PAPA IS A Starborn. I’ve known it for about a week now once Nine warned me about today’s questioning. She’d told me it was just something all of us had to go through at Vulture Hill.
“They’ll ask you about special abilities,” she said to me. “You know, weird ones, like telepathy and stuff like that.”
“Why?” I asked her.
She then gave me a brief explanation about the Screven leadership’s obsession with finding a kind of person called a Starborn. As she described to me what a Starborn was, I immediately thought of Papa. I was sure of it now. I knew he was a tough person, but who could walk with leg wounds and a greyskin bite?
Of course, I kept Papa’s secret, but I couldn’t stop hammering Nine with questions. She didn’t answer most of them, simply giving me a wave of the hand as an answer several times. Finally, she told me enough was enough and that none of it mattered. I just needed to get through my questioning, take whatever voltage of electricity they would send through my body, and it would be over quick enough.
My mind reeled for the next week, and I was barely able to keep my questions to myself. I even brought it up at dinner once to Katherine and Janet, but they simply shrugged and said it baffled them completely. They’d never heard of Starborns before or since.
“If you ask me, Screven is filled with crazy people,” Janet had said.
My mind took me to strange places. From what I understood, the Starborn abilities are in the blood, part of our DNA. So, if Papa is a Starborn, that would mean I have the same blood in me. That means I potentially have the ability to do something like Papa.
Keeping all this to myself was the biggest challenge. It will continue to be my biggest challenge. The one question I had was why Screven was looking for Starborns.
Nine simply told me it was because Screven felt threatened by their power. When I asked her if she’d ever met a Starborn, she shook her head and changed the subject.
When I asked her who the man from Screven was that does the interrogation, her face became grave. She sat and stared into the distance for what felt like five whole minutes before answering.
“His last name is Holbrook,” she said. “A misguided young man who shouldn’t be here.”
By here, I wasn’t sure if she meant the prison, or if she meant alive. Her words had a kind of bitterness in them.
Now, it’s my turn to sit in the white plastic chair with leather straps. I was called to the room just two prisoners after Papa.
Hutch could tell I was nervous and tried to comfort me, but it didn’t do any good.
I’m afraid of breaking. I don’t want to ruin Papa’s plans. But I know that it will all be over in a matter of minutes. The pain will be difficult to bear, but could it really be all that bad? I shudder when I think: yes, yes it really could be that bad.
Warden Black smiles wide when I enter the room. “I was wondering when you were going to come in, Skylar.”
I hate the way he says my name. His bird-like features are more pronounced in this dark room.
“I hope you are making a life here as you can,” he says.
When I sit in the chair, and the guards start to strap down my arms, Warden Black stops them. “She will not be questioned the same as the others.”
This time a man steps out from the corner, and I know it’s Holbrook. “What are you doing?” Holbrook says to Warden Black.
“She is my prisoner, Holbrook. I have the right to withhold her from your interrogation tactics.”
“You do not have that authority,” he says. “I’m here by order of Jeremiah.”
“And I run this prison by the authority of Jeremiah,” Warden Black says, his eyes widening.
Holbrook turns to the guards and tell them to strap me down. They hesitate a moment, looking up to Warden Black for confirmation.
“Do it!” Holbrook screams. His clean-shaven face contorts into wrinkles and barred teeth. “And if I have to tell you again, all of you will get a turn!”
The guards finish strapping me to the seat.
“Please, Mister Holbrook,” I say in the sweetest voice I can muster. “It’s no secret what this questioning is about. I can already tell you that I am not a Starborn, nor do I know any Starborns. Though…” I hesitate only slightly. “I have met one before, I think. She had the ability to be invisible.”
The room is silent, all eyes fixed on me.
“Of course, if you had a prisoner like that here, I suppose you wouldn’t know it until you started seeing footprints in the ground without someone there. I guess you wouldn’t have caught them at all if they could be invisible.”
I don’t know why I am lying to them. I guess so it will keep them from hurting me, but I can’t predict what Holbrook will do. If this were just a meeting with Warden Black, I would already be on my way, I’m sure.
“What happened to her?” Holbrook asked.
“Shot dead by a hunter,” I say. “One minute she was invisible, walking through the woods. The next minute she was naked on the ground, blood running out of her chest.”
The room is silent again as if they wait for me to tell them more.
“So, you could go ahead and shock me all you want. It will hurt, but I already know you don’t usually kill anybody by this method. You just hurt them badly. You make them want to die. Truth is, most of us here already want to die. We just sort of hope it will be quick, instead of torturous.”
Holbrook’s mouth hangs open, and when he realizes everyone in the room is looking at him, he shakes his head.
“Take her blood,” he says.
One of the people with a lab coat sticks my arm with a needle and draws more blood than they probably need.
Holbrook walks to a table of wires and machinery. He grabs a set of cables and turns a knob on the machine all the way to the right.
“Warden Black,” Holbrook says. “I will be filing a report on you and your prison. You are far too light on these prisoners. They are all here for one purpose.”
Holbrook turns to me, the wires humming in his grip. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ask me any questions. He sets the hot metal against my skin and doesn’t take it away until I’m unconscious.
When I wake, I can barely move my arms or legs. My muscles feel like jelly. Vomit soaks the front of my shirt. Nine sits over me, her hand rubbing my forehead. I’m on the floor in my cell, and I feel like a boulder has landed on me.
“What happened to you, child?” Nine asks me, rubbing her fingers over my shaven scalp.
I tell her in a weak voice about the shock…the lack of questions. I tell her that I tried to be diplomatic. That I was just trying to be nice and possibly work my way out of experiencing so much pain.
“I feel responsible,” Nine says. “I should have told you Holbrook is not a man of reason. He doesn’t have a sympathetic bone in his body. And you trying to speak nicely to him probably came across as a twelve-year-old being condescending.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.” Tears fall from the corners of my eyes and into my ears.
“I know,” she says. “But you’re going to have to get one thing straight. You can’t sweet talk your way out of anything in this prison. You may have had Warden Black wrapped around your tiny little finger, but that’s gone now. Holbrook may be leaving today, but he isn’t just here to see if there are Starborns among us. He’s here to evaluate the prison and how well it’s run. God forbid, he comes back to take over for Warden Black.”
“That would be terrible,” I say.
“Yes, it would,” she says. She rests her hands in mine. “But you should know, Warden Black is about as terrible. He’s not a good man. He may like you, but that doesn’t mean he’s not half-crazy. Incidents like these often stir up a hornet’s nest. It’s less likely Holbrook will take over and more likely that Warden Black is about to get a lot more strict.”
I swallow, fighting back more tears. “I don’t want to be here,” I say.
“Words of the century,” she says. “None of us want to be here. The prison. The Containment Zone. Within reach of the Screven army. It’s inescapable.”
“Somebody will stop it someday,” I say. “They have to.”
She nods slowly and turns away, looking out of the cell through the bars. “Someday,” she says, “this will all be over.”