Cages (12 page)

I hit my bunk and all the air whistled out of me.  Still a little
buzzed, still terrified of what I had just escaped.

“Got a taste of the Blind Hall, huh?” Dave called sleepily.  “How
was it?”

I looked down at him.  “You ever been?”

He opened his eyes and returned my look.  “Once was all I needed.”

I lay back on my mattress.  “You and me both, man.”

Blind Hall was a symptom of a much more subtle Quarantine sickness. 
Remembering the bodies on the floor, the leering way Kenny had boozed me up, I
recognized another of my mother’s lessons about history.  Kenny was the
strongman.  Conyers was the real power.  The Hall was a lanced boil
Conyers allowed to ooze to lower the pressure threatening to explode at any
moment.  I would never go back there, even if Kenny didn’t have it in for
me.  It would be too much like submission to our dear and benevolent
principal, and in spite of my recent servitude to the man, I had found there
was a line I didn’t want to cross. 

Gail did stay in my thoughts the rest of the night though, and I
wondered: with five years left to me alone in this hellhole, would I be able to
stay away? 

Rumors pass by osmosis in
Quarantine.  Secrets no one should know seep from the cracks in the walls,
drip out through the bullet holes.Over three hundred volatile souls huddled
together in a large concrete prison forms a rumor mill gestalt where everyone
knows everything about everyone.It was naive of me to think my meetings with
Conyers wouldn't be noticed.  Along with rumors and social hierarchy,
Quarantine is built on routine.  A change in one kid's routine won't slide
under the radar for very long.In the two weeks since I began my furtive jaunts
to the Principal's office I started getting more accusing stares stares and
glowering looks.
  Kenny fueling it, no doubt.
  Guys would lunge at me in the hall, trying
to get me to
flinch
. 
I'd like to say I never jumped, but I did.  In class wads of paper and
spitballs were thrown.  Before long it was clear my social status had been
irrevocably sealed and I was branded the worst thing you could be in
Quarantine: a Rat.

One day a gang of four boys
tried to shove me into the Blind Hall.  I recognized them as Kenny
Stoppard's gang,
Bobby the cooler guard among them.
  They ignored my protests and kicked my feet
out from under me, pulling me toward the dark maw of the Hall.  I clawed
at the walls, tearing down posters and signs.  I even managed to snake one
finger into a bullet hole, but a quick swat from
Bobby
stripped some skin off and freed my hand. 
Mere feet from the threshold of Blind Hall a guard appeared out of nowhere,
snapping his MP5 to bear at my four captors.  They didn't seem too eager
to obey his commands to release me, but after it was clear than the guard
wasn't going to back down they pushed me away and melted into the depths of the
Hall.  I wondered if the guard was Biff, but I couldn't see through his
facemask and he turned smartly around and resumed his rounds as soon as he was
certain I was in the clear.

I avoided the Blind Hall at
all costs after that.
  I even found a different route to get to the
gym.

After one meeting with Conyers
I was walking back to the cafeteria, dreading the always humiliating seat hunt
that saw whole rows of empty chairs declared taken (I often had to sit at the
broken table near the trash cans, if there were no seats near Dave or Ben) when
Alan Tallart slid greasily around a corner, grinning.  "Hiya,
Sam.  Getting cozy with the Principal, I see.  Your nose sure looks
pretty brown these days."

"You're one to
talk. 
Better
a
brown-noser than a pet."

Alan's smile slipped for just
a moment, before it returned full force.  "I hear you had some
trouble with Kenny Stoppard's bunch."

I started to push past him but
he took one casual step out, blocking my way.  "Nothing
serious," I said, trying to keep my voice steady.  "Just a
misunderstanding."

"Right.  Look,
Crafty, I think we can help each other out here."  Alan slid his
backpack off and clasped my left arm warmly above the elbow.  "You
know, I'm pretty close with Kenny."

Of course he was.  Alan
moonlighted as a Blind Hall enforcer. 

"I think I can get him
off your back...if you help me out."  Alan was leering now, all
pretense of friendliness gone.

"What do you need me
for?  You got a better in with Conyers than I do."

Alan looked confused for a
moment, then chuckled.  "Come on, Sam.  I'm not stupid. 
It's common knowledge what you're up to, at least to people in the know. 
People like Kenny and me.  Just give me what you've been giving Conyers
and I'll call Kenny off.  Cool?"

I simply stared blankly. 
"I don't know what you mean."  Why would Alan want information
on other students?  Blackmail, maybe?  But nothing I told Conyers was
a secret to any other student.  It was just stuff no teacher could ever
find out on their own.

Alan was still for a moment
and I began to get edgy.  You never knew when he might decide to get
rough.  I
was no
weakling,
but Alan was out of my league when it came to casual violence.  Instead,
he breathed deeply once and tried a different tactic.  "Let me tell
you a story about your buddy Remi and your buddy Conyers."

"I know Remi used to give
out drugs.  Conyers stopped him."

Alan laughed.  "You
and I both know that's not true.  Oh, he stopped Remi from giving it out,
sure.  When Remi got busted, he ordered all the drugs destroyed. 
Standard issue, right?  Just what an upstanding Principal would do. 
But then two weeks later Kenny notices something odd.  He's got fewer
customers than usual, which is weird since Remi's bust actually improved his
clientele.  Turns out there's new competition, but no one can tell where
the
stuff
's coming
from.  No one else is dealing in the Blind Hall, but kids are getting
their fix anyway.  Well, no secret's safe in Quarantine, so it didn't take
us long to figure it out."

He leaned forward, peering
into my eyes.  "If you wanted something, you wrote it down on a slip
of paper and put it in a locker, along with money.  The next day, the kid
finds his stuff waiting for him in his cell.  We kept our eyes open and do
you know who it was?  One of Conyers's pet guards!  Conyers hadn't
destroyed the stuff after all.  He doesn't give a
crap
if we deal drugs in here.  He just
wants his cut.  So," he said, sliding back, frowning at me. 
"Now you know that I already know the whole story, so there's no reason to
keep clammed.  We both know that while you may be a spineless little
worm
, you're probably not a rat, not after the
stuff
you pulled.  You
give me some of Remi's stash, and I can get Kenny off your back."

I laughed.  Not the
smartest thing to do, in hindsight, but I had suddenly realized what all this
was about.  Kenny and Alan thought I had found Remi's stash and was
dealing it to Conyers!  Seen through their eyes I was an impressive
manipulator
, playing both sides for my own profit,
and for an instant I was sorry not to be as
clever as they thought I was. 

Alan stood, his face
strawberry, hands clenched.  "Don't you
mess
with me, Crafty.  I will beat you so hard –”

Someone down the hall cleared
his throat; a masked and ready guard at the end of the hall.  He looked
down at us and shook his head silently.  Alan seethed for a moment,
looking up at the cameras.  I knew what he was thinking.  The
basketball championships were only two weeks away.  Conyers would let him
get away with a lot for those two weeks.  But finally he came to the same
conclusion I did, that basketball or no basketball, Conyers wouldn't tolerate
an altercation with one of his guards. 

Alan kicked the wall opposite
us savagely and turned back to me.  "This ain't over.  You made
the biggest mistake of your life just now.  I wouldn't sleep too soundly
if I were you."  He walked away then, keeping his distance from the
guard and he turned the corner.  The guard looked at me, shook his head
silently and followed.

I picked up my bag and walked
slowly to the cafeteria.

After dinner I told Dave what
happened.  He didn't hide his concern. "Do you think Remi really has
any meth stashed in here somewhere?"

I blinked.  "I don't
know.  Why?"

"Because that's the only
way I see out of you getting a beating.  I've known a lot of rough kids
from playing sports, but he's the meanest by far.  He won't let it go
until you come crawling to him.  He's no coward and he knows he can take
you in a fight."

"So I should just bow to
him?"

"That's all the advice I
have to give."  Dave gave me a stern look.  "At least as
long as you're still a rat." 

Conyers was not happy when I
told him I was planning to ask Kate to the homecoming dance.

 
"Why
not?"  I crossed my arms stubbornly.  In all this time, not once
had he told me a single trick or exercise or anything that might stave off the onset
of the Beast transformation. 

He sighed deeply, fiddling
with his glasses with his one left hand.  "I told you why."

I scowled.  "I don't
even know what I'm doing here.  Why am I even talking to you?

Devilish grin.  "Because
you needed a daddy figure to tell you it would all be okay.  And it will
be, you know.  Of course it will be."  

The pain of seeing the Beast
attack was fading and I was coming to regret placing my trust in Conyers. 
Clearly he knew
zilch
about
preventing the transformation. 
H
e was just using me as his eyes and ears amongst the teenagers in the
Quarantine. 
H
e was as
dirty as they come, selling kids their own drugs back to them.
Still,
I
had
found some release in talking to him, as if he
were my confessor.  Perhaps I was still enough of a child to need an adult
to tell me the things I was worried about weren't important, that, as he said,
everything was going to be all right.  I was disgusted with myself. 
"I don't want to come here every day anymore."

He raised an eyebrow. 
"Oh?  Got better things to do?"

"People are calling me a
rat.  They say I'm spilling secrets to you."

"And so you are. 
Didn't you know that's what you were doing?"  Conyers offered me a
peppermint from his desk. 

I took it, sulking. 
"That's not why I come here.  I don't tell you everything."

"Yes you do, Sam. 
So what, people think you're a rat.  Deal with it.  You'll continue
to come here every day, or there will be consequences."

I bit the peppermint in
two.  "What consequences?"

"You want to ask little
Kate out?  Too bad, she'll be locked in the Bell.  You want Alan
Tallart to leave you alone?  I can guarantee he doesn't.  You like
having the guards' protection?  I'll lift the edict I had to put out
saying that you were to be watched over.  They don't care much for you
after your little banner incident, you know."

"
Crap
," I said softly. 

"I have a million
wonderful ways of making your life a living hell here.  Continue to feed
me information and you never have to see any of them."

I avoided Alan as best I
could, more or less sprinting from class to class.  I saw him twice,
staring at me, shaking his head and leering.  It was clear from his
expression; a reckoning was coming.  All my plans had backfired from that
one moment of weakness when I had swallowed Conyers's
lies
.  James would have been embarrassed to have
seen me, cowering in my classrooms like a frightened puppy.  I had started
off well, done what he said.  At one point Remi, Dave and Ben would have
followed me anywhere, but I had squandered that trust.  Who the hell knew
what Remi would do to me once he got out of solitary?  I was all alone
again.

Two days after Conyers's
threats, there was a lockdown during club time.  Someone had gone Beast in
the Math wing, which was only two halls down from where we were in the English
wing.  The door automatically sealed shut and we all assumed our panic
positions, desks overturned and us hidden behind them.  I was surprised to
see Kate next to me, flattening herself against the floor.

I haven't talked much about
what Kate looked like, because I
only
saw her as a worthy opponent at
first
, not as a real girl.  But as soon as I
thought about asking her to homecoming, I started to notice little
details.  She wasn't tall, but she carried herself so upright that she
didn't seem shorter than anyone else.  She had long black hair that seemed
to have some natural curl in it she wished were gone (she straightened it
often, but you could see the curl anyway) which she tied up in a thick ponytail. 
Her face was serious
. 
The
way a cliff face can be.
  Thick hipster glasses.
  In any case, she looked good enough for me
to be attracted once I realized there was girl behind the acerbic wit.

"Hey," I whispered.

She turned to me. 
"What?"