“I don’t want another snitch wandering around,” the leader—Maya—spat, though there was a quiver of fear in her voice. “We’ve got enough to worry about without a Hart lording over us.”
“Doesn’t look like she’ll be lording over anyone anytime soon.” The woman bent over me. Our eyes met, and I saw a spark of fury that made me wish Maya and her friends had knocked me out. “Get up.”
My head pounded, and my lungs still struggled to suck in oxygen, but I shakily sat up. The bunk spun around me, and I gritted my teeth, hating myself for showing any sign of weakness. But what was the worst they could do? Kill me?
“You listen up, bitch,” said Maya, and she took a menacing step closer. “You’re dead. Your heart might think it’s still beating, but it’ll find out soon enough what we do to snitches in this place.”
“And you’re about to find out what I do to bitches who don’t listen to me,” said the woman behind me in a dangerously quiet voice. “Get out of here, Maya, before I change my mind about letting you.”
I expected Maya to protest or challenge her—anything other than walk away. But that was exactly what she did, cursing and sputtering to herself while her friends followed. Once they were gone, I closed my eyes and let my pounding head lull forward.
“Should’ve let them kill me,” I muttered.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be dead soon enough.” She grabbed my arms, hoisting me to my feet with impossible strength. I stumbled, but she didn’t let go until I was steady. “You always so good at making friends?”
“I don’t think they like my face,” I said, eyeing her. She was nearly half a foot taller than me, and the sleeves of her red jumpsuit were tied around her waist, showing off a black tank top underneath. Tattoos decorated her bare arms, which were sinewy and more muscular than most Shields’, and the look in her eyes alone could’ve reduced a grown man to tears. No wonder those girls had taken off.
“You’ll find most people around here have a problem with the Harts,” she said, eyeing me right back. “Don’t accept any supposed ‘special privileges.’ Don’t eat anything anyone gives you. If someone tells you to do something that doesn’t sound right, check with me first. Everyone here’s interested in one thing and one thing only, and that’s protecting their own necks, which almost always means throwing someone else into the line of fire. I’m the only real friend you’ll ever have in this place, so do yourself a favor and don’t piss me off. Got it?”
I nodded numbly, and the edges of my vision started to darken. “I need to sit down.”
“Your bunk’s here.” She pointed to the bottom bunk closest to the door. At least I wouldn’t have to climb through the foot of the bed like everyone else. “I’m in this room right here. Anyone gives you shit, you come find me, got it?”
I eased down onto the thin mattress. It squeaked underneath me, and when I tugged the blanket aside, I spotted a strange brown stain that looked like someone had only half bothered to scrub it. Perfect. “I’m not a snitch.”
“You’re a Hart. That’s infinitely worse.” She crossed her arms. “Get some rest. If anything feels broken, I’ll take you to the infirmary later.”
She spoke drily, without a hint of any real concern for me. Not that I expected her to care. The only person who ever had was dead. “I’m fine. Are you Isabel Scotia?”
“Just Scotia,” she said. “Call me Isabel, and I’ll give you another black eye. Dinner’s in a couple hours, and I don’t care how sick you feel. The last thing you want to do here is voluntarily miss a meal.”
With that, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the tiny bedroom across from my bunk, pulling the curtain shut behind her. I took a deep breath, wincing as my ribs protested, and I let it out slowly. So this was it, then. This was the rest of my life. Sleeping on a stained mattress across from a woman who looked like she’d enjoy ripping me to shreds, while every person I met wanted to see my head on a stake. I swallowed the lump in my throat and closed my eyes. It wouldn’t be any better when I woke up, but maybe I’d get lucky and Maya would return, and I wouldn’t have to wake up at all.
As I rested, my head filled with dreams of Benjy. I could see his smile, feel his fingers laced through mine, and the scent of his soap drifted toward me, bringing me back to the happiest moments of my life. Ones I would never see again. With his name on my lips, I opened my eyes, and a pair of brown ones stared back at me.
“She’s awake,” whispered a girl with dark hair and freckles, and behind her, several others whispered excitedly. I blinked and sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
More than a dozen girls surrounded my bunk, each one staring directly at me. Some looked like they were my age; others looked several years older, but none was more than twenty-five. Most had a hardened look to them, the same one Maya and her friends wore—all of whom were conspicuously absent. But the girls surrounding the bed stared at me curiously instead of maliciously, as if I were some zoo animal on display rather than a member of the family that was likely responsible for where they were now.
It was better than trying to rip my throat out. Probably. But it was still unnerving.
The moment I sat up, several of them scattered, but a few brave ones stuck around, each vying for a better position. The girl closest to me, the one with wide brown eyes, leaned in until I could see the green that ringed her irises.
“You’re Lila Hart,” she said. “I’m Noelle. Did you just get here?”
I nodded, eyeing the others suspiciously. No matter how friendly anyone seemed, I couldn’t forget that this was all a game of survival, and I was in last place. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Kill you?” said Noelle. “Why would we want to kill you? You can help us.”
I frowned. “Help you?”
All at once, the remaining girls started to speak, their words and voices jumbling together in my muddled mind until I couldn’t tell one from the other.
“—pardon—”
“—of course I was framed, how would I possibly—”
“—want to go home—”
“Enough,” snapped a sharp voice that rose above the rest. Scotia stood behind them in her doorway, her arms crossed and her expression stony. “You see her suit? What color is it?”
“Red?” said one of the girls.
“Very good, Chelsea. And what does that tell you?”
Noelle piped up, her brown eyes still locked on mine. “She’s one of us now. She can’t get any of us pardoned, else she’d get herself pardoned, and she wouldn’t be here at all.”
“Look at that,” said Scotia. “One of you still has a brain.”
With the sudden revelation that I wasn’t their golden ticket out of there, the girls grumbled and dispersed, leaving me alone. Except Noelle.
Now that she didn’t have any competition, she perched on the edge of my mattress, her gaze never wavering from mine. “Why are you here?”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Noelle?” said Scotia, who was still framed in the doorway. Noelle shrugged.
“Probably, but I’m happy here.”
Scotia looked at me, a question in her stare, and I shrugged, too. Noelle seemed harmless, even if the way she looked at me made me feel like I was being tested. I’d had more than my fair share of tests throughout my life, thank you very much. I didn’t need another one at the end of it.
“Fine,” said Scotia. “Make sure she gets dinner. And no wandering off.”
She disappeared into her separate room, and Noelle inched closer to me. “So why are you here?” she repeated in a hushed voice as if she were afraid someone would overhear. Everyone around us seemed to be doing their own thing, but with how close the bunks were, there was no privacy in this place. And the girls close enough to listen had their heads tilted toward us as they remained strangely silent.
/> “I pissed off the wrong people,” I said shortly. “I take it you did, too.”
“Me?” Noelle’s eyes widened. “Oh—no, I was an Extra. My parents already had one baby, and they couldn’t pay the fines for me, so here I am. That’s what happens to most of us, you know.”
“I know what happens to Extras,” I said, but in truth, I’d never let myself think too much about what my life would’ve been like if my parents hadn’t been able to pay the fines to keep me out of Elsewhere. Before, when I’d thought this place was some kind of paradise where those in overcrowded cities were sent, there was nothing malicious about it, just mysterious. But now that I knew what Elsewhere was—did the Harts really care so little for their own people?
Before she’d died, Augusta had lectured me on why things were the way they were. Overpopulation, a lack of resources to feed and shelter everyone—but now that I was here, now that I knew what Elsewhere was, it didn’t seem like justification. It seemed like an excuse.
“So—what, you’ve never been outside Elsewhere?” I said, wincing as I shifted. My ribs were definitely bruised, but nothing felt broken. Noelle helped me up, and I mumbled my thanks.
“Never,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to, you know—I’ve heard about things like cities and beaches from the other girls, and it all seems so magical. I don’t know why anyone would misbehave and risk winding up here in the first place.”
I opened my mouth to tell her how the government starved the IIs, barely giving them enough to eat—how the Shields patrolled the streets, looking for even the most innocent violations. How they were paid per violation they reported, and sometimes, if it were a particularly bad day, they’d shoot us or arrest us just because they didn’t like the way we looked at them. But the wistful gaze on Noelle’s face made the words die on my tongue. Let her have her fantasy. I wouldn’t gain anything by ruining it.
Besides, compared to this place, maybe the real world was a magical fantasy land full of hopes and dreams and possibilities. At least to people like Noelle, who had never known anything more than the gray walls of Elsewhere.
“They’re stupid,” I said in agreement, gently brushing my fingertips against my left eye. It was puffy and tender to the touch, and I didn’t want to know what it looked like. It was a minor miracle I was even recognizable as human right now, let alone as Lila Hart.
“Oh, your eye—stay here,” said Noelle, and she jumped up and darted into the dingy bathroom. While the sounds of running water filtered into the bunk, I glanced at the other girls uneasily. Most of them stared at me, not even pretending to do anything else anymore.
“If anyone wants to finish the job, be my guest,” I said. Nearly all of the two dozen girls looked away, and several of them formed smaller groups and hurried out into the cold, not daring to look at me as they passed my bunk. I frowned. What had I said?
It didn’t matter. In a place like Elsewhere, there were a million ways to die. I would find one eventually.
By the time Noelle returned a minute later, the room had all but cleared out. She giggled and gently pressed an ice-cold rag against my swollen eye. “It’s not you, you know. Well, it might be, but you seem really nice. I don’t think they’re scared of you.”
“Then who are they scared of?” I said, wincing and taking the rag from her. The cold felt good, even if the pressure made my temple ache.
Noelle glanced toward Scotia’s room and licked her lips nervously. “You have to be careful what you say around here and who you upset. Some people don’t really care anymore, but others—” She hesitated and lowered her voice, even though we were practically alone. “If you can get on the Mercers’ good side, it’s a really nice gig. But usually it takes ratting other people out and showing the guards you’re more loyal to them than the other citizens.”
“You mean snitching,” I said, eyeing Scotia’s doorway. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Why else did Scotia have her own room and Mercer’s admiration?
Noelle nodded, her eyes widening. “Anytime we do something wrong, the Mercers find out right away. So you have to be careful. There are lots of people who want to be a guard one day—”
“You can do that?” I said.
“Of course.” Noelle blinked at me as if I’d just asked if snow was cold. “How do you think we get guards? Most of them were born Extras or arrested, and they snitched their way to the top. There are rumors—”
She stopped herself, but while she focused on her hands, the way she didn’t change the subject made it obvious she wanted me to ask. So, with an inward sigh, I said, “Rumors about what?”
She immediately brightened and leaned in closer. “There are rumors even Hannah Mercer was one of us,” she whispered, touching the back of her neck and turning around enough for me to get a good view.
A scarred X ran through her otherwise unmarred skin. So she hadn’t been lying—as an Extra, she’d never taken the test that determined what a citizen was worth, and she had never been anything but an X of Elsewhere.
“But if Hannah was a prisoner, then how did she work her way up to the top?” I said, baffled. I could buy someone snitching their way toward being a guard. But the head of an entire section?
“How do you think?” Noelle gave me a meaningful look. “Being a snitch isn’t the only way to get treated nice here. It’s against the rules to have any kind of relationship with the guards, but if someone important enough likes you...”
She trailed off, and I didn’t need her to paint me a picture. Hannah had gotten close with someone important.
“Who?” I said, lowering my voice. “Mercer?”
Noelle shook her head. “That’s what everyone thinks, and maybe it’s true, but Mercer was only promoted to the Head of Elsewhere when he married Hannah last year.” She glanced over her shoulder toward Scotia’s room again, then leaned in so close that I could feel her warm breath against my ear. “No one talks about it anymore, but back when I was little, everyone used to say that Hannah had an affair with the Prime Minister himself.”
I blinked. “Daxton? You mean Hannah—”
“Don’t you two have somewhere to be?” Scotia’s voice cracked through the air, and even though I couldn’t see her behind the curtain, I knew she’d been listening to every word.
Noelle turned red. “We were just leaving.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me out of bed, seemingly unconcerned about the fact that just sitting up was enough to make me groan, let alone standing. “Come on. Are you hungry? It’s cheeseburger night.”
“Cheeseburgers?” My stomach growled, but the thought of red meat only made me remember Lila’s birthday party the night before. And with that flood of memories came the image of Benjy’s smiling face and the picture he’d drawn for me of our future together—a future we’d never have now.
Nausea replaced the hollow feeling in my stomach, and I swayed on my feet. “I’m not hungry.”
Noelle looped her arm in mine. “I know it’s hard here, especially at first, but you’ll get used to it. If you don’t want to eat, that’s okay, but at least let me show you around.”
I started to say Hannah had already done that, but Noelle dragged me out of the bunk before I could form the words. It was strange—when Benjy’s life had been in danger, used by Augusta as a bargaining chip to ensure my behavior, I’d imagined what it would be like to lose him. Not by choice, but it had been impossible to ignore that ocean of fear and darkness lingering in front of me, stripped of all happiness and hope. I’d thought it would be quicksand, the way it had been when his death had first hit me. I’d thought I would go under, and there would never be anything more than that all-encompassing grief.
But I hadn’t drowned. I was still breathing. I was still moving, and no matter how badly I wanted it all to end, life didn’t work that way. Not without a bullet or a broken neck. I was
floating over that grief, skimming it with the tips of my toes, always aware of it beneath me and always in danger of falling. As Noelle led me down the snowy street, chattering on about what each day was like in this place, I focused on each breath I took. In and out, in and out, until only the crunch underneath my boots felt real anymore.
I’d never imagined it, but there was life after Benjy. And in a way, it was fitting that it was entirely new and foreign—at least now I wouldn’t have to look at anything familiar and pretend it was still the same.
Noelle didn’t seem to notice that I’d tuned her out, or maybe she didn’t care. We reached a large dingy building a few blocks from the bunker and a quarter mile from the fence. The only difference between the dining hall and the rest of the makeshift town was the smell wafting from the kitchens. It reminded me sharply of the market Benjy and I used to frequent—sizzling meats, baked bread, even the rich aroma of coffee. My stomach flip-flopped, torn between hunger and that sick knot of despair.
We stood in a winding line with dozens of others, and when it was our turn to order, Noelle pointed to a pair of cheeseburgers wrapped in foil. The cook—also dressed in red, and clearly another citizen—tossed them onto our trays, and we continued down the serving line, Noelle mindlessly piling my plate with limp, gray vegetables, something yellow that might have been fruit once upon a time, and a brownie that looked hard enough to break a window. Before becoming a Hart, I’d never been picky about food, but apparently they’d stolen that from me, too.
“Why does it smell so good and look so awful?” I said as Noelle led me through the rows of tables, most already taken by others wearing red and orange jumpsuits.
“They make the guards’ food here, too,” she said brightly, seemingly not at all bothered by this. “Sometimes, if they make too much of it, we get it for the next meal. The corn bread’s really good. You just have to be careful when you’re biting into it, else it could break your teeth.”