Ewan led her to where three sets of polished wooden doors stood evenly spaced along one wall. He pressed a button on the wall. A soft bell chimed, and one of the doors slid open.
“An elevator,” Shaylinn whispered to herself.
Ewan raised his eyebrows and motioned her inside. She obeyed. Ewan followed her in and pressed the button with a number five on it, and soon the door glided closed. The floor hardly seemed to move, though her body felt like it was being stretched upward. She set her hand on the wall.
Moments later, the elevator appeared to stop, and the stretching feeling was replaced by a queasy flutter in her stomach. The doors slid open, accompanied by the soft ding of the bell. Shaylinn followed Ewan out into another wide hallway; this one had red and black swirly carpeting with gold accents. The ceiling was three times as high as the one downstairs and had fancy crystal lights dripping from it. The hallway led to a set of wide golden doors that had a strange image carved into them, a creature with hooves that was a woman and a cat and a bird all at once.
Shaylinn didn’t like her.
Ewan touched his fist to the wall, and when he pulled back his hand, Shaylinn saw the little black square on the wall beside the door.
Moments later, the door opened, and a tall, very shapely woman looked down her nose like Shaylinn was rotten apples. She wore a silky purple jacket and skirt and black high-heeled shoes that made Shaylinn smile and blurt out, “I didn’t know anyone still wore those kinds of shoes.”
The woman gripped the open door with one hand and held her other hand out to the side, a gold pipe as long and thin as one of Omar’s paintbrushes tucked between her fingers.
“This the one you lost?” she asked Ewan.
“I didn’t lose her, Matron. She ran off from the Surrogacy Center.”
Matron frowned and looked Shaylinn over. “Praise Fortune they all don’t look like this one.” She sucked on her paintbrush pipe and exhaled purple smoke in Shaylinn’s face.
Shaylinn held her breath, expecting to choke, but there was no smokiness or smell at all to the purple cloud—simply moisture.
“Well, don’t just stand there, outsider girl. Come in!”
Shaylinn stepped through the door and into a fairytale palace. The carpet was white and plush. It was clean and so very soft on her feet, nothing like the old, dirty, and mildewed carpets in Glenrock’s homes. The room was also humongous: a big rectangle with a ceiling as high as the one in the hallway. It had all kinds of fancy chairs and couches, topped with red and gold cushions, and little round tables of dark wood. The ceiling was painted gold and dripped with gold and crystal lights. Two doors took up the left wall. A stairway with a banister made of curling, polished wood stretched along the right wall with a landing halfway up and another one at the top. Straight ahead, a wall made of windows scooped out in a half circle as tall as the ceiling and looked out over a green field.
Matron walked past Shaylinn with little steps, and held her arms bent at the elbows so that her hands dangled as if they were wet and she didn’t want to drip on her clothing.
“I’ve done the spiel already for all your ungrateful friends, so I’ll be brief with you. If you have questions, ask your suitemates. Understood?”
What a grouch. “Yes, ma’am.”
Matron rolled her eyes. “I’m twenty-seven years old. Do not call me ma’am. In fact, don’t call anyone in the Safe Lands ma’am, understood?”
“Sorry,” Shaylinn said.
Matron tossed her head and exhaled. “This is the harem, otherwise known as the home for women with a ticket to paradise. While you’re conscripted here, you do not leave the harem unaccompanied. If you need anything, call Sona. She’s the harem’s housekeeper.” Matron inhaled from her pipe and blew it out quickly. “You’re very fortunate to be here. Minors are rarely admitted to the harem, but the task director general has made an exception for reasons he has not made known to me. Should you conceive, like your darling friend Naomi, you’ll become an icon in the Safe Lands. Royalty among women.”
She leveled an unfriendly glance at Shaylinn. “I understand you’re one of the first to undergo the procedure. But from where I’m standing, it looks like we’ll have to get you more than a makeover. More like a renovation.” She chuckled, and it ended in a singsong sigh. “Never fear, though. Our Tyra is a miracle worker. Believe it or not, I’ve seen her transform women much worse off than you.”
This should have felt like a slap to the face, but the idea of a makeover thrilled Shaylinn more than she cared to admit even to herself.
“I’m Matron Dlorah, by the way. The administrator of this establishment.” She took a long puff from her pipe and blew it into the air, looking at the far wall. “I’m not climbing those stairs again today, so you’re on your own to find your room. I’d ask Sona to help, but she’s run to the G.I.N. —an everything store of sorts—to buy blueberries. Naomi said they were her favorite. You’re in the Blue Diamond Suite. It’s on the second floor. Just take the stairs halfway and go down that hallway. Kendall Collin is your suite mentor, so Fortune’s blessed you there if nowhere else. Off you go, then.”
Shaylinn followed Matron’s instructions and found her way to a door that had a plaque proclaiming the room to be the Blue Diamond Suite. She was tired, and her hands and face hurt. If she could just find a bathroom and some water, she’d feel better. She pressed her fist to the black square beside the door, and it swung inward, revealing a very pregnant teenage girl. Stunningly pretty, really, with golden brown hair, a peaches and cream complexion, and bright green eyes.
“Hello,” the girl said. “You must be Shaylinn, yes?”
“I am.”
“Shay!” The door jerked open wider, and Jemma pushed past the pregnant girl and gabbed Shaylinn in a fierce hug. “Oh, Shay! Thank God. I was so worried! Where have you been? What happened to your face?” Jemma let go and pulled Shaylinn inside. “Come in and sit. I’ll get something to help you clean it up.”
Jemma dragged Shaylinn inside what seemed like a home. Everything was bright blue or white or polished wood. The carpet was the same soft white. There was a gleaming wood table and chairs, a small kitchen that flowed from one side of the room, and a sheet of glass that took up most of one wall and was so thin it looked to be painted onto the surface. There were also two couches. Mia and Naomi were each sitting on a different one. Shaylinn was so relieved to see their familiar faces.
Jemma sat Shaylinn on the sofa beside their sister-in-law Naomi, who turned Shaylinn’s chin from side to side. A pearly number eight on Naomi’s cheek caught Shaylinn’s gaze. Shaylinn looked to Jemma, who had the number four. Mia, a number eight. The pregnant teen who’d welcomed her had a number one.
“They put numbers on our faces and hands?” Shaylinn asked. “Like the enforcers?”
“Everyone who lives here has them,” Mia said.
Shaylinn looked at her hand. “There’s a four on my face?”
“Just like me,” Jemma said, sitting down and gently rubbing a wet cloth over Shaylinn’s scraped cheek. It stung a little.
“Because we’re related?” Shaylinn asked. Naomi and Mia were cousins.
“Maybe,” Jemma said.
Shaylinn touched her other cheek. It felt a little swollen, but maybe that side was just scraped up too. “What do you think they mean?” she asked her sister.
“I don’t know,” Jemma said, starting to wipe Shaylinn’s right palm. “We didn’t ask for the number, and if the Safe Landers have them, I worry they have some terrible meaning. Hopefully everything will be revealed soon.”
“Shay, this is Kendall,” Naomi said, referring to the pregnant girl. “She’s very nice and has been trying to help us understand what goes on in this crazy place.”
“Hi,” Shaylinn said. “You’re so pretty.”
Kendall blushed. “They’ve done a lot of work on me.”
“Really?” Shaylinn couldn’t believe it. “You weren’t so pretty before?”
�
��Well, I don’t know.” Kendall sat on a chair at the table. “They’re very good at enhancing what you’ve got.”
Mama used to say that. Use what you’ve got. “Where’s Mama?” Shaylinn asked Jemma.
“We figured they’d be in a different suite, but the only other people from Glenrock that are here in the harem are Aunt Mary, Chipeta, Jennifer, and Eliza. They’re in the Fire Opal suite, if you want to go talk to them.”
“What about Penelope and Nell?”
Jemma started to clean Shaylinn’s other hand. “What happened to you, Shay? Where have you been?”
The way her sister changed the subject made Shaylinn wonder what she wasn’t saying. Shaylinn told them about waking in the medical room and how Ciddah said she’d get pregnant. And about running away and getting caught.
“That explains who was number one in their lineup,” Mia said.
Shaylinn held up her hand. “No, I’m number four.”
“Not that number,” Mia said. “The number you are in line to have a baby. Matron told each of us our surrogacy number. Chipeta is six. I’m five. My mom is four. Jemma’s three. Eliza is two.”
“And I’m one,” Shaylinn said. “Of course.”
Jemma clapped her hand over her chest. “They mean to force my baby sister to bear a child? That’s not acceptable. You’re not old enough!”
“When I first heard the word harem, I panicked. All I could think of was the harem in the book Anna and the King of Siam. You know, Jemma, the one you read to me a few years ago. That’s one reason I ran. But when Matron explained it, it didn’t seem like that at all. I don’t understand.”
“The people in the Safe Lands have trouble conceiving,” Kendall said. “Living in the harem is meant to be an incentive; giving women a posh environment, not to mention fame, so they’ll produce babies for the government. But lately every woman inside the walls has failed to bring an uninfected child to term. Even me.”
“What does that mean—failed?” Shaylinn asked. “Your baby is going to die?”
“No. Just that both my baby and I have the thin plague.”
Shaylinn looked to Jemma, suddenly chilled. “What Papa Eli warned us about.”
“They were hoping that, since I was uninfected, my baby would be healthy too. But the plague infected both of us instead,” Kendall said.
“I will not let this happen to you, Shay!” Jemma stood and paced between the couches. “We’ll find a way out before this happens. And of course Levi will come for us.”
“Who’s Levi?” Kendall asked.
“My fiancé.” Jemma fingered a necklace of small pink beads she was wearing around her neck, and her eyes filled with tears. “He’s the Westley to my Princess Buttercup. We’re to be married in two days.” She sniffed and smiled.
“They’re perfect for each other,” Naomi said, grinning.
Mia rolled her eyes.
“Marriage doesn’t exist in the Safe Lands,” Kendall said. “Lifers pair up exclusively, which is sort of the same.” She sighed. “There was a boy back home … Roger had golden hair that always hung down to his nose. I used to imagine we got married and that I kept his hair cut short enough so I could see his eyes.”
“You’re not from the Safe Lands?” Shaylinn asked.
“I’m from Casper,” Kendall said. “That’s in Wyoming.”
“How can anyone live so far from the safe water source?” Naomi asked. “Elder Eli—he was our village leader. He always told us the only safe water was near Mount Crested Butte.”
“There was a water bottling plant in Casper before the Great Pandemic,” Kendall said. “The survivors lived off that for years until they invented a water purifier that filtered the virus.”
Shaylinn hadn’t known that any other settlements existed. How many more might there be across the globe? “But if you can live there, why come to the Safe Lands?”
“My uncle traded me to drug lords, who traded me here.”
“Betrayed by family,” Jemma mumbled. “Just like us and Omar.”
Shaylinn’s heart tightened at the mention of Omar’s name. “What do you mean?”
“Only that Omar is responsible for everything that happened today,” Naomi said.
Shaylinn couldn’t breathe, but managed to ask, “How?”
Jemma shook her head. “I don’t know. But when he and I arrived at the meeting hall, the enforcers knew him. And they gave him some fancy gold paper.”
“A golden ticket,” Kendall said. “That’s what they call a special provision from the task director general himself. Still, I doubt this Omar is wholly responsible. They would have come for you at some point anyway. Most of the people who live inside these walls don’t know how bad off things are. Since the government raises the children elsewhere, people tend to forget the kids even exist.”
Wait. “They raise the children where?” Shaylinn asked.
“There are no families in the Safe Lands,” Kendall said. “Children are raised by those tasked to caregiving. And the older children live in the Safe Lands Boarding School.”
“That’s where they took Glenrock’s children,” Jemma said, meeting Shaylinn’s gaze. “Penelope, Nell, the boys and girls—all of them. Even the babies went to a nursery.”
“We about had a riot when we figured it out,” Naomi said. “And half of us got shot with those electrical guns. We tried to start our own war, clawing and lashing out at the guards with whatever we could get our hands on, but we lost.”
“This battle only,” Jemma said.
“Yeah, Eliza and Chipeta and Jennifer are probably plotting their next attack,” Naomi said. “Mary just cries and cries.”
Shaylinn wished she could cry. It was all too horrible to be real. Children taken from their parents? Forced pregnancies? She prayed for God’s deliverance and protection, that Levi would come, along with her father and brother, and rescue them before she received Ciddah’s summons. And she begged God that Jemma was wrong about Omar, that he’d had nothing to do with any of this.
CHAPTER
9
You sure he’s awake?” a man’s voice asked. “We’re practically carrying him.”
Mason was cold. He opened his eyes, and a dim hallway came into focus. The walls were gray. Halos of yellow light gleamed from the ceiling. Black doors lined the hallway. Where was he going? He was thirsty. He blinked and fought the nausea in his gut. His feet were moving across the floor as though they were disconnected from his body. He tried to stop his forward momentum, but someone jerked his arm.
“Keep moving, shell.”
He blinked. Two enforcers were pulling him along. “Where are you taking me?” Mason asked, his voice raspy.
The enforcer on his right chuckled. “He speaks!”
“We’re having some trouble with your peer, shell,” the enforcer on his left said, “and we want you to talk to him.”
“My peer?”
The enforcers stopped in front of a black door that had a silver number seven on it.
“We’ve had to stun him. Twice.” The enforcer on Mason’s right was thick with muscle. His face was thick too, with a wrinkled forehead, thick brows, and curly black hair. The name on his uniform claimed he was named Hale. “The task director general wants you and your peer in there to become nationals. When you agree, we’ll take you to the Registration Department. Until then, welcome home.”
The slender guy on Mason’s left nudged him slightly. “Just calm him down enough that we can explain things.” His name tag read Bentzon. Mason looked at the man’s face and saw he had gray camouflage skin.
He blinked and squinted at the man again. Still camouflage. As his vision cleared further, he also noticed both men had iridescent numbers on their right cheeks. Mason looked down the hall to the right, then left. Both directions looked identical: black doors, halo lights, gray walls.
Where was he? The Safe Lands? Was he actually inside the compound?
“E72 to Highland Gatekeeper, requesting entry
to holding cell seven,” Hale said.
“Please verify identification,” a muted woman’s voice replied.
Mason looked both ways again. No woman. Where had the voice come from?
Hale set his fist against a black square on the wall next to the door marked seven. Bentzon lifted the side of Mason’s hand against the square, then dropped it and held up his own.
“Identifications verified,” the woman said. The door clicked and swung inward.
“Here we go,” Hale said.
“Let me out of here, you maggots!” Jordan’s voice called.
What was Jordan doing here? If Jordan was the man they thought would listen to Mason’s words, the guards were in for a surprise.
“We’ll be back in ten, shell.” Bentzon pushed Mason inside. The door clicked shut.
Mason reached for the handle but found none. He stood in a gray icebox with a hard, concrete floor. He blinked again and discovered he was wearing a thin gray jumpsuit and black canvas slip-on shoes. Who’d dressed him? There were two metal chairs in the room. Jordan was bound to one. Shackles held his wrists to the sides of the chair, and a chain belt encircled his waist.
“Mason! Unhook me, quick!”
Mason stumbled to the chair and studied the shackles. “They’re locked.”
Jordan screamed and pulled against the bindings until his face flushed red and veins popped out on his neck.
Mason noticed a pale number four on Jordan’s right cheek. The milky color seemed to move, as if the number were made of liquid that had been imbedded under transparent skin. “You have a number four on your face. How did that happen?”
Jordan stopped struggling and looked at Mason. “You have a number nine. And you tell me. What’s with these people?” He yanked at his shackles again.
Finally, Mason’s brain began recalling what had happened in the village. Gunfire. His father was dead. Uncle Colton was dead. Shaylinn was hurt. Then Otley had shot a sleeper into Mason’s back.
Mason sat on the other chair. “We’re in the compound?”
“How’d you guess, genius?”
“What happened?”
“I woke up tied to a table in some hospital. I screamed and yelled until the doctor came and untied me. Then I ran. They didn’t like that, though. Some enforcers chased me and shot me with some kind of electrifying gun. They brought me here, told me I was being given the great honor of becoming a national, and that my cooperation would save their pitiful world. And when I tried to get away, they shot me again and hooked me to this chair. End of story. Why’s it so cold?”
Captives Page 9