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  So people don’t try much.

  And yes, they’d jailed even the sky. Above us was a thick iron cage, designed to be unclimbable, unbreakable. It went over the whole jail. They knew I had wings, of course. They’d seen them during the first delousing spray. Knowing they had a cage over the whole island, they didn’t have to worry about my wings. But they had. I was a high escape risk.

  My wings were handcuffed behind me. Or, wing-cuffed. Once a month they made a big deal of taking off the cuffs and letting me stretch out to my full—let me do some quick math—five and a half meters. They jeered and gave me shit and called me a freak as I rolled my shoulders and ruffled my feathers in ecstasy. But, you know, you have to get up pretty early in the morning to come up with an insult I hadn’t heard before. So I tuned them out.

  They were supposed to give me a solid three minutes. I never got more than one. Then they pulled my wings tight behind me, barely letting me fold them into their natural shape, and cuffed them together again. It was painful. I couldn’t sleep on my back. I couldn’t use my wings to fly or defend myself or to scare people who still believed in demons. Frankly, that would have been the extent of my entertainment here on Devil’s Hill.

  “Up and at ’em, freak!” the inmate shouted.

  “I swear, Marty, when I’m the janitor you’re gonna wish you weren’t a germ!” I snapped back. “’Cause I’m gonna disinfect your ass!” I narrowed my eyes and tried to look as mean as possible, which used to be enough. I’m guessing my physical appearance has gone downhill these past few… maybe a half-decade?

  Marty giggled and kicked his rolling bucket with his foot, moving out of my cell. I wrung out my long hair and tried to get a grip.

  “Today is your day to die, abomination!” a new voice screamed.

  I got ready to look bored—a death threat was just your average Tuesday here—but backed up quickly when I saw who was jeering at me. It was Kenton, and Kenton was effing nuts. Also, he had a shiv, maybe made out of a broom handle. He could do a lot of damage, and he had me backed into my cell, which was not on my list of advantages.

  I put my hands up. “Kenton! I don’t know what you’re thinki—”

  “Thinking ’bout the coins I’ll get if you die!” he howled, circling around me, so excited at the idea of the payout that he’d forgotten to trap and kill me first.

  “Someone paid you to kill me?” I asked quickly, moving to the right, toward the hall where other inmates were already gathering, already taking bets on the outcome of this match. If I could keep him talking, keep him distracted, I might still come out of this walking, not rolled out on a gurney.

  “Paid to kill the freak!” he nodded, grinning wildly, looking like, well, like a Devil’s Hill inmate who was effing nuts.

  “Who?” I shouted, but he was done talking.

  Kenton roared and leaped at me, slashing down with his shiv, and carved a neat gully out of the concrete wall. He should be using that thing to dig an escape tun—

  He made another lunge and I jumped aside again, but he’d been paying more attention than I’d given him credit for. He was edging me back into the cell, back to the corner with the window. At least I might die with a view.

  My heart pumped harder, adrenaline waking up my brain, my nerve endings. My eyes moved fast, calculating his moves. Except he was crazy, unpredictable. I kept ducking, taking big sweeps from side to side as he stabbed the air again and again with his shiv. He was getting closer to trapping me. None of my fellow inmates would help me—they were already arguing over who would get my cell.

  Shit, Max, think! I ordered myself—and came up with an idea. If this didn’t work, I was dead.

  CHAPTER 21

  Kenton screamed and swiped at me again. I leaped back, hitting the wall, and his shiv cut me over one eye. Warm blood ran into my eye and down my face, blocking out half my vision. When Kenton pulled his arm back again, I pushed off from the wall and dove toward the floor, landing outside my cell on top of other prisoners’ feet. They parted around me, making space. Nobody wanted to be too close to me when Kenton was taking such sloppy swipes with his shiv.

  Keeping low, I shot my way through the crowd and raced down the hallway to the stairs. Kenton shrieked as he followed me. So, someone had paid him to kill me, huh? I’d have to find out who.

  My wings were cuffed behind me, and I’ve been in jail way too long, but that didn’t stop me from being tall, thin, and real light-boned. So as Kenton barreled down the hallway, shiv flailing, I looked around, then nodded to myself. Out here, I had a lot more options, more environmental factors in my favor than in that cramped cell.

  Shiv raised, Kenton screamed and charged at me. Behind me were the stairs leading downward. In front of me was a throng of eager prisoners, parting to let my wild-eyed attacker through. I wiped the blood out of my eye and got ready. When he was about five feet away, Kenton tucked his shiv arm in close and hunkered down, then gave a bloodcurdling scream of delight and sprang at me. I jumped straight up in the air and watched him pass under me like a wretched, rabid freight train.

  In midair he realized his mistake and craned his head upward to stare at me. Time stood still while our eyes met; I saw the fear in his. I’m not sure he saw the pity in mine. His arm arced up even as he began the long, painful tumble down the stairs and he gave one last, desperate stab with his shiv… just barely piercing my side. If I’d been hovering with wings, it would have stopped there, a mere scratch. Since I wasn’t, Gravity did her best to kill me by bringing me back down to earth—right on top of the shiv. I sank onto it as I landed, crying out as five or six inches of rough, filthy wood penetrated my side.

  Then Kenton was an awkward, bony lump at the bottom of the stairs, and I was crouched on my bare feet at the top, blood still running from above my eye and now a fresh trail from my side.

  Kenton’s raspy voice muttered weakly: “I killed her, I killed her, I killed her! Now I get coins, coins, coins!” He was jubilant, totally thrilled at the idea of getting paid in coins that—by the look of him—he wasn’t going to live long enough to spend.

  Suddenly I felt like I was drowning. I stood up with difficulty as the crowd of prisoners came to gawk at Kenton. “Finish him off!” more than one voice cried. “Finish him!” “Kill him!” “Kill him!”

  “No,” I said as I shook my head, pushing my way through the crowd. I wasn’t in a hurry to finish off that guy, even if he was responsible for the shiv sticking out of my side. I got out, feeling like I was about to faint. These poor inmates, prisoners at the end of the world, didn’t know who I was. They didn’t know how many people I had killed in my life. Actually, neither did I. Let’s say a lot. I was tired of killing. Also, I felt like I was about to die myself.

  I made my way to a landing, a trail of blood behind me. Nobody followed me, since I’d made it clear I wasn’t going to be delivering any more violence. It was more entertaining to watch Kenton die in a heap.

  I looked down at the broom handle sticking out of my side. It may have pierced my lung. I was guessing it had missed my heart, since I was still, you know, alive. But I had to make my way to the Infirmary, fast. “Okay, on three,” I muttered. “One… two—” and then I yanked the broom handle out, gasping with an almost blinding pain. The wood brushed against ribs as I pulled, tugging at my bones as if it wanted to pull them out with it. “Three. Oh… oh, holy shit,” I said weakly. “Oh, that sucked so bad.”

  Amazingly, I had the presence of mind to keep the freaking shiv as I tiptoed down the stairs, past Kenton, down more stairs and more stairs, and now I was hugging the wall and stepping in my own blood. The chants of the inmates above me were fading, replaced by the rushing sound of my blood in my ears, the thumping of my heart. Was it getting slower?

  I knew where the Infirmary was—we all did. Everyone here had survived beatings, attacks, near-starvation. They’d patch you up just enough to dump you back in your cell so you could live to fight another day.

  I didn’
t think I would make it. I was sure I was going to collapse here in the hallway and just… bleed out. Kenton would get his coins after all—or whoever ransacked his cell after he died would. But I kept telling myself, One more step, one more step, one more step…

  Until I found myself in front of the swinging doors to the Infirmary. I pushed through, more like fell through, and then sank to my knees on the floor. Then I let go and spiraled down, down, down into a cold nothing-world where there was no pain.

  CHAPTER 22

  When I came to, a thin, gray-faced little man was hovering over me, watery brown eyes peering at me from behind silver-rimmed glasses. One lens was cracked.

  I tried to bolt upright in case this was a dire situation, as it so often was when I woke up. He put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  “Lie still.” Then he whispered, “We’re giving you blood.”

  Now I was really awake and aware of a pinching feeling in the crook of my elbow. “No—I can’t have regular human blood! It’ll make me sick!”

  “I know,” he said quietly, patting my shoulder. “Because of the two percent avian DNA.”

  “Uh, yeah?” I mean, it was obvious that I wasn’t entirely human because of the glaring pair of wings on my back, but how did he know the actual percentage?

  “It’s okay,” he said, still speaking softly. “This is modified plasma and fluid. It won’t cause a negative immune reaction. But you had just about bled out.”

  I pulled my prison jumpsuit open, seeing my underwear drenched in blood. A rectangle in my side had been cleaned and painted with disinfectant. A messy, uneven row of staples held my shiv wound shut.

  “I used to be better,” the doctor said sadly. “I used to be a great surgeon. Now I’m on Devil’s Hill, barely able to do my job. They only give me the most basic material, because I’m just an old Ope.”

  Now I could see the dilated pupils, the shaking hands of a doper. Most of the inmates here were dopers. I’d come within a hairsbreadth of succumbing myself. It was another feature of a McCallum penitentiary: easy access to dope. There had been so many times when I’d just wanted this reality to go away. I knew dope would make me feel like I’d been wrapped in cotton, moving through life in a cozy sleeping bag. It had definitely seemed like the way to go, but not often. Maybe only about fifty million times. Not more than that. I don’t know what kept me tied to this reality, this life.

  Did I think I would ever see Fang and Phoenix again? No. Not really. But every time a shadow fell across my slit of a window, my heart skipped a beat. Every time I heard a female inmate fighting back against a guard, my heart skipped a beat and I thought—could that possibly be Phoenix? How old would she be now? If she was alive. I knew this was stupid, pathetic, a waste of time. Most likely I would never see them again, my love and my child.

  But there was always the tiniest chance, let’s say maybe even 2 percent, like my DNA. And it was really clear to anybody that saw me that even 2 percent can make a huge difference. So that’s why I never went the Ope route or just let some shiv find its target because I’d gotten so tired of avoiding them.

  I looked up into the eyes of the little doped-up doctor who had done such a sloppy job patching me up. He was embarrassed.

  My head fell back against the unwashed pillow. “What do they want from us?” I asked, my voice as low as his.

  The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know. Repentance? Their entertainment?”

  “I don’t even know how I got here, what I did,” I said.

  “You’ve been here longer than I have,” the doctor said. “If I knew your crime, I would tell you.”

  “My crime has always been that I exist,” I said tiredly. “Me. I’m the crime.” I shot him a look. “Maybe you could uncuff my wings? Say it was impossible to treat me with them cuffed?”

  “Yeah, and have them cut off my dope supply?” The doctor looked horrified. “No way!” He busied himself with removing my IV and covering my wound with laughably inadequate Band-Aids, a bunch of them. “Okay, you’re done,” he said. “Time to get out of here.”

  It wasn’t even close to time for me to get out. In a regular hospital they probably would have me in recovery for twenty-four hours, at least. But I wasn’t in a regular hospital, I was on Devil’s Hill. And this wasn’t a regular doctor; he was an Ope, waiting for me to leave so he could take another hit of his dope stash. I nodded, sitting up slowly. I was still a bit light-headed, but felt a lot better. “Thanks, doc,” I said, holding out my hand.

  He refused to shake hands, instead backing away, like maybe freak DNA was catching. “All I’ve done is patch you up so you can fight another day—to the death,” he said. “Go. Go!”

  “Okay. But thanks,” I said. “I won’t forget it.”

  “You will.” The doctor sounded resigned, not angry. “They always do.”

  There was nothing to say to that. When I left the Infirmary, I saw that my section was outside for our hour of sunlight and exercise. I needed some sun.

  CHAPTER 23

  I went outside, trying not to limp but of course limping. Every step felt like it was tearing the staples out of my side, and the wound had started leaking blood again. The doc had given me a paper packet of something to rub into it if it got infected, which I was positive it would. The packet said “Sulfa Powder, Veterinary Use Only.” But it was what I had, and given my wings, laughably appropriate.

  Everyone turned to look when I came through the metal door. Our outdoor exercise space was about as big as our cafeteria—concrete paved and walled, with the iron-bar cage overhead. We couldn’t see shit, except whatever the sky was doing overhead. Not a place where you could appreciate the varied, wondrous beauty of the outdoors. I’d flown over forests, lakes, clear mountain streams…

  “Good job on Kenton, hey,” a prisoner said to me. She was tall and had very white skin and a shaved head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He died, didn’t he?” the woman said indifferently.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him,” I said. Now I would never know who had hired him to kill me. This was all so stupid. Maybe it was the new plasma talking, but I was just so sick of this whole asinine kill-or-be-killed policy.

  “Well, he’s dead.” The prisoner spit a gob of something onto the cracked pavement. “You’ll get an extra ration tonight.”

  Yes, of course. One of the unspoken features of Devil’s Hill was that murder wasn’t necessarily treated like a crime here… it was more like something you were rewarded for. Fewer prisoners meant more profits, right?

  And extra rations? Was that something to get excited about? Oh, boy, more swill, I thought. I stepped away from the inmate in case she suddenly, you know, tried to kill me for extra food rations, and looked at my fellow prisoners.

  “Listen, guys,” I said, raising my voice. “We have to stop this!” Cameras were no doubt recording us, and no doubt I’d be flogged or something, but I couldn’t stay silent. Not anymore. Someone had been hired to kill me, and had been only too happy to do it, knowing that he’d get his payout, plus a little extra from the prison system itself.

  “Stop what?” One guy, whose skin used to be brown but had dope-faded to a kind of gray-beige, looked at me, puzzled. He rocked back and forth from one foot to another, his hand jittery. He’d need another hit soon and would do anything to get it—kill his cellmate? The person next to him in the pen? Me?

  “Stop killing each other!” I shouted so everyone could hear me. “We’re not animals! We’ve got nothing against each other! Why do we have to keep fighting, killing each other for no reason? Just because they want us to?”

  Another guy, short and dark, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “’Cause they give us extra rations if we kill somebody.”

  Okay, his logic was sound, I’d give him that, but holy mother!

  “Extra rations of the crap they call food?” I yelled. The prisoners were now gathered around me, many looking scared, glancing at the cameras. Some of them mig
ht agree with me, but that didn’t mean they were going to go against McCallum, not with all those eyes on them.

  “We could take turns each giving one spoon of food to someone else. That person would have a huge meal, and we’d only be down one spoonful! Think about it! We don’t have to kill each other! We don’t have to be trained… dogs, doing stuff to make them happy! They get off on this shit, you know? What if we just said, No more?”

  Some inmates were looking intrigued by this novel idea of no more killing, but others were shaking their heads, looking either scared or angry.

  “I like killing people!” someone in the back shouted. “And they give me dope when I do!” There were many nods at this.

  There was no chance of talking my way around that. Dope was a powerful motivator. Much stronger than me.

  “Look,” I said, trying again. “Dope or not… We. Don’t. Have. To. Kill. Each. Other. Don’t you get it? Why don’t you get it?” Why was I even bothering? They wouldn’t ever get it. They were prison-sick like I was, dope-sick like so many, but they weren’t champing at the bit to get out—not when you could get free dope.

  I was trying to think of what else I could say, what could possibly reach the people they had once been, the people who might still be inside.

  “In fact, I think I’m hungry!” A thick, heavyset woman lunged forward and knocked down a man. She jumped on him, grabbing his hair in her meaty hands, and banged his head against the concrete.

  “Stop!” I pleaded. “This is what they want us to do! Stop!”

  “Maybe I want to do what they want me to do!” The woman laughed, showing several dope-rotted teeth. The man beneath her had quit fighting, almost like he agreed with dying. Blood ran from his head. Finally, the woman stopped as did the horrible, mushy sound of the pounding, and she leaned over the guy’s face, checking for life. “Extra rations for me!”