With a sour look, the guard motioned to the other three to surround the house. He made a big show of standing at attention, his rifle at the ready. I had no doubt he was hoping that Becca or I would try to run away.
Feeling beaten all over again, Becca and I trudged upstairs.
“How could the prison—” I started, but Becca held up her hand.
“There’s no way,” Becca said bitterly. “You know and I know that that prison was there, that we went through all that shit, and that we aren’t crazy. But besides that? I got nothing.”
“That’s right,” I said, feeling a weight in my chest. “We have nothing! No school, no vocation, no Ma, Pa… and you know the Provost is going to send us for a mood-adjust. I can’t go through that. I’d rather die!” I thought about Nate, how there was no chance for us to be together, and felt even bleaker.
“They would love for us to choose that option,” Becca said. “They’d get the SAS van here in five minutes. We can’t give them that satisfaction.”
“Then what? We have the so-called hearing in the morning!”
Becca flopped down next to me on Ma and Pa’s bed. She gave me a tired smile and then yawned. “Relax,” she said. “If it comes to that, we’ll knock the guards out in the car, kick them out, steal the car, and then bust out of here. We’ll hit the boundary road and keep going till we run out of gas or find another cell.”
“Huh,” I said. That sounded pretty easy, actually. “Will you try to find Tim?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Depends on how much of a shit storm we have following us.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling a little better. My eyes were heavy and I let myself slide into an exhausted sleep. After all, I was going to knock out guards and steal a car tomorrow. I had to rest up.
108
WHEN ROUGH HANDS GRABBED ME out of a deep sleep, I thought I was just having flashbacks. Nightmares. It took a minute to react, since I expected to wake up. But then a black hood was pulled over my head and I heard Becca cry out.
“Cassie!” she screamed, then her voice was muffled.
“Becca!” I shouted back, but a heavy hand clamped over my mouth.
We hadn’t gone through weeks of intensive combat training for nothing, and immediately I kicked out, connected with something hard. Someone let out a breath, and then I felt a sharp, cold pinch in my thigh. Within seconds I had collapsed to the floor, as limp as an empty flour sack. I was vaguely aware of hands picking me up, but then everything was black.
Gradually I came awake, slowly realizing that I was lying down in a truck or van, my hands cuffed behind me.
“Becca?” I said hoarsely.
“Mmm,” came the answer, as if she were struggling to wake up.
The road was long and full of potholes. Apparently the driver was paid extra to hit every one. Each time he did, we bounced on the hard floor, landing painfully. Gradually I eased myself up into a sitting position. My ankles were bound together, but I managed to work my hands beneath me and then in front of me. It was much better. With my hands in front I was able to feel around for Becca.
“Get your hands in front,” I told her. “Then you can untie my hood.”
“’K,” she said, and coughed.
After getting our hoods off, we worked on the ropes around our ankles. Our wrists were cuffed with metal rings, and though we scraped our hands raw, we couldn’t get out of them.
We were being taken back to prison. Where, we didn’t know. We might have to fight. We might be tortured and tested until we fell over with exhaustion. We might be executed. One of us might have to watch the other one die.
“Well,” I said, panting with the effort of trying to untie my ankles, “at least we don’t have to go to the goddamn hearing this morning.”
Becca looked at me, surprised to hear me swear, and a slow smile lit her face. Then she was laughing, and I was laughing. Because what else could we do, facing death after everything we’d been through?
And when we finally got to our destination and the van doors were opened to forbidding darkness, that’s what Strepp saw: Becca and I without our hoods, our ankles free, laughing.
109
BECCA
I WASN’T SURPRISED TO SEE Strepp waiting for us. I was, however, pretty damned pleased to see the shiner Cassie had given her. When she saw Cassie and me laughing, a weird expression crossed her face, and then she said, “Out!” and banged on the van door with a billy club.
When I stumbled out, I didn’t recognize a goddamn thing. This was a new prison in some new, unknown place. We were somewhere that we’d never be able to find our way back home from. Not that we had much home to go back to.
When the van drove off, we stood there looking around uncertainly.
This prison was smaller. I’d never seen buildings that looked like this, like they were made of orange clay.
Ms. Strepp scrutinized the two of us. “Guards!” she yelled, and a new set of guards marched out, holding guns. They were your basic nondescript goons, except…
There was one…
I stared at her, my mouth open wide enough to catch flies.
For just a second she met my gaze, then looked away.
It was Robin. Robin Wellfleet, my first friend in jail.
I’d seen her die. She had died.
But now she was here.
“Robin!” I couldn’t help exclaiming. I moved toward her, my arms open for a hug. I had to feel her, make sure she wasn’t a ghost or a hallucination.
“Get back in line!” Strepp shouted, and another guard rapped me in the small of my back. I turned around to snarl at him, and when I turned back, Robin was gone.
Strepp ordered, “Quiet!” Then she told the guards, “Take them inside!”
We were marched into a building. I felt Cassie looking at me with questions. She’d never known Robin. But I was flipping out. I’d seen her die.
Inside the building it was plain old prisonlike. This one, however, was in better shape than the crazy house—newer and cleaner.
Armed guards prodded us down hallways until we reached a processing station, where we were searched. Various people were in the halls, some in prisoner jumpsuits, some dressed like guards, some just in regular clothes. I caught sight of a slight, younger-looking kid who was loading books from a cardboard box onto a shelf.
It was Little Bit.
Little Bit, who was dead because I’d beaten her in a fight. I wanted to shriek her name, but knew I’d end up with a knot on my head if I did. Again Cassie looked at me, and again I shrugged, my head spinning.
We were given jumpsuits, this time a nauseating puke-green, and hustled into a long hallway.
Strepp strode up. “You two. Come with me,” she barked.
Here we go, I thought, and felt my stomach twist into a knot.
110
CASSIE
IT WAS UNUSUAL FOR US to see Strepp together. So maybe we were about to head to the ring to fight. This prison had a ring, right?