My hands are bound behind my back with shackles—I can tell before I open my eyes. The skin of my wrists already feels sore from rubbing against the metal.
My head is hard to lift. I wince as pain shoots across my forehead.
I remember what happened: the explosions; Hector turning me in; the official knocking me out.
I don’t know where I am now, or how long I’ve been here.
It takes several seconds for my eyes to adjust. There’s hardly any light in here, only a flickering bulb high above. The room is small—a holding cell, most likely. But a strange cell; one of the walls is made of mirrorlike glass, and there’s an identical room on the other side of it.
I stare at my reflection, slumped against the wall. There’s nothing left of my curls but a few stringy strands of pasty blond. My eyes seem empty and desperate. I’ve had nothing to eat or drink in stars know how long. There’s a bandage over my left ear that someone must’ve put there while I was sleeping. There’s less pain in my ear, only a dull throbbing, but it feels like it’s plugged up with gauze. I can’t hear a thing out of it.
Even in the dim light, I can tell my skin and hair and clothes are covered with soot. Worse than the dirt is the blood I’ve collected over the past day. Blood on my pants, blood on my cheeks, blood on my hands. My own, and Joe’s. I have no way to wash it away, nor fresh clothes to change into. I have to wear his blood like a scar, a constant reminder of the way I am changing.
He lied to me, I remind myself. I didn’t have a choice.
But was it even worth it? I won a few extra hours of hiding and time to use those explosives, but I don’t know how much damage they did. I still ended up in this cell.
I force my eyes away from the mirror. I need to stay calm. I need to figure out as much as I can about where I am. Information will help me feel like I have some control over what’s going to happen to me, though I know I have none.
I use the wall to get to my feet. It’s difficult with my hands behind my back, but I manage.
There’s a security camera with a blinking red dot in the upper right corner of my cell. The exit door is to my left, a few feet away from me, but there is no handle or lock-pad, as far as I can tell. My guess is the only way out of this cell is if a guard opens the door from the other side.
I’m stuck in here until someone comes for me, and that will most likely be Sam, or someone coming to take me to him. I hate that I’ve escaped from him so many times, only to end up right back in his grip.
If my wrists were thinner, I could slip out of my handcuffs. If the glass wall weren’t so thick, I could break it and use a piece for a weapon. But someone would see me on the security camera anyway, and they’d stop me.
A door slams shut somewhere nearby, and my whole body stiffens. He’s coming.
Calm down.
I need to think about something else, anything besides what Sam’s going to do to me. The first good memory I think of, I play out in my mind like it’s happening again.
* * *
I’m ten years old. The sky is turning violet as faint stars speckle across it. Logan and I are sitting on a set of boulders on the edge of the Surface work camp. We’re sitting in silence, waiting for the moon to rise, when the guards will make us go inside.
Logan’s left hand rests on his knee, and his right hand rests on a boulder. I keep finding myself looking at his hand, instead of the sky. I’m used to holding his hand by now—he grabs my hand all the time, whenever we’re walking down the street to the departure station, or on our way to the fields, or heading home. It always feels like he’s trying to keep me from getting lost in the crowd. Like he thinks I’ll get hurt if I let go of his hand.
Tonight, we aren’t in any crowd, and I’m in no danger of getting lost. But I feel like holding his hand anyway. I’m not quite sure why. Because it feels nice, I suppose.
Part of me wonders if Logan will think I’m strange for holding his hand without a reason, but I decide I don’t care. I reach out and gently turn his hand over, and slide my fingers through the spaces between his. His palm is sweaty, but so is mine.
Logan doesn’t look at me, but he tightens his grip, gluing our fingers together. When I glance at his face, he’s smiling at the stars. And I know I made the right choice.
* * *
There’s a muffled sound of a door opening, and I ball my hands into fists. It’s not my door, though—it’s the door to the other holding cell, on the other side of the glass wall. A figure in guard armor, minus the helmet, steps in and flips a light on. His blond hair is tied in a ponytail.
Mal.
His eyes shift to mine for an instant, then away.
“Bring him in,” he says to someone behind him. The glass wall muffles Mal’s voice.
I wish I could get inside his head, so I would know for certain where his loyalties lie. He swore he’s on our side, but he has the other side believing he’s on theirs.
Another guard enters the room, pushing someone else in front of him. The person has a sack cloth over his head, and his hands are bound like mine. He wears trousers and a shirt covered in mud, and has no shoes.
The guard shoves the prisoner forward—so hard, his head hits the glass. He doesn’t even grunt; he must be unconscious. The guard unties the sack and rips it off the prisoner’s head.
It takes everything in me not to cry out.
Logan’s limp body slumps against the glass. Fresh blood trickles from his nose, and the skin around his left eye is black and blue.
I knew this would happen, sooner or later. Sam must’ve guessed he was also hiding in the camp and scoured the place for him, or someone gave Logan up.
Mal and the guard leave the room without sparing me another glance.
As soon as the door shuts behind them, I drop to my knees beside the glass. There’s so much blood on Logan’s face. His nose looks like it was broken and someone set it badly. I wonder if he fought the guards, or if he went quietly and they hurt him anyway so I would see.
Angry tears fill my eyes. I press my palm into the cold glass. I want to smash the wall and make the glass rain down on everything.
“Logan, I’m so sorry,” I say. “Whatever they do to me, whatever they do to you, please know I…”
I love you. I haven’t said that to him yet, not in the right way, at least. Not since I realized how much he meant to me.
Now I want to say it, but he can’t hear me. He’s so close, and I can’t even touch him.
There’s a soft click behind me. I whip my head around as the door to my holding cell opens. I struggle to my feet, blinking fast so hopefully it won’t look like I’ve been crying. Two guards I don’t recognize enter.
Sam walks in behind them. He’s wearing his slick gray uniform, and there are gloves on his hands. White, like Charlie’s.
“Wait outside,” he says to the guards. “Tell them to turn off the cameras.”
“Yes, sir.” The guards leave. The door clicks shut behind them.My feet feel like they’re stuck to the floor. I’m practically trembling from anger and the memory of what happened the last time Sam and I were alone together.
He takes a step toward me, a cold smile forming at the side of his mouth. He has no weapons that I can see—no guns, no knives. Almost as if he was worried I’d find some way to steal them. That makes me relax a little. It reminds me that he’s scared of me. He hates me because I’m a threat.
“Did you think hair like this would suit your face?” He snorts. “If so, you were sadly mistaken.”
He takes another step and reaches for my head. I know he expects me to react, so I stand still, though I desperately want to run. He grabs a tuft of what’s left of my curls and pulls them up, inspecting them.
I keep staring straight ahead, at the small flecks of stubble on his face. The pain comes a few seconds later, when he wrenches my hair up from my scalp before he lets it go.
“You’re so dirty, it’s disgusting.” He wipes his gloved hand on his pants. “Worse than an animal.”
I give him what I hope is a blank face. Inside, I’m praying this means that will be the only time he touches me today.
Sam’s eyes narrow a little, like he finds something unsavory about my silence. He smooths out the creases in his gloves and makes himself tall. The smirk returns to his mouth. “So, how did you like my present?”
I must let a flicker of confusion cross my face, because Sam says, “The one behind you.”
Of course. I ball my hands into fists behind my back, wishing I could use them. Sam deserves a bloody nose to match Logan’s.
“Commander Charlie had a feeling you both would be hiding in the vicinity of each other,” Sam says. “But I have to admit I didn’t expect you to be stupid enough to go into the camp. We couldn’t have planned it more perfectly with the inspections.”
I keep my expression calm, steady. He doesn’t need to know mine didn’t go smoothly.
“Oh, we did a test, and we know you avoided the injection,” he says with a smile, and my stomach dips. “Your friend didn’t, though. And we have something more fun in mind for you. Worked out pretty well, I think.”
I touch my teeth together, then pull them apart. I can’t keep listening to him anymore. “What do you want, Sam?” I ask.
“Oh, is this not fun for you?”
“Just tell me.”
He takes two steps forward, until his face is inches from mine. His breath is hot against my cheeks. Instinct makes me want to press back against the glass, to get as far away from him as possible, but I fight it. The cruel amusement in his eyes tells me he knows what I’m thinking. I hold his gaze and lift my head higher.
“I want you to tell me the location of your other friends,” Sam says. “We have a list of their names, but I doubt they’re using their real names. And some of them are better than you at hiding.”
“What makes you think I know where they are?”
“I could be wrong.” Sam removes his right glove and inspects his hand. “But let’s just say I’m hoping you know their location, for your sake and the sake of your boyfriend.”
He lifts his bare hand to my neck and caresses my skin, even though it’s covered with soot. He shifts his body so it lines up with mine.
I’m all too aware of how gentle his touch is—and how much worse it could get. The security camera isn’t blinking anymore; no one can see us. Someone might hear me if I scream, but I doubt they’ll come.
I need to answer him—I need to tell him something so he’ll stop touching me, and so he won’t hurt Logan. But I don’t even know where most of the rebels are. The only people I’ve seen since I arrived in Crust are Mal and Skylar. I could give him Mal, but he’s playing his part so well, Sam might not even believe he’s Charlie’s enemy.
I’m not even sure I believe it.
Breathing through my nose as normally as I can, I look Sam straight in the eye. “I don’t know where they are. I came here with the rebels, but I haven’t heard from them since I entered the camp. I don’t know how they blew up the quarantine facility, or what they’re planning next. I swear I would tell you if I knew. Please don’t hurt Logan.”
Sam studies my face, his expression unreadable. Then he drops his hand and slips his glove back on. “That’s not something I can guarantee, since you didn’t give me any names.”
“I don’t know them,” I say again, louder. I want to yell; I want to scream. “I swear I don’t know anything. Beechy was making all the calls.”
“Too bad he gave himself up.”
“He didn’t give himself up—you caught him.”
Sam laughs softly. “Oh, you’ve got it wrong. He flew straight into our arms.”
I stare at him, searching for the lie in his eyes. “That’s not possible.”
“Believe whatever you’d like.”
“If he gave himself up, why did it take you two days to figure out where I was? How come you don’t know the entire rebel plan by now?”
“I didn’t say he gave himself up to chat. You’re making false assumptions.” Sam checks the time-band on his wrist. “Anyway, this has been fun. Looks like I’m running late for a meeting.”
He turns and walks over to the door. He raps twice on the door, and steps back as it opens.
He’s lying about Beechy, or stretching the truth—he must be. If Beechy gave himself up, it was because he had no other choice. But I have to know for sure.
“Please tell me what you meant,” I say.
“It’s much more fun to leave you hanging,” Sam says with a smile as he walks out.
The door shuts, and he’s gone. Turning, I see Logan still slumped against the glass with his eyes closed.
I ram my shoulder against the glass and let out a yell of frustration.