Quickly, before I could change my mind, I scattered the drug into the toilet bowl and held my breath as it swirled.
By the time I got back to the cafeteria, everyone was gone. Apparently the headmistress had brought in the dogs, but they hadn’t found anything in any of the dorm rooms or on the girls in the cafeteria, so they’d let everyone go. School was canceled for the rest of the day, so I headed upstairs to find my crew.
“I’m so sorry, Jayla,” Tree began before I even got through the door. She had been stretched out on her bed, legs and arms hanging off both ends, but she sprung up at the sight of me. Those four words were the most Tree had spoken in years.
“Save it. You know the rules, and you know what happens when you break them.”
“Jayla, please think about this,” Arla begged. Besides me, Tree was Arla’s closest friend in the group. “You know what will happen to her if you kick her out.”
“I have thought about it. She put the whole crew at risk, Arla. She’s not strong enough.”
Tree began to cry, which was even worse than her pleading. Stoic Tree rarely expressed any emotions, even happiness, and she certainly never let us see her cry; it was like watching a giant get pushed over by a toy car. Her skinny face got all scrunched up and as red as it could, and then the tears ran down her face.
“Unless….” I paused for dramatic effect.
“Unless what?” Turf asked in a hushed voice. She, along with all of the other girls, leaned forward from their places on their beds.
“Unless you tell me who the supplier was.”
“Of course I’ll tell you,” Tree said. Her tears had stopped, and she looked almost hopeful.
“I’m not done.” I had formulated a plan on my way back from the bathroom, and now I took a chance by revealing it to the others. “After you tell me, you need to help me make sure she never supplies to anyone here ever again.”
“You mean… kill her?” Tiny asked with awe.
“I mean stop her from supplying NORCC girls ever again,” I said, not answering the question.
“I’m in,” Tree said, “no matter what it takes.”
“Good. Who else is with me?” I looked around the room, and my eyes did not waver as they passed, stony, from girl to girl. “And know that anyone who’s not can use the door right now.”
“We’re with you,” Arla said, speaking for the group. “Just tell us what we have to do.”
“It’s simple,” I said as I climbed up onto my bed. “You have to buy.”
Chapter Five
THOUGH I hadn’t been certain who the supplier was before Tree confessed, I’d had a pretty good guess. As soon as she confirmed that Leah’s crew was supplying the morphoid for all of NORCC, I put my plan into motion.
Tree and Arla would go down the hall to 907, where Leah and her crew made their headquarters. One of them would say it was hot and ask to open a window, while Jo and I were going to sneak up to the roof and then down the gutter pipe into the window. Turf and Tiny would keep guard duty. Leah’s room was an L shape, unlike our much larger one, so we would be able to hide in the far side while not being seen from the door side.
“I hate heights,” Jo whispered as she looked down ten stories to the concrete road.
“Me too,” I admitted, doing the same.
“Then why does this plan involve a gutter-pipe shimmy?”
“It was the only idea I could think of on such short notice. I didn’t exactly expect one of my own crew members to buy.” I was still furious, and it showed.
“They’re lucky to have you looking out for them,” Jo said as she pulled her raggedy brown hair into a ponytail and zipped up her hoodie. “I’m not sure I could have flushed that Mo-D earlier.”
“In clean years, you’re still young.” I tested the wind, which whipped against my just-licked finger. “It will get easier. Never easy, but easier.”
I didn’t mention The Itch. I didn’t have to. Like soldiers, every girl in NORCC had a battle waging inside long after the war was over.
To change the subject, I asked Jo about the special powers she’d mentioned earlier. I’d been too distracted by my planning to wonder about the insanity of thought-speak before now—being around Mo-D did that to you—but as I stared down at the ground, the strangeness of it all flooded my brain with questions. We didn’t have much time, but who knew when we would be alone next.
“Honestly, I don’t know much about them. Dad was always going on about how we had special powers, and he mentioned that we used to read each other’s thoughts. Apparently he and Mom made us perform on the streets to get money to buy Mo-D. I asked him about it all the time, but it was hard to pick out the truth from his crazy ramblings. He kept saying you were the one with ‘real talents,’ though what that meant, I have no clue.”
“Maybe we can ask him together,” I said.
Leaning over the ledge, I found the downspout and pushed against it with both hands. The metal creaked like an old door opening, but it stayed stuck in place. Below, the grass looked so far away, as distant as the ground below an airplane window. Not that I’d ever ridden in an airplane, but that’s how it looked in the pictures.
Carefully, I turned around and hoisted one leg over the ledge and then the other. My feet dangled, and then they found the pipe strap holding the drain against the wall. Like a rock climber, my toes moved daintily from one pipe strap to the next.
Tree and Arla had done their part, and I found the window wide open. My right foot found the window ledge and pulled me inside, my left hand never letting go of the downspout until my right found a secure hold on one of the bunk beds inside. Jo followed me down, and once she was in the room too, we both crouched low so the girls at the door of the room would not see us.
“Back so soon?” Leah was asking Tree. “And with a friend, no less. Disposal, you’re the last person I expected to see. Don’t you know what your queen will do to you once she finds out you were here?”
“We’re not together anymore,” Arla said, not exactly a lie since we had never really been together. “And anyway, she doesn’t control me.”
“Whatever you say.” Leah whispered something to her crew, and they laughed unkindly.
“So do you have more Mo-D or what?” Arla said, the anger in her voice not acted.
“I might.” Footsteps circled slowly, and I imagined Leah looking Tree and Arla up and down with her hawklike face and dark brown eyes. Her short black hair, the texture of down, only increased her bird look. “What will I get in return?”
“What do you want?”
I peered over the bed and saw Leah tapping her chin thoughtfully. She had my best two crew members in the palm of her hand. Who knew what deplorable things she would ask them to do?
“I want Jayla gone.”
I should have guessed. Leah had been my rival for years, and the only way she would ever rise to the top of the food chain was by having me removed.
“How?” Tree asked.
“I’ll give you extra drugs, and you plant them under her mattress. When the dogs come around, she’ll be found out.”
This was the stupidest plan I’d ever heard, and I struggled not to laugh. Everyone knew I had a nose for Mo-D, and a baggie under my bed would be found in an instant.
“That’s it?” Tree stuck out her hand. “Deal.”
Leah shook her hand, and then she turned and went to her desk. After taking out the top drawer, she opened a plastic container full of a liquid that filled the room with the scent of cleaning fluids.
“To mask the Mo-D,” she explained as she used two pencils to fish out a large baggie. I wondered where she had gotten such a large supply; probably from one of the guards or RAs.
Using one of the desks nearby, Leah spooned Mo-D from the large baggie into a much smaller baggie. As the powder filled the bag, I wondered how many residents she had sold to, how many of my friends were under the influence even as I sat there watching. Fury filled me, and if Jo hadn’t been th
ere to hold me back, I might have jumped Leah at that exact second.
“Here you are.” Leah held out the baggie. “An eighth of the best goddamn drug in the world.”
Tree stuck out her hand. But instead of handing her the bag, Leah grabbed Tree’s hand, spun her around, and, using a knife she must have taken out from the desk, put a blade up to Tree’s neck.
“Jayla should have come herself,” Leah hissed at Arla over Tree’s shoulder. “At least she’s a good liar. You two are pathetic.”
“What should we do?” Jo whispered, but I put up my hand to indicate that she should wait. I needed to hear why Leah was doing this if I hoped to stop her.
“You know why she sent you here, right?” Leah asked Tree.
“To buy?”
“Such a loyal subject,” Leah said as she stroked Tree’s hair with the hand not holding the knife. “You really think once she found out you were holding, all you had to do was buy? You’re here to find out where I keep my drugs so she and her new BFF can come here and steal them from me. Then they’ll plant them on me somehow, and boom, I’m back in the dome faster than you can say ‘friendly rivalry.’ Jayla wants me gone so that she can keep her grip on NORCC, but she’ll never get rid of me. I have too many buyers, too many girls who depend on me. Why, all of the eighth floor is currently smoking up in their rooms right now. It’s time for this center to get a new queen.”
“So what do you want from us?” Arla asked, her eyes still on the knife.
“I want you to help me. You have the code to the elevator, and I need to get some of this Mo-D down to the kiddies on the seventh floor. Hook ’em now, and they’ll be crowning me royal in no time.”
I pictured the little girls on the seventh floor safe in their beds, raggedy teddy bears clutched to their chests. Those bears had been ours before we donated them back to the system for the next girl, who would do the same for the girls after that. To hold on to a bear at our age was selfish, no matter how comforting a plush toy could be to an Addi. The seventh floor needed them more than us. Even the bear I’d walked in with, Mr. Stuffie, had been given to someone new after I outgrew him. I wouldn’t let this happen. I couldn’t.
“Take this baggie,” Leah was saying, “and don’t come back until it’s all gone. Spark, you go with Disposal and make sure she does what I said.”
Arla took the bag and looked down at it. Though her eyes did not go to me, I knew she was asking me to help her, asking me to save her from something so horrible there was no coming back from it. To hook a child was the greatest sin in the world, and she would never forgive herself.
“Stay down,” I whispered to Jo.
“Why, what are you doing?”
Feeling under my flannel shirt, I found the one object that truly made me queen. The gun, smooth and warm from my heat, waited in its holster. I did not know why my mom had left me with a gun hidden inside Mr. Stuffie when I was only five years old, but right then, I didn’t care. Whether she’d intended for me to have it or had forgotten in her haste to abandon me at the door, she had saved me.
Sweat poured down my brow as I stood up and aimed right between the boney girl’s shoulder blades.
“Put the knife down.”
What are you doing, Jayla? Jo asked, her voice frantic even in my head. This wasn’t part of the plan.
“Not a chance, Jayla,” Leah said without turning around. “These girls are mine.”
“If you don’t put the knife down, you’re going to force me to use this gun. And I really, really don’t want to have to use this gun.”
Now I had her attention. She swiveled, not taking her hand from Tree’s throat, and stared me down. Her hawk eyes darted from the gun to me and back again.
“Fine. You win.” Leah threw Tree to the bed. “Take her and go. But you know I’ll make you regret this, Jayla, me and every other little girl I’ve already hooked on—”
Boom.
Chapter Six
HER BODY seemed to fall for hours, but in reality, it only took a second. Like an unsteady building after an earthquake, she fell in a wave, her legs crumpling beneath her and dragging down her torso and head. The sound when she hit the floor was heavier than it should have been.
“No!” one of Leah’s followers screamed as she fell to her knees and took Leah up in her arms. Perhaps they had been together, or just wanted to be. The other girls were too shocked to move or speak, and even my crew couldn’t unfreeze.
“We need to go,” I told them as I tucked the gun back into its holster.
“We can’t just leave her here,” Arla said.
I took a few steps toward the door and forced myself to look down at the girl I’d just killed. Blood pooled around her body. The bullet had gone clean through her chest and lodged in the door, leaving a hole straight through. My stomach heaved, but I knew if I threw up, my whole crew would fall apart. I needed to be strong.
“There’s no time. Someone must have heard the shot, and the headmistress is probably on her way up as we speak. Anyone from Royalty, we’re leaving NORCC right now. You have one minute to gather your things.”
No one moved.
“Did you hear me?” I yelled, though I had intended to keep my voice steady and calm. “One minute. Go!”
Jo moved first, and after she stepped over the body and walked out the door, Tree and Arla followed. I heard them whispering to the other two girls in the hall, and then their footsteps hurried away.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said to the girl who lay covering Leah’s body as though protecting it from me.
“Fuck you,” the girl spit at me.
“No, fuck you both.” The nausea passed, and I was able to see clearly again. “Hooking little girls? You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
I stepped over the body, careful not to let blood soak my boot bottoms—I did not need bloody footprints following me down the hall. Once I got to our room, I found the place in complete disarray, clothes everywhere and the few belongings we owned thrown back and forth among girls as they vied for space in backpacks and purses. Even the posters on the walls had been ripped off, revealing chipped plaster and holes where hospital equipment had run through the walls before the old building became NORCC.
“Ready?” I asked, careful to keep my face emotionless.
“You’re not going to bring your stuff?” Tiny asked as she looked between me and my bunk.
“I’m not bringing a single item from this hellhole with me.” I pushed the papers and trinkets on the dresser into the trash can next to it. “Now get your bags and go. They’ll be coming for us any minute.”
Below me in the trash can glistened an object I’d forgotten about, a glittery green pencil with a smiley-face eraser skewered on top. All of the NORCC-issued pencils were plain wood, but this one had been given to me by Miss Andrews, my favorite teacher of all time. Young and pretty, with hair as glossy as a magazine cover and blue tea dresses that reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, Miss Andrews was an Outtie from another city who had come to New Orleans for her job. All the girls loved her and vied for her attention, but for some reason, she liked me best of all.
“Here,” she’d said after my classmates had gone. She handed me the green pencil, which I clutched in my sweating palm. I had a crush on her, so history always made me sweat. “My favorite pencil for my favorite girl.”
“Thanks, Miss Andrews,” I said breathily. My body was doing strange things, and I tried to keep my cool as I put the pencil in my pocket. “I’ll keep it forever.”
“Don’t keep it, Jayla,” Miss Andrews had said with a laugh, as though I’d made a joke. “Use it. You’re the smartest girl here, and with the right tools, you will do amazing things.”
I couldn’t see how a pencil would help, but I agreed anyway. Anything to make her flash her perfect white teeth in my direction.
The next week, Miss Andrews was gone.
The headmistress claimed that Miss Andrews had left for a “better opportunity,” b
ut I knew the truth. She’d been sacked, most likely for one of the two reasons all our teachers got sacked: failing a random drug test or, worse in the eyes of the system, being an Addi sympathizer. Protests had broken out around the domes at that time, and any Outtie identified waving a sign or pounding a drum was shunned.
“Last one out, kill the lights,” I called out as I bent and retrieved the pencil from the garbage. Safe in my pocket, the piece of wood brought me a certain comfort; I was about to do those great things Miss Andrews had talked about, or I would die trying.
Like birds breaking free from our cages, my crew and I flew down the hall.
This is the last time I ever pound my feet against these cracked linoleum floors, I told myself. This is the last time I smell these dank walls.
In the elevator we regained our breath. Most of us hadn’t run in years—or ever, for those of us who were born Addis—and even the few feet from the bedroom had winded us. Down on the first floor, once everyone was out, I removed my gun and fired a second shot into the keypad, rendering the device useless for NORCC officials who would try to follow us. Jo blocked the stairway door handles with chairs from the lobby, and then we were out, free, soaring into the cool prespring air.
Bringggg bringggg sounded the alarm behind us.
“Run!” I directed, and together we fell into a sprint. I took the lead, with Tree and Arla right behind me and Tiny, Jo, and Turf bringing up the rear.
“Get them,” someone called.
I looked over my shoulder, careful not to slow down or run into one of the other girls, and saw three men with guns holstered to their sides climbing out of a white van that had been parked outside of NORCC for as long as I could remember. Apparently the van had not been abandoned after all, but only made to look that way. The men wore the uniform of Authorities, white suits with white ties and white leather shoes. White as unpolluted morphoid.
“Stun guns only for the two that matter,” one of the men reminded the others. “He doesn’t care about what happens to their friends.”
Addis on the Inside Page 3