I LOOKED AT MY FOUR roommates with equal amounts of curiosity and caution. There were two brown people, one tan person, and one cream-colored person like me. They were all staring back at me, but maybe they’d never seen quite so many bruises on a girl.
Did we all introduce ourselves now? Shake hands? Was there a prison etiquette? If there was, I was sure I’d be forcibly educated in it momentarily. As it was, I was left being me.
“What the hell is this crazy house? And who was that evil woman?” I demanded.
The kids seemed startled, one of them laughing nervously, and then the dark-brown girl glanced up and to the left, very quickly. I followed her line of sight and saw a tiny camera mounted high on the wall on the other side. As I watched, it swung in an arc, then swung back.
A surveillance camera. We were being watched all the time. How prisonlike.
“My name is Becca,” I said. “I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what this place is. I don’t know how to get out of here. Like, can my fam—can my sister come bail me out or something?” Despite our differences, I knew that Cassie wouldn’t hesitate. If it was possible, she would already be working on getting me out. I hoped it was possible.
This time all four of them looked solemn.
“I’m Robin,” the dark girl said.
“I’m Diego.” The tan boy bit his thumb and then dropped his hand, as if he was trying to break the habit.
The tall dark boy with straight hair stepped closer. “I’m Vijay.”
I’d barely noticed the other girl, except to see she had the same color skin as me. Now she nodded at me shyly. “I’m Merry. Like Merry Christmas. Not like Virgin Mary.”
Vijay pressed his lips together and Robin held up a warning finger. “Don’t even,” she said.
“She’s got to find some other way of describing it,” Vijay said defensively. “It leaves her set up perfectly, and it’s unfair that I have to suppress every humorous instinct I have.”
“Not this again,” Diego muttered, while Merry crossed her arms over her chest and gave Vijay a look I recognized: fed-up impatience. Having often been on the receiving end of that look, I sympathized.
“Maybe just spell it?” Vijay suggested helpfully. “Leave the Virgin out of it?”
“What is this crazy house?” I said again, a little louder this time to get their attention. “Why are we here? Why are you here? What’s going on?”
Their faces fell again. I sure was a killjoy.
“This crazy house, as you call it, is a maximum security prison for enemies of the system. Strepp is the deputy warden.” Vijay had a dry, precise way of talking, as if he’d been picked for higher schooling.
“To answer your other questions,” Robin said, “we don’t know why we’re here. We don’t know where ‘here’ is. And there’s only one way out.”
“In fact,” Diego said, his voice tense, “kids get out that way all the time.”
“What is it?” I asked eagerly, ready to sign up for good behavior or whatever.
Merry sighed. She was younger than me, with light-brown hair we call “mouse-colored” in our cell. “Diego is… kidding,” she said. “Sort of. What he means is, this isn’t just a prison, and we’re not just prisoners. This is death row. We’ve all been sentenced to die. And that’s the only way out.”
11
CASSIE
AT 6:00 A.M., I WAS awake and dressed, gritty-eyed and shaking with panic, perched on the edge of a kitchen chair. The moment curfew was over, I tore outside and plugged in the moped. It had rained during the night, and even now fog and mist shrouded the world, blurring outlines and muffling sounds.
My old bike was leaning against the house—I hadn’t ridden it since Pa had let me use his truck. Pa. I knew I had to tell him about Becca. I also knew he wouldn’t hear me. Wouldn’t understand me. Those days were over.
What a weird thought: I used to have two parents. But Ma was taken away for a mood-adjust. She hadn’t come back. And then I’d been stupid enough to leave Pa home with the rifle. Even though I knew—
By pedaling furiously, I was outside my best friend’s house at 6:20, throwing pebbles up at her window. Steph finally opened her window and peered out. After one look at my white, frantic face, she blinked and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Becca’s still gone!” I said, and saw the instant fear in Steph’s eyes.
“Just like Kathy,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth. I nodded. Kathy Hobhouse had been in our class at school. Four months ago she had simply disappeared, and hadn’t returned.
“But I still want to look for Becca—just in case.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Steph nodded. A few minutes later she was downstairs, dressed, and armed with her mother’s car key.
“Maybe she’s just… staying with a friend,” Steph suggested, pushing the ignition button.
“I hope so,” I said fervently. “I really, really hope she’s just being a jerk and making me worry.”
Steph’s dinky little electric Hopper wasn’t much, but it was all we had. We picked up two friends I could trust: Sarah and Ted. I wanted to race up and down the fields of wheat, sweep every road, check every house. Rebecca—ridiculous as she was—was my twin sister, and we’d never been separated. Shouldn’t I be able to sense where she was? Shouldn’t there be an invisible twin beacon that would call me to her?
“Did you go to the Provost’s office?” Ted asked as we headed down the road to town.
“Not yet. They didn’t help when Ma disappeared,” I said bitterly.
Lines of worry creased Sarah’s forehead. “But people don’t disappear,” she said. “Not in our cell. I mean—even with Kathy. I’m sure there’s some explanation.”
“Like what?” I asked. “We’ve all seen the flyers around town: MISSING PERSON. They stay up for a day or two and then get taken down. But the people don’t come back!”
Sarah looked unconvinced. “But this is our cell,” she said. “Maybe they just… moved to a different house.”
“We would know!” I pointed out, losing patience. “We know everyone! We know every house!”
“I don’t,” Sarah said stubbornly.
My teeth clenched at her blind loyalty, but before I could argue, Steph spoke up.
“You better… you better do things by the book,” she said. “Go file a missing person report and meet us back here. We’ll start in the square and work our way outward.”
“Since this is Becca, we’ll hit all the bad citizens first,” Ted said. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I said, and got out.
The Hopper drove off silently as I looked up at the Management Building with dread. This was the center of our cell: where you got marriage licenses and licenses to have kids or to move, where you registered your moped or got permission to buy another cow or horse. Where you filed a missing person report with the Provost’s office. Like I had done three years ago for Ma.