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.