The Capture (10 page)

S
HE TRIES NOT TO
think of him. There is more than enough to occupy her mind: leading the three others through deep woods, foraging for food, trying to track down more than a hundred Sisters.

But it's always Book she comes back to—the conflicting emotions swirling around her head like gnats on a summer day. Trust and doubt. Respect and contempt. Love and betrayal.

Why?
Hope asks herself.
Why did he have to break his word?

Although she tries to see it from his point of view, she keeps coming back to one thing: he made a promise . . . and he broke it. Something her father never would have done.

“Good riddance,” Diana says. She's joined Hope at the front of the line. “We don't need him. We don't need any of them. We're just fine on our own.”

Hope is embarrassed that Diana has read her mind.

“You can't be partners with people you don't trust,” Diana says. “Period. “

Hope knows three things about Diana: she is good with a crossbow, her twin sister was murdered by Dr. Gallingham, and she is never shy about voicing her opinion.

And she's not finished. “To say one thing to your face and then go off and do another, well, it's just not right.”

“I know.”

“Good riddance, I say.”

“I got it.”

“Good flippin' riddance.”

“Okay, I get it!”

Diana stops, startled. “What? I—”

“They helped us, we helped them, that's all that needs to be said.” Hope is surprised by her voice's icy edge. Where did
that
come from?

Scylla and Helen watch from a respectful distance, eyes darting back and forth between Hope and Diana.

Diana shifts her weight from one leg to the other. “All I'm saying is—”

“Look, we made our decision—we left them behind—and the sooner we stop talking about them, the better.”

Diana's hands rise to say,
Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger
. “Fine,” she says.

“Fine,” Hope says back, then turns and resumes walking. Even as she tries to dismiss the conversation, she regrets blowing up. She knows better than that. As they march through waist-high weeds, she thinks of Book. His lopsided smile. The dark hair framing his face. The press of his lips against hers.

We did the right thing,
she tries to tell herself.
It's better this way.

Hope may have gotten angry at Diana for the way she worded things, but she was exactly right.
You can't be partners with people you don't trust.

Period.

Hope crouches on a gravel road, her hands hovering above the rocks. Her palms and fingertips trace the grooves and indentations. She tiptoes from one side of the road to the other. The other three Sisters watch from the ditch.

“What're you looking at?” Helen asks.

“Tracks.”

“Animals'?”

“People's.”

If there's one thing her father taught her, it was how to track game. She's had little experience tracking people, but the concepts are the same.
Footprints tell
a story; it's just a matter of knowing how to read them.

She glances to the west, happy the sun hangs low above the horizon. That makes for the best tracking—when shadows are deepest. They might have walked across this road hours earlier and not noticed a thing.

“The other Sisters?” Diana asks.

Hope thinks so, but there are questions here. Questions without answers.

“Vehicles. At least three.” She points to one side of the road. “The tracks aren't clear because they came first. The Sisters followed. Brown Shirts after that.”

“Were they all together?”

“Probably. Can't say for sure.”

She scrambles to the far side of the road. “Look at this.”

There's a footprint in the gravel. Hope compares her own right next to it. They're nearly identical.

“Same shoe,” Diana says.

“Other Sisters,” Hope says.

Scylla motions to a print she's found.

“And that's a Brown Shirt's,” Hope says. “Different sole entirely. Wider. More ridges. Much newer boot.”

They're all looking now, identifying every tread within a hundred-foot section. In some cases, they discover footprints from bare feet. When they've finished searching, they stand up and stare down the long road.

“So these are recent?” Diana asks.

“Recent enough,” Hope says.

Helen fills in the rest. “Which means they're close, doesn't it?”

Hope nods absently.

As they set off along the gravel road, they do so with a certain unease, aware they could come across the Sisters at any moment—or the Brown Shirts could come across them. Every sound is suddenly magnified; every footprint takes on a greater meaning.

But what Hope can't understand is why they find so many prints from bare feet; some of the Sisters aren't wearing shoes at all. Whatever the meaning behind it, Hope knows it can't be good.

C
RICKETS CHIRPED AS
A
RGOS
and I walked across the parade ground, headed for the cinder-block Administration Building. Although we'd given it a walk-through that first night, I hadn't been back since. And it seemed like forever ago when Hope and I had broken into Colonel Thorason's office and found Chancellor Maddox's letter.

The front door moaned as I pulled it open. I lit a candle, and it sputtered to life. Argos lay down on a braided rug and quickly fell asleep. He wanted no part of my search.

I'd returned here for one reason only: to find out more about Hope. Ever since I'd first laid eyes on her, I'd wondered what was behind that haunted look. The pictures in the three-ring binder told me some of the
story; I was determined to find out the rest.

The sputtering candle led me down the dim hallway to the office of Colonel Thorason. It was just as I remembered it: bigger than the other offices, the furnishings more ornate . . . with a large wire wastepaper basket in the middle of the room.

One glance told me all I needed to know. The enormous file cabinet in the corner sat empty, its files now burned in the makeshift incinerator. But the Brown Shirts had been in such a hurry that they hadn't bothered to make sure everything was consumed by flames. As I began picking my way through the basket, I discovered hundreds of folders that were just charred at the edges, their contents still legible.

The files were mostly inventories, all seemingly typed with the same typewriter, the thick letters splashing gray-black on coarse white pages. Every time a new prisoner was brought to Camp Freedom, it was recorded. The name of the girl. Her height and weight. What part of the territory she came from. Everything.

But what I couldn't get over was the sheer number of prisoners. Just among the folders that hadn't burned, it was obvious that hundreds and hundreds of girls had been admitted to Freedom. Hope had spoken of only a hundred and twenty-five. So where were all the others? What had happened to them? I riffled through the wastebasket with a sudden urgency.

Forty-five minutes later, I found it: the admission records of two prisoners named Faith and Hope Samadi. Twins. There were pictures, too. Even with a freshly shaved head, Hope wasn't difficult to recognize: her luminous brown eyes, the defiant expression. Faith looked much the same as when I'd last seen her in the barracks after Hope and I survived the cave-in. But what happened to her?

I remembered Hope's words in the field the day I came back to rescue her.
Experiments. I had a sister.
More of the puzzle pieces were falling into place, but I still couldn't see the full picture.

Argos came slinking in, whimpering, his body hovering close to the ground. He nudged me with his cold nose.

“What's going on, bud?” I asked. “I'm almost done, if that's what—”

The floor began to rumble. I shared one look with Argos and realized we needed to get away.

I stuffed the pictures of Hope and Faith in my pocket, blew out the candle, and raced out of there, Argos nipping at my heels. Down the hall and out the front door, tearing across the infield. We entered the mess hall from the back.

The three other Less Thans looked up at me, just as the glasses in the cabinets began to rattle. Then the plates. Then the cups and saucers.

“What is it?” Twitch asked. “What's going on?”

I didn't know the answer, but I suspected . . . and my heart rose in my throat. Running through the mess hall, I cracked the front door so I could peer out.

A moment later they came. Headlights. Military vehicles. Dozens of them. Humvees and Jeeps, tanks and troop transport carriers. All pouring through Camp Freedom's gated entrance and circling the infield in an impressive display of military precision.

The wheels had barely ceased turning before the vehicles began disgorging Brown Shirts—all armed and spotlessly uniformed, racing for their stations like a well-practiced drill. Some scurried up the guard towers. Others stormed the buildings. Still others stood at rigid attention by their vehicles. I wanted to pull myself away, but I was hypnotized by the awful beauty of their soldierly efficiency.

When I felt a hand on my shoulder, I nearly jumped.

“We've got to get out of here,” Flush said.

“Damn straight.”

We tore back through the mess hall, helped Twitch and Four Fingers to their feet, and galloped out the back door. We knew the goal without having to say it: Barracks B. First to retrieve our belongings, then to sneak out through the tunnel.

In the near distance, bouncing off the barracks walls, came the sound of slamming doors, barked orders, the
metallic click of weapons. As long as we stuck to the back alleyways, we'd be fine. We could make it.

At just that moment, night became day; banks of towering floodlights buzzed to life. Then the spotlights turned on with a bass
whumpf
—like the sound a fire makes as it explosively ignites—and the four guard towers sent pools of light crawling across the grounds and up the sides of buildings.

“Come on,” I said, and took off. The others followed.

The going was slow. We stuck to the rear of the camp—the sheds, the smokehouse, the three-level storehouse—and each time we came to the side of a building, we stopped and waited for the searchlights to pass.

A final alley remained between us and Barracks B, and the others went before me, avoiding the oval light that splattered white on the narrow alley. My turn.

I took a peek toward the infield and froze. Streaming through the camp's front gate was a black limousine—something big and bulky and sporting two small flags just above its headlights. Even from that distance, I recognized the pennants' symbols: three inverted triangles.

The automobile rolled to a crunching stop, and Brown Shirts hurried to open the door. There was a long pause before anyone got out, and the soldiers stood at stiff attention, wreathed by headlights. The
dignitary who finally exited was none other than the woman with the cheekbones and the long blond hair. Chancellor Maddox. Former beauty queen turned Midwestern congresswoman turned chancellor of the Western Federation Territory.

She was as I remembered her: tall, with crisp facial features and hair as perfectly combed as a movie star's. Even in the heat of summer she wore an ankle-length black coat that draped across her shoulders. She gripped a briefcase in her left hand; it was handcuffed to her wrist. Brown Shirts saluted her. She barely acknowledged them.

Also emerging from the limousine was Dr. Gallingham. He was so large, two soldiers had to help pull him to his feet. He popped free of the limo, found his balance, and dabbed at his eye with a handkerchief.

When Colonel Westbrook stepped forward, I inhaled so sharply at the sight of him that I nearly lost my breath. He shook hands with Maddox and Gallingham, and then their three heads bent forward in hushed conversation. Westbrook's comb-over flapped in the evening breeze.

So why was the head of the Western Federation meeting with the overseer of Camp Liberty? And why here at Camp Freedom? And what was in Maddox's briefcase that was so important? None of it made sense.

“Book!”

Flush was whispering from the other side of the alley, motioning me forward.

“Right,” I said. I waited for the searchlight to pass and then tore across the gravel.

“Why'd you stop?” he asked as I pressed myself against the building.

“I'll tell you later. Let's get out of here first.”

We slipped through the back door of the barracks, retrieved our few belongings, and smoothed out the blankets just as we had found them. No point leaving clues. We were moving for the back closet when we heard a series of muffled shouts. Then a gunshot. Flush had to clamp his hand across Four Fingers's mouth to keep him from screaming.

“It's okay,” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

I moved away. Something compelled me to see what was happening.

There was a tiny window at the front of the barracks. I slid my body forward until my eyes could peek above the sill. There they stood: Colonel Westbrook, Chancellor Maddox, Dr. Gallingham, still immersed in conversation.

There was also a huddle of soldiers, their eyes focused on something I couldn't quite see. One of the soldiers lifted his rifle and slammed it down, butt end first. I heard the smack from where I stood—a sound as sickening as a melon tossed onto a hard surface.

The Brown Shirts shifted positions and I saw what everyone was looking at: four prisoners, one of whom had just taken a rifle butt to the head. Scylla—lying on the ground, blood seeping from her temple and purpling the gravel. Standing next to her were Diana and Helen . . . and Hope.

There was someone else as well. Dozer, dressed in the uniform of a Brown Shirt.

“We gotta get going,” Flush pleaded.

I didn't want to leave the Sisters, but what could we do? We were four against many. Besides, the Sisters had left
us
, right?

I raced back between the cots and led the other three Less Thans to the back closet, where we lowered ourselves into the darkened shaft. I carried Argos down myself. We stood there in the pitch black, embraced by the sound of dripping water and fleeing rats.

“I can't see a thing,” Flush said.

“Welcome to my world,” Twitch answered.

I yanked a candle from its sconce and lit it using flint and paper. The tiny yellow flame shimmered atop black water, and the long, narrow passageway looked more claustrophobic than ever.

“This is it?” Flush asked. It was his first time being down there, and I could hear the panic in his voice.

“Just follow it to the end. Wait there till I come get you.”

His eyes grew wide. “Don't tell me you're thinking of staying.” Even when I explained what I'd seen, that didn't change his mind. “But you won't stand a chance,” he said. “Didn't you see how many soldiers there were?”

“I know.”

“I hate to leave those four girls as much as you, but there's nothing to be done.”

“I understand.”

“I mean, we've gotten out of some scrapes before, but nothing like this.”

“You're right.”

And yet there was no way I could leave Hope surrounded by Brown Shirts. The next muffled gunshots confirmed it.

“I'll be back as soon as I can,” I said. I gave him the candle, grabbed Four Fingers's knife, and climbed back up the ladder before anyone could stop me.

I eased into the barracks and was nearly to the front door when I heard footsteps and a mutter of voices. A flashlight's narrow beam played on the front windows—a group of Brown Shirts was headed right for Barracks B.

I didn't hesitate. I launched myself out the back door, scrambled to my feet, and pressed myself against the outside wall. My heart was thudding so loudly, it felt like the whole building was shaking.

Oblongs of light spilled from the barracks's windows,
but no Brown Shirts emerged from the back door in pursuit. They hadn't seen me.

I pushed away, feet crunching on gravel. The infield had cleared out, and the few remaining Brown Shirts leaned against Humvees, puffing on cigarettes, red tips glowing. My eyes swept past the buildings. There was no jail in Camp Freedom, so where would the four Sisters be kept?

My eyes landed on the Admin Building. It was lit up like a bonfire. Light streamed from nearly every window. It seemed the natural choice.

I made it to the back of the building and crept beneath the windows, listening for the Sisters' voices.

The voice I heard instead was Chancellor Maddox's.

“And you?” she was asking. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“We're fine.” I recognized Colonel Westbrook. It was easy to imagine his coal-black eyes, his expressionless face.

“Eight escapees does not sound ‘fine.'” Her voice was razor edged. There was not a hint of kindness there.

“That was months ago. Most are dead or captured. Only four unaccounted for. I'm not concerned.”

“You will be if they get out of the territory.” Chancellor Maddox inhaled sharply—like a north wind preparing to blow its icy gusts. “And the construction?” she asked.

“Starts this month, once we get a bulldozer there.”

“You understand the Final Solution depends on this.”

“I do.”

There was something about the way she said
Final Solution
that made the hairs rise on my arms.

“And you?” the chancellor asked. “Is your little problem contained?”

“We've taken the appropriate steps,” another man's voice answered. I wondered if this was Colonel Thorason, the overseer of Camp Freedom.

“Even though twenty escaped?” It was both a question and a put-down.

“Don't worry,” Thorason said. “Dr. Gallingham's working on it now. Before the night is out, those girls will be telling us
all
their secrets.” Then he added, “Unless torture makes you squeamish.”

“Need I remind you about the aftermath of Omega?” Maddox said. “
Nothing
makes me squeamish.” She lowered her voice and asked, “And the remaining delivery?”

“You'll get it soon enough.”

I tried to piece it together. The Final Solution, the delivery, the new construction—there was so much I didn't understand. But one thing was clear: the Sisters weren't here in the Admin Building. They were in the infirmary. The closest thing to a prison—and a torture chamber—that there was in Camp Freedom. Even now, I saw a dull light glowing from a second-story window.
Fifty yards separated me from the Sisters. From Hope.

There were no guards posted, and it looked simple enough. All I had to do was get upstairs and steal the Sisters out of there. I might have to deal with Dr. Gallingham, but that didn't scare me. I could do this.

I pushed myself away from the building. Before I'd taken two steps, a massive hand slapped across my face and a muscled arm pulled me backward.