spit blood on the ground.
Cassie had a welt swelling on her jaw, a knot forming on her forehead, and her knuckles were bruised and scraped. She sat down again, somewhat stiffly—he’d landed one or two rib punches—and managed a smile.
Her devotees quickly sat down next to her, and as Strepp and Warden Bell watched, Cassie held up her hands again to start the game.
“Amazing,” Warden Bell said.
“Yes,” Ms. Strepp said, somewhat breathless. “I wish—”
“You know what’s going to happen,” Warden Bell said sharply. “There’s a bigger plan in play here.”
“I know.”
The women turned away from the screen, and so they didn’t see Becca Greenfield scowling at her sister, then hurrying after the guy her sister had just beaten.
65
BECCA
AFTER CASSIE’S SHOW-OFFY DISPLAY IN the prison yard, I was twice as glad that she wasn’t bunking with me, Merry, Diego, and Vijay. They fell in beside me when the alarm sounded for us to go back to our rooms.
“Is your cell, like, really hostile?” Vijay asked. “You and Cassie have both kind of… taken to fighting super quick.”
“Nah,” I said, but I’d noticed the same thing. “Maybe just ’cause we’re used to hard work? So we’re strong?”
“You!” a voice boomed. “You quit talking!”
I clenched my teeth as I recognized the voice of our crazy-house traitor: Tim the Guard. I’d felt for him after our fight, when we were in the pen and he was yapping about being forced to fight, blah, blah, blah. But now, as he stood a head taller than anyone, important in his guard uniform, all I could muster up was loathing. He strode toward me and Vijay, tapping his billy club against one open palm.
“Shut up and hustle, people!” he said, pointing his billy club at me.
I narrowed my eyes and gave him a quiet sneer.
In seconds, he had yanked me out of line, slammed me against a wall, and pressed one forearm against me, right under my neck.
“You shut your trap!” he snarled, then grabbed my jumpsuit and practically hurled me back into line. Facing forward, I seethed and started swearing in my head, and then I realized my pocket felt weird—heavy. I put my hand in… and managed to keep my face blank for the rest of our march to our room. I didn’t dare look at Tim as he slammed our door open and waited for us to file inside, then slammed it shut. He marched off, locking in other prisoners, and I moved slowly to the back wall, trying to get as much out of the view of the hall camera as possible.
Then I turned my back and carefully took my hand out of my pocket. The hand that was holding an apple that Tim had sneaked to me.
A real apple. It felt like forever since I’d seen one. The tasteless mush they fed us had no recognizable real food ingredients, and here I was with a whole real apple.
“Guys,” I whispered almost soundlessly. “Circle round.”
My roommates’ eyes fastened onto the apple as if it were a unicorn.
“Where did you—” Diego began, then held up a hand. “Never mind. Don’t want to know.”
Slowly I brought it to my mouth and bit into it, feeling the skin break and tasting the sweet burst of juice. I almost moaned out loud. Then I passed it to Merry, who
se startled, ravenous look gave me all the thanks I needed. She took a bite, closing her eyes and chewing slowly, and passed the apple to Diego. Diego made the sign of the cross and muttered a prayer, and then took his bite. He did moan out loud, but squelched it pretty quickly, handing the apple to Vijay.
Vijay almost inhaled it, and I remembered that they had all been here longer than me. It had been even longer ago since they’d seen an apple.
We took turns passing it around, and each managed to have at least five bites. We ate everything, even the core, and afterward I was as happy and full as if I’d just gotten up from Thanksgiving dinner.
Then I lay on my bed, savoring each bite over and over, reimagining it, running my fingers against my lips, still tasting the apple in my mouth.
The apple that Traitor Guard Tim had given me.
What was he doing?
Was this a trap?
If so, I had just jumped right into it, headfirst.
66
CASSIE
MY ROOMMATES WERE ALL RIGHT. I was the only girl, but Hayden, Mikaelus, and Rayray didn’t treat me any different. Now that I was in another hall, I hardly ever saw Becca—maybe sometimes at meals or out in the yard. Mostly we just scowled at each other, like we were two other people instead of Cassie and Becca Greenfield, twins.
Back home in our cell, there had been lots of people, but lots of space. There had been room to be alone, where you could just sit under a tree listening to the breeze. Here, I was never alone, ever. There was approximately zero privacy, from the bare, stainless steel toilet in our cell to the coed showers, and coed everything else. Share an open toilet with three guys? It went from being an unthinkable impossibility to just business as usual in about four hours.
Same with the coed showers. At first you think you’d rather just stay dirty. But after a day or two of caked blood, mud, dank water, random dust, and the possible slime mold you sat on in the mess hall, you were completely and totally eager to strip down in front of thirty other kids. Completely and totally eager to bully a smaller kid out of the very rare soap. You didn’t even mind the obnoxious WHAT’S GOOD FOR THE CELL IS WHAT’S GOOD FOR THE CITIZEN sign rusting on the wall.
“That’s a good look for you.”
Becca’s dry voice made me turn quickly, brushing suds out of my eyes.
“What, clean?” I asked.
She shook her head and stood under the next ancient metal shower where sometimes rusty water flowed out in a tepid trickle. “Bruised. Banged up. Makes you look tough.”
I gave a tense, fake laugh. “Yeah, that’s me. Tough Cassie.”
Becca snorted and tried vainly to work up a lather from the hard sliver of soap.
“Listen, Beck,” I said in a low voice. My sister gave me a chilly, uninterested glance. “I think I know what’s going on.”
Becca ignored me.
“Listen, you little ass,” I said, “who I somehow still happen to love. I think we’re being drugged.”
That got her attention; she shot me a startled look.
“I think they’re drugging our food,” I whispered. “I haven’t eaten the last two meals. Please quit eating the stuff they give us, okay?”
My sister’s eyebrows climbed.
“Just for a while,” I pleaded. “We’re going to get out of here—I know we are. But they’re drugging us. Please, try skipping the food—for a short while, at least. We can escape—have you seen the dragonflies?”
Becca’s face turned cold. “Guard!” she yelled.
I stared at Becca in disbelief, aware of all the eyes turning our way.
A guard, the big woman with bright yellow hair, strode toward us, billy club raised.
“Make this bitch leave me alone,” Becca said, pointing at me.
“You’re so stupid!” I shouted at Becca as the guard began pulling me away. “Listen to what I’m telling you! It’s the truth! Just think about it!”
My sister said nothing. As I scrambled, still wet, into my jumpsuit, I wondered if the seed had taken. Time would tell.
67
NATHANIEL
HE’D BEEN LYING LOW FOR a couple of weeks, trying to figure out a plan, trying to put all the pieces together. Trying to get his dad off his back. Now he knew he had to act, had to do something.
The night air was cool and quiet, and this time Nathaniel drove right through the gates on his moped. When he got to Cassie’s old truck, he could tell that something had happened here. There were the thin tire marks of a moped, and then the bigger, deeper treads of an all-wheeler and another vehicle leading off the boundary road. Nathaniel turned off road and followed the tracks as far as he could, which wasn’t far—the wind blowing over the hard, dusty ground had scoured any sign of Cassie out of existence.
In the end Nathaniel went back to the boundary road and continued driving down it, going farther than he’d ever been before. He had no idea if he would eventually fall over the edge of the world, or if he would come to a fairy-tale city or what. Probably he would go for a while and then get captured. Possibly disappeared. It wasn’t like he had any other plans—life in Cell B-97-4275 was over for him. He knew that.
It was peaceful in the quiet evening air, with just the low electric hum of his moped barely audible over the wind, the occasional bird cry, the even more occasional sound of an animal.
He saw other vehicles abandoned by the side of the road. He knew why they hadn’t been reclaimed for scrap—they were warnings. Signs that people had been here and had come to a bad end. Maybe tomorrow his moped would be found lying in the dirt, its radio gone, its chains cut. He would be the warning.
At first he thought the dark shapes ahead were low hills, or maybe shadows thrown by the moonlight. When he was much closer he saw the fence, the gate, the signs: this was a cell. A cell he’d never seen or known about, despite being only fifteen miles away from home. They might as well be on another planet.
Cautiously he drove through the gate. There wasn’t much here—some buildings, a few houses. The whole place looked abandoned, except for the few weak lights that swayed in the wind.
Thunk! A stone came out of nowhere and hit Nathaniel right above his ear. He jerked to a stop, his hand on the sting, and looked around.
Ping! Another small rock hit the body of his moped.
Whirling, Nate peered into the darkness. The main thing he could see was a typical sign that said STRONGER UNITED, showing people holding hands and smiling. But this one had been graffitied—the O had been crossed out and replaced with an A, so it read STRANGER UNITED. And someone had drawn fangs on a woman’s smile, and horns on a man’s head.
“Who’s there?” Nate called, just as another stone plunked against his foot. He saw the tiniest movement beneath the sign, which he raced toward after dropping his moped. A small boy jumped up and darted away, but Nate was taller and faster. He tackled him, and they both went down in a patch of scraggly grass.
“Oof!” The boy’s breath left his lungs in a whoosh, and they started wriggling like fish on a bank.
Nate expertly pinned the kid to the ground, twisting one small arm up behind his back and sitting on his legs.
“Get off me, you stupid ape!”
Nate pulled the arm higher, causing the boy to squeal in pain and kick his feet against the grass.
“Let go of me, asshole!”
“Not till you tell me where I am,” Nate said.
The figure stilled, though Nate could still feel the boy’s quick breathing.
“What do you mean?” the boy said. “You’re in Cell B-97-4280, duh!”
Nate eased up a little, and the boy turned to look at him.
“Hey, you’re not from here, are ya? Huh! Lemme up, schmuck.”
Slowly Nate eased up, and the boy scrambled to a sitting position, rubbing the shoulder joint Nate had stretched. He stared at Nate like he wasn’t sure Nate was human, but was fascinating anyway.
“Where you from?” the kid asked. He looked about ten or elev
en years old.
“Another cell,” Nate said.
“No shit,” the kid said, frowning. “There’s only maybe two hunnert folks here—I thought you was someone else, at first. If you was from here, I’d know it.”
“What does this cell do?”
“Mining,” the boy said. “Mining coal. Then we ship it off.”
That explained why this place looked so dead—at home they were switching over to wind or water power, according to Cell News.
“Okay.” Nate let out a breath, wondering what the hell to do now. This place was no help—he didn’t know any Outsiders from here.
“Yep, mining now,” said the boy. “’Course, we used to have the prison, too.”
Nate frowned, looking at the boy intently. “Prison?”
68
“YEAH, PRISON,” THE BOY SAID. “Hey, you got anything to eat?”
Nate patted his jacket pockets and found a candy bar. He handed it over and the boy fell on it with joy.
“Real chocklit!” he exclaimed, tearing off the wrapper.
“What’s your name?” Nate asked him. “How old are you? How come you’re out by yourself so late?”
The boy spoke through a mouthful of candy bar, counting off on his fingers. “None a yer business. None a yer business. None a yer freakin’ business.”
“Tell me about the prison,” Nate said.
“What else you got?” the boy demanded, still chewing.
Nate felt his other pockets. He waved a five-dollar bill, but kept it out of the boy’s reach. “Name?”
The boy frowned, licking his fingers. “They call me the Kid.”
“Uh-huh. Age?”
“Thirteen.”
“You’re ten if you’re a day,” Nate scoffed.
“Eleven. And a half,” the Kid said, scowling. “And I’m out this late by myself because who cares? Why wouldn’t I be?” He gave a little jump and snatched the five-dollar bill, looking at it happily before stuffing it in the pocket of his grubby jeans.