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Birdman motioned for them both to be quiet, and then he stood.

“Isaiah,” he said. “I’m not you. I don’t lead a gang. I’m not working for the school, and I don’t have any contracts to fill. Instead, I run this fort, and I keep my people safe.”

Tears began to flow down Isaiah’s face. “Just let me go.”

Mouse laughed again, and Birdman smiled. “That’s actually exactly what I had in mind.”

Becky shuddered. We couldn’t do anything but watch.

“So,” Birdman said, motioning to Harvard. “You can live down at the Greens, and I’ll see you in the commissary, and we can tell stories about the good old days.”

Isaiah almost looked like he believed it.

“Even better,” Birdman said, looking toward the door. “I have a peace offering.” A few more people started filing into the room. I knew two of them. Walnut and Jelly.

Oh, no
.

Isaiah began to convulse, sobbing loudly and falling to his knees.

“I’ve arranged an escort for you,” Birdman said.

Walnut and Jelly had been sent to detention. I’d watched Walnut dragged on his back down the floor of the school, Isaiah leading the procession of attackers. The six of them standing in the room looked like they were eager for payback.

“You can’t do this,” I said.

“Do what?” Birdman asked innocently.

People at the windows began shouting, some calling for Isaiah’s blood and others screaming for mercy.

“Mouse,” I said. “Aren’t you better than this?”

She smiled and raised her hands. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Come on,” I protested. “Walnut—you can’t.”

He stared back at me from across the room. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

“Isaiah,” Becky said, tears on her face. “I’m sorry.”

He looked at her. There was no snide comment. No “I hope you’re happy.” No accusations of hypocrisy. Only fear.

Walnut stepped forward, one of the hammers from the work site tight in his fist. He stared down at Isaiah.

“You gonna walk, or do we need to carry you?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

B
ecky and I were the only ones left in the room, and neither of us spoke. Screams and laughter echoed around the heavy adobe walls, and arms reached through the narrow windows as those outside fought to get in. Mouse and Harvard had taken the lanterns with them when they’d gone, leaving the two of us in darkness.

I didn’t want to go outside. I couldn’t stop them, and I didn’t want to watch anyone—even Isaiah—being beaten to death.

Becky’s jaw was clamped shut, her teeth gritted against the pain in her arm.

Someone called from a window, “Open the fort! They’re killing him.”

“There’s nothing I can do,” I said, too quiet for them to hear. There were too many of them. They were armed.

“Benson!” another voice shouted. “Help him!”

“I can’t!” I shouted, standing up now. “There’s nothing I can do.”

Something clattered across the floor. It was too dark to see what.

Becky grabbed my leg, and I crouched back down next to her. Blood was oozing through her shirt. Her arm had been healing rapidly, but her fall had reinjured the muscle.

She fought against the pain. “We have to try.”

“No.”

Something else was flung into the room, smacking into the far adobe wall and knocking plaster to the floor.

I put my arm around her shoulders to coax her up, but Becky didn’t budge. It wasn’t stubbornness—it was pain.

“Come on,” I said.

“I’m okay,” she said, more to herself than to me. “I’ll be okay.”

The noise at the windows subsided for a moment, and then I heard the yells and grunts of a fight. The entire town had exploded. Those still loyal to the Society were fighting to save Isaiah, while those who had hated him were eager to see justice done. And some, it seemed, were just going crazy—settling old scores and letting the madness of the mob sweep over them.

Something crashed into the fort wall, shattering.

“We have to go,” I said, pulling Becky’s good arm over my shoulders and lifting her to her feet. She didn’t fight it this time. I helped her put her oversize coat back on.

When we stepped onto the boardwalk, I froze.

The only light in the courtyard came from a dying campfire, sputtering red and yellow across frozen ground. A dark figure lay on the earth, next to the well. His leg moved, so I knew he was alive. A dozen people stood around him, laughing and jeering.

Someone stepped forward and kicked. Isaiah’s back slammed into the stones of the well and he screamed.

I looked up and down the boardwalk, searching for help, but no one was there—just closed doors. Everyone was hiding or, worse yet, pretending to not know what was going on.

Another guy—someone tall and heavyset—jumped and landed with both feet on Isaiah’s chest, and three more started kicking.

I’d seen this before, on the streets of Pittsburgh, when one gang found a lone enemy late at night in the wrong place.

“Benson.” The word sounded almost like a gasp, like a cry. She wasn’t trying to get me to help him now—there was nothing we could do, and we both knew it.

I had to get us out of there.

I stepped out onto the boardwalk and slid along the wall, trying to stay in the shadows as I inched us closer and closer to the gate. It would be guarded—it always was—but we had to leave.

“This is for Cookie.” We were halfway across the courtyard from them, but I could hear the crack. I wasn’t watching—my eyes were on the boards below me, trying not to make a sound—but Becky must have been.

“They killed him,” she whispered. “They killed him.”

I didn’t look up. The boards were old and broken, and a misstep would mean noise and attention. I crept farther, remembering everything I’d been taught back at the school playing paintball—my heel touching first and then rolling my foot forward slowly, walking sideways and crossing my legs instead of walking forward. It was harder for Becky—she wasn’t steady on her feet, and I was trying to keep her from falling.

The front door was getting close. I didn’t know where we could go—Becky probably couldn’t run, and I didn’t know of anywhere else to hide than the Basement. We could go to the barn for now, or maybe get help from the Greens or some of the V’s who’d just shown up. It wasn’t much, but it was our best shot.

At least we had our coats.

“Hey!”

I didn’t stop to look. I hurried to the door.

“They’re coming,” Becky whispered.

I ran, stumbling across the uneven boards.

The voices were louder, close behind us. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I turned the corner to see Mouse at the door, a small lantern hanging on the wall beside her. A box cutter was in her hand, the blackened blade extended.

“Let us go,” I said, but before she could answer we were surrounded.

“You were Society, too,” said the guy in the front. I didn’t know him, though I’d seen him in the fort before. Isaiah must have sent him to detention before I’d gotten to the school.

“Leave her alone,” I said.

“Like she left us alone?” A chain was hanging from his hands.

“I didn’t do security,” Becky said with a wheeze. She was standing on her own, but bent slightly at the waist, and cradling her bad arm with her good one.

“You had the contract,” another said. “You joined the Society even though you knew what they were doing.”

Walnut took a step toward us. His hammer was wet with blood.

My legs felt weak. I hoped they couldn’t see my hands shaking.

“Leave her alone,” I said again. There was no threat in my voice anymore—I couldn’t fight them, not all of them, not unarmed.

Someone pushed through the group, and as he moved into the light I could see his face. Skiver.

“You’re with these guys?” I asked. “You’re a jackass, Skiver, but you’re not a murderer.”

He smiled. “You’ve been asking for it for a long time, Fisher.”

Without waiting, he threw a punch. I couldn’t move—I had Becky next to me and Mouse behind me—and the best I could do was try to deflect it. His fist skittered up my arm and into my shoulder, and I punched back. I hit his chest, but weakly.

Becky shouted something, and the rest of the guys poured over us. I fought as hands and arms tried to wrap around me, tried to hold me down. I elbowed a guy in the neck, and kicked another in the knee—hard—but it was like fighting a tidal wave.

Bright lights exploded in my head as someone hit me, and something got me in the stomach—I don’t know whether it was a fist or a foot, but it felt like a freight train and I doubled over, falling to my knees. I waited for the next blow—the hammer, or the chain, or whatever else. But it didn’t come.

“Pick him up,” someone shouted, and an arm instantly snaked around my neck, pulling me to my feet and blocking my air.

The group was standing back a little, a small circle formed in the tiny alcove in front of the gate. Becky was on the ground, struggling to sit up. Skiver stood over her.

“Hi, Becky,” he said, a low giggle escaping his lips. The laugh rippled back across the group.

I fought against whoever was holding me, kicking backward, my feet searching for his knees, but I was losing air.

Skiver bent down, closer to her. “Re-bec-ca.”

I reached back, uselessly trying to grab my captor’s face, trying to gouge his eyes. I couldn’t.

“Always so innocent,” Skiver said. “Always telling everyone else what to do.”

Becky pushed her back to the wall and gingerly stood.

Calmly, Skiver reached to her arm and squeezed her wound. She shrieked and slid back down the wall.

“Stop,” I tried to say, but I couldn’t force out the air. I felt my body growing weak.

Skiver touched Becky’s face, and with an anguished scream she brought her knee up into his crotch. The mob howled in cruel amusement as Skiver reeled back. But it was only a moment, and he was on top of her, grabbing her by the neck and shrieking that she’d regret it.

And suddenly he was silent.

Mouse had stepped from the shadow by the door, her box cutter under his chin.

“You’re done,” she said. “Get back.”

Skiver was motionless, his body frozen as his eyes darted from Becky’s face up to Mouse’s.

Mouse’s words were quiet, but sharp and clear. “You get off her, or I gut you like a fish.”

Slowly, carefully, he crawled backward. Mouse kept the razor tight against his skin until he was out of reach of Becky.

Becky’s eyes were locked on mine, her face flushed and tearstained as she scrambled along the base of the wall toward the gate.

“You’re done,” Mouse said again, fearlessly staring down a dozen guys with only the small box cutter. She stepped back to the gate and pulled a rope. The warning bell clanged once, then twice. She pointed at me. “Let him down.”

There was a pause, and then the arm around my neck released and I collapsed to the ground, sucking at the air. My lungs burned, and as I tried to move over to Becky I almost blacked out and had to stop.

She rang the bell again. “Birdman! Get out here!”

I heard the heavy clunk of the door being unlocked, the squeal of rusty metal as Mouse pushed it halfway open.

“What the hell is going on here?” It was Birdman’s voice, somewhere behind all the guys.

We didn’t stay. Regaining my composure, I helped Becky to her feet.

She touched Mouse’s arm as we stepped out the door. “Thank you.”

Mouse just shook her head without meeting our eyes, and then motioned for us to leave.

The fights outside were over. A few groups mingled together, picking one another up and wandering back to the Greens. As we walked away, three Society guys made a dash for the gate, likely to get inside and save their leader. I ignored them.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, crossing the road and walking slowly out into the field.

Becky nodded. “You?”

“I’m fine,” I said. I stopped and pulled her scarf up over her mouth and nose. She stared back at me, her eyes showing more pain than she’d ever admit to.

I covered my face, too, and then steered us toward the stream. In a moment we were walking beside it, in the black shadows of the tangled trees.

“You’re going to get better,” I said.

“Of course,” she said, and it sounded like she meant it. She was good at lying.

I looked back at the fort, now maybe a football field away. The gate was hanging open. I didn’t know whether people had gone in or come out. No one was there.

Except … there was a kid standing on the roof, half-lit by the single small lantern. There was no way he could see us—it was too far, and it was too dark.

I thought it was Mason. I couldn’t tell.

“Where are we going?” Becky asked. She was moving so slow it could hardly be called walking.

“The forest,” I said. “They can’t get us out there. The implant won’t let them.”

“They can’t, but Iceman can,” she said.

I stopped at the stream and picked her up. I finally felt like I had the strength to not pass out and drop her, and keeping her dry seemed like the least I could do.

Her heavy coat was deceptive—she didn’t weigh much at all, maybe even less than when we got to the town.

“Let’s go to Shelly,” Becky said.

“Skiver—all those guys—they’ll find us.”

“What choice do we have?”

I kept walking, past the commissary and the washroom, past the barracks, and stopped at the work site. “Can you walk?”

She smiled. “I’m not an invalid.”

I set her down, and she did her best to hide the wince as she slipped out of my arms. I stepped into the construction site and tore a heavy sheet of plastic off a pallet of siding.

“Where are we going?”

“You grew up on a ranch,” I said, directing her down toward the end of the road. “I’m going to ask you to tolerate a stinky night.”

She shook her head. “Don’t they check the barn? It seems too obvious.”

I stopped and pointed at the tiny red structure beside the road. “I’ve never seen anyone check the chicken coops.”

Becky stared for a moment, then laughed and leaned into me. “If I get bird flu, I’m blaming you.”