“Thank you, Warden Bell.”
Ms. Strepp lost no time leaving the office wing of the prison and returning to her own domain. She was grateful that the Warden was allowing her this experiment. It was going to be very interesting indeed. Of course, first she had to whip Rebecca into shape. With real whips, if necessary.
26
BECCA
THE PEN WAS A SMALL box of a room, about four feet across and four feet deep. No bars, just solid concrete walls and a metal door with a tiny window in it. There was no furniture, no benches, no nothing. Into this pen they put me and Bruiser, together, only minutes after he beat the stuffing out of me. Too late I remembered the gist of the girl’s words: “Don’t piss him off—you’ll be locked up with him later.” Well, maybe he hadn’t taken offense to me calling him an asshole and a son of a bitch and whatever else I had said. Maybe me spitting blood in his face was all water under the bridge.
One thing was for sure: in this little pen, with no armor, this guy could end me in about two seconds. And maybe that was his plan.
The door clanged behind us with chilling finality. Bruiser and I stood there and looked at each other. My swollen, abraded hands automatically clenched into fists, not that they would help me at all.
The guy stuck out his hand and I instinctively flinched. When he didn’t touch me I gave him a quick glance. He was waiting there, his hand held out. “I’m Tim,” he said.
Quickly I replayed the last several minutes in my mind: (1) Forced to fight, check. (2) Got totally and completely “broken down,” check. (3) Had my tooth knocked right out of my jaw by this hulking freak, check. (4) Was now locked in a pen with him, check. (5) He had just introduced himself and offered to shake hands, double check.
One of those things didn’t fit.
Shaking my head, I blinked a couple of times, as if that would help snap me back into reality.
“What?” I managed, and wiped blood off my face.
The little window in the door slid open, and a yellow jumpsuit was pushed through it. Then the window shot closed again.
I was now thrilled to see the garment that I had detested so heartily just an hour ago. The crazy-house uniform. It hurt to bend down to pick it up. Leaning against the concrete wall, I shakily put one leg in, then the other. Trying to get it up over my shoulders and my arms into the sleeves was the worst pain I’d ever felt, and all I wanted to do was groan loudly, like a horse foaling. But I wouldn’t give Bruiser the satisfaction.
Finally I was covered up, which was much better than not being covered up. The fabric instantly began to stick to the places that were bleeding, and I pulled and plucked at it so it wouldn’t fuse to the scabs.
Bruiser leaned against the door and crossed his arms. “What’s your name?” he tried.
“What do you care?” Slowly I let myself slide down the wall until I was sitting. Bruiser did the same thing, sitting with his back to the door. Like I would even think about trying to get past him.
“Did you want to fight?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said wearily. “I get a kick out of it.”
“Well, I didn’t,” he said, looking away. “I hate fighting. My vocation was to be a house-builder. That’s what I wanted to do. But they took me and put me here and they make me fight.”
Now I looked at him. His brown hair was about a quarter of an inch long. He had brown eyes that seemed warm now, but in the ring they had been cold and hard. With pleasure I noticed a bruise on his cheek and a scrape on his face. I had done that.
“Congrats. You’re awfully good at it,” I said.
“I have to be,” he said. “I pay if I’m not. When I first came here, I refused to fight.” He held up his left hand. Two of his fingers had odd angles to them, as if they’d been broken and not set. “They convinced me.”
I didn’t know what to think. Maybe he was lying. Maybe he wasn’t. He could be a spy. Or he could be just a kid, like me, who was in the middle of a heinous situation through no fault of his own.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Four months.” He looked bitter. “I guess I’ve lasted so long because I’m entertainment in the ring. Most kids don’t last this long.”
“They really do execute people here?”
Now his eyes looked sad, almost haunted. “Yeah,” he said. “All the time.”
27
“BECCA!”
“Mmmph,” I mumbled.
“Becca! Wake up!”
“Five more minutes, Ma,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut.
“I’m not your ma,” someone said, and I opened my eyes. The ceiling above me was unpainted cinder blocks. In one horrible second, it all came back to me: I was sleeping on a floor in prison. My jaw ached where I’d lost a tooth to my pal Tim. Ma hadn’t woken me up for school in three years.
Right then I hated reality so much.
Blinking a couple more times, I focused on the friendly face above me. Robin. It was still dark in our prison block, and there were no sounds of movement or activity.
“Robin,” I whispered. “What’s up? What time is it?” It felt like only minutes since I had been escorted from the pen back to my prison room, where I had promptly passed out.
“It’s two thirty,” she said apologetically. “But they’re going to be coming for you soon, and I thought it’d be better if you were on your feet.”
“Who’s coming for me?” I said, scrambling to stand up. Pain after pain assaulted my sleep-deprived brain as every bruised muscle strained to hold me upright. I swallowed moans and groans and tried to control my breathing.
“You said you’d done badly on the tests,” Robin whispered, patting her bunk next to her. I shook my head; if I sat down, I’d never be able to get back up. Not without crying. “And you got beaten in the ring.”
It was a kindhearted understatement, and I nodded again.
“When that happens, they put the kid through lessons and training,” Robin went on. Her head turned involuntarily, as mine did, when we heard the doors at the end of our block screech open.
“More lessons, more training,” Robin went on in a whisper. “Starting now.” Quickly she lay down on her bunk and pretended to be asleep. Heavy footsteps marched toward me, getting louder and louder. When the guards reached my room, I was standing there, awake and clear-eyed, looking at them calmly.
They seemed startled, disappointed—no doubt they’d been looking forward to hauling me up from the floor and dragging me down the hall.
“Let’s go!” one guard said roughly, and she yanked my hands behind me to put handcuffs on my wrists.
I kept my balance, walking quickly between them, and amid the almost detached awareness I had of every single cell in my body screaming in agony, I thought: Thank you, Robin.
28
SCHOOL, FOR ME, WAS MOSTLY about seeing my friends. If any facts and figures filtered into my awareness, well, that was just a bonus.