Sneak (11 page)

“He keeps me company,” Erin said. “But yeah, it is hard, since you mentioned it. Mom and I were pretty close.”

“But you must still talk to her, right?”

“You’d be surprised. It’s . . . it’s hard. But you know a thing or two about that,” Erin said. “I know your dad . . .”

“Dead. Yeah.”

Erin nodded.

“And anyway, Mom’s . . . she’s not doin’ so great herself.

Sometimes I think I got the short end of the stick when it comes to family. Just a whole lot of bad luck.” Hailey shook her head.

They’d found a bench now, at the edge of the park between

Erin’s neighborhood and Hailey’s, and they sat for a while.

“My family is broken,” Erin said, for the first time to anyone.

“I think that’s why Mom’s been spending more and more time in

the E.U. these last few years. I think that’s why my dad took this transfer to Spokie too. They won’t even tell me how they feel about it. They just blame it on their jobs and expect me to believe we’re still a big, happy family, that we just happen to be separated by a thousand miles right now. It’s like they think I’m stupid.”

“No one thinks you’re stupid, Erin. No one.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“I’m gonna fix it, though,” Erin said. “I’m bringing us all back together. I’m going to do it. That’ll make it all better. I’m sure it will. It’ll work.” Hailey nodded, and Erin said it again, almost as if it was herself she was trying to convince.

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“How will you fix it?” Hailey said. “If you don’t mind my

asking.”

Erin frowned and looked down at her knees. “Hey, I gotta get

going. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure,” Hailey said. “Yeah.”

And Erin stood suddenly and walked away.

Hailey sat for another moment. “Hey, you forgot your—” But

Hailey stopped herself. On the bench was Erin’s tablet computer, left behind. When Hailey picked it up, she saw a message from

Erin’s father displayed in the corner of its screen.

DOMe BreakthrOugh:

Markless gang

ruineD sectOr

unDerpass

Hailey cleared her throat. “Your tablet,” she called. “Erin, you forgot your tablet!” And she quickly held it out.

Erin turned around, her face going very red. “Thank you!” she

said, and she walked back to the bench and took the tablet from Hailey’s hands. “Boy . . .” Erin glanced at its screen. “
That
would have been a bad thing to leave behind.”

7

Hailey opened the door to her house and sneezed twice when she stepped inside.

Dusty
in
here
, she thought.
Worse
than
usual
.
. .

“You home?” Mrs. Phoenix called from upstairs.

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“Yeah, it’s me,” Hailey said. “I’m going for a walk.”

There was a pause. Hailey winced at the awful rhythm of her

mother’s coughing. “Another one? You’ve been out all night.”

“I know.” Hailey frowned. She sat at the kitchen table and ran her hand across its surface. “I want you to come with me on this one.”

“Hailey, it’s too late. I’m already in bed.”

“Well, then you’ll have to get up,” Hailey called. She looked at her palm. It was white with chalk.

And a strip of clear tape lined the edge of her chair.

8

“Put it
out
.”

“
Make
us
.”

Joanne and Eddie had been arguing about the campfire from

the moment Tyler lit its first twigs.

“There are
agents
in these
woods
,” Jo said.

“And, yeah, I’m sure the first thing they’d assume about a

totally reasonable amount of smoke coming from the private

farm of an honorably Marked citizen is that a band of skinflints is responsible for—”

But Jo had already dumped a mound of snow on the fire,

snuffing out the flames. “Great,” Eddie said. “I was hoping tonight would be the night I’d finally freeze to death.”

The two of them stopped arguing when Dane and Blake

entered the circle and sat on a nearby log.

“If you were hoping for ghost stories and marshmallows, you

can forget it,” Eddie said. He kicked at the soaking firewood.

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But Tyler looked at what Dane was holding and said, “Hey,

whaddaya got there?” immediately forgetting about the fire.

Dane held it up for the three of them to see. “A radio,” he said, almost as if it were a question instead of an answer. “Papa gave it to us. Told us to bring it by you guys and tune in. I guess he’s broadcasting right now.”

“How do you work this thing?” Tyler asked. He’d come over

and was leaning down, looking closely at the device Dane held in his hands. It was old plastic, pre-Unity for sure. There wasn’t any touch screen, nothing that lit up or glowed. Just a boxy black thing with a long, stiff antenna, two knobs, a strip with a bunch of numbers on it, and a grid of holes covering some crummy old speaker.

Out of the back dangled two wires, stuck to a potato with copper and zinc clips.

“Papa said to turn it ’til this little needle points to thirty-nine hundred kilohertz.”

“
Man
, do you have to wind it up too? I’m surprised it’s not made out of a rock.” Eddie laughed.

“Is that a potato battery?” Jo asked. “We learned about those

in, like, first-grade science class.”

Blake nodded. “Papa warned us this tech was old. I guess it’s

supposed to run off batteries that don’t even exist anymore. He said this rig here was the best he could do.”

“How is a Markless supposed to find one of these things?”

Eddie asked.

“They aren’t. This is the fancy version.” Dane laughed. “Believe it or not. Papa says for the most part people listen in on that foxhole kind he was describing, with the wire and razor blades, however
that
works.”

Tyler turned the first knob on the radio and jumped back when a
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static
click
erupted from the speaker. Then Dane turned the second, and the little needle moved across the number strip. When it passed over the thirty-nine hundred kilohertz mark, the static lessened, and a voice took its place. Like a lonely face emerging on a foggy street, Papa Hayes’s voice came through the old speaker, fuzzy, but loud and unmistakable.

“ . . . can’t help but be reminded of the story of Exodus. ‘But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruth-lessly. They made their lives bitter . . .’”

“Whoa!” Tyler yelled. “It’s Papa! Guys, are you hearing this?”

“Keep it down.” Eddie laughed. “We’re hearing it, we’re hear-

ing it . . .”

But suddenly Dane’s face went blank with surprise and dis-

belief. “And not for the first time,” he said.

Blake looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard this before,” Dane said. “Papa’s voice on the radio.

For years now, I’ve been hearing it. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him sooner!”

“How?” Jo asked. “Dane, what are you talking about?”

“Back home. My family had a Markless servant, George. I

always liked him, and he and I . . . we’d hang out sometimes, at night, you know?” Dane spoke slowly now, lost in his memories.

“How many times did I walk in on him listening to this? I can’t even remember. They were stories—a different one every night.

Like, ancient history stuff. About people suffering or celebrating or doing awesome things . . . George
loved
it! He listened almost every night on this big antique thing that sat on the floor of his room—I guess . . . well, I guess it must have been a radio. It was a present my parents gave him. The only thing he ever asked for. I
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never thought anything of it. But hearing this now . . .” He laughed.

“I can’t believe it . . .”

Jo chuckled, fixating on an earlier point of Dane’s story. “A

Markless servant . . .”

“Oh. Yeah . . . ,” Dane said uneasily. “Sorry. I know that’s . . .

not too cool . . .”

Jo was quiet for a minute while they listened to Papa Hayes

coming through on the tinny speaker. “Must be tough for you,” Jo said, sincerely. “Adjusting to all this. It’s not exactly Old District out here.”

Dane frowned. “To tell you the truth, it’s a bit of a relief,” he said. “I never much liked it in that stuffy house. My parents are definitely what you guys would call hotshots. Moguls. Tycoons.

Marked and rich and proud of it.” He shook his head. “All I ever wanted to do was play music. I don’t even think they liked me

much. George was cool, though. You could say I miss George.”

“I miss
my
parents,” Jo said. “Every single day.”

“What happened to ’em?”

Jo looked down at her hands. The wet logs were still steam-

ing in front of her. “I grew up on the Row,” she said. “In one of the abandoned brownstones, with my folks. They refused the Mark as soon as it became a thing. There was an adjustment period, I guess, while they relearned how to survive, but I was too young to remember it. Things weren’t too bad yet for Markless back then, of course. Living without the Mark was more of an inconvenience than anything else. The A.U. was brand-new, and we were still transi-tioning out of war money—you know, the paper kind—which my

parents still had plenty of. Anyway, we made our way to Slog Row, and that’s where they raised me. I went to school in Spokie like anyone else until I turned eleven, and I lived a pretty normal life.

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“Then, one day while I was at school, some DOME officer

caught my mom and dad swiping a few cans of beans from a Spokie store. I was growing up, I guess, and the rations from the Fulmart weren’t cutting it anymore. DOME charged my folks with petty

theft, which was accurate enough. Should’ve been no big deal.

But at that point Parliament had already passed its stupid zero-tolerance law. Even a misdemeanor, by then, was enough, if you happened to be a Markless. . . . The case was closed before it was even opened. I haven’t seen them since.”

“That’s . . . awful,” Dane said.

“Well, I found Peck pretty early. He made it easier on me.

It would’ve been tough without him. That would’ve been real

tough . . .”

Blake and Tyler and Eddie were on the other side of the fire

pit, their ears to the radio speaker, listening intently. “Are you listening to this?” Tyler asked Jo. “Now Mama’s talking too! They’re famous . . . the Hayeses are
famous
, Jo!”

“How about them?” Dane asked, pointing to the others as they

sat distracted by the broadcast. “What’s their story?”

“Well, the whole group is Peck’s doing, of course. Soon as he

realized DOME was using the Pledge to swipe troublemakers, he

swore he’d never let another Spokie kid risk flunking. So Eddie, we kidnapped,” Jo said. “Like we did you. I don’t know what’s

wrong with him.” She laughed. “Just a problem child, I guess. I mentioned to Peck one time how much trouble he was always getting into at school. I’d seen him around, growing up, even though he was a couple grades below me—he was just notorious.” She

shrugged. “So Peck red-flagged him, and a couple months later, he was living with us.

“Same with Meg, pretty much. Peck heard there was a girl in

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town with autism, and he knew from the patterns he’d seen that this made her a target. So we headed that off at the pass.

“Tyler, on the other hand—he grew up orphaned. Lived in

huddles all his life, out on the Row.” She laughed again. “Poor kid never stood a chance.” Jo stared at Tyler now. He was still listening to the radio, mouth open, enthralled by the pre-Unity tech.

“Amazingly, after all that, Tyler still planned to Pledge. Wanted to ‘turn his life around.’” She shook her head. “
Man
, he would’ve flunked so fast . . .”

“So you kidnapped him too.”

“Well, it wasn’t much of a kidnapping, taking some beggar

orphan from a huddle. We just popped in one day and started

hanging out with him. Soon enough he was living with us. He’d

forgotten all about his big plans.”

Dane nodded.

“Blake was another easy one,” Jo recalled. “He ran away from

home on his own, just before his Pledge. Good instincts, I think.

As good as Peck’s. He knew something was wrong about the

whole process. He and Peck met at the Fulmart back when Peck

could still show his face around town. They hit it off right away.

And they’ve been friends ever since. Best friends, until all this.”

In the background, Papa’s voice was soothing through the

static of the airwaves.

“Logan’s not a bad guy,” Dane told Jo. “I want you all to know that. He’d never have wanted to put us through all this.”

“Yeah, well, he did,” Jo said. “Everyone here’s had it tough.

There’s no excuse for what he’s done.”

“Peck seems to think there is.”

“Then Peck’s an idiot.”

Dane frowned. “So what if we find him? What if Hailey really

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is able to bring Logan here? Are you all just gonna stop being friends? After everything you’ve been through?”

Jo stared into the pit, mesmerized by the sizzling of the last few ember pockets in the wood. “We’ll see,” she said. “But we