The Capture (12 page)

I'd seen Dozer angry before, but never like this. “You little . . . ,” he began, and cocked his rifle like the backswing of a baseball bat—exactly what I was hoping he'd do.

With Dozer halfway through his swing, I pulled out Four Fingers's knife and thrust it into Dozer's thigh. I felt it squish beneath my hand.

Dozer froze a moment, then let out a bloodcurdling scream that shot up to the heavens. The M16 slipped from his hands, and he crumpled to the ground. I pushed myself up and wiped the blood from my eyes. Though woozy from smoke and pain, I still had sense enough to rip the knife from Dozer's leg. There was no way I was going to leave a perfectly good weapon stuck in
him
.

With knife in hand, I turned and ran, realizing that getting out of the infirmary was the easy part. Escaping from Camp Freedom would be the true challenge.

But there was still one more thing I had to do.

There wasn't time to search all of Camp Freedom, but Dozer's comment gave me an idea.

I ran until I reached a small shack. It was an old structure, crudely constructed from pine logs, its lone door made of weathered planking. There were no other doors, no windows at all. An exhaust pipe poked through the roof.

It was the camp's smokehouse—the perfect place to “skin a cat.” Although a large padlock gripped the door to the jamb, the hinge itself was old and rusty. I jammed my knife beneath the metal, and the screws
squealed as they tore from rotting wood. One quick tug and the hinge flew free.

As I eased inside, the first thing that hit me was the smell: cured meat, stale wood smoke, cold ashes. Once my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I could make out the small, square room with its low wooden beams, festooned with rows of large metal hooks for hanging meat . . . and there hung Cat.

They had tied a rope around his midsection and strung him up from that, his feet dangling just above the dirt floor. He'd lost at least twenty pounds since I'd seen him last, his blue eyes were dull and vacant . . .

. . . and he was missing his left forearm. Some surgeon had cut it off just below the elbow. White gauze was wrapped around the stump, oozing blood.

“What happened to your face?” he asked. His voice was hoarse and sandpapery.

I had forgotten about my appearance. Blood was still trickling down my temple from where Dozer had clobbered me with his rifle.

“Ran into an old friend,” I said.

“Dozer?”

I nodded.

“What a douchebag.”

“Exactly what I told him.” A stampede of footsteps pounded past the door, and I held my breath. “Come on,” I said. “We're getting out of here.” I began fumbling with his ropes.

Cat recoiled. “I'm not coming.”

“What're you talking about?”

“I'm staying here.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I'm serious.”

I studied his eyes to see if he was kidding. He wasn't. “But . . . they'll kill you.”

“Let 'em.” There was no emotion there whatsoever.

I ignored his request and reached for the ropes. He swatted my hand away.

“Not interested,” he snarled.

“But I'm going to help—”

“Not interested,” he said again, more forcefully.

I stepped back. Outside, sirens blared and a fire raged.

“But we need you.”

A painful smile spread across his face. “You're missing one thing.” He lifted what remained of his left arm. “I'm not much good to you now. Not much good to anyone.”

“That's not true. You're Cat. You always find a way.”

“Not this time. This time they got me. And everyone knows it.”

I had heard pessimism from Cat before. Heard him doubt our chances from time to time. But I'd never heard him like this. Karsten was right; Cat had changed.

“But you'll die here.”

“There are worse places to die than a girls' camp.”
He attempted a smile. His eyes glanced to his stump, then just as quickly darted away—as if he had no desire to look at it. “You better get going, Book. Before they find you.” Whatever hopes I'd had about rescuing him evaporated just like that.

“Just thought I'd try,” I said.

“Can't blame you for that. So Dozer sold you out?”

“Something like that.”

“I figured. Well, you better get going. Say hey to the gang.”

“Will do. You sure I can't talk you into going?”

“I'm sure. See you, Book.”

“Bye, Cat.”

I turned to go, took a step toward the door, then just as quickly pivoted back around. The punch I sent flying was the hardest one I'd ever landed. It caught Cat square on the chin and snapped his head to the side. He gave me a woozy, condemning look before passing out, his body going slack. I lifted him from the meat hook and threw him over my shoulder.

There was no way in the world I was going to leave him behind.

By the time I got him to the storehouse, my legs were jelly. Diana and Scylla helped me lower him to the stoop, their eyes darting between his missing arm and my bloody face. My eyes fell on Hope. “How's she doing?”

“Still out of it,” Diana said. “And soldiers are everywhere. If we can't get to the tunnel, we're stuck here.”

“Not necessarily.” But even as I spoke, I doubted myself. What I had in mind might be possible if everyone was healthy, but two of the six of us were still passed out. Kind of a big deal.

Scylla shattered the window and we crawled in one by one, pushing and pulling Cat and Hope like two rag dolls.

“We need rope,” I said. “Three-foot sections.”

Diana led us to a pile of long coils on a far table, and we whipped out knives.

“Now we need lard,” I said.

Diana's eyebrows arched, but she said nothing. She led the way to the foodstuffs, pointing toward a big can of shortening.

“Grease up the ropes,” I instructed. “But just the middle, not the ends.” They hesitated. “Now!”

While Helen and Diana greased the ropes, Scylla and I tied looped knots on the rope ends. Then we all trudged up the stairway to the third floor, stopping when we reached a small window at the far end.

“This is how we're getting out of here,” I said, and the others stared at me as though I'd lost it.

An electrical wire stretched from the storehouse to a pole on the other side of the fence. If I understood the physics of what Twitch had told me about zip lines, all each of us had to do was drape the greased part of the rope over the wire, grab onto the looped ends, and fly from inside the camp to the outside. Piece of cake.

“We won't get electrocuted?” Helen asked.

I shook my head. “I doubt any current's been running through this thing for twenty years.”

Diana offered to go first, and we held on to her legs as she stood on the windowsill and tucked her hands into the loops. I counted out loud. “One . . . two . . .”

We pushed on three.

She flew through the night air, the greased rope hissing like a snake. Her weight made the line droop—so much that it looked like she wouldn't clear the razor wire—but at the last moment she brought her knees to her chest and passed over the fence with a good foot to spare. She dangled a moment, let go of the rope, then dropped to the ground below. She rose from a bed of weeds and gave a thumbs-up. Success!

Scylla volunteered to carry Cat, and we wrapped his limp body around her neck like a scarf. We were just about to send them on their way when a platoon of Brown Shirts appeared in the alley beneath us. We froze. They ran by without looking up.

Once more we pushed on three. There was twice as much weight than with Diana, and the line sagged dramatically, concertina wire snagging Scylla's dress. Still, they made it free and clear.

Three down, three to go.

“You're sure you have Hope?” Helen asked.

“I've got her,” I said, not sure at all. “Now go.”

The frail girl was so light that when I gave her a push, the line barely bent. She had no trouble clearing the fence.

“Our turn,” I said to Hope.

She was still wildly out of it, and I had to sling my hands under her armpits just to lift her from the floor. I got us to the windowsill and lashed her hands to the rope loops, but somehow, without meaning to, I gave her a nudge—just enough to send her flying. She glided away from me on the wire before I could grab her and pull her back.

Bad enough we were now separated, but because she lacked any kind of momentum, she came to a dead stop, her body hanging limply.

Oh crap oh crap oh crap.

A splintering of wood told me that Brown Shirts had just crashed open the downstairs door. There was no time for deliberations.

Only time for action.

I leaned back as far as I could and, with all the strength I could muster, pushed off against the building, sailing through air. Ahead, dangling helplessly, was Hope, her body stretching the wire into a deep sag.

The force was more than I expected, but we were moving now, two bodies connected as one, my front pressed into Hope's back. I placed my kneecaps in the crooks of her knees and lifted our legs. A razor tip
snagged Hope's dress, but we sailed across the barbed wire. I loosened our knots and we fell to earth, the ground knocking what little air I had in my lungs right out of me.

But we had done it—we had escaped from Camp Freedom.

The three Sisters came running. They lifted Hope off me, and she looked at me in a kind of hazy focus, as though squinting through dense smoke.

“Cat?” she asked. “Is it you? Did you save me?”

“Yeah,” I answered in a weary monotone. “Cat saved you.”

She collapsed back to the ground.

T
HEY TAKE REFUGE IN
the tunnel, and for three days they crouch in ankle-deep water, breathing the cold, musty air. Only Four Fingers seems happy to be there, making mud pies from the tunnel floor and stacking them like sandbags.

Once Hope's drug-induced state wears off, her eyes land on Cat—a
one-armed
Cat—and her first thought is she's still hallucinating. He sits off to the side, tossing pebbles into the water and repeating the same few words over and over. “You shouldn't've done it, Book. You shouldn't've saved me.”

At the far end is Book. He ignores Cat and seems to want nothing to do with Hope. She can't figure it out.

“So what happened?” Flush asks Cat. No one's spoken a word in hours.

“What do you mean?”

“Your arm. What'd they do?”

Cat's jaw clenches. “What do you think? The doctor chopped it off.”

“So Book's strategy worked. He saved you.”

“Whatever.” His words ooze bitterness.

“At least you're alive. You should be grateful.”

“Well, just wait,” he says ominously.

If the others weren't paying attention before, they are now.

“What're you talking about?” Flush asks.

“Yeah, what do you know?” Diana demands.

For a long moment, Cat regards the eight others. Then he scatters his remaining handful of pebbles into the water. “The time may come when we'll wish we were already dead,” he says, and shuts his eyes. Conversation over.

Hope remembers the final paragraph from the chancellor's letter—words she hasn't shared with the others.
A Final Solution to the question of the Less Thans and Sisters. Complete and utter annihilation. Leave no trace of their existence.
She wonders how the Republic intends to carry this out. Wonders also if that secret meeting on the road between Maddox and Gallingham is related.

After three days and nights, they ease up the ladder and hurry through the woods in scant moonlight, munching dandelions and chickweed to stem their
gnawing hunger. There is no sign of Brown Shirts.

They stop at sunrise, burying themselves in thick underbrush. Hope tiptoes to a nearby brook to fill her canteen . . . only to discover that Book is already there. She unscrews the lid and lowers the canteen into the trickle of water.

After what seems like forever, Book says, “You don't have to thank me, you know, but I did risk my life for you.”

“Was that before or after you lied to me?”

Book's eyebrows reach for his hairline. “You're not still thinking about that thing with the infirmary?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. ‘That thing' where you promised you wouldn't step foot inside that building.”

“But it's a good thing I went in there,” he says. “It gave me the layout of the building. I knew where to find you. I was able to go right to where the four of you were.”

She gives her head a shake. “You didn't need a special visit to find us.”

“So what're you saying? I shouldn't have gone back in? I should've just left the four of you to get out on your own?”

“No . . .”

“Then what?”

“I'm saying you don't look someone in the eye and promise one thing and then do the opposite.”

She finishes filling her canteen and gets up. She's done with this conversation. Done with Book. Although she's grateful he came back for her, the fact is he lied to her. There's no getting past it.

She's walking away when Book blurts out, “This is all about Faith, right?”

She stops. Dust motes dance in diagonals of light. Book reaches into his pocket and pulls out two objects. He extends them to Hope.

When she sees that they're pictures of her and Faith, something catches at the back of her throat. Her hand flies to her mouth. “Where'd you get these?” she asks.

“Your overseer's office. The night you were captured. They tried to burn everything, but they were in too much of a hurry.”

Hope takes the singed pictures. Her fingers run along the outline of her sister, as if her fingertips were magic wands and the mere act of tracing could bring her back.

“So now I know a little more,” Book says. “How you came to camp.
When
you came to camp. I don't know how she died, but . . .” He lets the sentence dangle before going on. “I went into the infirmary because I want to know you better—to understand you—and that was the only thing I could think of doing.”

Hope's gaze never leaves the photos. She can't take her eyes off them.

“It's like we've had these moments—escaping the cave-in, the flooded tunnel, the fire—but I almost don't know whether I should believe them or not. Did we really kiss? Did we really hold each other like we couldn't let go? Did all that happen? Because the way you treat me sometimes . . . I don't know if I've been dreaming the whole thing or not.”

Hope nods but says nothing. When she lifts her eyes from the photos and glances at Book, he is staring at her, his face radiating warmth. She has to look away. When she finally speaks, her voice is soft, hesitant, nearly a whisper.

“I don't know what to say, Book. I'm grateful you put your life on the line for me. I appreciate that. I do. And we'll go with you to your camp and free those Less Thans, because we said we would.” She hesitates.

“But?”

She looks up and meets his eyes. “I don't think I can trust you ever again.”

Book opens his mouth to speak, but she turns and marches away, not once glancing back.

They hike by night and sleep by day, trailing the Sisters' footprints in the gravel road. Hope marches in front of the line, Book in the rear. They sleep at opposite ends of camp. There's always a considerable distance between them.

Not that Hope doesn't think about him—she does that all the time. The press of their lips when they kissed. How their hands fit into each other when they touched. She even has a vague memory of flying through the air, Book's body holding her, protecting her,
caressing
her. But even though these memories send a tingle down her spine, there is no getting past the fact that Book lied to her.

So why does she feel a stab of regret? Why can't she stop second-guessing her decision to push him away?

One night, Hope tells everyone to hold up. The tone of her voice stops them cold. In pale moonlight, she bends down and picks something up. She turns it over in her hand. An empty shell casing. Argos gives it a sniff.

“Big deal,” Flush says. “Probably pre-Omega.”

“It's not,” Cat says, and everyone turns, surprised to hear the sound of his voice. It's been days since he last spoke. “Too shiny.”

“So who does it belong to?”

“Take your pick. Brown Shirts. Crazies. Hunters. Skull People. Does it really matter?”

Hope knows that soldiers have been here—she's been following their tread marks as much as the Sisters' footprints—but the fact that one of these other groups could have been on this road raises the hair on the back of her neck.

They spread out, and it's not long before Hope notices
a break in the weeds. She and Diana creep forward, Diana with her crossbow, Hope with a spear. Flush and Book follow with slingshots. The weeds brush against their legs until they're in the middle of a large, rolling meadow. If it's an ambush they're stepping into, they're dead for sure. No place to hide at all.

Perhaps it's harmless, Hope thinks. Some soldier stepped off the road and left a narrow trail of matted-down weeds.

Crickets quiet as they approach. The only sounds are their hearts thudding against their chests. Hope's knuckles shine white from gripping the spear.

A large oak tree stands in the middle of the meadow, its twisted branches forming a wide umbrella. At first the path seems to lead straight toward it, but then it meanders in another direction.
Why?
Hope wonders.
Why leave the road and then reverse direction?

Then she sees.

There at the trail's end, lying facedown in the tall grasses, is an inmate from Camp Freedom. A Sister . . . with a gaping hole in the back of her head.

Hope turns the body over, giving a start when she sees the eye patch over one of the girl's eyes.

“You know her?” Diana asks.

“I met her once.” Hope remembers the girl giving her water in the infirmary. She was kind to Hope, even when Hope wasn't especially kind in return.

They piece it together. A Sister attempts to escape, weaving through waist-high grass. A Brown Shirt, standing on the gravel road, needs only the one bullet to bring her down.

The bigger question is: Where are the Sisters being taken?

Hope makes her way back to the road. She has just stepped onto gravel when they hear the distant thrum of an engine. When they realize it's a vehicle headed in their direction, they dive into the bushes.

A military transport carrier pulls up, and two Brown Shirts emerge. They click on flashlights, their weak beams parting the tall grasses.

“Pretty sure there's one around here somewhere,” one of them says, his yellow circle of light darting from one side of the road to the other.

“Sure smells that way,” the other responds. The two soldiers laugh.

When their beams land on the narrow trail, they go tromping through the weeds, returning moments later with the dead Sister in their arms. They swing her body back and forth before tossing her into the carrier. Hope notices other corpses there as well. More Sisters.

“That should be the last of them,” the first Brown Shirt says.

“For now.”

They both snicker, get back in the vehicle, and turn it around. It's a long forever before the red taillights vanish into black.

The Sisters and Less Thans emerge from the bushes and ease back onto the road. Their steps are hurried now, brisk, urgent. Although they come across no more corpses, they see the clues. Shell casings. Scuff marks in the gravel. Bits of discarded clothing.

They walk the rest of the night, saying little. Thoughts swirl through Hope's head like dust across a barren field, and the list in her mind becomes more definite than ever.

Thorason, Maddox, and Gallingham. Their time will come . . . or she will die trying.