“Oh...oh, Lucas, no,” she whispers. The missing years stretch out between us, and I hate that I have to fill them, that I have to tell her this. I hate all of the what-ifs. What if we’d just stayed where we were and tried to fight through it? What if I’d come to Thurmond with Sam and Mia and I’d known, at least, where I could find them? “What happened?”
I try to shrug off the ache that pierces my chest. “We—we went up to Pennsylvania, to live with Grammy and Pops. You remember?”
“Of course.”
“We couldn’t stay with them after they started making those announcements about Collections. I’d already changed. It was too dangerous and people knew where we were. So we left and went a few towns over.” We lived out of our car in an abandoned parking garage, but I couldn’t tell her that, not when her face was already so shattered. It wasn’t even that bad, you know? We put up sheets in the window during the day, when Dad went out to look for work, and Mom and Mia would try to outdo each other with their stories. Sometimes I think about being small enough to lay across the backseat, my cheek against the fabric, just listening to Mom as she voiced each of her characters. Dad would come back with food and a smile, lean across the way and kiss her. I miss the days that were boring, hot, and long, because those were the days when I felt safe.
“It was just...it started as a carjacking. The two guys were out of their heads on something. It turned into something else when they realized me and Mia were there. My parents weren’t going to let us go. Mom reached for the money we’d been keeping in the glove box. They panicked, thinking she had a gun, too. Dad tried to cover her. It was over so fast.”
“Are you sure they’re dead?”
The stench of blood and smoke fills my senses, and the rumbling of pain starts at the back of my head, carrying forward like a rattling drum. I focus on the rain’s pattering so I don’t have to hear Mia’s screaming.
“God,” she said, “of course you are. I’m sorry. You can’t...you...” She’s blinking hard, trying to clear her throat until she gives up, and I see the first tears collecting on her lashes.
“Your folks?” I ask.
I didn’t like the Dahls. At all. Sammy was the best thing about them, and they never once recognized it. I don’t know how someone like her could survive in a house that’s just so...stiff. Stiff words, stiff hugs, stiff dinners. Mom felt so sorry for her, liked to tease out Sam’s devious, wicked streak with her own. Anything she lacked at home, we would have given her. We were always overflowing with the good stuff. My house in Bedford was loud and messy and so sweet, so bright the memories almost hurt to look at.
Sam shrugs. “Dad walked me to school. That was the last I saw or heard from them.”
I don’t know what to say to that that wouldn’t be horrible and offensive to the people who raised her. I can’t do anything, but lean against the crate. Sam does the same, and I try to imagine what it would be like if there wasn’t that barrier between us, if we’d lived our lives the way they were supposed to pan out. The missed things—games, dances, studying—those things just leave me hollow. But I know Sam is there. I know she is.
“Do you still see Greenwood?” Sam asks softly.
“Not like I used to,” I say. “There are other things I need to focus on. Remember.” I wish I still had the kind of heart to come up with the stories I used to. They were so pure and simple. And because we were making the rules, I always got to be the hero.
But there’s no room left for play or pretend in our lives. Even these minutes we’ve had are being stolen for reality. I need my shell, but I can’t lose my focus on the future because I’m letting myself get lost in the sweet glow of the past.
“I think about them all the time,” Sam said. “There was this one—Mia was the sorceress and she took over the fort and held you captive. I can’t remember why she was pelting me with her stuffed animals, though.”
I have to smile. Mia had a flair for the dramatic. She was happiest as a sorceress, an evil queen, or monster—and even happier if Mom let her raid her makeup to complete the look. “She could control the animals of the forest, remember? They were defending her.” Including her stuffed Tiger, Ty-Ty, because, of course, why couldn’t there be large predator cats in Greenwood?
“And she’d turned you into a beast, too! How could I forget?” Sam’s laugh is so faint I think I’ve imagined it. “Her weakness was water. I broke your Super Soaker.”
“But then you realized you could sing her to sleep,” I say. “Sammy saved the day again. How did that one go? I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart...”
“And I’m so happy, so very happy...” Her voice drifts off as she swallows hard. “I missed you. Is this even real? I can’t...Is this really happening?”
“I’m gonna bet I missed you more,” I say with a heat that has nothing to do with what I am, but who I am, who I want to be. “It feels the same.” You never left me.
Sam sits back, her lips parting, but if she means to say something, I’ll never know. The lights overhead suddenly snap on and I rocket to my feet, straightening out. The drug-like daze rips away from my mind and I slam back into reality. Sam scrambles back against the metal bottom of the crate. In the second before she disappears from my line of sight, I see the desperation on her face, and I’m cut in half by the kind of pain that’s worse than any baton, any shock, any blade. My ear is buzzing with updates, the Control Tower coming through with a firm “Power at full capacity, return to schedule.”
I force myself to walk toward the door, back toward the wall of crates, then toward the door again, trying to play off my indecision as pacing. My mind is looping. Olsen said to leave when notified that surveillance was operational—technically I haven’t been notified of that, only that the power is on. That’s an excuse they’ll buy, I think, that I took her words literally. They think our heads are vacant, waiting for them to pour in whatever thoughts or orders they want us to have. I can play dumb forever if it means not having to leave Sam alone. Shit.
This is going to be a problem—I’m not going to be able to concentrate on what I came here to do, on playing the part of perfect toy soldier. I’m not going to be able to think of anything but Sammy.
She’s humming again, picking up that same song about joy and happiness, and it stops me in my tracks. It settles my mind.
The door swings open behind me, letting in a spray of rain on a strong gust of wind. I set my legs apart in a strong stance, like I could be the wall that keeps it from reaching her. I turn my head around, fumbling for some kind of excuse to give to Olsen for why I’m still here.
But it’s not her standing there, filling out the doorframe.
It’s Tildon.
THREE
SAM
SOMETHING’S WRONG.
Lucas has stopped pacing, slowing turning himself inside out with each stride, but the agitation that electrifies the air has billowed out to become something far more dangerous. The temperature in the room ramps up, until I’m sure it’s not just the heat coming back on through the overhead vents. I strain against the side of the cage, trying to see, fighting the urge to kick and kick and kick until I smash it into pieces. I want out.
The door shuts again, muffling the wind’s howling.
“Dismissed.”
One word. A bolt of dread shoots through my heart. Stops it dead in my chest.
I press my back against the far corner of the crate. There’s a lock between us. A cage. I’m safe in the cage.
Unless he has a key.
Would they have given him a key?
Could he have taken it from Olsen? Where was she? Why didn’t she—
His boots squish as the water leaves them. He takes three short steps forward, but I still can’t see him or Lucas. I press a hand to my face, my back alive with throbbing pain, my head still aching from the White Noise. My throat bu
rns with the things I should have said to him in the few minutes we had.
Don’t do it, I think. Lucas, it’s not worth it.
He has to get out of here. He has to find Mia. I don’t know what these Reds are supposed to be, what role they’re meant to serve here, but I can guess insubordination is not going to play well with any of the PSFs.
Lucas’s heart is too soft for this place. He has the most beautiful mind of anyone I’ve ever known. I shouldn’t have let him...I shouldn’t have talked to him. The realization is like swallowing boiling water. I got so wrapped up in him and the feeling of having him close again. He’s different, in so many ways. His voice is deeper but still has the usual hint of a smile in it, no matter how much it’s dimmed. And where he used to be short, skinnier than me, Lucas has shot up to his dad’s height and he’s filled out. They have shaped him into someone who fills a room just by standing in it.
I don’t know how he’s doing it, how he’s strong enough to bury his heart that deep inside him, the surface never once betraying how he feels. It’s only because I knew him—know him—so well that I see the pain that’s in his eyes and I can recognize it for what it is. How long has it been since he’s been able to even talk about his parents? How did he survive all of these years, locked inside of his own head?
This morning I’d felt the power boiling under his skin, and I’d just assumed that his heart had hardened over the years as much as mine. It’s not true at all. He is still good, sweet Lucas. I know how deeply he feels everything, and I can’t imagine the inhuman strength it’s taken to be able to move on from losing two of the people he loved most in the world when just the thought of their loss has actually shattered my heart. When we were kids, he was the crier. Things didn’t upset him, they devastated him, and it just made me want to fight every single kid who gave him trouble for it.
He can hide it from them, but he can’t hide it from me.
“Dumb or just deaf?” Tildon snorts. “Get out.”
I hear a step, and then another, lighter step that mirrors it. Something clicks—the baton coming off its hook. I recognize the sound now. It’s a bruise on my memory, one that’ll never fully heal.
Someone is breathing hard, and it’s not me. I don’t think it’s Lucas, either.
“There are plenty of cages here. Are you looking to join the little princess? You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?”
Lucas says nothing. Tildon does nothing. I can hear him squeezing the baton in his fist, but he doesn’t hit Lucas. I try to imagine what he must look like, facing a Red, knowing what he’d done to torment the Reds in the past, knowing that some of them must remember it.
Go, Lucas! My mind is screaming the words. If only I could see his face. He would know it’s okay to go. He can’t stay here for me. It’s not worth it.
Lucas takes a halting step toward the door as Tildon walks around him, careful to keep an arm’s length of distance between them. Suddenly it’s needles and knives pumping through my veins, not blood. Tildon’s boots are the first thing I see, his mud-splattered boots. I can’t breathe. I realize it suddenly, the truth sinking deep inside of me. This is never going to be over. This is my life now, until the camp controllers step in and move him again, make him another girl’s problem. I hate that the thought actually gives me relief. I hate how selfish I have to be just to survive.
He crouches down, tapping the lock with his baton. I do feel like an animal then. Caught in a trap, waiting for the knife. “Hi, sweetie. We didn’t finish our conversation earlier.”
I won’t look at him. I won’t. I can feel his eyes rake over me, the way my wet sweats cling to me, the tangled mess that is my hair. I wish Olsen had just cut it all off before she left. I see what she does, now, the intensity of his gaze as it locks on the place where strands of my hair brush my collarbone.
Tildon tugs on the lock to test it, laughs at the way I cringe as he drags his baton over the front of the crate, up and down, his eyes never once leaving me. I want to crawl out of my skin and disappear in the shadows. I want to dissolve the way Ruby did. I can’t be here anymore. I can’t.
The entire cage shifts as the baton smashes against it. I’m rattled from the top of my head to my feet so hard I bite my tongue and the taste of blood explodes in my mouth. Tildon laughs again as I cover my face with my arms. The thin metal has warped where he struck it. The gap between the bars has expanded, bent and twisting inward unnaturally. He wedges the baton into the bottom corner of the door and starts to bend that, too, pulling the corner toward him, creating a hole large enough to stick a hand through. I twist around again, tucking my legs up against my chest, my left side against the back of the cage to avoid his touch.
“Sweetie,” he calls, “sweetie—come here!” He punctuates the last two words with the baton. He can’t get to me while I’m in here. I’m safe in the cage—
Tildon stands suddenly and seizes the front of the kennel and hauls it toward him, the center of the small room. The scream that leaves my throat is drowned out by the screech of the metal against the cement, the thunder of the empty cages above it filling in the empty space, crashing to the ground. He drops the weight with a satisfied grunt, a smile that’s all teeth. I can’t get away from him now. He stands over me, looking down through the bars, considering. I have to force myself not to look at Lucas, still facing away from us in the corner.
He can’t help you—you have to get out of this—think, Sam, think—
“This is M27 requesting permission to leave the cages to return to my post,” I hear Lucas say. His voice has a halting quality to it now, each word clipped. “Officer Tildon is here to relieve me.”
Tildon’s breath whistles as it’s sucked in between his teeth. He twists around, pinning Lucas with a look of such undisguised malice, I can’t imagine how both of them will walk out of here alive.
The instinctive panic smooths out to horrified understanding. He’s telling them Tildon is here in a way that makes it seem like he’s only asking permission to act. But he doesn’t get it. The power is on. The camera is operational. The Control Tower must know he’s here. They just don’t care.
Don’t! I want to scream it. Don’t put a target on yourself. Just get out!
He tried, though. He tried. My throat is thick with the need to cry, I’m so grateful.
Neither of them has moved, and I’m too much of a coward to make a sound and break the tense silence. Tildon is still, frozen, his hand still dangling inches above my head. Someone in the Control Tower must be talking in his ear. For the first time, I wonder if maybe they didn’t know—if someone hadn’t been watching this room from the moment the power came back on.
Lucas turns around slowly, crossing the short distance to the door. He pops it open and holds it; the room seems to gasp, sucking in the cold air. Doesn’t say a word, just waits. His eyes never once leave Tildon.
“You stupid little shit,” the PSF seethes. “Don’t think I’ll forget—”
“Our orders,” Lucas says without an ounce of warmth in his voice. “Sir.”
He is good. It’s almost terrifying—like there are two different boys trapped in his body. The last traces of fizzing brightness I’d felt with him fade and die completely.
Tildon looks down at me and, before I can turn away, spits in my face. The smile he gives me is somehow worse than anything else he’s done to me here; it’s a promise. I duck down, folding myself inside the cramped space to wipe every last trace of him away with my sleeve. The smell of him hangs over me like a cloud of poison, and I feel myself gag again and again until he finally crosses the room and switches off the lights.
The door swings shut and locks behind them.
And when there is nothing and no one but the walls around me to hear, I begin to hum again. I lift the pitch higher and higher until the ache in my throat clears and the wind begins to answer back.
It se
ems impossible, but I sleep.
It’s the shallow kind, one that I dip in and out of until I finally feel more exhausted than I did at the start. The day has cut me open and exposed every last nerve in my body. As night comes, early as always, the leftover haze of light from the storm is stained a deep violet. My back is stiff no matter how I bend and twist around, and I have to imagine my skin is turning the same color as the sky. I grit my teeth and close my eyes, drifting back out of reality.
By the time my eyes open again, the light has gone out of my world completely. The metal grating on the side of the cage digs into my back, groans as I shift again. There’s no way for my eyes to adjust, and there’s nothing to see save for a prick of red light on the door where the electronic lock is. Instead, every other sense sharpens to fill in the gaps. The smell of wet fur is slowly easing out of the small room, but what replaces it is the stench of soggy dog food. My belly cramps with hunger and my throat is dry, but it won’t be unbearable until the morning. How long did they say I have in here? This morning feels like it happened in another life.
Did I imagine Lucas? The fear takes hold of my throat and squeezes tight. It wouldn’t have been the first time. He is always there when I need him, waiting for me to pluck him out of my memory box. There are new images now, tucked behind the old ones. I close my eyes and imagine him sitting there again. I remember every curve and dimple so clearly, I think I could paint him into the air, back into existence. I wish I could have trapped the sound of his singing in my head.
I draw in another breath. Real. I can’t tell if this has all been a dream or a nightmare. It seems so out of line with my life to be given this one small thing. My mind is trying its best to quickly burn the fire out in my heart; it’s actually thinking this through, dragging me back down into this reality.
The odds are I will never have the opportunity to speak with him again as long as we’re both here. So many different moments of chance had to line up to bring him to this camp, for us to recognize each other, for him to step in, for the power to go out—my hands shake with how frantic I feel at the thought. I didn’t appreciate it enough while he was here. If I could go back and live those few minutes again, I’d have paid closer attention to his smell, the details of the scars on the right side of his chin, the way the warmth of his voice shrank and broadened depending on what he was talking about.