She slammed her glove into my lower back, sending an electric, radiating pain through me, and then spun on her heel and punched me in the stomach again.
“Wh-why?” I gasped, and turned just in time to see an enormous, blood-spattered glove aiming right for my eyes. Instinctively I jerked back so instead of barreling into my forehead, she hit my left eye. I felt my eyelid split, felt the sudden heat of blood running down my face.
Then, in about two seconds, every single thing that Becca had ever done to piss me off came flooding back to me. New anger rose up in me, and I swung fiercely in a kind of punch I’d never thrown in my whole life.
Right before my weighted glove connected with her head, whipping it sideways, I saw… her smile, just a tiny bit.
Then she used the force of my blow to continue a spin, and came at me with an arm that felt like it was made of steel. That punch made me see stars. I wasn’t aware of falling, but I realized I was looking up at lights. A big dark shadow loomed over me.
My sister.
“Becca?” I said, my words garbled and full of blood. “Why?”
62
BEATEN AND BLOODY, I’D EXPECTED to limp back to my jail room, where I intended to smother Becca to death with her blanket. Instead, after they bandaged my split eyebrow, two guards pushed me into a tiny room—four walls of cinder blocks with a steel door that had one weensy window in it.
“Oh, no way!” I said, as my waiting sister gave me a tiny smile. “Why the hell are you in here? And by the way—you’re a goddamn bitch!”
My one working eye widened as Becca smiled a bit more. She gave a quick glance at the door’s window, then came closer to me.
“I’m gonna kill you,” I warned her, holding up a finger. “You better get back.”
“They always put fighters together in this pen after a bout,” Becca whispered, her back to the door. “And as far as I know, this is the only place that isn’t bugged.”
“The second we get out of here, I’m going to run you over with the tiller,” I promised her, conveniently forgetting we were on death row.
“Cass—listen to me!” my sister said. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be in here!”
“It’s already been too long!” I snapped, lisping slightly because I’d bit my tongue during the fight.
Becca got the mulish expression I knew all too well, and I tried to
angrily clench my jaw, but couldn’t because it hurt too much.
“I can’t believe I wasted so much time looking for you!” I said.
“Shut. The. Hell. Up!” Becca said, grabbing my shoulder. She pressed her forehead against mine, the way we used to when we were little. I glared into her eyes, and she glared back into mine.
Then we had a prolonged shout-whispered argument, going back and forth, until we heard the lock of the door click open. Becca drew back and gave me a hard-eyed stare.
I spit on the ground by her feet. “I don’t accept your apology!” I hissed as one guard grabbed my wrist to shackle.
“Well, you can go screw yourself!” Becca yelled back. She jerked her hand away from the guard. “I’m not sharing a room with her! You put her somewhere else! I never want to see her again!”
Ten minutes later I was in a new jail room, on a different hall, far away from my sister. This one had only three kids in it, so I got my own bunk. I lay down on it gingerly and put tentative fingers up to my puffy eye. Oh, Ridiculous, I thought. What are we doing?
63
NATHANIEL
CASSIE WAS GONE. NATHANIEL KNEW that, but he looked for her anyway until it was close to curfew. Crap. Both Greenfield sisters gone. Goddamnit. It was all happening too fast. He’d hoped to have more time. Worse, he couldn’t help feeling that it was all his fault. Had Becca been taken because he’d recruited her to be an Outsider? Yeah. Had Cassie been taken because she was poking around too much? Yeah. Probably. This was on him. Squarely on his shoulders.
At Healthcare United, Nathaniel parked his moped and glanced up at the modest building. He’d only been inside once, eight years ago, to see his mother. He’d run to the bed and thrown himself against her. She had opened her eyes and looked at him, giving him a slight, quizzical smile, and Nathaniel’s heart had turned to ice. His mother wasn’t there anymore. They were a stranger’s eyes.
“I’m here for Mr. Greenfield,” Nate told the receptionist. She looked puzzled, but gave him the room number. Nate wondered how long it would take before she called his father. Well, he would make this quick.
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.