The One Safe Place (29 page)

“It’s just Frisker,” Kit said, patting her backpack. “You don’t think I’d leave this place without Frisker, do you?”

The elevator hissed and the door slid open and the Administrator’s office was laid out before them.

Kit put her bag down carefully on the floor and rummaged in her pocket for the key to the control box. She pulled it out and tossed it to Luke.

“It’s up to you now,” she said.

Luke was at the Administrator’s desk. “There’s a button here somewhere that opens the panel hiding the control box . . . I saw her press it . . . ah, here it is.”

A small rectangle slid open on the wall of fake books.

Luke had unlocked the control box and was hunched over a sheet of glass. Small lights were blinking on the surface in an apparently random pattern, but Luke didn’t seem disturbed by this. In fact he looked calmer than he had in days. He rubbed his hands together.

“Pretty basic stuff,” he murmured. “It uses touch recognition but there’s an easy way around that . . .”

Kit and Devin clustered around him, watching. His fingers flew over the glass, swiping and tapping. The small lights began to form a line. “I thought so,” Luke muttered. “It’s completely predictable. You’d think they would have installed something a bit more advanced.”

“Just get on with it,” Kit said. “You need the code yet?”

“In a minute. Okay . . . I’m in. Give me the numbers.”

Kit pulled out the piece of paper with the code and began dictating to Luke. His fingers hesitated. His eyes scanned the screen anxiously.

“What’s the matter?”

“Slight glitch. I can enter the numbers but I don’t know which laser posts they correspond to. I could find out but it’s going to take me a couple more minutes.”

“Does it matter? Just put them all in. Then all the posts will go down.”

“Okay, keep going.”

Kit continued to read the numbers aloud, and this time Luke’s fingers flew across the glass panel. “That’s one out . . . that’s two . . . that’s three . . .”

Frisker whimpered again in Kit’s bag and made a scrabbling noise as he tried to get out. Kit hesitated, the paper shaking slightly in her hand.

“That’s four out,” Luke said. “Eight to go. We’ll be out of here in—”

He was interrupted by a piercing noise, half whistle, half roar. Devin’s hands shot up to cover his ears.

“Security alarm!” Luke shouted.

“What did you do?” Kit was yelling herself.

“Nothing! Someone else must have set it off.” He banged at the glass panel with his fist. “I can’t go on. It’s overriding everything.”

“You have to!” Kit screamed. “Try!” The alarm had risen to an earsplitting shriek.

“It’s no good!”

Devin ran to the window that overlooked the courtyard. The alarm suddenly stopped. In the silence he heard Luke’s voice, babbling in panic.

“We’ve got four down, but which four? Which ones? There’s no way to tell.”

“I don’t think it matters anymore,” Devin said quietly. “Take a look at this.”

Far below they saw a crowd of people: the children and all the staff members and Mrs. Babbage, her thin hair out of its bun and hanging in disheveled strands. The Visitors who had arrived in the convoy of cars were standing to one side in a huddle, looking completely bewildered. In front of them all, the Administrator stood, her hands on her hips. Even from this distance she looked terrifying.

Everyone’s head was turned in exactly the same direction.

They were all looking up at the top of the tower.

Twenty-Six

KIT, LUKE, AND DEVIN
shrank down, away from the window.

“What did we do to set off the alarm?” Kit whispered, her back to the wall.

Luke shook his head. “No, I told you, I don’t think it was us. I was careful. I know how these systems work. Something else must have happened.”

Devin raised himself and peered out the window again. “They’re still there, just looking.”

“How can they see us?” Kit said again.

“I’m not sure it’s us they’re looking at,” Devin said, staring down. It seemed to him that the gaze of the crowd wasn’t fixed on their window, but at a point somewhere above them. “I think they’re looking at something else.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kit said. “We’re still trapped aren’t we? The minute we walk out of here, they’ll see us. Even if they didn’t, we don’t know which posts are down and which are still active. We don’t know what direction to run in.” Her fists clenched. “She’s not going to get me again. I’ll trash this place before I let her get me again.”

Devin had risen to his feet and was levering the window upward. The casing was a little stiff, and he had to shove hard. Luke made a grab for him. “What are you doing? They’ll see you!”

But Devin had the window open and was leaning out. Immediately, the eyes of the crowd below turned in his direction. Then they turned back to a spot just above him. Devin leaned out farther, craning his neck, trying to see what they were looking at. The top of the tower was about twenty feet above him, invisible from this angle. Before the others could stop him, he scrambled out through the window onto the broad ledge, turning and inching sideways.

He knew better than to look down. He shuffled along the window ledge until he came to the end of it. The wall of the tower was irregular here, with several large chunks of masonry missing. If he judged it just right, he could find enough footholds to climb to the top of the window, which jutted out far enough to provide a perch for him. He put out a foot, found a crack in the wall, and hauled himself up, his hands scrabbling to hold on. Below him, he heard Kit calling to him, but he couldn’t make out the words.

The wind was stronger up here than he thought it would be, a harsh white roar in his throat, tugging at his insides and battering his body. His jacket blew up and whipped at his shoulders with a sound that was half a shout and half a scream. He sucked in his breath, found another foothold, and swung upward again. Three more feet and he would be at the relative safety of the perch. His hand was slippery; he tried to wipe it against his shirt, found himself off balance, and for one terrible moment felt himself about to fall. Somehow, he clung on, face crammed against the sandy stone, heart hammering, too frightened to continue but equally certain he could never make it back.

His grandfather’s voice was a whisper in his ear.

Try again, Dev, try again, my lad.

Devin’s foot found the next step. His arm reached out and grasped the perch, and he heaved himself up and lay there panting. Then he stood up carefully. The roof of the tower was still a good ten feet above him, and he could see that he had no chance of climbing any farther; from that point on, the wall was perfectly smooth, without a single foot- or handhold. But now that he was higher, he saw what everyone below was staring at so intently.

It was Roman. Devin remembered how he’d slipped from the dining room after Mrs. Babbage had made her announcement. He must have been climbing the tower while Malloy was still running around the courtyard with Fulsome.

Roman was standing on the edge of the roof. Heat haze blurred his outline, making his body shimmer and appear to sway. But his face was as fixed as stone.

Devin looked back down at the courtyard. Nobody had moved. They were all still staring up. From this distance, their faces were nothing but pale smudges.

He shuffled to the edge of his perch. “Roman!”

The boy glanced down at him without expression, as though he had reached a place beyond recognition or even surprise. He looked away.

“Roman! What are you doing?”

The wind blew Roman’s shirt tight against his body. He took another step forward. He was almost at the very edge of the roof now.

“Don’t!” Devin cried, reaching one arm hopelessly toward him. “Don’t!”

Below him on the ground, many of the children covered their faces with their hands. Someone had left and come back with a megaphone and was shouting something into it. But the words were lost on the wind. Devin looked back at Roman.

“
Why?
” Devin asked.

But even before the word was out of his mouth, he knew.

“It’s because of Megs isn’t it?” he said. “It’s all because of Megs. You didn’t do any of this to protect yourself, or for money. You did it for Megs.”

Roman lowered his head and looked down at Devin, as if for the first time. His eyes had a bruised appearance, like he’d been grinding his fists against them. “We arrived here together, over a year ago,” he said in a dull voice. “She reminded me of . . .” He paused, unable to speak for a second or two.

“I had a little sister once, but I lost her. In a flash flood behind our house after a storm. I was holding on to her but she . . . she slipped through my fingers. I saw her face before she went under. She was crying out for me.” He lifted his right hand and stared at it. “I had hold of her . . .”

Devin remembered the conversation he’d overheard the night of the campout. “You couldn’t save her but you thought you could save Megs.”

“Megs was normal when I met her. Just a sweet, normal little girl. But they changed her. I saw her getting disturbed . . . all the fire stuff . . . I couldn’t stand to see it. I promised myself I wouldn’t lose her like I lost my sister.”

“The Administrator told you Megs wouldn’t have to go to the Place anymore if you went out and found more children.”

A terrible resignation spread over Roman’s face. “Yeah. But I didn’t find enough kids. She said I wasn’t useful to her anymore. I should have known she’d break her promise.

“They’ll dump her back on the streets,” Roman said, as if talking to himself. “And she’ll die. All by herself in a corner somewhere.”

“No,” Devin said, “she won’t if—”

But Roman wasn’t listening to him any longer. His right foot had crept over the edge of the roof. “I’m a traitor,” he muttered. “But I wasn’t like that before, I wasn’t that person . . .”

“You’re still not,” Devin said. “It’s not too late.”

Roman shook his head.

“We need you,” Devin pleaded. A sudden gust of wind caught him and pinned him to the side of the tower. He waited for it to pass, his cheek pressed tight against the stone, his mind groping for the right thing to say.

“You were on a baseball team,” he said. “You were the catcher,” he said.

He didn’t wait for Roman to reply but carried on, his words tumbling out. “Luke’s in the office, he’s disabled four of the laser posts but we don’t know which ones. If we run the wrong way we’ll be caught. You said that from where the catcher stands he can see the whole field. Do you remember that, Roman?”

The boy swayed slightly on the lip of the roof.

“We need you, Roman,” Devin said softly. “We need you to be the catcher again.”

Roman’s lips tightened.

“Where are they? Can you see?”

Roman seemed to shudder and his shoulders dropped. He stepped back.

“Yes,” he said. “I can see them all. Most of them still have their lights flashing. But the ones behind the farmyard and the meadow—those are out.”

“You sure?”

He nodded. “You should head over there.”

“Thanks, Roman, thank you . . .”

“Wait. You’ll never get past that crowd in the courtyard.” There were several loose bricks scattered over the roof of the tower and Roman bent and picked one up. “I told you the catcher’s got a lightning arm,” he said grimly. “Watch this.”

He leaned back slightly, his shoulder curving into a long, smooth swing, and flung the brick into the courtyard. Devin heard cries of alarm, saw children scattering. Roman bent and got another brick. “I’ll get her with this one,” he said. He aimed and sent it hurtling down. Devin watched it fly straight at the Administrator, standing motionless below.

“It hit the ground right next to her!” Devin cried.

The Administrator was stumbling backward. Another brick was already in Roman’s hand. His body was steady, his face full of concentration. The brick sailed toward Mrs. Babbage, who gave a thin scream and bolted for the shelter of the dining room. Staff members jumped to hustle the old folks away.

“You’d better hurry,” Roman shouted. “I can’t hold them off forever. Once I’m out of bricks, they’ll be back.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll manage. Get out of here!”

Another brick went whistling through the air. Devin ducked his head and scrambled down the footholds to the window ledge below. He slid through the window feet first.

“It’s clear behind the farmyard,” he panted. “Roman’s on the roof, he could see. He’s keeping the crowd away, but we don’t have much time.”

They grabbed their bags and bolted toward the elevator. Outside, the courtyard was completely empty. The Administrator couldn’t have been far away, Devin thought, but nobody dared to brave the open with Roman still on the roof hurling his missiles. As if to prove his point, a brick slammed down and hit the ground twenty feet from where they stood.

“Come on!” They took off running toward the farmyard.

“Get the others!” Devin cried. “Tell everyone you see . . .”

Kit was ahead, her braid bouncing against her back as she raced.

The rest of the children were in a bewildered group behind the buildings on the far side of the courtyard. The minute they caught sight of Kit and the others, they rushed forward.