The Slave Series Page 17

  I find it. Fear shoots through me—the sudden realization that they might have locked this door too. But when I turn the knob and push, it opens easily, and cold wind rushes over me.

  I stumble into the alley, where moonlight makes the damp street glow. My head pounds with the same beat as my heart. I squint, looking back and forth in either direction. Everything sways. Clenching my left shoulder, I step farther from the door, confused. This alley is secluded, with high walls that block any landmarks that might give me a clue which way to go. But I need to get to Solomon. I need to warn him about what Jace is doing.

  I choose a direction and walk.

  Every turn I make is wrong.

  I don’t remember Jace dragging me this far. I stumble, my boots tripping over nothing, and I fall against a forgotten dumpster. A sharp ache pulses in my shoulder, growing stronger every time I move it. I have to get back, but I don’t know how. I don’t know where I am.

  Voices reach my ears, drifting from farther down this alley. Weight lifts from my chest, and I push off the dumpster. I don’t dare call out to them. I shouldn’t be here, and I don’t want to draw too much attention. The voices are low and hushed, so quiet I only make out small sounds.

  I reach another dumpster several yards down and realize too late that three men stand hidden on the other side. I don’t recognize them, but one of them knows me.

  “Isn’t this interesting,” he says. He’s shorter than the others, and square. His eyebrows sit heavy on his eyes. I freeze, my insides clenching. This feels wrong.

  “This is Cash’s little pet,” he sneers. The other men peer at me with too much interest. Too much contempt. They step toward me, and I step backward, ready to run. But I know I’m not fast enough. They will catch me.

  Shots fire off in the distance. The rescue of Workers must still be in progress. That, or Jace has started a war. My chest squeezes. Aspen. Solomon needs to know.

  “This is better,” the short man says. “This is so much better.”

  He lunges, and I jump back. Turning fast, I try to run. I try to do the thing I know I can’t. If I don’t try, I’ll hate myself. But he’s on me before I get three feet. He grabs my dislodged arm and clasps a hand over my mouth as a scream rips from me. Blinding pain takes me, and my vision blurs. I’m thrown to the ground, and the last thing I see is the sole of a boot coming toward my face.

  29

  Watchers are bad.

  They are the loyal henchmen of a heartless panel of leaders.

  They do not feel kindness. They do not see desperation in the eyes of Workers.

  They are empty and soulless and cruel.

  …except that they aren’t. Not all of them. Not most of them.

  I open my eyes to a single bulb hanging above me. The surface I lie on is cold and hard, without a pillow to cushion my head. The bulb buzzes, and I stare at it until my eyes water, and black blots my vision.

  Gasping, I try to throw my body to a sitting position, but I’m stopped before I lift even an inch. Straps hold my arms and legs tight against the table. No matter how hard I fight them, they will not loosen. I lie still, panting. My head turns from side to side, but there is no one here. I’m alone. And this is not the factory I left. This is not the gray cement walls and the stained linoleum floor. This room is too clean. Sterile. All the white is too imposing.

  Metal shifts, and a door behind me opens. I hear the shuffling of feet, the rustling of papers. My heart is beating too fast. I try to draw in steady breaths.

  “Ms. Hannah Bakker,” a voice says. Male. Quiet. Patronizing. A middle-aged man steps into my view. He’s wearing a white lab coat over gray slacks and a black shirt. His hair is gray and trimmed. His face is smooth and clean. He smiles at me.

  “Feeling better?”

  I didn’t realize it until his question. There is no pain in my shoulder, and my headache is gone. My body has never felt so relaxed—so good.

  “What have you done to me?” I croak.

  He laughs. “Is that a thank you,” he says. “Because it doesn’t sound like one.”

  I follow him with my eyes until he’s standing over me. I stare at his face while he assesses me. His fingers check the straps on my limbs. He reaches across my field of vision and fiddles with something attached to my arm. A sharp twinge shoots through me, near the bend of my elbow.

  “I’d say you’re just about there, Ms. Bakker. Another nap, perhaps. Then we can get started. You were quite damaged when you arrived.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to sleep.” But I already feel drowsy. Weightiness presses on my body, and I can’t keep my eyelids open. My lips part and broken words flop out.

  “I don’t…please. Where…this place.”

  My vision narrows until I can barely see the smile he wears. When the darkness takes me, the last word I think is: Help.

  The smell wakes me. It is musty and foul. I open my eyes to a dank, dark room— with a small bit of light glowing from a window cut into a door. I’m lying on cold cement, dressed in brown cotton clothes and no shoes. My cheek presses to the cold floor, and I stay this way for several minutes, staring into this small space. My lungs work too hard, trying to bring in enough air to ward off the panic. This is wrong. I shouldn’t be here.

  I peel my body from the floor. Walking to the door, I lift onto my toes, trying to see out the window. But I’m too short. I press an ear to the cold metal, but it’s thick. I can’t hear anything on the other side.

  Pushing my back into the door, I slide to the floor. I close my eyes and there is Cash, looking for me. But he won’t find me. I’m somewhere else. Somewhere he can’t reach me. I cover my mouth and squeeze my eyes shut.

  They’ve done something to me. My fingers press into my shoulder, but there’s no pain. Everything is healed, fixed. I run fingertips over the gash in my forehead, feeling for the stitches. The skin is smooth and the stitches are gone. The same is true of my arm, where the glass cut me.

  Another nap, perhaps, the man said. Then we can get started.

  Nausea creeps up my throat. I feel the way I did the first night in the southern edge. I draw my knees to my chest and bury my face in my arm. If I ignore it, pretend I’m where I should be, maybe I won’t throw up this time.

  Metal creaks and shifts behind me, and I scurry to the corner like a rat. This cell is small, no more than six feet across in any direction. I have nowhere to run. The door moans as it swings open fast. My eyelids clamp shut against the bright hall light. I lift a hand to shield them. Through a thick blur of tears, I see two men. One is a young guard, dressed in black fatigues. His skin is brown, and his eyes are dark and piercing. The other man is gray and wrinkled beneath a sharply pressed uniform, his skin paper thin—translucent. His eyes are startling green, and they glare at me. The man in the white room feigned kindness. But this man…this man hides nothing.

  “Hannah Bakker,” he says. I hate his voice. It is deep and cruel and demeaning. It makes me feel small. He crosses the cell in two long steps and grabs me from the floor by my arm. For a moment, I can only gape in shock. I would never expect that kind of strength from this man. He is thin and fragile in appearance. But he is not the kind of thin we see in the valley. He has never missed a meal. He leans close to my face.

  “So this is what the rebels are made of,” he hisses, and I smell the stale coffee on his breath. “Scrawny little girls, huh? I’d expected something a little more impressive.”

  I’d often imagined the fear I would feel if I ever encountered a leader of the Watchers. But it isn’t fear that rises up, though maybe it should be. Instead, I feel angry. I know the truth. I know who I am and where I belong, and this man has no right. I grit my teeth.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” I say.

  He shakes me, his hand still clenched around my arm. “You will show respect,” he says, his voice quiet, face stern. “Or you will find your stay here a short one.” He tosses me away, and I shrink into the wall.

  “
Don’t think our medical attention was given out of kindness,” he says, pacing, hands folded behind his back. “I have no doubt you will be in the same state very soon. But I can’t very well question you if you’re already broken.”

  “I won’t tell you anything,” I snap.

  “How noble. But unfortunately for you I’m not intimidated by rebellious youth. And my guard here is well trained in extracting information.”

  I look to the guard. He stares hard, somewhere above my head. The look he wears suggests he wants to rip my limbs from my body. I study him, try to see past the hard surface, where other loyalties might be hiding. But he gives me nothing. I can’t get him to look at me.

  “So let’s begin,” the old man says. My chest clenches. I keep my eyes on the guard, hoping his eyes will shift to me. As long as a person has a pumping heart and working lungs, there is hope there. I can still hear Norma’s voice when she said it; still see the desperation in her eyes. I didn’t believe her then. But now I’ve seen it with my own eyes—seen the nightmare transform into something good. So I stare at him, wishing I could communicate without the old man’s knowledge.

  “How many Watchers have joined your ranks?” The old man stops in front of me, crouching. His badge reads Sterling.

  “I don’t know.” I look back to the guard. “But there are many,” I say, leveling my gaze on the young man. “And they are the bravest men I’ve ever known.”

  “You mistake recklessness for bravery,” Sterling growls. “There is nothing brave about throwing your loyalties to a cause that will tear this nation apart.”

  “I don’t belong to this nation,” I say, flicking my eyes to Sterling, then back to the guard. I see the way the young man shifts; the way his eyebrows twitch so slightly. I’ve said something unexpected.

  “And why would you say that?” Sterling murmurs. His expression—eyes narrowed and lips pressed tight—tells me he knows.

  “Because I belong to the South.”

  Sterling grabs my neck and yanks me up, forcing me to my feet. He leans, inches from my face, and spit flies from his lips when he says, “You know nothing. Don’t believe all the things you hear in war, little girl. You are nothing better than a slave. Anyone who says differently is lying to you.”

  I tense, trying to swallow against his fingers around my throat. Catching my breath, I say nothing. There’s no use in responding to a man like Sterling. Nothing I say will change his thinking. I look to the guard while I blink back tears. Sterling notices. He looks over his shoulder to the young man, then to me.

  “Nice try,” he sneers. “But Lockwood is a faithful soldier. Your tears will have no effect on him.”

  “I’m sure you thought that about many of your men,” I rasp, eyes hard. “And now half of them have joined the Resistance.” His fingers tighten.

  “Which leads me to my next question,” Sterling says, fingers springing apart. I grab at my throat, gasping. Sterling paces again.

  “It has come to my knowledge that you are in acquaintance with one of our most distinguished men. Do you know of whom I speak?”

  I shake my head. One man comes to mind. But I won’t give him up. “There are many distinguished men serving the Resistance,” I say.

  “Perhaps you need a little help remembering?”

  I stiffen, anticipating the pain the guard will inflict on me. But instead, Sterling stops with his back to me.

  “Cash Gray,” he says quietly. Cruelly. My blood heats. “He is our most distinguished soldier. And we would like to retrieve him. So tell me, Hannah, how I can do that. And I might find it in me to spare your worthless life.”

  “Maybe,” I hiss. “You should find better ways to earn the loyalty of your soldiers. Maybe then you wouldn’t be asking little girls how to do your job.”

  In a second he’s in front of me. Anger flashes in his eyes, and the crack of his hand is too fast. I don’t have time to flinch before pain bursts across my cheek. My eyes water, but I don’t break my glare. He grabs my hair and angles my face at him.

  “You will show respect to your superiors,” he says. His voice is deadly quiet. “Don’t think for a moment that I’m impressed with your attitude. It will not earn you bravery points in my prison.” He releases me.

  When he walks away, I let my defenses slip—only for a second. The tears pooling in my eyes slide down my cheeks, and I look to the floor—the one place in this room that isn’t a threat to me. Everywhere else is fists clenched at sides and eyes like daggers aimed to kill me.

  Another nap, perhaps, the man in the white room said. And I wish he would say it again.

  I lift a trembling hand to my face, drying the tears. When I glance at the guard, he’s watching me without expression. When they first entered, I thought I could appeal to him. I thought my words and my courage and my innocence would strike a chord. But the way he’s looking at me now, I know I’m alone. I have to change my approach.

  “Please,” I say, my voice a shaking thing creeping from my throat. “Please…I don’t have the answers you want.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Sterling says, rubbing the back of one hand with the palm of the other. His eyebrow raises. “From what I hear, no one knows Cash quite like you do.”

  My face heats. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Sterling groans. “Lying is such a waste of breath,” he says. “Stop wasting all of our time. We’ve known for a while that Gray had found himself a play thing. I’d only imagined her to be something a bit more…desirable.”

  My insides squeeze at the way he’s analyzing me; looking over my flaws and assessing me. His nose curls. Then I realize what he said.

  “You have spies—”

  “You are very clever,” Sterling says.

  “But…who?”

  “And why would I tell you that?”

  Was Jackson a spy? But he’s locked away in the factory now. Unless he gave them information before he came for Cash. Before he killed Edan.

  “Now, tell me how I can access Gray.”

  The whole plan—whatever it is—is compromised. No one is safe. Ben and Sam. Aspen and her mother. Cash and Solomon and Takeshi. I’ve always believed that the Council saw everything. That nothing goes unnoticed by them. But I’d hoped I was wrong. That we had actually escaped their sight. But if there are spies, there is nothing we can plan that they won’t intercept.

  “Ms. Bakker.”

  The medicine was a setup. They knew we were coming. That’s what Jackson said. How do you know this, Edan asked him.

  Because my family received it. And they’re all dead.

  “Ms. Bakker!”

  “No!” I shout. My body goes rigid, shocked at my own insolence. But I will not give Cash up. I will not lower myself to the level of whatever coward is spying.

  “No?” I watch as something dies in Sterling’s eyes. It might have been the last glimmer of humanity. Maybe it was the last of his restraint. All I know is that it was there, and now it is dead. And I will be too.

  “Lockwood.”

  A second later, I am pinned to the wall, the guard’s hand pressed to my throat. I gasp, my fingers clawing at his arm. It is pointless. He is a solid wall of muscle. I sputter for air as Sterling moves closer, his nose curling in disgust. When he speaks, his voice is quiet and venomous.

  “Did your parents never teach you to respect authority? It seems to me, there are some lessons you must learn while you are under my supervision.” He turns, standing still, his back to me. His head tilts to the side.

  “What was it that I read in your file? Your mother died of heart complications?”

  My eyes widen, and my body strains against the guard, but he is too strong. Anger burns through my blood. I know better. I know how my mother died. I’m about to shout back when I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I look up, and the guard is shaking his head—just barely. He glances over his shoulder at the back of the old man, then to me. When our eyes meet, I feel his fingers loose
n a little. He widens his eyes and shakes his head again.

  Don’t is what he’s saying to me. Don’t respond.

  Please is what it looks like.

  I stare at him—conflicted.

  “Is it any wonder,” the old man slowly contemplates. “That the mother of a rebellious child should die of a failing heart.” He turns to me. My blood is ice. “One might even suggest,” he says. He leans close, only inches between me and sour breath. I try to turn my head, but Lockwood’s grip keeps me firmly in place. “That you are the cause of her death. Perhaps,” he says, smiling. “This is the reason for all of your—” He waves a hand in the air, searching for the right word. “—rage. Because deep inside, you know. And that is the shame you will live with. For the rest of your pathetic, worthless life.”

  My body ignites with hot rage. I scream and I thrash, pinned to the wall, helpless against this monster and his words. I scream, because there is nothing I can say that he will care to hear. My words are empty and powerless. I am empty. I am powerless. I scream, because this pressure in my heart is too much. There is too much sadness and anger. Too much fear and humiliation. I scream to release some of the ache.

  My screams turn to cries which turn to whimpers. My heartbeat throbs in my throat. When Lockwood is given the command to release me, I crumple to the floor in a heap, gathering myself into a corner, and curl in a ball. My fight is pointless in this place, just as it was in the valley. I have to focus on survival. I grab at the pain in my chest, left there by the defiled memory of my mother.

  “You’ll stay in this cell until you agree to assist me. Or you will die. I’ll leave that decision with you.”

  He leaves.

  I wait for the door to close, but it doesn’t. When I look up, I find Lockwood standing in the doorway. He watches down the hall, then turns to me.

  “Why did you do that?” he whispers, crossing the room. I stare up at him. His eyebrows pull in, frustrated. “What if he told me to kill you?”