Gated (25 page)

I walk past the clubhouse and on to the stables. The quiet here is overwhelming. Every stall is empty.
Where are the animals?

I start to jog past the pigpens, chicken coop, and corral, which are equally bare, their doors gaping open. When my dizziness doesn’t get the best of me, I run toward the orchard, increasing my speed with every step.

Beyond the back wall of the development, just past the entrance to the Silo, the sky is glowing. I can hear voices … and there’s something else. Fire. I can smell the smoke from where I’m standing.

I’m shaking, I don’t know why. I manage to climb the apple tree closest to the wall and perch on the highest branch that’s sturdy enough to support me. There are bright red apples all around me, ready to be picked, but it’s too late for us to take them with us into the shelter. I move the branches and look out at the prairie.

I’m expecting to see police cars and trucks, maybe floodlights and men in flak jackets—like in the movies. I’m that sure that the sheriff has already made his way here. But instead there are several large bonfralodlires blazing. Our trucks are parked by them and I can see people standing around the edge, although they’re too far away to make out clearly.

At first I can’t figure out what’s going on. Then I notice the animals. The fire closest to them sends flickering shadows across their sides, but I can still make out the familiar shapes of their chests and legs. They are lying so close
together that they’re practically on top of one another. And they aren’t moving.

None of what I’m seeing makes sense. I grip the branches so hard that the bark bites into my palms. A slippery sickness wraps around my stomach and squeezes.

I watch as two men begin to stack wood around the animals and between them. I can’t see them clearly enough to know exactly who they are. I think one of them might be Mr. Whitcomb. He strikes a match. I can see the pinprick of light. Then he leans down and lights a bunch of … hay maybe, or prairie grass. It flares, yellow and orange flame engulfing it in seconds. Then he pushes it into the pile of bodies. They’ve tucked wood around them. I can see it now. Flames leap upward and lick at the sky before wrapping themselves around the animals.

I can see Mr. Whitcomb clearly now. He’s folded his arms and is staring grimly into the fire. The man next to him peels away from the lopsided circle once he’s through laying down wood. He staggers away from the bonfire and hunches over. I see the familiar shock of blond hair in the firelight and realize that it’s Will. He’s vomiting. And then everything hits me all at once, with a terrible jolt. They’ve killed our animals and are now setting them on fire.

The air should smell bad, like sulfur or rot, but it doesn’t. It smells like roasting meat, like some kind of morbid feast, and somehow this makes everything that’s just happened worse. I gag and hunch over the side of the branch I’m on. I rid myself of my own meager dinner.
Tears sting my eyes and my mouth won’t close. Once I’ve thrown up everything, the screams come—from somewhere deep inside of me, the place that Indy claimed a long time ago.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been screaming when I’m finally able to stop, but Will’s seen me and so have the others. My dad is running toward the wall, but I don’t want him anywhere near me. I don’t want any of them near me ever again. I scramble awkwardly down the tree, lose my grip and fall the rest of the way, landing hard on my butt. Bright hot pain travels up my back, making me sick to my stomach all over again. I’m crying, deep, body-shaking sobs.

Indy’s gone.

They killed him.

They killed them all.

It was the animals that were screaming. The sounds still echo in my ears. I’m running, but I have no idea where to go. Lights are coming on in the houses now. I spin around in a circle and drop to my knees.

“Indy, Indy!”
I wail. I’m hunched over in the middle of the street and I don’t care. I can’t care about anything, not now.

I thought that we came here to get away from all of the ugly in this world. This was supposed to be our haven. This was supposed to be better.
We
were supposed to be better. But this, right here, is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. And there isn’t a shelter insulated enough to protect me from it.

I’m not sure how long I’m on the ground, but when I finally become aware of more than just my grief, I’m surrounded by people. My mom’s got her arms around me, alternately stroking and shushing me. I push up and away from her and stare at the crowd.

“They killed Indy. The animals, they burned them,” I say. I search face after face for some sign of the same outrage I feel, but they just look at me.

“Calm down, Lyla. Let me explain,” Dad says as he crouches down beside me.

“You murdered them! They knew, they were screaming and scared. You shot them and then you … you … b-b-burned them!” I scream.

Dad looks up at the crowd. “We had to, Lyla. Please try to understand.”

“I don’t want to understand! I hope I never do. How could you?”

Dad sits back on his heels and closes his eyes, takes a
deep breath. “We enter the Silo tomorrow. You’ve always known that we can’t take them in there with us. Would you rather we just left them to slowly starve? This was the humane thing to do.”

I cover my ears. “No, no, no! Don’t you try to make it sound kind.
They were screaming!
”

The men stare at me, each of them trying not to look guilty, but failing. Will’s standing just past my dad, his face pale and sickly. He won’t look at me. I remember how he vomited into the grass. Does he hate what just happened as much as I do? Why didn’t he try to stop them?

“Will, how could you let them? How could you?”

He seems to sink into himself. I can tell he hates what happened. He obviously didn’t make the decision to do this, but it doesn’t matter. He was a still a part of it and right now I hate him, hate all of them.

“Lyla …,” Will says miserably.

“I don’t want to hear it! Just leave me alone, Will Richardson!” I shout at him. “I can’t even look at you anymore.”

“Lyla, that’s enough,” Dad says quietly. “He did what he had to do; we all did. You can’t be a child about this.”

“I don’t understand any of this anymore. What are we doing here? What kind of life is this?” I say.

My mother’s hand flutters in my hair. “You’re upset, sweetie. You have every right to be, but once we’re underground, once you’ve had time to think about all of this, it’ll all make sense, I promise.”

“None of this will ever make sense. I thought we came
here to escape all of the ugliness out there, but we can’t, can we? It’s here too. We pretend like it’s all okay—this place, our routines—but it’s built on lies. How many of you knew about the animals? How many of you kept it from the rest of us? From me? How can we trust each other if some of us are hiding things?” I start crying again. “How are we better than the people in town when we trewn us? Frat each other exactly the same way in the end?”

“Sweetie, it’s been an upsetting morning, but if you’ll just come inside the house, we can talk about it while we pack the last of our things,” Mom pleads.

“You’re not listening! Pioneer could be lying about everything. No one outside of this place is preparing for the apocalypse. How can he be the only one who knows about it? Would the Brethren really choose someone who’s been in jail as their messenger?” I can hear a few people gasp. Others glare at me.

I look over at my parents. My mom looks stricken, like I’ve just slapped her. “Any lies he may have told I’m sure were for the good of the Community.” She shakes her head. “This is not the time for this, Lyla Hamilton.”

“This is the
perfect
time for this. How can you not see what’s happening? We don’t have to go into the Silo today. We can wait and see, talk to the Outsiders and decide for ourselves what’s really true. We don’t have to obey him and never question what he says, don’t you see?”

“Pioneer is a good man!” Mom yells, and because she rarely ever raises her voice, it’s enough to silence me. “He
kept us safe for ten years. He took us out of that city after Karen”—she swallows hard—“disappeared. He made our lives good again. It is the end of the world. I’ve known it was coming ever since your sister and those towers. How can so much evil go unpunished? And you know what? I’m glad it’s the end, Lyla. I want it. I’ve wanted it for so long. Once it’s all gone, I’ll never have to worry about losing someone I love again. We’ll be together. We’ll be safe in the Silo, where none of them can ever hurt us again.”

I stare at my mom openmouthed. Her face is flushed, her eyes wild and too large in her pinched face. For the first time I really see just how desperate she is to cut all ties with the outside world for good. If we could’ve moved into the Silo right when we moved here ten years ago, she probably would have. This is what she’s been wanting all along.

“It’s easy to make accusations when the person you’re accusing isn’t there to defend themselves, isn’t it?” Pioneer’s voice booms across the open space and I can’t help cringing.
How much has he heard?
He’s standing in the doorway of my house and he’s got my backpack in one hand. “You’ve had your say. Now I think it might be time for me to have mine.”

The crowd’s eyes swivel from me to him. They don’t believe me. I can feel it.

“Please, everyone,” I say, “just consider the possibility that he’s got things wrong. Why can’t we wait until we’re sure before going underground? Why are we rushing?”

Pioneer runs into the street. He slaps me hard across the face and I stumble backward. My head throbs in protest and my brain feels tender inside my head. I back away from Pioneer and hold my hand up to my flaming cheek. No one comes to my rescue or even looks at me, not even my parents.

“Unfortunately, our Lyla has been corrupted. Of course, I blame myself. Had I not asked her to give the sheriff’s son a tour of our development the other day, we may have managed to avoid all of this. That boy has turned her head and influenced her against us. The sheriff planned it. He sent his son to spy and to lead her away. I should have r shl oecognized it that day. He wants to stop us. He wants to come in and take our shelter … it became clear yesterday morning when I went to the hospital for Lyla. And he won’t stop, not until he’s displaced us and taken all we’ve worked for for himself and his kind. I’m starting to think he even arranged for Lyla’s little accident so that he could get more information out of her.”

“He’s lying! I’m not saying any of this because of Cody or the sheriff. Please believe me,” I say. I look at my parents and they look from me to Pioneer and back again.

Pioneer throws a pitying smile at me and shakes his head. I glare at him. Then he unzips my backpack and drops the contents onto the grass. He stoops over and picks up one of the magazines and the book I got for Marie. “You see what she’s brought back with her, what she’s stolen? She has been breaking our rules, influencing Will and the
other kids to sneak out in the middle of the night, arranging secret meetings with the sheriff’s son, probably letting him have his way with her even though she’s intended for someone else.”

My cheeks burn. “He did
not
have his way with me. And I didn’t steal anything. Someone gave the books to me.”

“This someone?” Pioneer’s holding up my sketchbook, which is flipped open to my portrait of Cody.

Will looks at the paper and then at me. My feelings for Cody are crystal clear in the care I took in drawing him and the expression I captured on his face. Will blinks a few times and his jaw tightens. He looks so hurt, so angry, that I can’t help reaching out to him. “Will, I …”

He brushes away my hand and pushes past the crowd and runs toward the lake.

“Lyla?” Mom is looking at me like she doesn’t know who I am anymore.

“Mom, it’s not exactly like he says. I didn’t steal anything. Please believe me. I would never steal. I …”

“But the boy?” she presses. “I saw you with him in the store … and I knew … but I brushed it away. And then he was at the hospital today, wasn’t he? I’d almost forgotten until now. Oh, Lyla, what have you done?”

She says this like I have any control over who I’m attracted to, as if I can shut my feelings off like a faucet. How can she blame any of this on me? Why can’t she believe me and not him?

I look down at my feet. I don’t know what to say.

Pioneer is now holding up the money Marie gave me and letting it fall through his fingers. I hear several people gasp and I know that I’m finished. I look like the liar now, not Pioneer. It’s all too much for my mom. She turns away from me to bury her head in my dad’s chest.

“Dad …” I will him to look at me, but he’s still staring at the money. Even if he did look at me, what can I really say? Do I tell them it’s Marie’s money? Who would believe it now?

I look up and search the crowd for Marie. She’s standing beside her parents. Her eyes meet mine and I can almost feel her fear. She’s waiting for me to call her out, to tell everyone that she’s the one who wanted the books and magazines. But she won’t volunteer herself. And I realize that I can’t turn her in. I’m in trouble no matter what. The money doesn„y wanted t9;t explain away the portrait of Cody. Bringing her into this will only make things worse. So I shake my head slightly at her and turn to face Pioneer.