Cage after cage after cage.
Beyond the bars the world moved past, faster than I’d ever seen it before. Trees. Yellow flowers that lined the road. Old houses, their roofs caved in. I glimpsed deer and rabbits, bent bicycles, rusted cars, and wild dogs. They all slipped away, too fast, like water down a drain. I am going to the City of Sand, I kept thinking, as though the repetition could numb me. I am being taken to the King. I will never see Caleb again.
Arden watched the landscape, her eyes watery. She had tried so hard to free herself of School. She’d come this far—all for what? To be caught in this net because of me? No doubt she was thinking of that dumb choice she’d made weeks ago in that cottage, regretting she ever agreed to let me stay on with her.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice choked. “I’m so sorry, Arden. You must wish you hadn’t ever let me come with you.”
“No.” Arden wrapped her fingers around the bars. Her pale skin was pink from just an hour in the sun. “Not at all, Eve.” She turned to me and her hazel eyes glistened with tears.
Just then, the girl in the corner shifted, sat up, and rubbed her face. She’d been too hysterical to talk to us after we left the dugout. Instead she’d curled up on the hot metal bed and fallen asleep, her eyelids twitching with nightmares.
“Who are you?” she asked, wincing as her skin touched the bars.
“I’m Eve. This is Arden,” I said, pointing across the cage. In the cab of the truck, Fletcher turned up the music, howling along to a dreadful, skipping song. I love rock ’n’ roll-oll-oll-oll, it went, put another dime in-in the jukebox, baby.
The girl reached out her thin hand for us to shake. “I’m Lark.”
“What School are you from?” I asked, noticing her jumper. It was cut in the same square shape of ours, but it was blue instead of gray.
“It was West, I think.” She rubbed her hands through her thick black hair. She looked about thirteen, with arms so thin her shoulder bones jutted out in two defined knots. Her deep brown skin cracked and peeled around her elbows and knees. “38o35'N, 121o30'W, is what the Teachers called it.”
I knew those numbers meant something. Our Teachers used them when they referred to School, but I had never figured out exactly what. We’d always been 39o30'N, 119o49'W.
“So you escaped,” Arden said.
“I needed to get out of there.” The girl pressed back into the corner of the cage, not meeting our eyes.
I glanced across to Arden, relieved that we weren’t the only girls who knew the truth about the Schools. I studied Lark’s legs, which were scraped red in places, the same way mine had been those first days in the wild. Mosquito bites dotted her arms and there was a hole in one of her canvas shoes, exposing her big toe.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
Lark rubbed at the skin around her eyes, where her tears had dried, leaving only fine patches of white salt. “I found a break in one of the metal fences. It was barely a foot wide and they were about to repair it. They’d boarded it up for the night to keep the dogs away, but I snuck through.” She pointed to the side of her jumper, where the fabric was torn, exposing her bare hip. “Then I ran until I found a house to sleep in. I think that was four days ago, but I’m not sure.”
“Where’d he find you?” Arden asked, nodding to Fletcher. He hung his meaty arm out the window, throwing it up in time with the words. So come and take your time and dance with-with me!
Lark wrapped her arms around her legs, curling herself into a tight ball. “I saw this jug of water sitting out on the road. I was so thirsty, I had been walking the whole day in the sun. It was a trap though. He must’ve been following me.”
The truck hit a bump, sending my stomach toward my heart. I clung to the bars, even though they stung the soft flesh of my palms. “Did you tell anyone else about the breeding?” I asked. “Are there others trying to escape?”
Lark looked up, confusion knitting her brow. “Breeding? What are you talking about?”
“The sows,” Arden said loudly, making sure the word was audible even over the music and the engine. Still, there was no recognition in Lark’s face. “That’s why you left—you were going to be used for breeding.”
Lark dug her heels into the metal truck bed, pushing her back straight. “No—” she said, an edge in her voice. “I left because of this.” She turned, showing us the blueish-black lines that marked the skin on the back of her bicep. It was the unmistakable imprint of fingers. “She waited for the others to leave before she hit me. I was going to find a different School—someplace better. I never want to see that woman again.”