She stared at the men, for the first time seeing the bandages around the faces of Skull Face and Square Head and on their arms. They were all holding long sticks, and some distant part of her registered that probably this is what they’d hit her with. Skull Face looked at Livia and started to raise his stick, but Dirty Beard shook his head and gripped Skull Face’s arm. Skull Face shook off the man’s hand and smiled at Livia, the smile distorted by pain or the tight bandage or both.
Everything Livia had ever felt was replaced by an eruption of pure, black hate. A bloody mist filled her vision, and she charged screaming at Skull Face, her teeth bared, her fingers raked back like claws. But this time he was ready for her. His stick flashed forward and caught Livia in the stomach. The breath was driven out of her and she collapsed to the ground, her midsection an exploding ball of pain.
Skull Face squatted close to her. “Your sister was fun,” he said. “Maybe later, we’ll come back for more fun with her.”
Kai rushed over. Skull Face stood and raised his stick, but lowered it when Kai stopped and knelt next to Livia, his hand on her shoulder. Livia scrabbled her feet to propel her body toward Skull Face, because nothing mattered except getting at him, scratching him, clawing him, biting him, killing him. But her stomach was so clenched she couldn’t breathe. She stared up at Skull Face, kicking and grimacing. He was still smiling. Dots began to dance in Livia’s vision, and the box filled with gray. The gray became everything, and then even that was gone.
12—THEN
Livia was lying on her back in the forest and it was raining. Drops fell from the tree branches onto her cheeks and her eyelids. She heard someone calling her name from far away, but she didn’t answer. She felt safe in the forest and didn’t want anyone to be able to find her there.
And then her eyes fluttered open, and the forest was gone, and the raindrops were from a water bottle, and the person saying her name was Kai, who was sitting next to her and sprinkling water on her face. Her arms and legs twitched, and she moaned and sat up, panting for a moment while a wave of dizziness engulfed her and then passed.
“Nason?” she said, suddenly unsure of which was the dream—the forest, or this.
“Here,” Kai said. Livia saw that Nason was right next to them, lying on her side on a folded blanket. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and her eyes were open. Her thumb was still in her mouth.
Livia felt her face contort, and tears flowed from her eyes. “Oh, little bird,” she said, her voice cracking. “Little bird.”
She lay down behind Nason and put one arm around her, stroking her hair the way she did when she was trying to help her sleep. “Little bird, little bird,” she whispered between sobs. But Nason gave no sign she even knew Livia was there.
After that, when the men brought food and water, they carried long sticks, as though expecting the children to attack them. When they looked at Nason, their faces seemed worried, which Livia didn’t understand. But for whatever reason, they didn’t take Livia or Nason outside the box again, or anyone else. They brought food and water and changed the buckets and said not a word.
Days passed, and Nason remained like that, not talking, not responding to being talked to. She would eat when Livia fed her and drink when Livia tipped a bottle to her lips, and use the bucket when Livia led her to it. But other than that, she remained on her side, curled up, her eyes staring at something Livia couldn’t see.
Livia tried to tell herself it wasn’t her fault. But she knew why Nason had been bleeding. Because the men did to her the thing that made babies. But they hadn’t done that to Livia, and maybe the Yao boy had been right . . . maybe they wouldn’t have done it to Nason, either, if Livia hadn’t made them so angry. Maybe they had hurt Nason worse than they would have if Livia hadn’t attacked them. Something had happened to Nason’s mind; she could see that. Maybe the men had hurt Nason so much that Nason had found a way to just . . . go away? Yes, maybe that was it. Livia tried to cling to that hope, and to believe that maybe, when Nason did come back, she wouldn’t even remember what the men had done to her because in a way she hadn’t been there when it had happened. But would she really come back? How? When? And if she didn’t, how could it not have been Livia’s fault?
More days passed. And as terrible as it had been when the men had been taking Livia outside the box and making her do the disgusting thing, the way they had hurt Nason, and Nason’s unresponsiveness, was so much worse.