The Prey (17 page)

I only heard what happened next: the
whoosh
of air, the thud of slicing flesh, the gurgle of blood.

I opened my eyes to see an arrow protruding through Crew Cut's neck. The nock and fletching were all that remained by his Adam's apple; the point and shaft extended out the back. He dropped to his knees and fell face forward in the mud.

His friend raised his rifle, but too late. Before he had a chance to fire, an arrow caught him in the chest, taking him to the ground. He was dead within seconds.

I swung my head around and there was Cat, helping Four Fingers to his feet.

“Figured you Janes might need some help,” he said. “You good to run?”

We nodded dumbly.

“Good. 'Cause we'd better move.”

We heard wheels spinning in mud; another Humvee was struggling to make it up the hill. As we took off back up the mountain, I had a sinking realization. We were safe—Cat had saved us—but every step from Camp Freedom was a step away from Hope.

H
OPE ADDS EXTRA HOURS
to her tunnel shift and encourages others to do the same. She doesn't mention the letter or its final paragraph to anyone. No point scaring them.

There's the other part also. The stuff about her father. To realize he's not the man she thought he was is enough to make her sick to her stomach.

And then there's Book. She hasn't seen him since he leaped out Thorason's window. Did he make it out of camp? More than a few times she catches herself with her hand on her stomach, imagining it as Book's, remembering how he held her in the darkness of the cave-in, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

She has just finished a five-hour shift and slid beneath
her threadbare blanket on the floor when she hears a frail, thin voice.

“Do we stand a chance?”

Hope rolls over and stares up at her sister. Each day her body seems to cave in on itself a little bit more, like a piece of fruit rotting on the vine.

“Of course,” Hope answers. “The water's going down and we can dig again. In another couple of months—”

Faith shakes her head. “Not the tunnel.
Us.
”

“That's what I'm saying. Once this tunnel's done, we're outta here.”

“But can we make it until then?”

Hope doesn't know. She's usually the one who asks the hard questions, not Faith. As their mother once said, Faith is the sister who studies the scab; Hope is the one who picks at it.

“We've made it this long. We can easily make it another couple of months.”

“But the girls are saying the colonel's up to something.”

“They don't know what they're talking about.”

“But do you?”

Faith's words are like a cold wind.

“
Do
you?” Faith asks again. Her eyes, which have been vacant for so long, peer into Hope's face with a sudden clarity.

“Yes,” she says quietly.

That seems enough for Faith. She doesn't press for details. “So do we stand a chance?” she asks again.

“As long as we have each other, we
always
stand a chance. H and FT.”

“H and FT,” Faith repeats weakly. Then she shuts her eyes.

Suddenly Hope isn't tired. Is she being truthful? she wonders. Do they stand even a remote chance of finishing the tunnel in time?

Her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the rattling chain as it shivers through the handles of the front door. Four Brown Shirts march in. The Sisters wake with a start, clutching blankets to their chests.

Two Brown Shirts stop at the foot of Hope's bed; two at Faith's. A moment later Hope hears heavy, thudding footsteps. She's not surprised when Dr. Gallingham comes into view.

“Yes, these are the day's Participants,” he says, his voice syrupy with self-congratulation. “Hope and Faith.” His focus darts from one to the other. “Or is it Faith and Hope? In any case, the greatest of these is Love.”

He giggles at his cleverness.

The guards yank the twins to their feet, drag them outside, and lock the door behind them.

Hope stares at the water-stained ceiling, the bars on the window. They can call it an infirmary if they like, but
it's really a prison. A prison within a prison.

Dr. Gallingham drops a metal clipboard onto the desk with a clatter. Faith lets out a scream.

“It's okay,” Hope whispers, but her sister's eyes are wide with terror. Her bony arms strain against the leather manacles.

“Now, now,” Dr. Gallingham says in his most reassuring voice. “There's nothing to be afraid of. Today is all about cleanliness.”

Hope wants to believe him. Wants that desperately. But she doesn't for a second. The scabbing needle pricks on the underside of her arm are testament to what he's capable of. Weeks' worth of injections and chemical experiments.

“You owe me, you know,” he says. He leans over Hope until the moisture from his eyes nearly drips on her face. “If it hadn't been for me, the guards would've taken you straight to Colonel Thorason. And in honor of my graciousness, I thought you could return the favor and help
me
out. For example, you could tell me who was in the office with you. And don't pretend you were alone; I saw the open window, and we have a report of two downed guards that night.”

He leans in close until his rank breath splashes her face. “Well?”

Hope doesn't look away. She can play chicken with the best of them.

“So let me get this straight: you'd rather be the subject of another experiment than tell me what's going on?”

Faith makes a strangled noise from the other bed. Hope knows what she's trying to say.
Tell him. Tell him so we can go free.

But Hope refuses to speak.

Gallingham goes on. “And then there's the matter of your father. You still haven't shared where he is.”

“I told you. He died.”

“So you say, but for some reason I don't believe you.” Gallingham stands up straight as two female technicians stride in, pushing a metal cart. “Field trip,” he says brightly. “Make sure you have a buddy. Unless you've had a change of heart and decide to open up.”

Hope turns her head away.

“Fine,” he says. “But you may regret that decision.”

The techs push the two sisters into the hall, gurney wheels squealing. They're rolled into a room with no beds, no examination tables, no silver trays with syringes. Instead, the centerpiece is an enormous rust-splotched metal tank—a drinking trough for livestock. It seems wildly out of place in a hospital. A garden hose coils over one edge and vomits water into the tank.

A sudden bang makes both girls jump. Hope swivels her head and sees three Brown Shirts dumping trays of ice cubes into the metal tank. The chunks clatter against the sides.

“H and FT,” Hope whispers to her sister.

Faith doesn't appear to be listening. She is pressed into the mattress, eyes squeezed shut, nostrils flared.

Dr. Gallingham pulls a thermometer from the trough and examines it.

“Make it colder,” he commands. The three soldiers oblige by dumping in still more trays of ice.

Gallingham returns his attention to the twins. “You might get a trifle chilly during this experiment.” He smiles, his thin lips vanishing into his jowly face. “Of course, we can avoid all this unpleasantness if you'd just tell me what I want to know.”

Hope grits her teeth and says nothing.

“Fine,” the doctor says. “Then we'll begin.”

The female technicians strip Hope and Faith down to their underwear and then dress them again—as Brown Shirts. The wool uniforms are scratchy and ill-fitting, but more puzzling to Hope is why. Why go to the trouble to dress them as soldiers at all?

Dr. Gallingham supplies the answer. “You're providing a great service, you know—allowing us to see which rewarming methods are more effective than others. So for that, the Republic thanks you.” He gives a mock bow and goes on.

“Our generals predict more and more of our battles will be fought in the mountains, so we need to know how much cold our good soldiers can endure.”

“Ready,” one of the techs proclaims.

“Temperature?”

“Forty degrees.”

“Splendid.”

Hope feels suddenly nauseous. It isn't the fear of icy water—although that's certainly part of it—but something else, too. Shame. For not doing a better job of taking care of her sister. If she hadn't been snooping around in the Admin Building, they wouldn't be in this fix. All she has to do is tell Gallingham about Book and it will put an end to it. She and Faith will live. No icy experiment. No freezing water.

“What makes you think we'll stay in your little pond?” she asks.

A lipless smirk oozes across Gallingham's face, and he nods at the three Brown Shirts as they begin attaching a series of heavy objects to Hope's and Faith's lower legs. Ankle weights. Hope kicks and squirms and tries to make their task as difficult as possible; Faith lies there lifeless, her face pale with dread.

While the Brown Shirts finish strapping on the weights, the female techs attach a series of electrodes. Once plugged into the machines, the girls' vitals appear on an electronic screen. Both hearts are racing.

The three Brown Shirts lift Hope from the bed and plop her into the icy water. The sudden cold sucks the breath right from her; she feels like she's being squeezed
by an enormous vise. The weights drag her feet to the bottom of the vat, where they make a muffled clank. Even though she tries to give a kick, a numbing paralysis sets in. Her wrists, too, are immobilized—strapped to the top edge of the tank.

A moment later Faith is dropped in the opposite end and Hope sees her sister clenching her jaw so hard she's bitten her tongue. A thin rivulet of blood sneaks past her lower lip and dribbles down her chin.

“And just to document our little experiment today . . .” Gallingham picks up a camera from the desk, aims it at the girls, and clicks. A flash strobes the air.

“Now what?” Hope asks through chattering teeth.

“Very simple,” the doctor answers. “We wait.”

The cold is excruciating—like a million wasp stings all at once. Hope's legs are two unwieldy pieces of steel. Even if the Brown Shirts took away the ankle weights, she'd be powerless to move her legs even a little. There's no feeling there whatsoever. Her body shivers violently.

“You should be happy,” Dr. Gallingham says smugly, jotting notes on his clipboard. “Shivering means your body is doing its best to generate heat. If you weren't shivering, you'd be dead.” He says this as though it were a consolation.

“Eighty-eight point two,” a female tech calls out, and Hope realizes the woman is talking about her body temperature. It's plummeted over ten degrees.

Breathing becomes difficult. Her teeth are chattering and she's afraid they're going to break off. Faith is faring even worse. Her face has paled beyond recognition; her lips are the color of blueberries.

“Eighty-three point zero.”

Faith's and Hope's bodies shake so much they're creating a whirlpool in the icy tank. Hope fears she'll break a rib from shivering.

“Last chance,” Gallingham explains. “Tell me who was in the office and I'll pull you out of the tank myself.”

Hope thinks of Book. Thinks of how he covered her when the cave-in happened, how he soothed her when she freaked out. She looks at Dr. Gallingham . . . and doesn't respond.

Time grinds to a halt. Whenever she dares a peek at the clock, it's always no later than the last time she looked. She begins to have difficulties distinguishing between the hour hand and the second hand, as if she's suddenly forgotten how to tell time.

“Eighty-two point three.”

They're no longer wasp stings; they're knife thrusts. Jabbing blades of cold steel. Her trembling body is one huge open wound, radiating pain. Oddly enough, Hope feels beads of sweat popping on her forehead. It's as though her body has given up telling her she's cold; now it's suggesting she's hot.

Across the tank, Faith struggles to stay conscious,
eyes rolling back in her head. Hope tries to speak, tries to whisper
H & FT
but can't. Her teeth are chattering so much she's incapable of forming sentences. It's Faith, her sister, Faith, and yet the more Hope looks at her, the more she sees her mother lying lifeless on the porch, her black hair fanning out around her.

“Eighty-one point six.”

The words startle Hope. Who is this woman in the white lab coat calling out numbers? Are those numbers on her forearm? Or are they
all
numbers? Is everything and everyone a number?

“Seventy-nine point seven.”

Hope's eyes grow heavy; the world becomes blurry and dim. Her body explodes in heat. It's as though she's on fire, flames dancing from her arms.

“Seventy-nine point three.”

All she has to do is say one word—“Book”—and they'll be freed. That's it. One word means the difference between life and death. But her mind grows suddenly cloudy. What does the word mean anyway? And is there a cost in saying it? She seems to think there is, but she can't remember what.

“Seventy-eight point six.”

Everything is turning black. Darkness taking over. She's lost control of her muscles. Her thoughts as well.

“Time,” Hope hears a male voice say. The nasal voice is both familiar and not. Even as she stares through
squeezed eyes at the round-faced man—the heavy jowls, the watery eyes—she can't recall if she's met him.

Hope's body is yanked from the watery prison and thrust onto the gurney. Her soldier's uniform clings to her like skin, water dripping onto the linoleum floor. She sees but has no sensation of warmth as the uniform is ripped open and hot water bottles are pressed into her armpits, her crotch, the space behind her knees.

Her head rolls to one side as she sees the other girl—
what is her name?
—being ripped from the water and dumped on a gurney next to her. In her case, a single, thin blanket is tossed carelessly on her shivering frame. Hope doesn't know her, but she feels a pang of pity for her. There's no way that poor girl will make it. No way in the world.