“We’re being counted! Right now!”
I stare at her. It’s ten days early for counting.
“They’re not admitting that Nita didn’t come back aboveground,” Annis whispers. “We’re one short, and they’re going to say she ran. They’ll have their excuse.”
And they’ll take them Underneath, I think. All of them.
“They can’t find you here, too … ” Annis says.
“Who are they?” asks Grandpapa. His blue eyes are on Beckett, who I’m relieved to see has had the sense to take the glasses off.
“More of the Knowing,” I say quickly. “And she’s sick … ”
Jillian half opens her eyes, and for a moment, Annis is transfixed. I need to cache, desperately, but I’m also trying to think. We could try to get out, get back up to the groves, but what about Grandpapa? The children? Fists pound on wood, and we all jump. It’s the house next door. Annis comes alive. “Who’s in the street?” she asks me. “Quick! Did you see them? Which supervisors? Are there any from the gates?”
I check my memory. “No, it’s—”
Annis points at Beckett. “Take her through that door and put her on the bed.” She’s whispering, but the words come out as a command anyway. Beckett gathers up Jillian. “You,” she says collectively, looking to the loft, “your sister is in my resting room and she’s sick. Do you understand me? And you’ve never seen any of these people. Nathan, take care of it. Don’t move, Daddy. Nadia, with me.”
I follow Annis and Beckett into the second of the three rooms, where Nita and her mother slept. There are two beds on low platforms, huddled near the warm, rounded corner that is the wall of the heating furnace. “There,” she says to Beckett. “Quick!”
He lays Jillian down, and I Know I’ve made a mistake. Her face is swelling, her breathing labored. We should have dosed her in the blacknut grove.
“How sick is she?” Annis asks. “Will she talk? And what happened to her hair?” I open my mouth to speak, and she says, “Never mind. Hurry!”
She runs to the opposite corner of the resting room, drops to her knees, and digs her fingers into a crack between the floor planks. Three planks come free, lifting at an angle like a misplaced door. There’s a space beneath, dug out from the ground.
“In!” she says. Beckett slides inside, I go next, and then Grandpapa comes shuffling over with the packs. “Get down … ”
And there’s a metal-capped stick pounding at the door.
Beckett pulls me down. The space is not as long as either one of us, and not quite wide enough for two. The packs land on our feet, the planks drop into place, and we are in semidarkness, the light of the hanging lamp in the room above us glowing between the cracks.
We try to find a way to fit, a position we’ll be able to hold. There’s not actually room for it. I put an elbow in Beckett’s ribs twice before I end up half on my back, my legs bent and braced against the dirt wall with his beneath, his arm under my head. My heart is thudding in my chest, and I am struggling. Sinking. Jillian’s wheezing is loud in the room, but it’s Nita’s muffled breath that I’m hearing, that I’m trying to stifle with my pillow.
“Look at me,” Beckett whispers. He gets a hand beneath my chin, turns my face to him. “Look at me and stay right here.” There are voices in the other room. “Stay here, Samara.”
I do look at him, and I’m half in the Cursed City, Beckett pushing down my shoulders, hiding me in the ruined house, and then my memory shifts and I see a sliver of his face from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, the corner of his mouth turned up just before he kisses me. And then I’m back in the hole in the floor and the resting room door is opening. Beckett’s fingers move to my mouth, keeping me quiet. In case I make a noise. In case I fall. Feet move across the cracks above our head, darkening the light.
“Who is this?” a voice asks. It’s Kayla, Craddock’s sister, and she’s walking toward Jillian. I feel Beckett’s body tense.
“Nita, Weaver’s daughter,” says Annis.
“Confirm your name,” says Kayla. I don’t Know if Jillian has been awake enough to understand what’s going on. I listen, heart thudding, for her to speak. For her to say Jillian. I don’t think I can lie here and listen to Nita’s entire family—and Jillian—being carried to the flogging post. Or worse.
I’m not sure I’ll have a choice.
“She’s sick,” Annis says quickly. “You might not want to get too close … ”
That won’t work. The Knowing don’t fear sickness. Unless it’s Forgetting.
“Confirm your name,” demands Kayla.
The light changes, darkens again, the planks above my head creak, and a fine sprinkle of dust rains down. Someone is standing directly above us. Beckett’s fingers move from my mouth to the back of my head, and he pulls me into his neck. I can smell his skin, feel the thud in his chest. I close my arms around him.
Annis whispers, “She’s too ill for that.”
“What happened to her hair?”
“We cut it. To help with the healing.”
That might work. The Knowing think the Outsiders are ignorant.
“Can we have the description, please, Oman?” Kayla asks.
Oman will have read each description, will Know each person that should be here. Why don’t they have Himmat from the gates? He would Know them by their faces. No descriptions needed. No wonder Annis was so frightened. I’m frightened. Beckett tightens his grip on my head.
“Nita, Weaver’s daughter, working Underneath,” Oman replies. “Light hair, pale complexion, blue eyes.”
“Blue?” says Kayla.
I let out a slow breath against Beckett’s skin. Blue is such an unusual color. Except in this house.
“They are blue,” Kayla says, incredulous. “Have any of you ever seen her Underneath? What level, Oman?”
“Three,” he replies.
“That would account for it,” she sighs. It’s not the supervisors’ level. The planks groan, the feet shadows move, and Beckett tucks his head against mine, escaping the dust. The door shuts, the talk going on in the next room as the supervisors begin questioning the children.
Beckett pulls my head back, so he can see my face in the dim. “Still here?”
The words are barely breathed. I nod. Some of the tension has gone out of his body, but not all of it. It would be nothing to touch his face, like I did last time. I don’t. And it would be nothing for him to lean forward, just a little, like he did before. But he doesn’t.
And I think I am ruined. I can’t help it.
And then I blink in the sudden light. Annis is pulling up the planks, lifting the packs so we can scramble out, and for the first time it occurs to me to wonder just what this hidden hole might be for. I get to my feet, stiff, and I watch Annis watch Beckett do the same, in his bizarre clothes, not to mention the foot coverings, looking rumpled and dirty and thoroughly beautiful.