Article 5 (7 page)

My eyes were drawn to the windowsill, where he’d left another flower, this one smaller but no less perfect. It made me smile to picture him picking just the right ones. I pushed up the window and leaned out, half expecting him to be waiting, but he wasn’t.

Another daisy lay evenly spaced between our houses, on the grass. Thrilled with the game, I climbed through the window then bent to add it to my growing bouquet. I glanced around and found another, a few yards down, near the back of the houses. It angled into his yard.

Giggling, I followed the trail, one daisy at a time. My anticipation grew, envisioning how he’d take me in his arms when I found him, how he’d touch my face just before he kissed me.

I climbed the deck and called his name as I pushed through his back door. The room was dark, and it took several seconds for my eyes to adjust.

Something was wrong. I felt it, tingling at the base of my neck, warning me to go no farther.

“Chase?”

He was wearing a uniform. The blue jacket was pulled back to reveal his belt. My insides went hollow when I saw the gun and the empty slot where his baton should have been.

“Ember, run!” I jumped at my mother’s voice. She was kneeling on the far side of the room, her fingers spread over the coffee table. Ms. Brock was there, her whip raised high.

I looked down in horror to see the blood running freely over Mom’s knuckles.

I dropped the daisies and tried to get to her, but Chase blocked my way. His eyes were cold and empty, his body only a shell of the boy I’d known. With a baton in one hand he backed me into the corner, crushing my flowers into the carpet beneath his boots.

“Don’t fight me, Ember.”

*   *   *

I BURST
from the nightmare, sweating, even without the blankets. Moisture beaded on my forehead, my neck, and dampened my hair. My throat was hot and thick and bruised to the touch. My hands throbbed furiously, as if my skin were on fire.

The vision continued to poison my mind. Ms. Brock in the house next door, beating my mother’s hands. Chase blocking me in the corner.
Don’t fight me, Ember.

I tried to focus on the real memory:
My
Chase had been waiting inside, ready with a smile and his open arms. But after everything he’d done, even the memory seemed false.

Slowly, the world became familiar. I was still at the reformatory. Still in my dorm room.

I heard something
click,
then rattle. It was coming from Rebecca’s side of the room. From the window.

Someone’s breaking in!
My muscles coiled, ready to bolt out the door.

“Rebecca!” I croaked, forcing a painful swallow. My sock-clad feet were already on the floor. The skirt that had bunched at my hips untwisted around my legs.

She didn’t move. I listened, but there was no sound.

No sound at all, actually. Not even Rebecca breathing.

I forced myself to steady. It was probably a gust of wind against the glass. A tree branch or dead leaves or something. It wasn’t an intruder. No one was coming to get me. Not even if I wanted them to.

“Rebecca?” I asked, this time just above a whisper. She didn’t stir.

I slid off the bed and padded toward the window, still watching the glass.

I said her name again. She lay absolutely still.

I put my hand on the mattress. The moon shone through the window and lit the bandages on my bloated knuckles a pale blue. My fingertips stretched farther, feeling the blanket.

And the pillow beneath it.

“What the hell?” I said out loud. My eyes shot up, through the glass, into the woods, where a figure in white crossed the tree line. My jaw hit the floor.

Rebecca was running, the fraud. She’d stopped me earlier from the same, while she’d been planning this all along. There was no time to focus on that, though. Rebecca had found some way to escape, something more planned than Rosa’s impulsive flight, and I’d be damned if she was going to leave me behind.

I stuffed my feet into my shoes and threw the jacket on my chair across my back. I wasn’t tired or hungry. The thrill of anticipation collided with the absolute terror of being caught. Defiance surged.

I didn’t think twice about stepping onto Rebecca’s bed in my dirty shoes; I would have relished more in the action if I had. I propped the window open. It made the same
click
and rattle that I had heard earlier, when I had thought someone was breaking
in,
not breaking
out.

From our room on the bottom floor it was almost too easy to slide out the little frame and swing my legs to the ground. So easy, in fact, I wondered why everyone hadn’t tried. Sudden doubt gave me pause—there had to be a reason the whole school hadn’t disappeared after curfew—but if Brock’s prized little Sister was out here, she had to know what she was doing.

I forced a slow, pained breath and continued. My skirt rode up around my hips, and the cold night bit into the skin at the tops of my thighs, but as soon as my feet hit the ground I was running.

The night was bright enough that I could partially see the way. I sprinted across a narrow lane and into the woods where I had seen Rebecca disappear. The hum of a power generator masked the crunch of dead leaves under my footsteps, both a blessing and a curse. No one could hear me, but I couldn’t hear them, either.

Though I worried about getting caught, my feet continued on. Rebecca had been here three years. She knew this system, this facility. She wouldn’t be attempting an escape unless she was positive it was a sure thing.

The deeper I dove into the woods, the darker it became, even under the starlight. I wondered where we were going. To a broken fence maybe. The long shadows blended with the night sky, leaving only highlights of bare branches and textured tree trunks. I walked with my hands in front of me, feeling my way forward. I was getting anxious, fearing I’d lost her. The generator was getting louder.

Finally, I heard voices. One male, the other so bubbly it couldn’t be anyone
but
Rebecca. I stopped dead in my tracks and ducked, hiding behind the broken tree trunk. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. As stealthily as possible, I scooted closer.

“I can’t believe Randolph smacked her,” I heard Rebecca say.

“Yeah. He liked it, too, the sick bastard.” The voice was familiar.

“Sean … what did you all do to her?”

“Brock said take her to the shack. Come on, you knew that was coming.”

My muscles hardened. They weren’t talking about me; they were talking about Rosa.

In my mind’s eye I saw the unmarked brick building beside the clinic. Was that the “shack”? Brock had said to take Rosa to “lower campus”; maybe that was what she’d meant. My memory conjured the metallic screech I’d heard when I’d found the clinic’s phone. Had that been Rosa’s scream?

My head was spinning. I still couldn’t place the other voice.

Rebecca was quiet for a moment. “I guess I did.”

“What, you feel sorry for her? Aw, don’t be sad, Becca. Hey, I bet I can cheer you up.”

They were quiet, and I was gripped by the fear that they were moving on without me. In a panic, I lifted my head to see over the log.

My mouth fell open.

Rebecca Lansing was sitting on the generator, wearing a big blue canvas coat. Her bare legs were wrapped around a guard’s hips—the soldier with the sandy hair. The nearly handsome guard who had approved of her line this morning. He had one hand shoved through her messed blond hair, the other on her bare thigh. Their lips were smashed against each other with a frenzied passion.

Part of me knew this was a dream. There was no possible way in the history of the human race that prude, holy Rebecca, my roommate, my
Student Assistant,
was getting it on with a soldier. On school grounds. In the middle of the night.

Anger scored through me. Rosa was in the shack being punished while Rebecca was screwing some guy on the generator. My hands balled into fists. My jaw clenched. And if reason hadn’t completely abandoned me earlier, it did then.

Before I knew it, I was standing.

“What was—”

I wasn’t surprised to be blinded by the flashlight. It caught me right in the face, blacking out the people behind it. I threw up a hand to guard my eyes and marched forward blindly around the log, over the branches and debris.

“Who is that?” I heard Rebecca say. And then, “Oh, my God.”

The guard cursed.
Sean,
she had called him. He detached himself from Rebecca and lunged forward toward me. I almost wanted him to reach me. All I saw when I looked at him was his stony face as he’d dragged Rosa away.

“Stop it!” Rebecca hopped down off the generator and jumped in front of him. “Ember, what are you doing here?” I hated that perky little voice.

“You
liar
!” I growled.

“What? How long have you been here?”

“Long enough,
Becca.
” My words, though raspy, flew out like water from a busted pipe.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“Oh,
really
?”

“I thought you said she was asleep!” Banks nearly shouted.

“Shut up, Sean!” she snapped. When he didn’t answer, she grabbed my sleeve and tried to jerk me toward the facility. “Come on, we’re going back.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m done listening to you.”

“You have to come. The next guard will be coming through in a few minutes. You get caught, you’re done for. Get it?”

“Just me? I don’t think so,” I said, in a voice that sounded like mine but far bolder. Everything about me seemed disconnected. My skin was ice cold, but the blood running beneath was hot. My organs all felt like separate fragmented pieces. It took great effort to breathe the frigid air. I did not feel like myself at all.

“You think they care that Sean and I are out here?” she said, waving her arms in frustration. “You think they haven’t done the same thing? They watch each other’s backs, okay? They’ll punish you for telling on him.”

“Maybe they will,” I agreed, and felt my resentment kick up another notch. “And maybe the guards don’t care, but I’m sure Ms. Brock would love to hear how her shining star is sneaking around with one of the soldiers.”

Banks looked at her, his face twisting with panic—with
real
emotion. Then he stared at me, terror melting into desperation.

“She’ll never believe you,” he said to me.

“Maybe not. But they’ll watch
her,
won’t they? They’ll have a guard by our room, making sure she doesn’t try anything, and—” In all honesty, I didn’t know what Ms. Brock would do, but Sean’s darkening look told me I’d hit the mark.

“You can’t tell her … Miller, right? Becca’s out in three months. You have to give her that long.”

“Let me handle this, Sean,” she said.

I was taken aback by his burst of chivalry. Was he really trying to protect her? I crossed my arms over my chest. Maybe they weren’t all as dead inside as they seemed.

Well, maybe some of them weren’t, anyway.

“You … you can’t tell, Ember. You
can’t.
”

“And what’s stopping me?”

With an audible intake of breath, Sean flicked the strap off the gun at his waist. I could tell by his round, conflicted eyes that he didn’t want to shoot me, but that didn’t stifle my fear one bit. In that moment I remembered Randolph’s baton on my throat, and Brock’s whip on my hands, and wondered why I thought this soldier wouldn’t be capable of the very same or worse.

I fought the urge to run.

“She said the next guard will be through in a few minutes!” I shouted. “How are you going to explain why Rebecca was here if you shoot me?” I was shaking now. I hoped neither of them could see it in the darkness. He wouldn’t shoot me. Not for this. He couldn’t. There was too much risk.

Please don’t let him shoot me.

“Sean,” Rebecca said softly. He lowered his hand, but I still didn’t breathe.

“What do you want?” Sean asked. In exchange for my secrecy he was going to cut a deal.

“I need to get out of here. I need to find my mother,” I said, my voice getting hoarser the more I talked.

“We have to go!” Rebecca’s voice squeaked higher. She was looking over her shoulder, presumably for the next guard on rotation. Now that I said I’d tell Brock, she was afraid I would tell everyone.

Sean sucked in a sharp breath. “And if I help you, you swear you won’t tell the headmistress.” He wasn’t asking. He’d taken another step forward, placing himself between me and his girlfriend. I was surprised at how lean he looked now, with his face drawn in fear. How large his eyes seemed. The thin lines of his mouth.

“
No.
Sean, no!” Rebecca was pulling on his arm like a child. When he continued to stare at me, she pushed past him, standing inches away from me. “If he’s caught he’ll get in trouble.
Serious
trouble. You don’t—”

“Miller,” Sean prompted, ignoring her.

“Yes. I swear. You get me out, and I won’t tell Ms. Brock.” I felt a piece of me break inside, suddenly remembering the horror in my mother’s face when I’d told Roy to leave our home. I had been trying to do the right thing, but hurting someone else to accomplish that goal was almost unbearable. It was not so different now, even though I hardly knew these people.

“Okay,” said Sean. “I’ll … figure out something.” He kicked the log I had been hiding behind.

“How? When?” The blood was rushing back through my body at his assent.

“Not now. She’s right. The next guard will be rotating through soon. You have to let me think.”