She sat down at an empty table in the corner of the room. Nearby, a handful of old men and women ate together quietly. Their hair was gray, their skin turned to leather in the sun, and their bodies curled in on themselves as if they’d spent their entire lives leaning over. I stared. Other than Augusta Hart, they were the oldest people I’d ever seen in my life.
“You should eat before it gets cold,” said Noelle. She had already taken three massive bites of her burger. Reluctantly I unwrapped mine and stared at the first cheeseburger I’d been allowed in months.
So this was what it took to have red meat, or whatever passed for it in Elsewhere. Would last night have turned out differently if I hadn’t argued with Knox over those stupid puff pastries? Would he have still turned on Benjy when he found out about the file? Would I have gone after them at all?
I took a bite. It tasted nothing like real meat, and only months of eating food I hated prevented me from spitting it out. Chewing slowly, I forced myself to swallow it, then set the rest of the cheeseburger down. I could put starving to death back on the list after all.
Noelle patted my hand sympathetically, and she pushed her stale brownie toward me. “Here, you can have mine.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, and I broke off a corner. It was crunchy, but still edible, and though my stomach protested, I managed to keep it down without gagging. The smell of freshly baked bread and seasoned steak attacked my senses, and I began to breathe through my mouth. Of course they cooked the better meals where the prisoners could smell it. Why waste such a perfect opportunity to torture them?
Us, I reminded myself silently. I was one of them now.
My eyes watered, and my breaths came in short gasps. Benjy was dead. I was Elsewhere. Nothing would ever be the same again, and I was griping about the food. I bit my lip, fighting the urge to cry, but my cheeks grew hot. Hastily I rubbed my eyes. I wouldn’t break down in front of everyone like this. I couldn’t let them think I was weak. One wrong move, and—
“Hey,” said Noelle softly, and she set her hand over mine again. Her kindness only made a fresh wave of hopelessness wash over me, and I laced my fingers through hers and squeezed.
“I—I’m sorry—” I began, but I hiccupped before I could say anything more. Noelle handed me a rough napkin, and I dabbed my cheeks, flinching. They were still sore from Maya and her friends.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” said Noelle. “I shouldn’t have dragged you to dinner if you weren’t hungry. I just thought...” She hesitated. “I just thought if you saw that it isn’t so bad here, you wouldn’t be so afraid. It isn’t all hopeless.”
“Isn’t it?” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my cracking voice. “What’s the point to all this? You sleep. You eat shit. You work and do whatever they tell you, and then what? You get to do it all over again the next day? You get to live as long as they feel like?” I shook my head. Tears flowed freely down my cheeks now, and I caught several people staring at us, but I didn’t care anymore. “You don’t understand. This is all you’ve ever known. This isn’t a real life. You don’t get to—to have hobbies or fall in love or have a family or—or any of that. We’re slaves. We don’t matter to anyone anymore.”
Noelle stared at me, her eyes wide and her face drained of all color. “I matter,” she squeaked. “You matter, too. We’re all a family here—you just arrived, so you can’t see it yet, but you will. We love each other. We look out for each other. And—and I like to read,” she added. “We have a whole library, and they let you check books out if you’re good. And—and some people like to build things, or draw, or cook. Don’t you like to do any of those things?”
I couldn’t answer her even if I’d wanted to. My throat closed up, and I fought to breathe as my vision went blurry from the tears. It was over. It was all over. I hadn’t just lost Benjy—I’d lost everything.
Noelle stood and took my hand. “Come on,” she said again, and she pulled me to my feet and dragged me out of the dining hall. I stumbled after her, struggling to pull myself together, but the quicksand had me now, and I didn’t know how to find the surface.
The cold air hit my lungs like a fist to my gut, and I gasped, bending over in the middle of the street and dry heaving. Only that half-digested bite of burger and brownie came up, but my stomach tried, again and again and again, until I was a sobbing mess.
Noelle rubbed circles between my shoulders and pulled my hair back expertly, as if she’d done this a thousand times before. I couldn’t stand to think about how many girls had come before me—how many had relied upon her expertise of this place before they adjusted to their new lives. If they adjusted at all.
“I have an idea,” she said once I’d straightened. My knees felt weak, and suddenly the cold cut through my jumpsuit, making me painfully aware of the fact that I’d forgotten my coat. “I can trust you, Lila, can’t I?”
There was a strange tone in her voice—a question underneath her words I didn’t completely understand. Trust seemed like such a foreign concept in this place that for a long moment, I stared at her, wondering if I was as much of a question mark to her as she was to me.
Or maybe, despite growing up in Elsewhere, she knew my face. Maybe she, like so many others, thought they knew Lila Hart because they’d spent their lives reading stories of her exploits and hearing her name attached to rumors they took as fact. Even here, in hell, I couldn’t escape Lila. Hannah knew I’d been Masked, and because of that, the truth was bound to come out eventually. But until it did, if being Lila still gave me an edge—if it made Scotia want to protect me, Mercer want to shield me from the worst this place had to offer, and if it made Noelle trust me with her secrets—then I was an idiot not to play along.
“You can trust me,” I said, my voice rough.
Noelle beamed and took my shaking hand. “Then come on,” she said. “We don’t have much time.”
VII
FIGHT
Noelle led me through a maze of streets and alleys, around gray buildings that blended together and seemed to turn into one as dusk began to fall. Her grip on my wrist was bruising, but I didn’t protest, and she didn’t bother letting go.
We neared a spot in the wire fence between two guard towers, and my heart began to race. On the other side was another set of gray buildings identical to ours, with only the fence to mark the boundary between them. Before we reached it, however, she pulled me against a wall, hidden in the shadows of the setting sun. We crouched down, and she took my freezing hands between hers, rubbing them to warm them up.
“I was raised on that side of the fence,” she said, nodding beyond the border. “I thought I was going to live there forever. That’s what usually happens—once you’re assigned a section, it never changes. That’s Section J,” she added. “Most Sections are separated by what you’re there for. There are a few of them—M and P are the worst—that are for violent criminals. Section J is designed for Extras. There’s a nursery for babies, and there’s even a school we get to go to for a few years before we start work.”
She smiled as she spoke, her expression lighting up as if she were talking about some kind of fairy tale. But the happiest moments of her life had been spent inside that chain-link fence, among gray buildings and people who never knew what the real world was like. Maybe for Extras raised here, it was a fairy tale. Maybe their ignorance of the possibilities that lay beyond Elsewhere gave them a chance to be happy.
“What’s Section X for?” I said thickly, forcing my heavy tongue to form the words.
“The special cases handpicked by the Mercers,” said Noelle. “The ones they want to keep a close eye on. It could be for any reason—some of us become guards, and some of us...” She hesitated. “The turnover’s really fast. Most people aren’t here for more than a few years.”
“What happens to—” I began, but before I could finish, Noe
lle held up her hand, and I fell silent.
Near the edge of the fence, a silhouette of a man appeared. I ducked down, making myself as small as possible in the darkness. Something long and thin rested over his shoulder, and when he passed over a light, I could make out the barrel of a rifle.
Instead of shrinking into the shadows with me, Noelle stood, a gleeful smile on her face. She headed toward the fence, all but skipping, and when I tried to make a last-ditch effort to grab her ankle, all I caught was air.
“Noelle!” I whispered. “He’s a guard!”
She either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. She paused a few feet from the fence, glancing around to make sure no one was watching, and then stepped up to greet him.
I expected the guard to warn her off—or worse, point his rifle at her and take a shot—but instead, his own stiff posture relaxed, and even from several yards away, I could see a goofy grin spread across his face.
Their fingers snaked through the wire, intertwining with one another, and despite the fence that stood between them, he ducked his head to kiss her between the wires. I held my breath. Only an hour before, Noelle had told me how a relationship between a prisoner and a guard was against the rules—and breaking the rules in a place like Elsewhere meant death. Yet here she was, kissing him in front of me, in plain sight of anyone who happened to be looking their way.
At last they broke apart, and Noelle waved me over. I stood cautiously and looked around, joining them only when I was sure no one was watching.
“Are you crazy?” I whispered. “Anyone can see you out here.”
“The guards change shifts right now,” said Noelle, still beaming. “No one’s in the towers.”
“And they won’t be for another ten minutes,” said the man. He was only a few inches taller than me, and up close, it was obvious he was only a couple years older, too. He still had a baby face, and his wavy brown hair flopped in his eyes despite the hat he wore, but he eyed me warily. “Noelle, are you sure...?”
“I’m not going to snitch on you,” I said before he could finish that sentence. Seeing them standing there, as close as they could with the fence between them—it tugged at something inside me, and my eyes threatened to well up all over again. That was exactly what life with Benjy had been like for the past three months, ever since I’d been Masked as Lila. Close enough to touch. Close enough to kiss. But never truly together. “I’m Lila Hart.”
“I know you are,” he said, a hint of protectiveness in his voice. His fingers tightened around Noelle’s. “I’m Elliott.”
“He’s my boyfriend,” said Noelle, apparently oblivious to the fact that he didn’t trust me nearly as much as she did. “We’ve been together for our whole lives.”
Elliott glanced at me nervously. “You swear you’re not a snitch?”
“I’m not stupid,” I said. “You’re the one holding the gun, not me.”
“She’s my friend,” added Noelle as if that settled it. He pursed his lips, stroking her knuckles with his thumb.
“Not our whole lives,” he said at last, his shoulders slumping. “Just since we were ten.”
I saw this for what it was—as much of a seal of approval as I was going to get from him, at least for now. I smiled slightly. “That’s a long time,” I managed, my throat threatening to close up again. Was this what my life with Benjy would have been if we’d both been sent here instead?
“We grew up together in Section J before he was promoted,” said Noelle, her eyes shining as she gazed up at him. “He’s my best friend.”
I turned away briefly, swallowing hard and struggling to keep it together. “Yeah?” I said, my voice breaking. “And now...”
“And now we’re waiting for Noelle’s placement to be approved.” There was an edge to Elliott’s words, as if he were daring me to challenge him. “She’s been in Section X for months. It should be coming through any day now.”
“Any day,” said Noelle blissfully. “And then we’ll get to be together.”
They kissed again, and everything I’d been struggling to hold back threatened to rear up once more. “I’ll just be...” I trailed off, not bothering to finish. Instead I trudged back into the dark alleyway, turning away as they spoke in hushed tones. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, and I gulped in the cold air, fighting to keep my head above the quicksand. Not here. Not like this.
For one horrible moment, I considered blackmailing Elliott into using his gun. It would be easy—threaten to tell the Mercers about him and Noelle if he didn’t do it. If he shot me in the back of the head, it would be quick and painless for both of us. I wouldn’t have to watch him pull the trigger, and he wouldn’t have to look me in the eyes while he did it. No one would ever have to know why.
But when I glanced over my shoulder and saw him murmuring into Noelle’s ear, the idea died within me. I couldn’t do that to him, not when he and Noelle were so close to their own happiness. I would find another way to die.
In the meantime, I couldn’t watch them. Shoving my numb hands into the pockets of my jumpsuit, I began to trudge back toward the center of the compound, hoping against hope I’d spot someone or someplace I recognized.
I didn’t make it more than a few dozen feet before an air horn went off, echoing throughout the entire section.
“Lila!” cried Noelle, and I turned around. Elliott had disappeared, and she ran toward me, her footsteps echoing between the buildings. “Come on, we can’t be late.”
“Late for what?” I said. She looped her arm in mine and once again dragged me down another street, toward the center of the gray buildings.
“When the warning goes off, we have to go,” she said. A handful of men and women emerged from nearby buildings, and we followed them.
“Go where?” I said, but she shook her head and didn’t respond. Even more citizens appeared, joining us until a crowd formed. We all seemed to be heading in the same direction, but no one said a word about what was happening. Even Noelle was strangely silent, her face pale and her nails digging into my arm.
Another horn went off two minutes later, and Noelle quickened her pace. I had to all but trot to keep up with her as we wove in between the others. A handful of women toward the front of our group chattered, and their voices carried as we neared them.
“—couldn’t be Darcy. They only took her this morning,” said one woman, her arm wrapped around the shoulders of another.
“You know damn well that doesn’t matter,” said the second woman in a cracked voice. Her eyes were red and puffy. “Last month, when they took Monica, she was in the cage hours later.”
“The cage?” I said to Noelle. “What are they talking about?”
Her mouth formed a thin line. “That,” she said, nodding toward a domed structure on a raised platform a few hundred feet in front of us.
In the middle of Washington D.C., it could’ve sat on the side of the street and been considered art. But in a place as gray and utilitarian as Elsewhere, everything had a purpose. As we moved closer and I got a better look, a sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach, and suddenly I understood what everyone was talking about.
It was a human-sized cage. Guards surrounded the base of the platform, each holding a rifle identical to Elliott’s, and their frowns seemed set in stone. Noelle grabbed my hand and pushed our way to the front of the crowd, and we leaned against the cold metal barricade that kept us a good ten feet from the cage itself. I searched for any sign of a door either on the base or the cage that rose above our heads, giving everyone in the surrounding crowd a view, but I couldn’t spot anything.
“What’s happening?” I said. Noelle found my hand and clutched it, smashing my cold fingers together. I squeezed back.
“Detention,” she said, her voice breaking. I shut my mouth. Somehow I doubted the word meant the same thing here as it did
back in the D.C. educational system.
A third and final horn went off from the top of the cage, and I winced. The crowd went silent, and everyone around me seemed to be holding their breath.
The screech of metal against rusted metal echoed through the square, and two figures rose from either end of the cage. The girl nearest me had dark hair that hung in a messy braid, and it was only when she glanced around that I saw her face.
“Maya?” I said, stunned. The girl who had attacked me—the one directly responsible for my swollen eye. And once I placed her, I recognized the other girl in the cage, too: one of her friends who had also jumped me. “But—I don’t understand. What’s happening?”
“No one fights on my turf and gets away with it,” said a voice beside me, and I jumped. Scotia stood at my elbow, and without looking at me, she draped a heavy jacket over my shoulders. “You forgot something.”
I let go of Noelle’s hand, trembling as I pulled my arms through the sleeves. The rough fabric was cold, but it was better than the thin jumpsuit alone. “What do you mean? What are they doing up there?”
“It’s our punishment when we’re caught breaking the rules,” said Noelle softly, her eyes rimmed with red as she looked up at Maya and her friend, who now stared at each other as if they were waiting for something. “Only one comes out alive.”
My head snapped up. “What?”
“You heard her,” said Scotia. “Maya knew the rules, and she thought she could get away with it. Now she has a choice—kill Poppy, or let Poppy kill her.”
Horror filled me from the inside out, and what little I’d eaten churned in my stomach. “You have to stop this,” I said, my voice rising as I looked at Scotia. “Tell the guards to let them go.”
Scotia snorted. “You’re dumber than you look, aren’t you? Even if I had that kind of power, those girls tried to kill you. Mercer was never going to let them off with a warning.”