“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m done listening to you.”
“You have to come. The next guard will be coming through in a few minutes. You get caught, you’re done for. Get it?”
“Just me? I don’t think so,” I said, in a voice that sounded like mine but far bolder. Everything about me seemed disconnected. My skin was ice cold, but the blood running beneath was hot. My organs all felt like separate fragmented pieces. It took great effort to breathe the frigid air. I did not feel like myself at all.
“You think they care that Sean and I are out here?” she said, waving her arms in frustration. “You think they haven’t done the same thing? They watch each other’s backs, okay? They’ll punish you for telling on him.”
“Maybe they will,” I agreed, and felt my resentment kick up another notch. “And maybe the guards don’t care, but I’m sure Ms. Brock would love to hear how her shining star is sneaking around with one of the soldiers.”
Banks looked at her, his face twisting with panic—with real emotion. Then he stared at me, terror melting into desperation.
“She’ll never believe you,” he said to me.
“Maybe not. But they’ll watch her, won’t they? They’ll have a guard by our room, making sure she doesn’t try anything, and—” In all honesty, I didn’t know what Ms. Brock would do, but Sean’s darkening look told me I’d hit the mark.
“You can’t tell her… Miller, right? Becca’s out in three months. You have to give her that long.”
“Let me handle this, Sean,” she said.
I was taken aback by his burst of chivalry. Was he really trying to protect her? I crossed my arms over my chest. Maybe they weren’t all as dead inside as they seemed.
Well, maybe some of them weren’t, anyway.
“You… you can’t tell, Ember. You can’t.”
“And what’s stopping me?”
With an audible intake of breath, Sean flicked the strap off the gun at his waist. I could tell by his round, conflicted eyes that he didn’t want to shoot me, but that didn’t stifle my fear one bit. In that moment I remembered Randolph’s baton on my throat, and Brock’s whip on my hands, and wondered why I thought this soldier wouldn’t be capable of the very same or worse.
I fought the urge to run.
“She said the next guard will be through in a few minutes!” I shouted. “How are you going to explain why Rebecca was here if you shoot me?” I was shaking now. I hoped neither of them could see it in the darkness. He wouldn’t shoot me. Not for this. He couldn’t. There was too much risk.
Please don’t let him shoot me.
“Sean,” Rebecca said softly. He lowered his hand, but I still didn’t breathe.
“What do you want?” Sean asked. In exchange for my secrecy he was going to cut a deal.
“I need to get out of here. I need to find my mother,” I said, my voice getting hoarser the more I talked.
“We have to go!” Rebecca’s voice squeaked higher. She was looking over her shoulder, presumably for the next guard on rotation. Now that I said I’d tell Brock, she was afraid I would tell everyone.
Sean sucked in a sharp breath. “And if I help you, you swear you won’t tell the headmistress.” He wasn’t asking. He’d taken another step forward, placing himself between me and his girlfriend. I was surprised at how lean he looked now, with his face drawn in fear. How large his eyes seemed. The thin lines of his mouth.
“No. Sean, no!” Rebecca was pulling on his arm like a child. When he continued to stare at me, she pushed past him, standing inches away from me. “If he’s caught he’ll get in trouble. Serious trouble. You don’t—”
“Miller,” Sean prompted, ignoring her.
“Yes. I swear. You get me out, and I won’t tell Ms. Brock.” I felt a piece of me break inside, suddenly remembering the horror in my mother’s face when I’d told Roy to leave our home. I had been trying to do the right thing, but hurting someone else to accomplish that goal was almost unbearable. It was not so different now, even though I hardly knew these people.
“Okay,” said Sean. “I’ll… figure out something.” He kicked the log I had been hiding behind.
“How? When?” The blood was rushing back through my body at his assent.
“Not now. She’s right. The next guard will be rotating through soon. You have to let me think.”
I was disappointed, but I knew it was the best I would get tonight.
“Thank you… Sean,” I said. Saying his name made him feel infinitely more real, like a boy I could have known in school. His shoulder jerked. His face was full of contempt.
A moment later, Rebecca shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over to him. They looked at each other for one long moment. Even in the dark, I saw her face soften.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
One of his hands rested awkwardly at the base of his neck, as though his muscles were too tight. He shrugged into the jacket and disappeared into the darkness.
Rebecca’s face was hard again when she stomped back toward our room. Reluctantly, I followed, mad that I was tripping and stumbling while she walked nearly effortlessly. I reminded myself that she had made this trip more than once.
When we got to the window three from the left, Rebecca shoved open the frame—much harder than she would have if I had been asleep inside, I’m sure—and nimbly hopped up, her hip resting on the sill. Then she ducked back and rolled onto her bed. I followed suit a lot less smoothly.
Once inside, we were engulfed by awkward, strained silence.
“How could you?” she finally blurted. In the muted moonlight from the window I could see that her face was flushed from the cold and anger. “I should have let you run, just like that Rosa girl. I knew you wanted to. I would have, had I known you’d blackmail me! How could you?”
All of the anger and fear and shock broke through in one hard stroke.
“Me? You are such a hypocrite! I asked you for help and you ignored me! Spewing that crap about summer camp and loving it here, sucking up to Brock. It’s all lies! You’re ten times meaner than her; you just hide it better.”
“You’re absolutely right. So what?” She put her hands on her hips.
My eyes widened. “You need to be medicated. Seriously. And I’m not an idiot because I believed you. You’re just a damn good actress.”
“Yes,” she said. “I am.”
I sat on my bed, facing her. She sat on her bed, facing me. It was like we were children again, having a staring contest. It was Rebecca who finally broke the silence.
“You’re putting him in danger for no reason,” she said. “No one escapes. You either leave with your exit papers, or you leave in the back of an FBR van.”
“What do you mean?” I choked. My fingers drew to the bruise on my neck.
She made a small wincing noise. “The guards have orders to shoot anyone that makes it off the property.”
My sore hands grasped each other atop my skirt. That was why Sean had reached for his gun. He could have pretended I was escaping. No one would have questioned him when they saw my dead body so far from the dorms. I felt an instant surge of affection for Rebecca. Had she not been present, and had Sean wanted me dead, I’d be bleeding out in the West Virginia woods right now.
But then again, I wouldn’t have been out there in the first place if she hadn’t snuck out.
“Do you think they’d really do it?” I asked, without much question. I’d seen the cold, dead looks in the soldiers’ eyes. I could picture several I’d run across—Morris, Chase’s friend from the arrest, and Randolph, the guard here—killing a girl.
“I know they would. The last one they…” she hesitated, looking back toward the window, wondering, I knew, where Sean was. “She was Stephanie’s old roommate.”
Rosa was now Stephanie’s roommate, I realized with a pang.
Rebecca swallowed. “Her name was Katelyn. Katelyn Meadows.”
CHAPTER
4
“KATELYN Meadows,” I repeated, dazed. She isn’t on the Missing Persons boards. Her family moved away after the trial.
She wasn’t on the Missing Persons board because she wasn’t a Missing Person. She was dead. I was glad the bed was behind me, because my knees promptly gave way.
“She was a nice girl,” Rebecca said. “I try not to like anybody here—they always get weird. But she was all right.”
“I know,” I said quietly. I remembered her picture clearly from the posters around school, and before that, from her smiling face in my junior history class.
“Did you know her?” Rebecca asked.
I nodded. “Not well, but yes. We went to school together.”
“Oh.” She bit her thumbnail, lost for words.
“When did it happen?”
“I guess about six months ago. She was just about to age out when Brock asked her to stay on as a teacher. And when Brock asks you to stay on, she’s not really asking.”
I am the law here, Ms. Brock had said when she’d whipped my hands. No, I didn’t imagine her invitation to become a teacher had sounded anything like a request.
Six months ago I’d been just starting my senior year at Western. It should have been Katelyn’s senior year, too. I wasn’t sure if the knowledge of her death made me sad; I didn’t know her well enough to grieve. But I did fear what this meant for me and my chances at escape. I felt selfish, scared, and sick all at the same time.
I rubbed my hands over my eyes. They stung from the dried tears in my lashes.
“Did Sean…”
“No. No, it was someone else.” She smiled weakly. “Sean’s never killed anybody. He told me so. The FBR makes them practice on these human-shaped targets in training, and he could barely do that. That’s why they sent him to a girls’ rehab and kept him out of the cities.”
I pictured the soldiers lining up at the shooting ranges, and shivered. Chase hadn’t been detailed to a girls’ rehab, which could only mean he was a better shot than the guards here. I wondered if he’d killed anyone, but the thought made me so uncomfortable, I locked it from my mind.
“Apparently not everyone has the same conscience as Sean,” I said bitterly.
“Right,” she agreed. “Obviously you’ve met Randolph.”
I clutched my knees involuntarily. My knuckles hurt. “He’s the one? Who did… that to Katelyn?”
It was dark, but I could still see her nod. “So you see, there’s really no point in trying to escape.”
“I have to try,” I said. “If they’re doing this kind of thing to us, what do you think they’re doing to my mother?”
She hesitated. “Probably the same.”
I stood up so quickly my head spun. “What has Sean told you? You have to tell me!” The weight of our deal hung in the air between us. There was no point in lying now that I knew her secret.
“He doesn’t hear much,” she said defensively.
The guards at the school were isolated; the rest of the soldiers had direct contact with their command, but a particular unit, the ones who had failed some aspect of their training like Sean, had been transferred under the authority of the Sisters of Salvation.
“Who are these Sisters, anyway?” I asked. “Is Ms. Brock in charge of all of them?”
“She wishes,” said Rebecca. “Brock was appointed by the Board of Education during the Reformation Act. She’s like, I don’t know, the school superintendent of this region. There are other Brocks, in other regions, running other reformatories with the same iron bra.” She giggled. “That’s what Sean calls it—an ‘iron bra.’ Instead of an iron fist, you know?”
“I get it,” I said flatly. More evil headmistresses. More reformatories. It was enough to make me weak all over again. Rebecca’s brief smile faded.
“Brock says that the Sisters are taking over,” she said. “Running charities and food lines and stuff. Of course, who knows if that’s true.”
My mom volunteered at our local soup kitchen. I could hardly picture her wearing a blue skirt and a stupid handkerchief around her neck.
“So Brock reports to the MM, but the soldiers here report to her?” I asked. Rebecca gave me a blank look, and I realized she’d never heard the nickname for the FBR. Having been here since she was fourteen, she was a little out of touch with mainstream culture.
“Moral Militia,” Rebecca said wistfully, after I explained. “That’s funny.”
Apparently, tending to the miscreants of society didn’t require the highest level of skill. The FBR was still technically in charge of the soldiers here, but Ms. Brock supervised their daily activities. Unfortunately, that meant that Sean had very little contact with the rest of the military.
“But there’s a courier,” Rebecca continued. “He comes weekly to deliver messages to Ms. Brock from the outside. Mandates from the head of education. Revisions to the Statutes. Things like that. Sean hears rumors sometimes. He knew that they were going to stop the trials for Article violators a while ago, and he was right. It’s been over a month since a soldier came out here to pick up a witness.”
“Stop the trials? What does that mean?” I asked, my voice rising.
“Shh!” She motioned for me to sit back down on the bed. “I don’t know what it means. Maybe they’re just letting your mom go. Or maybe they’re sending her to rehab. Sean did say they need to ‘complete’ something in place of a trial. It’s a new protocol, I guess. He gets training on it next month.”
In my mind I pictured my mother in my place. Her small, manicured hands on the table while Brock slammed the whip down upon them, like in my dream. I could see the obstinacy melt into fear. Her folding into the floor, just as she’d done with Roy.
I couldn’t let that happen. The thought of her suffering made me ill.
“My mom can’t do this. I have to find her. There’s got to be a way out somewhere. What was Katelyn doing? How did she get caught?” I asked.
“Sean said they got her out by the southern fence. She was trying to climb over.”
Katelyn was lanky but by no means athletic. I couldn’t picture her scaling a fence. But then again, people did all kinds of crazy things when they were desperate. I should know.
“There’s no other way? No holes in the fence? No other exits?”
She shrugged helplessly. “The guards walk the perimeter every hour. The only way out is through the front gates. And there’s a watch station there, and guards that search the vehicles.”
“No one has ever escaped?” I asked in disbelief.
Rebecca curled in over her midsection. When she spoke again, her voice sounded small, as if she were years younger.
“One girl did, right after I got here. She made it over the fence and into the woods, but it was snowing so badly she died of hypothermia. Brock made the soldiers bring her body into the cafeteria to show us what would happen if we tried to run away. She was all black and blue and…” Rebecca shook her head as if to clear the memory. “That was when Brock okayed the orders for the guards to shoot anyone who got too close to the fence.”
I flinched, thinking of how crushing it would feel to gain freedom only to lose it.
“Only three people have made a decent run for it since then, and they’ve all been killed. No one tries for a long time after something like that happens. If you’re crazy enough, you’ll be the first since Katelyn.”
The realities of my intentions were rooting deep in my gut. If I ran, I had to face the possibility that I might not survive, and if I died, it would most likely be violently. But if I stayed, I wouldn’t know if my mother was being beaten or thrown in prison or shot.
Entrapment. I had two choices. And both were bad.
“You know, if you age out, they don’t legally have to look for you,” she told me.
I couldn’t wait until I turned eighteen, but something in her voice told me she wasn’t talking about me.
“Is that why you and Sean haven’t run?”
&nbs
p; She nodded. “I’ll be safe in three months. But if he ever decides to leave, the FBR could kill him.”
So she was staying of her own choice. To protect a soldier.
I shook my head skeptically. “They wouldn’t kill one of their own.”
“You’re wrong. The Board would give him a trial. If he goes AWOL and they catch him, they’ll execute him. That’s the way things are now. If you don’t think they’d do it, remember why you’re here.”
As the air stilled between us, my thoughts branched into a dangerous place. If Sean could be executed, could my mother? It seemed improbable, but not impossible.
I needed to get out. Soon.
* * *
TWO nights passed before Sean figured out a plan.
We were in class, reading a handout entitled “A Lady’s Dress Code” when he caught my eye. A slight nod of his head, and without hesitation I raised my hand to request an escort to the restroom. Before the Sister could ask Randolph take me, Sean had stepped forward and was holding the door open to usher me down the hall.
Once we were away from the others, he quickly told me that the headmistress had given him orders to cover for another soldier preparing to take leave, which meant a double shift of his normal perimeter sweep. When this happened, he would lead me to the fence and look the other way as I climbed over.
It sounded simple but was far from problem-free. First, it was still eight days away. Second, I was on my own after I got past the fence, which meant roughly four hours and fifteen miles of walking through the Appalachian wilderness alone. And third, once I got to the nearest gas station, I would have to hitch a ride home, which meant I’d have to find a willing civilian with a car who didn’t care about gas money.
“You’d better book it,” Sean advised. “Once they figure out you’re gone, they’ll come looking. I won’t be able to do anything then.”
I nodded, and though the swelling in my throat had gone down, I felt a new lump emerge. It was a terrible plan, but it was all I had. He looked at me for a long while, as though surprised that I was really considering this. I couldn’t tell whether he thought I was brave or stupid. Probably the latter.
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