The Prey (10 page)

That night I dreamed of her again—the woman with long black hair.

But this time I was seated on her lap surrounded by flickering candles. She was reading—tales of Star-Belly Sneetches and a pig named Wilbur—her voice soothing me. Utterly comforting.

“Get up,” a voice whispered.

Cat's face was inches from mine. I rolled to the side, hoping to reenter the dream.

“Get dressed,” he whispered. “We need to leave now.”

I bolted upright and tried to shake off my confusion.
Now?
Was he crazy? We still had work to do, supplies to gather.

“We've been compromised,” he explained. “We have to wake the others.”

I jumped out of bed and slipped on my jeans. They were cold and stiff, deepening the shivers that shook my body.

Compromised?
What was he talking about?

While Cat woke Flush, Red, and Twitch, I went to the beds of June Bug and Dozer. All around us guys snored heavily. The seven of us shuffled to the latrine.

Cat turned the dead bolt and got right to it. “Someone talked to Westbrook.”

Everyone was suddenly wide-awake.

“Who?” Dozer asked. The muscles in his nonwithered arm grew tense.

“Don't know,” Cat answered.

“So how do you know someone talked?” He clenched and unclenched his fist as if preparing for a fight.

“I just know.”

“You woke us up for that?” Dozer asked. “Some vague possibility that
someone
might have said
something
to Colonel Westbrook? And I suppose this was your
source
who told you this?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Someone went to Westbrook and Karsten this afternoon and told them there's an escape planned for a few nights from now.”

The air was sucked out of the room. All our hard work and planning—for nothing.

“So what do we do?” Twitch asked, blinking rapidly.

“Leave tonight,” Cat answered. “It's our only option.”

I inhaled sharply.

“But we're not ready,” Dozer said. “We haven't finished gathering supplies. And there's no way we can retrieve the ones we have.”

For once, I agreed with him. Everyone began talking.

Cat cut us off. “According to my source, the whole camp'll be on lockdown starting tomorrow morning. If we don't get out of here now, we never will.”

“We?”
I asked Cat.

“I'm coming with you,” he said. There was no pleasure in his voice.

“Okay,” June Bug said, “so let's meet at the storehouse in ten minutes. We'll load supplies into the Humvees and drive the hell out of here.”

“Not possible,” Cat said. “Westbrook's posting guards at the vehicle compound. There's no way we'll get a single Humvee past them.”

June Bug looked stricken. Everything depended on being able to drive the first few hundred miles.

“Then how do we escape?” Twitch asked.

Before anyone could answer, we heard sounds from the bunkhouse. Shriek of whistles. Smashing of trunks.

“Soldiers,” Cat said. “Searching for evidence.”

“What do we d-do?” Red asked.

“Out the window.
Now.
”

As we raced to the far end of the latrine, Twitch asked, “Do we meet at the storehouse?”

“There's no time,” June Bug answered. “Not now.”

“But we have to have supplies.” There was no way we could survive a trip across the desert without food and water.

“Forget the desert,” Cat said. “They'll track us down before we get a mile from camp.”

“So where do we go?”

“Skeleton Ridge,” I blurted out. Everyone looked at me like I'd lost it.

Cat nodded curtly. “He's right. We'll get some horses from the stables and head up the mountain. We can lose 'em if we're fast.”

The fear of Brown Shirts was nothing compared to the absolute terror of Skeleton Ridge with its dizzying altitude and roaming wolf packs.

“There's an office by the stables,” June Bug said. “There're packs and canteens. Probably some jerky. Not much, but enough to get us going.”

“How about the bunker?” I asked. “We need to free those LTs.”

The corners of Cat's mouth tugged downward. “They're not there, Book. Westbrook sold them off this morning.” I remembered those terrified faces: Moon
and Double Wide and all the others. The thought of them getting slaughtered by Hunters turned my stomach.

The door banged. “Open up in there!” Major Karsten called out. It was all too easy to imagine his skull-like face on the other side.

LTs scrambled out the window. More whistles shrieked. It was like a bad dream—everything happening too fast and out of control.

“Open up, I say!”
Karsten yelled. The door buckled under the weight of his pounding.

Cat and I were the last to leave. He tossed me through the window and leaped out a second later. Just as we landed, we heard the dead bolt snap open, followed by a crunch of footsteps. We pressed ourselves against the building, hiding in shadows.

“What happened, Major?” a voice asked. Colonel Westbrook. His calm tone had a deadly venom to it.

“We broke up a secret meeting,” Karsten answered. “Looks like they escaped out that window.”

There was a moment's pause, then the dull echo of footsteps. From our hiding place in the shadows, Cat and I saw Westbrook thrust his head out the bathroom window. A moment later, he retracted it.

“I want every one of those Less Thans rounded up and brought back here,” he commanded. “No exceptions.”

“My pleasure,” Karsten growled.

The footsteps receded and I tugged Cat's arm. “We'd
better get out of here,” I said.

He shook his head. “Meet you at the stables.” He took off before I had a chance to stop him.

I got up and ran, my one good leg carrying me as fast as it ever had, a part of me wondering if I'd ever see Cat again.

The stables were separated from camp by a quarter mile of pines and firs. By the time I got there, the office door was splintered open and the five LTs were stuffing backpacks with supplies.

As we worked, slipping pads and saddles on the horses, we heard shouts from camp. Banks of floodlights snapped on. Twitch buckled the cinch around the belly of my horse and helped adjust the stirrup because of my one short leg.

“Cat better get here soon,” he murmured.

We led the horses out to the corral. From camp came the faraway sounds of muffled gunshots. It was hard to believe only an hour earlier I'd been fast asleep, dreaming of the black-haired woman. Hard to believe one's life could change so quickly.

There was a sudden scurrying off to one side and Red and Dozer fumbled with their bows. Cat burst through the woods before either nocked an arrow.

“Where were you?” Flush demanded.

“Had to do an errand. Come on. Let's get out of here.”

We grabbed our packs and headed for the horses. A voice stopped us cold.

“Wait.”

Faster than a snap, Cat had an arrow nocked and the bowstring pulled back tight. So that's how it was done.

“W-who is it?” Red asked.

Stepping through the undergrowth was a younger LT named Four Fingers. He was Flush's age and I didn't know him well. Just enough to realize that for such a big guy, he had a surprising baby face.

“Don't shoot,” he said, hands in the air.

“What do you want?” Dozer demanded.

“I want to go with you.”

We looked at each other. “Who said we were going anywhere?” June Bug asked.

Four Fingers's eyes took in the saddled horses. “You're escaping, aren't you? I want to come with you. I can earn my keep.” He picked up one of the packs, hoisting it on his broad shoulders. For a fourteen-year-old, he was pretty damn strong. The whistles of the Brown Shirts grew closer.

“No room,” Dozer said. “Now beat it.”

We started to walk away. A small part of me felt for the kid.

“Fine,” Four Fingers said, “I'll tell the colonel.”

We froze. It was pure blackmail—but he had us good and everyone knew it.

Dozer raised his fist and took a threatening step forward. “You say one word, you little freak, and I'll rip off your head and feed it to the wolves.”

Four Fingers didn't back down. The two locked eyes.

“Okay,” June Bug finally relented, “but keep up. We don't wait for anyone.”

Four Fingers's face broke into a ghoulish smile.

“Are you serious?” Dozer asked, outraged. “This jerk-off hasn't been on a horse in his life. All the Brown Shirts have to do is follow us up the mountain on their ATVs.”

“Not if their ATVs don't work.” Cat reached into his pocket and fished out a handful of keys. “Tough to start an engine without these.”

From the sounds of the whistles, we knew the Brown Shirts had reached the other side of the woods. A flare rocketed skyward, bursting into a spitting blaze of green light. There was no time to waste.

We saddled an eighth horse and began making our way up the steep trail that led to the top of the dark, distant mountain—Skeleton Ridge. As our mounts picked their way up the rocky slope, I questioned if we were right to bring Four Fingers along.

Wondered, too, if I could work it to see the girl named Hope again. To find out more about her, who she was and how she'd ended up at Camp Freedom. For reasons I didn't fully understand, I couldn't get her out of my mind.

but please turn around
and step into the future
leave memories behind
enter the land of hope
—Z
BIGNIEW
H
ERBERT
from “A Life”

W
ITH A SPECIAL INSPECTION
scheduled that night, Hope's been ordered to clean the barn. An important visitor is coming to Camp Freedom and everything has to look its best. Like Hope cares.

All that concerns her is living—trying to survive Dr. Gallingham and her fellow inmates so she and Faith can get out of there. And maybe find Book.

Even now, stacking hay bales, she swears she can smell his masculine scent: that pleasing blend of sweat and musk. It surprises her how much she thinks of him. How cruel it was to meet him that one time only and then . . . gone.

Laughter breaks her spell. Mean-spirited chuckling.

Hope inches to the edge of the hayloft. Below her,
at the far end of the barn, stand three inmates. They surround a fourth girl—Hope recognizes her as the strawberry blonde, the frail twin of Red Hair. Where the Brown Shirts have drifted off to is anybody's guess.

The girl tries to walk away, but the heavyset bully pushes her to the ground. The girl lands smack in a juicy puddle of mud and manure.

“I'll ask you one more time,” the leader says. “What were you doing back there?”

“I wasn't doing anything,” Strawberry Blonde says, her voice quivering.

“Just kicking dirt for the fun of it?”

The heavyset prisoner takes a menacing step forward. There's something off-kilter about her face—lopsided, even. “You all are up to something, aren't ya?”

The small girl's chin trembles. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I think you do.” She begins slamming her fist into her palm.
Smack. Smack.

“Hey!” Hope suddenly yells. “What's going on down there?”

The three girls look up and exchange a glance. “Who the hell are you?” Lopsided Face asks.

“I'm Hope.”

“Yeah, well, I'm Reality”—her two friends crack up—“and I say leave us the hell alone.”

Hope climbs down the rickety ladder without a second thought, knowing she has little chance with these odds. Not three against one. Still, she reaches the ground and extends a hand to the frail girl, intending to help her to her feet.

Before she gets the chance, Lopsided Face spins her around. “I said leave us alone.”

It takes everything in Hope's willpower not to throw a punch. “I am leaving you alone. It's her I'm helping.”

Lopsided doesn't hide her disgust. “What's with you girls from B, anyway? What makes you think you're so special?”

“We just look after each other, that's all.”

Hope's words surprise even herself. Here she is including herself in Barracks B as though she's lived there for years. As though the other girls accept her.

“Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but you're up to something. Kicking at the dirt. Searching in the gardens. It's like you're looking for buried treasure.”

It's what Hope thinks, too.

A distant whistle shrieks. Time for the inspection.

Lopsided Face gives an irritated glance, then leans in until her nose is mere inches from Hope's. “We're not done here.” She and her friends lumber away and Hope waits for them to disappear.

“Come on,” Hope says to the frail girl. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

“But the inspection—”

“Can wait. Come on.”

Hope pulls her to her feet, mud and manure clinging to her legs.

“You won't tell, will you?” the girl manages between sobs.

Hope is irritated by the tears and confused by the request. “It wasn't your fault those bullies picked on you.”

“Please don't tell Athena—about any of this.”

“Fine. As long as you stop crying.” Then: “So your sister's name is Athena, huh? What's yours?”

“Helen,” she says with a nervous smile.

“Okay, Helen. Then get out of that dress and we'll clean it.”

Helen covers herself. “But what will I wear?”

Hope lets out a long sigh; she has no time for tears, even less for modesty. She whips off her own dress and holds it out to Helen.

Helen just stares at it. “But that's yours.”

“Exactly. Now take it.” They exchange dresses and Hope fills a bucket with water. She begins to scrub. “Why'd they pick on you, anyway?”