Silas’ brain nearly stopped at the sound. They were going to kill her and he couldn’t move. Tymas and Hugle ran over to the girls ward hallway, but one of the girls’ guards stood in their way and made them use the boys ward hallway entrance to the control room instead. Malina continued to scream and heavy objects crashed to the floor.
All of the kids stared around, but no one moved out of line.
“Noo, let go!” Malina shrieked.
Silas saw a female guards pulling on Malina’s legs and then suddenly Malina went limp. They dragged her out and carried her away. Silas felt his knees shaking and the pit of his stomach ached like it had swallowed five whole walnut shells.
“All right, time to move,” Tymas said.
Somehow, when it was Silas’ turn, his feet managed to step and hold his weight. He tried not to think about what they might be doing to Malina. As he entered the boys ward he saw Hugle walk up to Westminster.
“What was that all about?” Hugle asked.
Westminster shrugged. “Hormones?”
Silas wanted to ask what they were going to do to her, but Carillians didn’t ask questions. His interest in her would be recorded and could cause more trouble for them in the future. Still, walking into his cell and listening to the bolt slide shut was like having a wet towel pressed on his face.
He plopped on his bed and screamed silently into his pillow. Something soft tickled his ear and when he let himself up he saw that it was a new stuffed lion. Next to it was a plush stuffed polar bear. They had switched out his toys. He picked them both up and hurled them to the other side of the room.
“Careful,” Patton said. “Do you want them to not bring you toys?”
“I’m too old for stuffed animals,” Silas muttered. He’d never enjoyed the stuffed toys he was given every few weeks. On the first day Silas arrived, before being locked in the glass room with the other new kids, they were shown to a large room filled with more stuff than he had thought existed before. The guards left the kids alone and must have had cameras watching them, because all Silas did was stare between this giant stuffed white lion and a large toy brown bear. He saw them and thought they were alive, but they weren’t. When he arrived in his first cell, there was stuffed bear lying on his bed.
Patton always received books and normally didn’t care if Silas read them too after he was done. Although sometimes he used it to justify taking food off of Silas’ tray as payment. The items they were given was one of the first privileges that was threatened to be taken away to correct behavior. Small servings of food or a removal of blankets were reserved for more serious crimes.
“Have you ever heard of locking your emotions?” Silas asked.
The top bunk creaked. Patton was quiet for a bit and then he said, “Yeah.”
“How do you do it?”
“I think you can’t do it until you’ve reached emotional puberty or something, because it can only be created by the strongest emotion you’ve ever had.”
“Can it work for everyone?”
“I don’t know. You remember Ginger?”
Silas nodded. The guards took her while everyone was in the yard. She must have known they were there for her because she ran over to one of the older boys and kissed him. Then they dragged her away with tears streaming down her face. She was trying to lock her emotions away, but either she didn’t do it right, or it didn’t work. I caught a glimpse of her with the guards in the hall afterwards. Her eyes were dead. They got everything.”
Silas wasn’t surprised. He remembered the Machine running for six hours that day. The lights kept dimming and then blazing. All he could think about was the images from his first encounter with the Machine. He had huddled in his bed wishing for the lights to go back to normal.
“What did she do wrong?” Silas asked.
He could almost hear Patton shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t get it done fast enough.”
“Is there any reason why it might not work?”
“Well, a lock is only as good as the key. Even when your emotions are locked they can still take them if they can find the key.”
Silas couldn’t figure out why Malina didn’t think locking her emotions would work. He knew she had reached her emotional puberty, so she could have intense emotions. All she had to do was find a situation where she would be emotionally charged and lock her emotions away. Any type of lock had to be better than not locking them at all. He decided that he would tell her this the next time he saw her. If he saw her.
The lights flickered and then steadied. Silas spent the next few hours watching for any changes in the lights, but they did not change like they did when the Machine was running. When dinner came, Silas lined up behind Patton. They shuffled down the hall to the cafeteria and the girls were already there. It took Silas three glances over the girls before he found Malina. She was eating a grilled cheese sandwich and looked just as calm as she always did.
Throughout his meal, Silas would glance over to where she was. Partly to make sure she was really there and partly to check if she was okay. He even made Patton switch table sides so he could watch her without looking over his shoulder.
She was alive. They didn’t take her to the Machine. He wasn’t sure if he should be shocked or relieved. But when they went back to their cells for the night, Silas’ heart felt lighter, especially when the lights dimmed and stayed that way for the night. He woke to the warning sound of the morning bell and barely had time to make his bed before the cell doors opened and everyone had to line up for breakfast.
After the morning run, Silas could hardly wait for a moment to talk to Malina. Most of the other girls avoided her like the plague and Malina seemed content for everyone to leave her alone, even Marcus. She leaned in the corner near the boys’ door. Silas tossed the ball with Patton, but finally he couldn’t take it anymore and told Patton he was done.
He walked around the perimeter of the yard until he came to where Malina was. Then he feigned a need to rest and crouched over with his hands on his knees.
“What happened?” he asked under his shoulder.
“Nothing really,” Malina said.
“Nothing?”
“They gave me some pill to quiet down. That’s it.” She let out a small laugh. “You know they think we’re crazy. They half expect us to act like that all the time, so when we do they aren’t surprised.”
“I--I didn’t know what to think.”
He nearly jumped when she touched his shoulder. “Aw,” she said with a smile in her voice. “You were worried about me.”
Of course he had been worried. She was his sister, even though she was older than he was, there was a part of him that needed to protect her. He wanted her to be happy and he wanted them to be free together. He had never met his two oldest sisters. His father only spoke of them once and his mother never, ever mentioned their names, but Malina had told him what they looked like and how they both didn’t make it to the farms. Silas was convinced that it was because both her oldest daughters went to the Machine that his mother never spoke of them. He had rarely seen her smile and every time she looked at him or his younger brother it was like she was saying goodbye.
It wasn’t just that Silas was concerned with how his mother would handle the loss of another daughter he was also not sure how he would handle it. Just knowing his family was smaller, that they had no one make it to the farms yet, made him feel like the world was crushing him. If he could find a way to escape with Malina, then it was as if he was protecting his whole family and could push away the weight of the world. He had to save her, to keep himself whole.
“So, do you want to know what I found out?” Malina said a teasing lilt in her tone and she pinched his shoulder.
Silas had completely forgotten about that. He shook her hand off and she let him. She knew she shouldn’t touch him where they might be seen.
“They have one camera for the yard that covers everything but this corner and the corner near the gir
ls’ door.”
Silas glanced up at the brick wall, somewhere above and in between the two doors was a camera.
“There’s two cameras that covers half the cafeteria each and one camera for each ward’s hallway. But there aren’t cameras for each individual cell. Oh, and you know what?”
Silas turned to her.
“They only record the yard and the cafeteria. We can do whatever we want in the halls and our cells.” Malina’s smile lit her eyes.