Set Me Free
TOMORROW
GIRLS
Set Me Free
BY EVA GRAY
I
t’s strange how everything you know about the world — and yourself — can change in a fraction of a second.
Just moments ago, I was being rescued from an Alliance prison where I was actually being brainwashed into becoming my own enemy.
Then I was in a van with my friends, hurtling toward the rest of our group. And I was given a piece of information that flipped everything upside down.
The Hornet is Madeleine Frye’
s mother.
The leader of the Resistance. My mom.
You see, I’ve always been ordinary. Ordinary Madeleine Frye. I was timid and cautious, a girl known
mostly for her wild, curly hair … while the rest of me was tame.
But everything is different now.
Now I stand in an empty lot with my friends: Louisa, Rosie, Evelyn, Ryan, and Jonah. They are looking at the smoldering pile of crumbling brick and cinder block, which, Louisa told me, was once a car wash where they’d sought shelter. But now it’s gone, as is the rest of our group: Drew and Alonso. My friends are, understandably, freaking out, but I can’t focus on the implications of this new disaster yet.
Instead, all I can do is turn something over and over in my hands. It’s a little alabaster box in the shape of a hornet’s honeycomb hive. The box was given to me by the same person who changed my life by telling me about my mother’s secret identity. The box is an answer, a question, a test. Small as it is, it seems to weigh a zillion pounds.
“Who do you think did this?” I hear Louisa asking Rosie, her voice taut with anxiety and fear. She gestures to the wreckage, her blue eyes wide. “The Alliance?”
Rosie shakes her head. Her silky black hair, loose from its gold band, swooshes back and forth. “No. The government. Look.” She points, and Ryan gasps.
Sure enough, there is a small notice affixed to the fence that surrounds the lot.
SCHEDULED FOR DEMOLITION
is written in bold black letters at the top.
FUTURE SITE OF CHICAGO WATER SANITIZING PLANT.
Evelyn’s sharp, dark eyes fill with regret. I can tell, from the set of her mouth, how worried she is about Drew and Alonso — especially Alonso. They’d seemed to have formed a bond.
“How
did we not notice that before?” she asks, and I can tell she’s beating herself up.
“You were preoccupied,” I remind her. “Focused on more important matters, like the Phoenix Center.”
Rosie nods at me, as if I’m making sense, but I’m not sure I am. My mind is doing this weird thing where it slams back and forth between clear and hazy.
Here’s what’s clear: several weeks ago, I went to a place called Country Manor School. I was posing as the sister of my best friend, Louisa, because my parents are both off fighting in the War (or so I thought) and
Louisa’s
parents thought this CMS place would be a safe and wonderful experience for Louisa and me. They were sorely mistaken.
As the War escalated beyond the gates of our cushy school, we found out that CMS was actually run by the enemy — the Alliance — and we so-called students were more like hostages. Louisa and I and our two roommates, Rosie and Evelyn, knew we had to get away. We escaped into the woods, where we met Drew, Alonso, and Ryan, who were from the CMS boys’ school. Together, we began our journey to Chicago — where our families are — but on the way, I was kidnapped and brought to the Phoenix Center.
The Phoenix Center was a strange, dim place — a school unlike any I’d known. There were lie detectors in the classrooms and a complicated “spying game” we students had to play on one another at all times. But somehow I’d felt that I belonged there. The administration had made me feel worthy and important — a part of something significant — like I’d never really felt before. Except it had all been a lie.
My friends had rescued me from Phoenix, with the help of a guy named Ivan, who’d been posing as a Phoenix scout but was really a Resistance soldier. Ivan was the one who’d told me about my mother, and had given me the box.
Here’s what’s hazy: how I’m supposed to follow Ivan’s directive to deliver this box to my mother when I have no idea where she is.
Up until a little while ago, I didn’t even know
who
she is.
The Hornet, I’ve just learned, is the code name for the leader of the Resistance. The Resistance forces are working to put a stop to the evil Alliance, and even end the War. That this powerful person is my own mother is still mind-boggling.
I glance up from the box momentarily, and look over at Jonah. He was at Phoenix with me. When my friends came for me, I insisted that Jonah also come with us. I feel a huge sense of loyalty to him because when I first got to Phoenix, he saved my life. Good reason, right?
Jonah still hasn’t made eye contact with anyone directly, and he’s purposely standing off to the side. I think this is something you learn when you live in a ganginfested city, fighting for your life and wondering when you’ll eat next. In the past, someone like Jonah would have frightened me, but right now, I just wish there was something I could do or say to make him feel safe with us.
Only none of
us
feels safe.
“What are we going to do?” Evelyn asks with rising panic. She’s a worrier, and thinks conspiracies are behind everything. And as it turns out, she is often right. We’d grown close at CMS, and she was someone I found myself missing during quiet moments at the Phoenix Center.
“We had everything in that car wash,” she continues, pacing back and forth, “our backpacks and tools and documents. And …” She pauses and looks up. “Helen and Drew and — and Alonso … Are they …” She trails off.
Helen? Who’s Helen
? I think. Curious as I am, I know that question will have to wait.
It’s as if we all stop breathing at once as the same horrifying thought crosses our minds.
“Do you think they were … inside?” Louisa ventures, nervously tugging on the end of her blond ponytail. Tears threaten in her voice. Ryan reaches out and clumsily pats her arm.
I should hug her, be a good best friend. But I’m frozen in fear and confusion.
“No,” Rosie says, quickly and decisively — ever the leader. “No, they definitely weren’t. A bulldozer or a wrecking ball did this, and those aren’t exactly things that can sneak up on you, right?”
Evelyn nods at Rosie, looking calmer. “When they heard the machines approaching, they would have run. Even with Drew’s and Alonso’s injuries, they would have been quick,” she reasons out.
Drew’s and Alonso’s injuries
? I think. What went on while my friends and I were separated? What have I missed?
“Do you think they’re hiding nearby?” Ryan speaks up, his bright blue eyes troubled. I realize that, like Jonah,
he’s been quiet all this time. Maybe boys have a different way of dealing with worry than girls. They clam up.
We all look around at the silent, empty landscape. There’s not a sound other than the wind. No one has to point out that if the others had been hiding, they would have come out already. Revealed themselves to us.
Rosie immediately whips out what looks to be a modified old cell phone. I can’t begin to imagine where that came from, but this isn’t the time to ask. She is punching the “talk” button and, walkie-talkie style, shouting into it for Drew or Alonso to answer her. Unfortunately, neither of them does.
“Out of range,” sighs Ryan. “Or out of battery.”
“So where did they go?” Louisa asks, wearily resting her head on Rosie’s shoulder.
I feel a quick little stab of jealousy, which is silly at a time like this. But at CMS I’d been wary of Rosie, particularly because she and Louisa had grown so close. The kids at CMS were like Louisa: privileged, wealthy, special. Rosie was no exception. She’d bark out orders and everyone listened to her. I suppose it’s a good thing we
did, though, because when it comes to quick thinking and leadership, Rosie scores high marks. I think I’m a little jealous of that, too.
Jonah clears his throat, and everyone glances at him in surprise. His voice low and rough, he mutters, “Do you think they went home?”
Home
. My heart squeezes. I haven’t been home — to my real home — in ages, because I was living with Louisa’s family before we left for CMS. I look around at everyone’s faces. No one has been home in far too long. Especially Jonah, who’d been living on the streets before he was picked up and taken to Phoenix School.
“They wouldn’t,” Louisa sniffs, shaking her head. “We figured out that Alliance agents are posted at all of our houses. It wouldn’t be safe for us, or our families.”
At the word
families
I turn the honeycomb box over in my hands again, and, like Evelyn, I start pacing, too. I pace when I want to think better. The box, my mom, Alonso, Drew … everything is rattling around in my head.
Then I stop short of stepping into a sprawling smear of orange goop. It seems to be a loopy trail of something the consistency of toothpaste or old-fashioned cake frosting (I’ve never tasted real sugar frosting, but I’d read about it and seen it in old movies). As I step over the goop, I nearly trip over a can with an orange cap. It rolls away, rumbling across the lot.
“Hey, that’s the can of Cheezy-Wizard we got when we stole all that food from the library,” says Ryan. He sounds wistful. Ryan is the big eater of the group.
I’m studying the orange glop. I’m not sure what stolen food Ryan’s talking about, but I do know this:
the orange mess is actually made up of letters
.
“Somebody wrote something with that Cheezy-Wizard!” I exclaim, my heart jumping.
The others, except Jonah, join me to take a look.
“Graffiti?” asks Jonah from where he stands at a distance. He pushes his unruly dark hair away from his eyes, which are a calm but intense green.
Back in the Phoenix School, Jonah told me that graffiti artists are usually members of violent street crews who mark their turf by painting their symbols and names all around the area they control, as warnings for other gangs to stay out:
FANG TERRITORY — KEEP OUT; BLADES ONLY; DEATH TO THE DAGGERS;
et cetera. I would guess that these tags are done with actual paint, not processed cheese spread. Which means …
“It’s not graffiti,” I say, my pulse pounding with hope. “I think it’s a message. From our friends.”
“She’s right,” says Rosie, and I find I’m glad to have her affirmation.
Louisa brightens, her blue eyes sparkling with relief. “Drew and Alonso and Helen must have used the Cheezy-Wizard to tell us something.”
Everyone leans closer, squinting as we try to decipher the words.
It’s more difficult than it sounds. The fact that Alonso or Drew or Helen — whoever she is — used a can of Cheezy-Wizard as a writing utensil makes the scribble
pretty illegible. We are a generation who learned to type in pre-K, so even under the best of circumstances our handwriting skills are pretty primitive. The only real writing I ever did was in this little puzzle book my mom gave me when I was about seven. It was a blank journal that we used to create cryptograms and play word games. Well, my mom created them; the challenge was for me to solve them. She called them “mental calisthenics” designed to improve my thinking skills and my vocabulary. Which I could really rely on right now.
“It’s a
W,”
says Rosie. “Right? That first letter is a capital
W.”
“And that one’s an
R
,” says Louisa, pointing. “And I
think
that’s a
G
.”
“
W-R-G
?” I say out loud, frowning in confusion. “Is it some kind of code? An acronym?”
“You always think in codes,” Louisa tells me with a smile, giving me a nudge, and for a split second, it feels like old times.
“Is the last letter a
Y
?” Ryan asks, crouching down to look.
“Yes,” Evelyn says, walking a circle around the smear. “I’m pretty sure there’s an
L
in there, too. So …”
“W-R-G-L-Y”
I say, wracking my brain.
“Wait,” Louisa says, her eyes lighting up. “It’s
not
a code. It’s just a word with a letter missing. It says
Wrigley
!”
“As in Wrigley Field?” I ask.
Wrigley Field is the baseball stadium that was once a Chicago landmark. It’s a place I know well, since it’s just a short L ride from my house. Or it was, back when both the field and the L trains were still operational. The stadium is closed now, condemned. Some say it’s even haunted. Or inhabited by weird creatures. But I push those rumors out of my head.
“Yes, Wrigley Field,” Evelyn chimes in, examining the writing. “It has to be. That’s where we’ll find our friends.”
“Then let’s go!” Ryan is already heading back to the stolen Phoenix van he hot-wired for my rescue. We follow him eagerly and we all pile in. I notice Jonah hesitate beside the sliding door.
“Come with us,” I urge, thinking he’s worried about wearing out his welcome.
He looks as though he wants to say something, but instead, he just climbs in and pulls the door shut behind him.
In the next second, Ryan is steering the vehicle out of the parking lot, leaving the remains of the car wash behind us and heading toward Wrigley Field … and whatever we will find there.