Hunted (13 page)

He hadn’t mentioned anything to me about going somewhere. I pushed back from the table and ran to his room. His bed was unmade and there was no sign of him. I heard the front door close and I sprinted toward it, my heart racing in relief that he was back. But it wasn’t him. It was Dani.
 

“Good morning, Morgan.” She had a bright smile on her face.
 

“Do you know where Billy went?”

She looked confused. “Went? What do you mean? Isn’t he here?”

Fresh panic pounded through my head. “No, he’s not.”

“Maybe he wanted to test his disguise a little more.”

I bit my lip as I digested this. Would he do something like that without telling me? He must know how worried I’d be. “Maybe,” I said slowly.

“Tell you what. Let’s give him some time to come back, and then we can start looking for him. Okay?”

I didn’t know what else I could do. “Okay.”
 

But an hour later he still wasn’t back.

Chapter Thirteen

“We need to go look for him,” I said to Dani and Jack, who were talking in low tones in the family room. “Please.”

Dani turned towards me. “Morgan, be honest with me. Has he ever said anything to you about leaving?”

I vividly recalled his comment two days before when he’d stated he didn’t want to stay around and see me ruin my life. I’d believed him then, but after the day before when I’d felt so much closer to him, I thought he’d changed his mind, that he would stick around and support me. “Well, sort of.”

“What did he say?” Jack asked.

“He kind of implied he didn’t want to be here when I went back to Camp Willowmoss.”

Dani glanced at Jack, then smiled at me. “There you go, then. He must have been upset and left.”

I didn’t like it. Of course not. Why would I? My one true friend had abandoned me. My shoulders slumped and I sank onto the couch.

“It will be okay,” Dani said, coming over to sit next to me. “We’re still here.” She gestured to the room where Jack, Nathan, Mitch, and Kelly were assembled. “We’re here to make sure this mission is successful.” She smiled at me again. “It’s important to
all
of us that this goes right.”

I tried to push aside my devastation that Billy had left me and recalled his concern that Jack and Dani hadn’t come up with a plan to get me out of Camp Willowmoss. “Speaking of the mission,” I said, wishing intently that Billy was by my side to back me up, “What ideas have you come up with to get me out of Camp Willowmoss once I get my sister and the information you want?”

“We were just discussing that,” Jack said from his easy chair. “And we’ve come up with some really great ideas.”

“Like what?”

He laughed. “We’ll break it all down for you once we have a solid plan. But don’t worry, Morgan. We’re going to get you out of there.”

That was easy for him to say.
He
wasn’t the one going into the lion’s den, as Billy had called it. “How long do you think I’ll have to be in there?”

“Just a week or two,” Dani said.

I did a quick calculation. If I was to get to the tunnel on time, and if I spent up to two weeks in Camp Willowmoss, I’d need to get
inside
within the next two weeks. “When do you think I’ll be ready to be dropped off at Camp Willowmoss?” As I said the words, my heart pounded a little harder. The reality seemed to be getting ever closer.

Dani’s eyebrows went up. “I didn’t realize you were so eager to go.”

“It’s not that,” I said without thinking.

“Then what is it?”

I couldn’t exactly tell them I only had until November tenth to get back to a tunnel that would take me to another universe, but I did have another good reason. “I just want to get my sister out. The longer she’s in there, the more traumatized she’s going to be.”

Dani nodded. “Yes, I can see how that would be a worry for you.”

Her calm attitude irritated me for some reason. Maybe it was because I knew she really had no idea what went on inside the F.A.T. center I’d been in. Or maybe it was because she would be safely outside while I would be risking everything.
For their cause
. Did she truly appreciate what I was going to do? Sudden anger toward them bubbled up inside me. Because of them I’d been forced into a position that had led to Billy leaving me. I stood. “I need to be alone for a while.” I went into the room where I’d been staying, and closed the door.

I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, picturing Billy sneaking out early this morning. Why couldn’t he even come say good-bye? Was he afraid I’d try to talk him out of leaving?
 

I rolled over and faced the wall as tears filled my eyes and dripped down my face. All along I’d known how much I cared about him and how much I’d relied upon him, but it wasn’t until that moment that I truly understood how alone I felt without him. He was the
only
person who knew my secret, and yet he’d stayed by my side. When we’d left Fox Run after my failed attempt to get back home, he’d promised me—
promised me
—that he would make sure I got back to the tunnel in time. Now that was all in question. I was completely on my own. Could I even get there without his help? I would have to. I had no other choice.

But what about this crazy mission to Camp Willowmoss? Should I even do it? Should I risk it? Before, in the back of my mind, I’d believed Billy would make it all work out for me. Somehow. But now he was gone and it was all on me. Did I really have it in me?
 

Then I pictured Amy, who at that very moment was probably hunched over a toilet, scrubbing away someone else’s excrement, an Enforcer hovering over her, taunting her, as she worked in a drug-induced stupor. Could I condemn her to six months of that? And probably longer, once they added on the time to punish me for stabbing Hansen and escaping. She was only
thirteen
. And she had done nothing wrong.

Gut-wrenching guilt over what I’d caused battled with crushing terror over what my future held. I curled into a ball, wishing with every fiber of my being that this was all just a nightmare, and if I could just wake up it would all magically go away. I squeezed my eyes closed and pinched my arm over and over, but nothing changed. I was still in this world, Amy was still in the F.A.T. center in my place, Billy had still left me on my own, and it was still up to me to make everything right.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling for another minute, then pushed myself off of the bed. I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, clearing away the evidence of my tears, then went back into the family room, resolved to get this done and over.
 

“Morgan,” Dani said. She looked pleased that I had come back on my own.

I sighed, gathering my courage. “Let’s make this happen.”

Dani’s smile grew. “Wonderful.”

I didn’t know that I would call it that, but I was committed to this crazy mission—one hundred percent—and now I wanted to get it over with.

~*~*~

The next twelve days seemed to fly by as the clock ticked ever onward toward the day I would be going back to Camp Willowmoss. I’d gained fourteen pounds since arriving at Jack’s house and I knew that would be more than enough to qualify for a stay at the F.A.T. center. The wound on my arm had healed nicely and the cream Dani had provided had made the spot where Billy had cut out the chip virtually invisible. Unless Dr. Bradley—assuming she would be the one to insert the chip again—was looking for something out of the ordinary, she would never notice the faint mark. Jack and Dani had also worked with me on a backstory, in case any of the kids I met wanted to get to know me.

For the last week I’d been wearing my new contact lenses, the ones that were supposed to trick the retinal scanner into believing I was someone else, and hide my true identity. The ones that worked eighty percent of the time—in the lab. I fervently hoped they would work in real life.
 

It was Sunday, October twenty seventh—exactly two weeks until I had to go into the tunnel and attempt to get back home. The next day someone was going to drop me off at Camp Willowmoss and I was terrified. When I’d made the commitment to go back, I had felt good about it. But now that the time was imminent, all the fear I’d held down was insistently pushing its way fully into my consciousness. There was no hiding from it now.

Brynn did a fresh dye job and trim on my hair. Then, after dinner—it really felt like a last meal—Dani asked everyone to gather in the meeting room. When we got there, a woman I’d never seen before sat on the couch. She looked like she was in her forties. Her make-up was expertly applied and her hair was swept into a chic knot at the back of her head. The only people that seemed to know her were Jack and Dani.

“Morgan,” Jack said. “I’d like you to meet Susanna.” He gestured toward the woman, who smiled at me. “She’ll be posing as your mother and she’ll be dropping you off at Camp Willowmoss tomorrow.”

“Oh.” For some reason I’d assumed it would be Dani taking me there.

“Hi, Morgan,” she said, then glanced at Jack. “Or should I say Hannah.”

“Who’s Hannah?” I asked.

“That’s the name that is encoded into your contacts for the retinal scan.”

“Oh.” I felt like an idiot for not catching on. “Okay.” I turned the name over in my mind, getting used to the feel of it. “What’s my last name?”

“Jacobs.”
 

“Hannah Jacobs,” I murmured.
 

“Keep in mind,” Jack said. “Hannah Jacobs is a real person.”

“What?” This information was unexpected.
 

Dani nodded. “That’s right. We had to use a real person. A person who’s been weighing herself regularly. We can’t very well drop you off and give them a name that’s not in their database.”

“So this Hannah that I’m impersonating, where is she right now?”

“She’s in a safe place.”

I didn’t understand. “So, if she weighs the same as me, why didn’t they come pick her up and bring her to a F.A.T. center?”

“She was using her annual waiver, so they don’t know about her weight gain yet.”

“Annual waiver? What’s that?” I asked without thinking.

Dani looked confused. “You don’t know what an annual waiver is?”

My face flushed and I scrambled to give a reasonable explanation as to why I didn’t know something that any rational person in this world would obviously know. “This whole thing is just stressing me out.”

“Everyone gets a few weeks a year where they don’t have to weigh themselves,” Nathan said. “You know, like if you go on vacation and a scale isn’t available or something. But you’re not supposed to use it more than, like, three times a year.”

I smiled at him gratefully, then shook my head like,
duh, I knew that
. “Oh yeah. Of course.”

“Anyway,” Dani said. “When she last weighed herself she was close to her weight limit, but not quite there. Then she supposedly went on vacation and now you’ll be dropped off as her and they’ll help you get back on track.”

I nodded. “So it was weight gained on vacation.”

“Exactly.”

I thought about the all-inclusive cruise ship vacation a girl at school—in my other world, obviously—told me about. She’d said it was like a food orgy—people eating constantly. I wondered if those vacations existed here. I kind of doubted it.

“Hannah’s information is encoded into your contact lenses,” Jack said.
 

I wondered what this Hannah Jacobs thought about me using her identity. Did she go along with it willingly?

“Early tomorrow morning Susanna will pick you up,” Dani said. “The two of you will drive to Camp Willowmoss and she’ll check you in. They won’t be expecting you, but they have procedures in place for drop-offs.”

I’ll bet, I thought, wondering how the experience would be different from the first time I’d been processed. “You haven’t told me the plan for getting me out.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “We know.” He glanced at Dani. “Once you finish gathering the information we need, this is how it will go.” He outlined a plan that involved a team stealthily breaking in to Camp Willowmoss and bringing Amy and me out.

The plan sounded pretty good, although after having gone through an escape once before, I knew things didn’t always go the way they had been planned. “How will you know I’ve gotten all the information you need? And how will I know when you’re coming?”

“Good questions,” Jack said. “Like we told you before, there is a program embedded in the chip in the glasses that will connect to the wi-fi at Camp Willowmoss. That’s how we’ll download the video you’ve recorded.” He paused. “Unfortunately we won’t be able to warn you when we’re coming, but believe me, when our team gets there, you’ll know.”

I nodded, not feeling one hundred percent confident, but trusting them nonetheless.

“You have a very busy day ahead of you tomorrow,” Dani said. “I suggest you get a good night’s sleep. Susanna will be here tomorrow morning at five.”

And so it begins, I thought. I’d enjoyed sleeping in a bit while staying at Jack’s, but that would become a thing of the past. I told everyone good-night and got ready for bed.
 

Not surprisingly, I had a hard time sleeping. I tossed and turned all night, anxiety making a good night’s sleep impossible. I felt a mixture of excitement and dread about the next day’s events. Excited the mission I’d been working towards was finally here and I’d finally be able to get it over with. But the dread was even stronger as I had no idea how things would go.

It ended up being easy to get up and be ready by the time Susanna arrived as I’d been awake and staring at the dark walls well before it was time to get up. At breakfast I found I had no appetite—the knot in my stomach took up all the space.

When Susanna arrived everyone was there to tell me good-bye, everyone but Brynn. She had to be at school. Soon enough we were on our way. I stared out the window—I couldn’t see much in the dark morning—and imagined everything going smoothly and perfectly. As the sun rose and we got closer to Camp Willowmoss, my hopes rose too. There was no reason everything couldn’t go exactly as planned. Right?