Captive

by Aimee Carter

  “Get inside,” hissed Scotia in my ear, and she tugged me backward and into the building. I was too numb to fight. I was too numb to do anything but stare blankly at the bunk bed that, seconds before, had belonged to a girl who was now dead.

  Every single pair of eyes turned toward me. Some were red; some stared at me accusingly. But for the first time, none of them looked away.

  “At least in the cage, she would’ve stood a chance,” said Scotia, pushing me back to my bed. I sat down heavily, and the springs squeaked from my weight. “Get it now?”

  I nodded wordlessly, and she turned her glare from me to the others.

  “Chelsea was a good person,” she said. “You’re all good people. I don’t care if Mercer himself hands you contraband—do not give them an excuse to kill you, because I promise you they will take it.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and headed back behind her curtain. A few quiet sobs echoed from the other end of the bunk, and the low murmur of voices filled my ears as I curled up on my bed, my back to them as I stared at the entrance to Scotia’s room.

  It was the only place the guards had left untouched.

  Scotia was the snitch.

  By the time lights out came two hours later, I was certain. She had turned Maya and her friends in without a second thought; and after smelling the chocolate on her breath, I would have bet every heartbeat I had left that she was the one who had tipped off Williams about Chelsea’s candy bar and told him to search the bunk.

  While the others fell asleep, their whispered conversations fading one by one until the entire room was filled with the sound of two dozen girls breathing evenly, I continued to watch the curtain separating Scotia from the rest of us. It might as well have been a steel door, the way the other girls treated it, but all I could think about was what she’d done to deserve that privacy in the first place.

  Snitch out her bunk mates, clearly. Keep us all so afraid of her that no one stepped a toe out of line in fear of being sent to the cage. But why the others didn’t gang up on her and take care of the problem, I didn’t know.

  Even if I’d wanted to sleep, I couldn’t. My mind flipped between the horrors of the past twenty-four hours like some nightmarish slide show. Six people—that was how many had died in front of me since Knox had betrayed me. Benjy. Maya. Poppy. Darcy. Chelsea. And another whose name I’d never known.

  Guilt and despair burrowed inside me, nestling up against the need for vengeance that fueled every breath I took. The true horror of Elsewhere wasn’t the hunt Daxton enjoyed so much; it lay in the twisted hope Mercer and the others offered the prisoners. Betray your friends, betray the only family you have in this place, and we might let you become one of us. We might let you pull the trigger next time.

  I wouldn’t just kill Knox, I decided. I would take out the Mercers, too—and Scotia, and Williams and the weedy guard, and everyone else who dared to build up their authority on the deaths of others. I would burn Elsewhere to the ground if that’s what it took to help these people. I might have still looked like Lila Hart on the outside, but it was time to be Kitty Doe on the inside. It was time to remember who I was and once again find the courage it took to face this kind of brutality day in and day out, and somehow still make it out alive.

  But never, not even on the Shields’ worst days, had I ever seen anything like this on the streets of D.C. No matter how hard I tried to prepare myself for whatever tomorrow had in store for me, I knew nothing in my experience could even begin to compare. And facing that bleak unknown was more terrifying than any disgruntled guard with a gun could ever be.

  Over an hour after everyone else had fallen asleep, the curtain rustled. I squinted, and cloaked by darkness, Scotia slipped out of her room, her boots silent against the stone floor.

  With stealth I would have found impressive if I hadn’t hated her so much, she opened the door and exited the bunkhouse, leaving a swirl of icy air and snow in her wake. Without hesitating, I sat up and shoved my feet into my boots, remembering to grab my coat this time. I wasn’t nearly as quiet as she was, but with everyone asleep, I had no reason to care.

  By the time I slipped outside, she was halfway down the block, her head bent and hands shoved into her pockets. She walked as if she knew she had nothing to worry about, not bothering to keep to the shadows or mute the crunch of snow and ice with every step she took. And why would she, when she was so favored that not even the guards dared to disturb her privacy?

  I made sure to fall into the rhythm of her gait, in case she could hear my footsteps as well as I could hear hers. Unlike Scotia, I stuck to the shadows, wishing I were wearing anything but red so I could blend in easier. But we passed no guards, and Scotia never looked over her shoulder, not even when she stopped beside a metal gate that blocked the winding drive leading up to Mercer Manor.

  I crouched behind the corner of a building as Scotia waited, in plain sight of anyone who happened to pass by. Mercer Manor loomed only a few hundred feet away, a stark contrast to the other buildings around it even in the darkness. Scotia tapped her foot impatiently, and half a minute later, she huffed with indignation. Whoever she was supposed to meet was late.

  Another set of footsteps echoed through the quiet street, and a tall figure approached, walking down the drive. When he stepped underneath the lamp secured on top of the gate, the light illuminated his features, and I raised an eyebrow. Mercer.

  “You’re late,” said Scotia, annoyed. “You know it’s freezing out here.”

  “I’m sure I could figure out some way to keep you warm,” he said, sliding his arms around her waist. “How are you, my dear?”

  “Your goons killed another one of my girls tonight.” Despite the anger in her tone, she looped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. “I’d appreciate it if you told them to leave us alone.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, darling,” said Mercer, and he nuzzled her cheek. I made a face. “If someone breaks a rule, my hands are tied.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it,” she said, and he chuckled.

  “Yes, I suppose. But I also suspect she did something to deserve it, did she not?”

  Scotia grumbled. “Williams caught her with contraband. The Hart girl opened her big mouth and tried to stop her arrest, and since Williams couldn’t take it out on her, he took it out on Chelsea instead.”

  Mercer clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “She’ll settle in quickly enough.”

  “In the meantime, I’m not her babysitter,” said Scotia. “Give her to someone else.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, my dear,” he said, brushing snow from her cheek with one gloved hand. “No one else could protect her the way you do. I heard what you did this afternoon.”

  Scotia stamped her feet. “It was nothing. Just pulled a few girls off her. You didn’t have to kill that girl in the cage tonight. She earned her freedom.”

  “My dear, no one earns their freedom here.” He tried to kiss her, but she turned her head. “Isabel, darling, don’t be like that. I had no choice, and you know it.”

  “You could’ve sent her to another zone,” said Scotia, an edge to her voice that hadn’t been there before. “You didn’t have to murder her in cold blood.”

  “I have my orders, as you very well know,” he said. “I had to make an example of her. I’ll have to do the same to anyone else who attacks Lila, so if you’d rather I not have any more blood on my hands, then I would suggest doing your job and watching her back.”

  She muttered something I couldn’t hear, and Mercer sighed.

  “If I told you I brought you a present, would that make it any better?” he said, releasing her. Instead of storming off, Scotia stayed where she was, crossing her arms.

  Mercer pulled off his gloves and slid his hand into his pocket, retrieving something I couldn’t mak
e out. I leaned forward and squinted. Light from the lamp reflected off a small silver disk that dangled from a chain, and my mouth dropped open. My necklace. Mercer was giving her my necklace.

  “Here you go,” he said, and he fastened it around her neck. “Something for you to remember me on those cold, lonely nights.”

  The edges of my vision turned red, and I dug my nails into my palms. That was mine. But there was nothing I could do that wouldn’t announce my presence to them both, so I sat back on my heels and seethed. If I’d had any doubts whether or not she was the spy, seeing Scotia touch my necklace and kiss Mercer in thanks was enough to dissolve them completely.

  “Come inside where it’s warm,” said Mercer. “Hannah’s asleep.”

  Scotia shook her head. “Not tonight, not after what Williams pulled. One of the girls might need me.”

  Mercer began to protest, but Scotia kissed him again, effectively shutting him up. He relaxed, and when she pulled away, he sighed again. “I’ll have a little chat with him. Make sure he knows what he cost me.”

  “You do that,” said Scotia, and she slid her hand over his backside and squeezed. Disgusting. “If all of my girls survive tomorrow, then I’ll see about staying the night.”

  With one last kiss, they broke apart, and Mercer walked through the gate and back up the drive to the manor. Scotia watched him go, and it wasn’t until he’d disappeared into the darkness that she finally began to trudge back to the bunkhouse.

  I trailed after her, trying to ignore the barrage of questions that flooded my mind, but there was only so much I could do to keep them at bay. Why did Scotia sound surprised the guards had searched the bunkhouse if she’d been the one to snitch on Chelsea? And why had Mercer insinuated that he had orders to protect me? None of the Harts or the Ministers of the Union had any interest in keeping me alive, unless Daxton intended on hunting me himself when the time came. But if that were the case, then why wouldn’t he have just thrown me into the hunting grounds to start instead of wasting time by sending me to Section X?

  Did Knox’s sudden presence here have anything to do with it? No—he was only the son of a Minister for now, not the Minister himself, and he didn’t have the power to give those kinds of orders. He was here to watch me die, not to save my life when he was the one who’d put me here in the first place.

  Lost in my thoughts, I turned onto the street that led to the bunkhouse. I would find out eventually one way or the other, but until then—

  A hand clamped over my mouth. “Scream, and you’re dead,” whispered a harsh voice in my ear, and my entire body went cold.

  Scotia.

  IX

  COLD HOPE

  Scotia shoved me against the side of a gray building, and the back of my head cracked against the bricks. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she whispered harshly. She must have been convinced I wasn’t going to scream, because she dropped her hand from my mouth.

  I gulped in a deep breath of cold air. “You’re the one who told them about Chelsea, weren’t you?” I said. “You’re the snitch.”

  Scotia rolled her eyes and grabbed my shoulder, steering me away from the wall. I tried to fight her, but my wet boots had frozen in the cold, and my feet were numb. “Stop trying to think for yourself, Lila. You’ll get wrinkles.”

  She pushed me into a narrow alleyway between two gray buildings, away from the bunkhouse. “Where are we going?” I said.

  “Someplace where you can’t get us killed,” she said, taking another sharp turn. “Now shut up and walk before I decide to gag you.”

  I trudged on, debating whether or not it was worth trying to take her out. I was still injured and almost too cold to walk, let alone fight Scotia and live, and it was a maze back here, even more so than the wider streets of Elsewhere. Within minutes, I was completely lost. If I wanted any hope of returning to the bunkhouse without running across a guard, I had no choice but to stick with Scotia.

  At last we arrived at a nondescript door in an alley behind a large building that smelled vaguely like grease. The dining hall. Scotia pushed it open and shoved me inside. “Watch your step,” she said, and once the door closed securely behind us, she flipped on a light switch.

  We stood at the top of a stairway that led down below the dining hall. I frowned, and Scotia nudged me forward. “We don’t have all night.”

  “What’re you going to do, kill me and serve me with tomorrow’s lunch?” I said.

  She snorted. “Please, like you have enough meat on your bones to make a sandwich, let alone feed everyone. Now either you can walk down those stairs, or I can push you. Your choice.”

  Reluctantly I descended the steps, taking them one at a time so I didn’t trip over my numb feet. Wherever we were going, it was the last place I wanted to be right now, but I refused to let my fear show. I was Kitty Doe, not Lila Hart. I wasn’t a coward.

  At the bottom of the narrow staircase was a single metal door. Scotia reached around me and punched a series of numbers into the keypad beside it, and a lock clicked. “In you go,” she said, turning the knob and pushing it open.

  I didn’t know what I expected, but a small crowd of several dozen prisoners wasn’t it. No, not just prisoners—among the red and orange jumpsuits, I also spotted a few black uniforms. Guards. And scattered across every surface were dozens upon dozens of weapons. Guns, knives, bows and arrows, grenades—things no upstanding citizen could get their hands on, let alone prisoners.

  “What’s going on?” I said nervously, and every pair of eyes in that room turned to look at me. Most of them were older, in their twenties and thirties, but in the corner stood a handful of boys who looked barely old enough to take their test, and seated around a rickety table were half a dozen grizzled men and women. Two of them I recognized from the dining hall at dinner.

  “You didn’t think the Blackcoats only existed out there, did you?” said Scotia, hovering over me. I gaped at her.

  “This is a Blackcoat meeting?”

  “Isn’t that what I just said?” She nodded to a stack of old wooden crates near the door. A machine gun leaned against it casually, as if someone had left it there and would be back for it at any moment. “Sit down, Lila, and let the adults do the talking.”

  I gingerly moved the gun so it leaned against the wall, and then I took a seat and glanced around the gathered crowd. Several of them stared back, but most refocused their gaze on Scotia, who moved to the center of the room. It took me several seconds to realize what I was looking for—rather, who.

  Knox. And he wasn’t there.

  “We have two days,” said Scotia in a voice that seemed to permeate every corner of the room. “Two days until everything we’ve worked for will be for nothing. I don’t need to tell you what will happen if we don’t get the codes, and we are teetering dangerously close to failure.”

  “Even if we were suicidal, we’d have no chance of sneaking in anymore,” said a man dressed in a guard uniform. His blond hair was long and tied back in a ponytail, and his fingers tapped out a faint rhythm on the wall he leaned against. “Security’s been raised now that Minister Creed’s son has decided to go cherry-picking.”

  Several of the women shifted uncomfortably and glanced at one another. I frowned. “Cherry-picking?” I said.

  The guard gestured to the crowd gathered. “Anyone he wants, for any purpose. They mostly have their fun and only stick around for a night or two, but a few of them have some twisted tastes.” He tugged his collar down, revealing the start of a thick red scar that ran down his chest. “On the plus side, if you pretend to enjoy it and survive, they’ll usually give you a uniform.”

  I stared at him in horror. No matter how much I hated Knox, I couldn’t imagine him ever being that cruel. But the other Ministers...

  “Rivers, stop it,” said Scotia sharply. “The princes
s has had enough of a dose of reality for one day.”

  “I’m not a princess,” I said, even though she was right. Elsewhere had been bad enough when I’d thought it was just a hunting ground, but the more layers I saw, the more I wished Knox had put a bullet in me like he’d promised. One more reason to enjoy watching the life drain from his eyes when I had the chance.

  But even amidst the dizzying horror swirling in my mind, one thing became crystal clear: they had no idea Knox was one of the leaders of the Blackcoats. Or if they did, they didn’t trust him.

  “Has he chosen someone yet?” said a man whose face I couldn’t see.

  “Not that I know of,” said Rivers, and his clear blue gaze settled on me. “Can’t imagine who he might set his sights on.”

  “Enough,” said Scotia, sharper this time. “Just because security’s been raised doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We have two days, people. Start getting creative.”

  “I’ve searched Mercer’s office high and low on my cleaning rounds,” said one of the elderly women, whose white hair was twisted up into a braided bun. “If the codes are hidden in there, they’re behind lock and key.”

  “That might be, but your eyesight’s shit, too,” said Scotia. The older woman sank into her seat and averted her gaze, folding her gnarled hands. “I can’t do everything myself, people.”

  “You’ll have to eventually if you keep treating everyone like that,” I said before I could stop myself. Scotia turned slowly to face me, her mouth set in a thin line.

  “If you’re so eager to help, then why don’t you take the Mercers up on their offer?” she said. “You can’t be completely useless.”

  “What offer?” said Rivers, and his tapping abruptly stopped. Once again, all eyes in the room turned toward me.

  “The offer for her to stay in Mercer Manor as their guest,” said Scotia. I gritted my teeth.

  “Did Mercer tell you that before or after you shoved your tongue down his throat?” I said.