The Prey (18 page)

A moment later Hope blacks out.

S
HE CAME BACK.
T
HE
woman from my dreams. The one with long black hair.

“There you will go,” she said.

Though bullets whizzed overhead and thick, gunpowdery smoke made a haze of the world around us, there was something oddly pleasing about her voice. And ever since the dream of her reading to me, I felt a strange sense of trust in her. I couldn't explain it.

“There you will go,” she said again, her hair framing reddish-brown skin. “My beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

And then she was gone.

The sun woke me, jabbing me in the eyes with rays of amber. The others were still fast asleep. Cat had led
Four Fingers, Argos, and me back to the rest of the Less Thans and we'd been lying low in the mountains, making sure the Brown Shirts couldn't find us.

I got up and edged away from camp. The terrain was rocky and difficult: enormous boulders tossed by erupting volcanoes however many millions of years ago. More than once I had to get on hands and knees to scramble over the largest of them. In no time I'd worked up a sweat.

Sliding down a lichen-covered boulder, I reached the edge of a cliff. Below me was the steep slope of the mountain, endless acres of straining timber.

The sight reminded me of K2.

After the incident in the mess hall, he and I went a whole year without speaking. I was shoveling after a January blizzard when he offered to lend a hand.

“I can manage,” I replied.

“I didn't say you couldn't. I'm just asking if you'd like some help.”

As if to prove otherwise, I sank the shovel into a chest-high drift. My arms quivered under the strain. K2 nudged me to the side and grabbed the shovel from me. He made it look a whole lot easier.

“So is this another bet?” I asked, still breathing heavy.

“What? Can't a guy lend a hand without you getting all suspicious?”

“I just want to make sure. . . .”

“Relax. No bet this time.”

I admired how far he was able to toss the snow. The guy was not just big, he was—how had he said it?—
jumbo-honkin'
big.

“I do have an ulterior motive,” he admitted, clearing a path in the snow.

Here we go,
I thought.
What is it this time?

“I got a bargain for you.”

“A bargain?” I asked.

“That's right: a bargain. I've seen you around camp. You don't hang out much with the other guys.”

“I read,” I said defensively.

“Exactly, you read, but you don't do much with anyone else. So here's what I'm proposing.” He stopped working for a moment and leaned on the shovel. “I've seen you on the ball field and you're actually better than you think. You'd probably be a decent athlete if you ever gave it a shot, even with your limp.”

I didn't know whether to be offended or not. “Go on.”

“I mean, not as good as me or Cannon, but you know . . .”

“Go on,” I said again.

“So all you need is someone to get you on their team. I'd be willing to do that.”

I couldn't believe it. Someone promising to pick me? I wondered what the catch was. “And in exchange . . . ?”

“You help me get smarter.” He explained, “I can read
and all, but just okay, and I don't really know
what
to read. But if I help you on the field, I thought you could maybe help me with some books. I mean, I don't want to get all
Shakespearean
or nothin', but what do you say?”

I didn't trust it. There was something about the bargain that was too good to be true. I swung my head around, looking for his friends laughing behind some corner.

“No bet?” I asked.

“No bet.”

“Real bargain?”

“Yeah.”

I hesitated. “Okay,” I finally said.

His face erupted in a smile, and he shook my hand, engulfing it like an ocean swallowing a tiny boat. And so began a most unlikely partnership that turned into an even more unlikely friendship . . . until its untimely end.

“What're you doing?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. If I hadn't been holding on to a branch, I might have gone tumbling down the mountain.

It was Cat, his words shaking me from my memory. He was standing right behind me.

“How'd you know I was here?” I asked.

“Followed you.”

I didn't know if I should be grateful or irritated. Was
I so helpless I couldn't even go off on my own?

“You didn't answer my question,” he said. “What're you doing?”

“Just getting away for a few minutes.”

“I can see that, smartass.
Why
are you getting away?”

What could I say? That I had a dream and some old woman was trying to tell me something?

“We need to rethink what we're doing,” I said. “Maybe we should change things up.”

“And . . . ?”

“And maybe instead of going forward, we go back. Just temporarily.”

Cat's eyes narrowed. “What're you saying?”

My gaze lowered; I could barely look him in the eye. “I want to go back to that girls' camp.”

“I thought you just tried that.”

“This time I want to rescue them.”

“You wanna do
what
?”

“I want to rescue them.”

He just stared at me. Then he sighed noisily. “You remember how that ended last time, right?”

“Of course.”

“You and Four Fingers and your little dog were a trigger pull from being worm food.”

“I remember.”

“If I hadn't gotten there when I did, there'd be no more Book.”

“I know.”

“And you still want to do this? For the sake of some girls you never met?”

“I met them.”
One in particular,
I didn't bother to add.

Cat scoffed.

“I know it's crazy and it's probably the wrong thing to do,” I said, “but maybe that's exactly why it's the
right
thing to do. Besides, if we join up with them, it'll increase our numbers. Give us a better chance.”

There was far more to it than that—but I wasn't about to admit that to Cat.

“It's not numbers we need to worry about,” Cat said, “it's speed. The sooner we get to the next territory, the better.”

“You really think we can do this with just the eight of us?”

Cat didn't respond right away and I could see him processing what I'd said. He rubbed his jaw and peered at the far horizon. We were like two explorers standing on an ocean's edge, imagining faraway continents.

“We can't afford to stop,” he finally said. “We gotta keep going.”

“I understand that. Then I'll go back with Four Fingers. We'll get the girls and catch up.”

“Not this time. No one goes with you.”

“I need Four.”

“No one goes with you.”

“But I need—”

“No one goes with you.”

Why was I always losing this argument to Cat? “Okay,” I sighed, realizing it wouldn't be easy to pull this off on my own . . . but the words from the dream kept echoing in my head.
There you will go.
For whatever reason, the old woman's message led me back to Hope.

I could still sense the curve of her back against my chest, the press of her skin, how our bodies fit into each other like two pieces of a puzzle. But what I thought about most were her eyes—those enormous brown pools. There was something below the surface I couldn't make out. Something impenetrable and dark. Something heartbreaking.

I returned to camp and began packing my things. It was a risk going back for those girls, I knew that, but I also knew I had to do it. I had promised. And if I died in the process, well, at least I'd be doing something that mattered.

Something for someone else. And maybe that would rid me of K2's ghosts—and the demons that had haunted me since the day of his death would finally fade away.

There you will go.

“F
IFTY-THREE MINUTES
,” D
R.
G
ALLINGHAM
says in a voice beaming with pride.

Hope opens her eyes. The water-stained ceiling of the infirmary looks down at her. So the vat of ice-cold water wasn't a nightmare. It really happened.

“You were in a tank of forty-one-degree water for fifty-three minutes,” he goes on to explain. “And using only external rewarming methods, we were able to raise your core temperature to something resembling normal. That's good news for our soldiers fighting in the north.”

“And Faith?”

“Hmm?”

“My sister?”

“Oh, she didn't make it,” the doctor says, as casually as though describing the day's weather. “We tried passive rewarming for her and it simply wasn't enough. She died on the spot.” He pats Hope on the leg. “I knew you'd be willing to help out the Republic. Your father would be proud.”

He shuffles out of the room. Now Hope can see the other bed . . . and a lifeless Faith lying atop the sheets. Her skin has already purpled and a death stare carves two holes into the ceiling.

“Faith,” Hope says, not letting herself believe her eyes. “Faith!” she calls again, hoping to wake her, hoping this is just some parlor trick that gives the
appearance
of death.

But it's no trick, and when Hope realizes it, she is overcome with grief, with
guilt
—for not taking better care of her sister. She thrusts and squirms against the leather manacles, shouting “No!” at the very top of her lungs until her throat is raw and hoarse.

And then she begins to sob, the kind that rips at her stomach and convulses her shoulders. Hot tears stain her cheeks, and for once, Hope doesn't try to stop them.
Let 'em come,
she thinks.
If they can wash away the pain, let 'em come.

She's alone. Not just in the room, but in the world. Dead are her mother and father and now her sister too. And Book is far, far away. She is utterly, entirely alone.

H & FT.

When there are no tears left to shed, her eyes catch sight of something else. Next to Faith's lifeless body, lying in a small, untidy heap, is her pink shawl. Never to cover her sister's frail shoulders.

The tears begin again.

Two days later Hope is discharged from the infirmary. When she returns to the barracks, several Sisters pat her on the shoulder and Scylla grabs her by the arms and stares into her eyes. There's something in her expression that tells Hope this is why Scylla doesn't speak. At some point, she lost her sister, too. Just as they've all lost sisters. As Hope casts a wild gaze around the room, she realizes Athena and Helen are the only set of twins remaining.

Hope stumbles to her spot on the floor, flinging the ratty blanket over her shivering body. She no longer cares about the chancellor's letter and Thorason's intentions and the “question of the Less Thans.” Her father's involvement means nothing to her. Warmth is what she craves now. And sleep.

And Faith.

She abandons the tunnel.
What's the point?
Maybe they can finish it, and maybe they can even escape—but why? Will that make their lives any safer? Is a life on the run really better than all this? She did that for ten years and where did it get her?

She goes through the motions. Breakfast, roll call, daily chores. She's reassigned from cleaning stables to gardening in the fields. It's thought she needs more “supervision.”

Late one morning her group is assembled in the roll call yard and handed hoes and spades. As four Brown Shirts lead them outside the camp, the girls sling the tools over their shoulders like soldiers on parade. Past the barbed wire they trudge, stopping only when they reach the fields.

Hope works with a kind of dull precision. As she chops at the offending weeds, thoughts swirl in her head like falling leaves. Maybe if she and Book hadn't gone nosing around in the Admin Building, Dr. Gallingham wouldn't have subjected Faith and her to the water tank. Maybe her sister would still be alive. Maybe Hope wouldn't feel like she does—devoid of any feeling whatsoever. Numb. No sharper than the dull edge of her hoe that bites into the ground.

At one point, Hope hears a strangled scream. A girl's voice, coming from the infirmary. The Sisters hesitate, look up briefly, then return to their labors. They've grown accustomed to such sounds. It saddens Hope. They're getting used to things they have no business getting used to.

This isn't a life they're leading, she realizes, it's a life sentence.

At the same time, something feels different. Something she can't define. It's almost like they're being watched. Not just by the guards—she's used to that—but when she lifts her head and casts a sweeping gaze across the landscape, all she sees are guard towers and fences topped with coils of concertina wire and the jagged silhouette of Skeleton Ridge.

Hell on earth.

I
WATCHED HER . . . AND
I knew.

The night before, I'd scampered down the mountain until I reached the ridge above Camp Freedom, where I observed Hope at work in the fields. Once, she gave a glance right in my direction. If I didn't know better, I would've said she could sense me.

That's when it hit me, what we had in common. Pain. Something about those liquid brown eyes and the expression on her face told me she knew pain. That was the quality the two of us shared—and why I had to save her.

So how do I get to her?
I wondered. After all, those guards weren't going anywhere.

I watched as the day went on. I kept thinking about
that book I'd read at camp—one of those left in my trunk.
The Art of War.
There'd been something in there about diversions.
All warfare is deception,
it had said. The thought stayed with me.