Colin gave a wry laugh. “Yeah, how’s that?”
“You threatened him,” said Jed. “Not with your little blade, or your little army. You yelled loud enough that he could hear.”
Colin flinched. “We didn’t ask for anything the Brotherhood doesn’t get.”
“Yeah,” said Jed. “Difference is, I tell the Brotherhood what they want.”
His meaning filtered slowly through Colin’s irritation. “Hampton pays you to make it seem like it’s their idea.”
“It’s called strategy,” said Jed. “You listen to your people. I listen to Hampton.”
“You do whatever he wants, you mean.”
“I’m not stuck in here, am I?”
A thin, tenuous silence stretched between them.
“Why are you here?” Colin asked again.
“Guess I just wanted to tell you I was impressed you tried.”
“You say that like it’s over.” Colin’s voice broke a little as he said it. He hadn’t truly considered that it was, even alone in his cell. Believing there was still something left to fight for was what had kept him from losing his mind. But hearing Jed say he was impressed tore the last shreds of confidence from his fists. You knew you were in trouble when the devil himself said he was proud.
Jed rose and pushed in his chair. “It is over, kid. We don’t beat men like Hampton. We just find a way to live in their shadow.”
He knocked on the door, and Colin was alone again.
* * *
Back in his dark cell, Colin’s thoughts consumed him. Much as he hated to admit it, Jed was right. The press was only ever a dream. They were just kids in Hampton’s eyes. Poor kids, who should have been happy to have jobs at all. He’d thought if they all came together things could be different, but this was Metaltown. Things didn’t change in Metaltown. You changed, and if you didn’t, you paid. You ended up here, in a place so bad even men like Schultz pitied you.
Jed had been wrong when he said you had to climb to the top or get crushed by the heap. Their places had been set when they were born. Jed was no higher than he was; sometimes Hampton just threw him a scrap from the table.
The anger sparked in him, warming his cold body. He didn’t want Hampton’s scraps. He didn’t want Jed’s pat on the back. He didn’t want to take what was given, when what was given wasn’t enough. He wasn’t going to lie down and die—Ty had taught him better than that, and soon as he was back outside he was going to set things straight with her. Maybe the press was over, but he still had people counting on him. His family. Gabe, in the cell next door. Lena, wherever she was.
The only thing keeping him sane was believing that Josef Hampton, however ugly he could be, would not send his own daughter to this place.
Colin closed his eyes, and saved his strength. The next time the guards opened that door, he was getting out.
* * *
Hours passed before the lights were turned back on. A different guard appeared outside Colin’s cell and told him to clear the door. He could hear other guards, including the one outside Gabe’s cell, telling the other prisoners to do the same. Colin checked the weapon at the guard’s belt and found a defuser. Just a defuser. Not a gun like the Bakerstown cops had carried.
His heart was pounding as the guard cuffed his wrists behind him and shoved him into the hallway. Gabe was pulled out a moment later, wearing the same old denim pants and loose shirt he’d seen him in before, only now his face was gaunt and pale as the moon, and his eyes tinged with red. A scab on the side of his forehead descended into a purple welt at the top of his jaw.
There was a fury in his glare that stabbed into Colin and painted him with shame. You killed my father, that glare said. And Colin wondered if he wasn’t right.
Colin glanced back to the four other men behind him. All were in various stages of the corn flu. The closest had almost no lips, the scarring and burns on his mouth were so severe. The man behind him also had a red mouth, and red cheeks, too, but his gaze was so unfocused that Colin suspected he was blind. The others weren’t much better.
Food testing.
He’d heard about it. He knew Rico had once worked for the food testing plant, and that was what had turned his grin into a perpetual sneer. The reason for the defusers was clear now—the guards didn’t need guns; no one was strong enough to fight.
Colin forced himself to stand tall because he wasn’t yellow. He wasn’t a coward. He was the man of his house and people were counting on him. He hated that he had to lock his knees to keep them from giving out.
I will not die here. I will not die here.
They were led out of the cell block and into a brightly lit hallway, and Colin’s eyes watered at the sudden white light. Here it looked more like the facility he’d pictured in his nightmares. Sterile. Cold. His wrists worked against the harsh plastic bindings, and his gaze locked on the backs of Gabe’s sneakers.
They were brought into what he figured was the white room Gabe had talked about. It was segmented in the back by a separate observation space, the length of the far wall. A flat-faced, redheaded woman in a white lab coat ordered the guard to put Colin on a scale while she took notes on his height and weight. She made him open his mouth and looked inside for any previous scars, and then shined an even brighter white light in his eyes.
“Baseline readings: unremarkable,” she said.
He felt a tug of resentment. Unremarkable. But gauging by the other poor saps in the room, he felt very remarkable, if only just because he could still make a fist. Which he did. That earned a clinical “relax” from the woman, and a sharp jab between his shoulder blades from the guard.
He broke down and asked, “What are you doing?”
She didn’t look up at him. “Developing a safe balance of natural and synthetic materials to feed a hungry world.”
Ever since Cherish had gotten sick, he’d never eaten anything that hadn’t been tested. His ma had made sure to grind that lesson into his brain. He’d rather die of starvation than start now.
A man entered the room from behind the glass observation partition. His bald head was too shiny, and his eyes bugged out from their sockets. He carried a metal tray and set it on the counter near Gabe. Atop it was a clear glass bottle, filled with liquid.
Colin felt his palms go clammy.
“What is that?” he asked, bracing for another warning from his guard.
The woman continued to add to her notations.
“That’s the cure to the corn flu,” she said. He felt the acid churn in his stomach. There was no cure to the corn flu. They were still running tests. Experimenting on otherwise healthy people.
On him.
She motioned to the guard. “Motor skills.”
The guard cut Colin’s bindings, one hand on his weapon. Colin rubbed his wrists and followed the woman’s directions, which involved tracing a pattern of circles on a piece of paper with his finger. She took more notes.
Colin took notes of his own. Six guards. Four testers. And only two subjects strong enough to fight. At least the security seemed relatively low here—it would have been a different story if they’d been at the jail.
His attendant departed to the front of the room and unlocked a door with a scan of her ID badge hanging around her neck. He watched her emerge behind the glass observation window and sit with three other scientists, all with no-nonsense expressions. Behind them was a metal door with a push bar handle. That must have been the exit Gabe had talked about.
He focused on that door through the glass. That was his way out.
They were brought to a long white table where Colin was forced to sit on the end. Gabe was seated next to him, then the blind man, and so on down the line, until the sickest man, an invalid who could barely register his guard’s commands, was placed at the opposite side.
A woman with short hair, wearing a shabby gray uniform, pushed a metal cart into the room from the hallway where he’d entered. Corn mash. The sweet smell of it had Colin’s mout
h watering and his stomach clenching.
He couldn’t eat it. It was tainted food. Poisoned. Testing food. He steeled himself against his own demanding hunger.
Then the bug-eyed man came down the line with the glass bottle and a little glass dropper.
“No,” moaned a man three spaces down. “No, please. No more.”
The guards had all been dismissed but one, and he stood by the closed door. Just Bug-Eyes and the woman with the cart remained before them. Colin frantically searched the room for a weapon, but the countertops were mostly empty.
The sickest man on the end had to be told three times to stick out his tongue, which was crusty and almost black. The scientist squeezed the top of the dropper, and a clear liquid squirted out onto his tongue. He was given a bowl of corn mash. The blind man beside Gabe began to whimper.
“We can take that guard,” Colin whispered to Gabe, biting his pinky nail.
Gabe turned away.
Colin swore under his breath. He wished Ty were here. There wouldn’t be a moment’s hesitation. When it was time to fight, she had his back, no questions asked.
He leaned around Gabe to whisper to the blind man. “There’s a door directly behind you, think you can find it?”
The man choked on a sob, but nodded.
“Hold it closed, okay? I’m going to get us out of here.”
The man hiccupped, then straightened his back.
“Are you crazy?” muttered Gabe.
Colin ignored him. “We’re going to rush the guard on three.”
“I’m not helping you do anything.”
“I didn’t know,” said Colin, watching the scientist move to the next prisoner. “I didn’t know Jed was bad until after I came to your house. If I’d known … I wouldn’t have done a lot of things, okay?”
Gabe didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” Colin said. And he was.
The tester was two men down.
“Gabe. I can’t do this alone.”
Finally, almost imperceptibly, his old friend nodded.
When the tester reached the blind man, Colin burst from his seat and lunged across the table. The tester yelped, and as he stumbled back into the cart, Colin caught the glass jar, sloshing, slippery in his hands, and threw it with all his might at the guard, who was already drawing his defuser.
A loud clang, and a crash, then a scream as the tester knocked over the cart and the woman. The glass hit the guard in the face, spilling clear liquid and blood down his chin. Then Colin charged him, and the guard yelled out in pain as the back of his head bounced off the white wall.
They fell in a heap to the floor. He threw his weight on top of the struggling man, nearly tossed over the top of him. Desperately Colin tried to contain the guard’s flailing arms. Fury and terror blended inside of him. I will not die here.
“Get his weapon!” Colin shouted.
Gabe jumped on the guard’s arm, a sickening crunch coming from beneath his knees. He snatched the shockgun just beyond the man’s reach and lifted it, wide-eyed, unsure of what to do next. A pained groan ripped from the guard’s mouth, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
“They’re coming! Help me!” pleaded the blind man. He’d found the door, but it was already being shoved open. One of the other prisoners staggered toward him.
Colin ran back to the table, lifted one of the metal chairs, and with all his might threw it into the glass observation window at the back of the room. It cracked. An alarm sounded in the building—a high-pitched whir, whir—spiking his pulse.
He picked up the chair and threw it again. The woman who’d taken his baseline readings, along with the other scientists, were all running out the exit door. Gabe was right—beyond the partition he could see natural light, the gray haze of Metaltown. Freedom.
Behind him, the other inmates were struggling to hold back the guards on the opposite side of the door. The siren screamed through his temples.
“Hurry up!” shouted Gabe, voice cracking.
A roar started deep inside of him, flexing through every muscle in his legs, his back, his arms. He whipped the chair through the air, and when it slammed against the observation window, the glass finally, finally, broke.
“Come on!” Colin yelled. The shattered pane sliced into his fists as he punched the hole larger. Gabe was up, defuser in hand, while Colin looked back at the other inmates.
If just one abandoned the door, the whole thing would cave in.
Leave them, screamed a voice inside of him.
He couldn’t.
He bent down, running at the table, using his momentum to shove it forward. “Move!” he ordered, and the inmates scattered as he rammed the heavy wood against the door. It inched open, the silver barrel of a defuser sneaking through. The table would not block their way for long.
The guard with the broken arm had revived, and he took down the slowest, the worst of them, who could barely walk anyway. A low cry erupted from the poor man’s throat, like the sound of a dying dog.
“Come on!” Colin grabbed the blind man’s arm and propelled him forward.
The door slammed against the table. A second later it was wide enough to squeeze a body through, and a small guard scrambled over the table. An electric crackle snapped by Colin’s ear. Gabe had gone around the testing room and opened the door, and the inmates dragged each other through it, ducking low behind a desk covered with papers and blinking screens.
The man behind Colin screamed, and with a clatter his body fell to the floor. Colin didn’t look back. He put his hands on Gabe’s back and shoved him through the exit door, into the light.
They were out.
Colin blinked to readjust his eyes. And saw the half circle of facility guards surrounding the door, all with their weapons drawn.
32
TY
It was nearing dusk when the alarm within the testing plant began to scream, the sound pumping electricity into Ty’s body. She crouched low behind the crumbling wall on the opposite side of the street, knuckles scraping the bricks in her hurry to hide.
Colin.
The questions raced through her brain, as they had since she’d run into Martin and Zeke outside Lacey’s. Was he alive? Had they started the testing yet?
Was she too late?
What had happened between them seemed so stupid now. They wouldn’t survive Metaltown without each other. Lena Hampton wasn’t big enough to get between them, and pigheaded McNulty was nothing more than a distraction. She kicked herself for not staying closer to Small Parts, watching for movement. She should have been with Colin when Hampton had unleashed his Bakerstown dogs. If she had, she could guarantee he wouldn’t be stuck in food testing right now.
“They’re moving, you see that?”
Keeping low, Ty sprinted to where Henry crouched beside Matchstick. There were six of them now—five who’d answered the call when she’d demanded they go after Colin. Matchstick, Martin, Zeke, Henry, and Chip—and only because the kid had refused to be left behind. Everybody else was either home, or too scared of Hampton’s bullies.
Henry pointed at the front entrance of the old stone compound, where a line of guards in beige uniforms raced out and around the side of the building. They filtered through a gate in a high chain-link fence topped with a coil of barbed wire, and disappeared out of view.
“Let’s take a look,” Ty said. “Matchstick?”
“Say no more.” A wicked grin lit his face. Gently, he laid his over-the-shoulder pack on the gravelly ground, and withdrew half a dozen faulty detonators from Small Parts. A few glass capsules followed, filled with a clear, thick liquid. He shoved a ball of twine at Henry, and lifted a match.
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” said Martin, easing back a step.
“It’s just a little bump,” answered Matchstick. “Don’t be such a baby.”
“Yeah,” said Chip, squatting beside them with wide eyes. “Don’t be such a baby.”
Martin pushed him,
and he fell into the dirt with a whining, “Hey!”
Before he could fight back, Ty had grabbed the kid around the ribs, and they were creeping away from the others in the direction they’d seen the guards go. Henry and Zeke were keeping watch intently, and both pointed silently toward the building.
She lifted her head, just above the wall. And her world stopped.
Before she knew what she was doing, she’d stood to her full height. Zeke tackled her, covering her mouth before she could yell for him to get off. The rocks on the ground jabbed into her back.
Colin was there. Colin, and that boy from Bakerstown, and a few other men. Their backs were against the wall of the building, and they were surrounded by armed guards. Execution. The word horrified her, but that’s what it looked like. It looked like they were about to be murdered. From the distance she couldn’t tell if their guns held bullets or shocking prongs, but she wasn’t about to wait to find out.
She screamed against Zeke’s hand, bucking her hips when his knees pinned her shoulders down. She fought him as hard as she could, eventually heaving him off to the side. When she was up, she grabbed a rock and hurled it back toward Matchstick. It fell close to Henry, who looked back. He was too far away to hear her call to hurry.
“Go!” she told Chip. “Tell them we can’t wait!” He sprinted away.
The fear was thick inside of her. Thick and alive and venomous.
“We’ve got to distract them!” She grabbed another handful of rocks, gathering them in a pouch she created from the front of her sweater. The others followed her lead.
“Be quick, then get down,” said Martin.
She didn’t wait for his approval. She stood and launched a stone at the nearest guard. It fell short by five feet, but it was enough to distract him. He lowered his gun and stared back at the wall, but she’d already ducked behind it again, breathing hard.
Zeke fired next. Then Martin. Ty found a hole in the wall and watched their confusion. Three more guards spun toward them, and a few others nearby turned to see what they were looking at. Over here! Her shoulder burned as she flung the next rock.
One of the guards saw her. He pointed their way and shouted something she couldn’t make out. She followed his gaze up, to a guard tower that reached above the fence. The last sight she saw before ducking down was the man within raising his arm.