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  The crowd had been whipped up into excitement by this gross spectacle, and now several other fights broke out that would of course be to the death.

  I guess more people were extra hungry tonight.

  CHAPTER 24

  Overhead there was a metallic whirring sound. As I watched, a metal crane that I hadn’t seen before stretched out over the exercise area. A mass fight had broken out and no one seemed to notice the crane but me. Prisoners were shouting, crying, shrieking, cursing as they bashed one another for extra rations.

  “What in the world?” I muttered, looking up. Maybe they’re building more cells. Maybe that would be the next reward—kill your bunkmate, level up to a suite.

  The vidscreens in the exercise area had been playing staticky, cacophonous noise designed to get on whatever nerves we had left. Now they changed to McCallum’s blistering red face. Next to him, a list of crimes was scrolling down.

  “Pay attention, you worthless vermin!” he shouted. It took a minute for the inmates to quit fighting and look at the screens. Some of them dropped what they were doing instantly; others kept going, too lost in the process of killing to break away.

  “There is a traitor among you!” McCallum shouted, finally gaining everyone’s attention. “Someone even lower than the rest of you! A dirty scumbag who didn’t follow the rules! All I ever ask is that you follow the rules! Is that so much? Everyone has rules. I have rules. I follow them. Why is it so hard for you?”

  The prisoners looked at one another, then slowly started edging away from me, already following the path McCallum had laid out for them. Overhead, a big metal clawlike thing scuttled out on the crane.

  Why does everyone always assume that it’s me? These people barely knew me. Is it something I was born with? Suddenly, I thought of Phoenix, always asking why. Questioning the rules Fang and I had laid out for her. Okay, maybe it was something I was born with, and I’d probably passed it on, too.

  I’m hardly the only rule breaker here, though… I mean, it’s a prison! It’s true I was just shouting about rebellion, but—

  The metal claw zipped down a cable on its line… until it was right over my head. I don’t know why, but I didn’t run when the metal claw opened slowly. It hovered above me, mesmerizing and enchanting me. It was so perfect, so beautifully made, and operating with precision. There was something almost calming about that when everything else was hopeless. My pleas for everyone to stop fighting meant that three more people had died. What was the use of even trying anymore? The claw dropped down and closed roughly and surely around my waist. It awoke a whole new level of pain from my stapled wound. I didn’t really care. I needed to stop caring—about everything—before I lost my mind. Everybody I knew who didn’t give a shit was happy.

  “What should we do when a person can’t follow the rules?” McCallum demanded. “You tell me. I’m asking you. What should we do when a person just can’t follow the rules? I’ll tell you. I’m McCallum, and I get to decide. I have to decide everything. So I’ll tell you. This person is hereby sentenced to death!”

  That person was me.

  CHAPTER 25

  What was wrong with me? How many times had I told my flock to never give up, to fight back always, that there was always hope? Like a million? And here I was, so apathetic that I’d just let an evil claw grab me, as if I were a cheap stuffed animal in a carnival game! One second of apathy, one second of giving in to the sweet nothingness of not caring anymore, had landed me here. Now I attacked it with my hands, scrabbling to pull its metal arms apart. Was this going to… pinch me in half? That thought made my throat constrict with terror.

  “Take that traitor to the Judgment Room!” McCallum shouted from all the vidscreens. “Anyone can tell you—she’s an infection! Everyone knows that! Her crimes are many! I don’t even have time to go into all her crimes! But they are many, I promise you!”

  So much for the Judgment Room, I thought, still trying to pry the claw apart. “Sounds like I’ve already been judged,” I shouted.

  I heard the whirring before I felt it, then it was oh, my god, are you kidding me? This weird device wasn’t a killing machine—it was designed to move prisoners, painfully, awkwardly. It rose several inches in the air till my feet dangled uselessly above the ground. Then it changed tracks with a screeching jerk that made me scream. My body swung uselessly in its grip and I tried to hold on so my injury wouldn’t have to bear all the weight. I tried to reach down with my feet to kick out at anything close by. But I was completely helpless, feeling the metal pinching into my skin, feeling the slow, warm trickle of blood I couldn’t afford to lose.

  I swear, they made this thing just for me. A last, final insult before I died. They were going to make it seem like I was flying one last time, teasing me with the idea of it. The claw moved forward. The voices of the inmates had gone silent when the claw came out, but once I was captured their murmuring and questions swelled again. A minute later I couldn’t hear them.

  I punched the claw, which just caused more sickening pain from my injury. I was sure the clumsy staples were popping out from the pressure.

  “Stop this!” I shouted. “I’ll walk to the Judgment Room! Enough theatrics! Let me out! Goddamnit! You goddamn—ow! Goddamnit, that hurt, you assholes!” The claw had swung me against the rough stucco of a wall, and now my knee was bruised and a lot of skin was scraped and stinging.

  My fingers were gripping the metal arms, trying to hold on and support my entire body the best they could. Still the pod moved, switching from track to track. I went through entire buildings—some I’d never seen before, never been in. I went through other exercise yards, where prisoners’ voices went silent as this horrific contraption whirred past. That was part of the idea, I’m sure—they were making an example of me. An example of the traitor.

  The pain in my side was blinding. My eyes were watering. My throat was so tight I couldn’t even swallow, could barely get breath down. My fingers, holding on to the claw’s arms, were cramping and turning numb. I couldn’t hold on much longer.

  Having Phoenix had been painful. In a different way than this, of course. But it had been painful. I’d never had a mom to help me, we were underground, there weren’t tons of midwives or doctors, and there sure wasn’t anesthetic. When Phoenix finally was born, and I quit swearing, I knew that I would do anything, anything at all, to make sure I’d always be there to help her. Always, always.

  And then I had left her when she was only five. In my mind I could see Rose hurrying toward us from half a block away. I saw Phoenix, tall and thin for her age, standing at the corner. Fang held her shoulders and spoke into her ear, again and again. She nodded and looked at him, her black eyes confused and worried. I was trying not to show how bloody I was, how my wing was broken, how near I was to death.

  And Fang. Fang who I had loved my whole life. First as a sort-of brother, then as a friend, and then… as the person who made my heart jolt, who showed me how deep and strong and overwhelming love could be. I remembered his kisses, the strength of his arms, how it felt to lie with him, feeling him all against me.

  Hot tears leaked from my eyes and ran down my face.

  Fang. I had missed him, ached for him, for so long. Years and years. Phoenix. My mother’s heart had felt ripped apart, empty, unnatural without my baby by my side. To be alone here for so long had been the worst punishment I could imagine. Not knowing what had happened to either one of them—surely I would be able to feel it if either one had died? Wouldn’t the fabric of the universe be ripped in some way that I could feel? If I’d ever gotten out of here and found that Fang or Phoenix had died—I knew I wouldn’t be able to go on. For me, a world without them was a world I didn’t need to be in. Real apathy would have taken over then. They could’ve pinched me in half. Sent a dozen guys at me with shivs. Set me on the rocks when the waves came in. I wouldn’t have cared.

  Except, even thinking about those scenarios automatically made my mind whirl with how I would escap
e them. The rocks were the easiest; obviously if I were anywhere outside, one of the Flock could…

  Oh, god. Angel. Nudge. The Gasman. Iggy. Any one of them would have been able to spring me out of here. The fact that they hadn’t meant one of two things: They had no idea where I was, or they were dead. I couldn’t remember what had happened to injure me so badly—so badly that leaving Phoenix in a safe place seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

  Suddenly the claw came to a jolting stop and my body swayed in agony. Slowly, slowly, the arms loosened while I clawed at them. Then they were open and I dropped to the ground.

  Here was the Judgment Room.

  CHAPTER 26

  Hawk

  I woke up on one of the folding tables in the laundry room—Clete had carried me, despite not really liking touching people.

  “I fainted?” I asked unnecessarily.

  “Yep,” he said, reaching past me to throw some soiled towels into one of the big machines. The crisis was over and he was sticking to his schedule.

  I sat up, and everything went filmy, black spots in my vision.

  “Some of the prisoners tried to grab you,” he said. “I stomped on a couple arms.”

  That made me grin, though I still felt light-headed.

  “That guy said he was your dad! How stupid does he think you are?” Clete said.

  “The weirdo? The worst of the worst? The kid killer? I guess he thinks I’m pretty damn stupid,” I said and slid off the table. I must have been hallucinating when I thought I saw the resemblance to myself. I didn’t have parents. They would have come and gotten me. They wouldn’t have let me live like th—

  Clete was still automatically putting laundry in the machines and starting them.

  “He said we looked alike,” I went on, hearing snideness in my tone, some anger. “Which part? My tattooed eyeliner or my boobs?”

  Clete looked at me, met my eyes—something he almost never did. “He’s not your dad. You should just forget about it, refocus. We still got to rescue the other lab rats.” He eyed me worriedly. “You still up for it?”

  “Damn straight,” I said and got busy, loading as many machines as I could—until Clete and I took our “break.” We left the laundry room casually, looking bored, but as soon as we were out in the hall, we flattened ourselves against the wall and waited. After the guard’s footsteps faded, we hurried down the hall, trying to be as silent as possible.

  The Labs were in another building, across a courtyard. We opened the door to the courtyard slowly, catching it as it closed to prevent it from making the slightest sound.

  “Stick to the shadows,” I murmured to Clete, and he nodded. I wished Clete hadn’t heard that weirdo say he was my father. I didn’t ever want to talk to Clete about it again. I silently took in a deep breath, trying to put all that out of my mind.

  It took us two long minutes to cross the courtyard, precious minutes of our so-called break. We didn’t have much time.

  In the Labs building all the doors were alarmed, opened only by keyed ID tags worn by the guards. We waited, standing behind a tree, until two guards marched out. Before the door could close behind them we had slipped through, as silent as air.

  CHAPTER 27

  Unlike our complex, the Labs were lit bright, the hallways clean and fixed up. Like the scientists were so much more important than us and the prisoners and the Opes trying to get clean one last time in the hospital.

  “Any idea where they are?” I whispered to Clete. His day job was to work on their tech, and usually that meant the Labs.

  He nodded. “Lab K. But hang on.”

  Clete took something out of his pocket, pushing back wires and SIM cards and who knows what else. Then, looking to make sure we were alone, he quickly popped the cover off the door alarm, undid some chips, put in another chip of his own, tightened something using his fingernail, and put the cover back on. It had taken literally less than one minute.

  “What was that?” I whispered as we continued warily down one hall.

  “I just unlocked the doors everywhere in this building,” he whispered back, and my eyes opened wide.

  “Awesome!” I murmured, impressed.

  “Except for people who hold key cards. Their cards will relock the doors, so they’ll still have to use their card, or a code or whatever. But they’ll be unlocked for everyone else.”

  “That is… so amazing,” I said very softly. For years I’d been hearing Clete talk about his coding, his secret projects, and how they were going to change the world. I’d never actually believed him. But this—this was sophisticated, useful stuff. It made me see Clete differently. Like, if he can do something like that, maybe the app he was talking about when we folded laundry isn’t so insane, after all.

  As we padded softly down the hall, I tried hard not to think about what might be happening in Labs A through J, or L to Z. Awful stuff that should be criminal, maybe even was criminal. Not that it mattered. These were McCallum’s Labs. His City. He made the laws and decided which ones to enforce. McCallum decided who the criminals were, and he certainly wasn’t going to name himself. If I ever met him in real life, I would kneecap him. Promise.

  In this hallway, Clete and I stuck out. We didn’t have white coats, we were obviously kids, and together we were three point eight meters of freak. We couldn’t blend, so we had to not be seen at all.

  Which is why when we heard murmured voices, we grabbed the first doorknob we saw and yanked. To my relief, the door opened silently—no lock. We found ourselves in a dimly lit room… of horror. It was quiet, almost peaceful, with nothing but the barely noticeable hum of machines and the constant soft bubbling of water or something. Ten tables were laid out in neat rows, with a person—or what used to be a person—on each. Machines made their chests go up and down, like they were in a coma or something. The burbling sound was all the tubes going in and out of them. Some tubes had clear liquid, some had red, like blood, and some had a weird, milky blue solution.

  Here was Science and Progress in McCallum’s world. The same science that had made my friends: had made Clete into an Ope, made Moke blue, made Rain’s skin look like a rain-splashed window, and made Calypso… into Calypso. Superchild.

  Clete and I were both so grossed out that we couldn’t look away, couldn’t pay attention to the outside voices. Finally, it occurred to me to open the door a sliver and listen. It was all clear, and I motioned to Clete. He nodded, looking haunted, like he’d had a really bad dream.

  I opened the door and we went out, leaving those things behind.

  CHAPTER 28

  We had to quickly hide one more time before we got to Lab K. Every door opened to us, which in some ways I was sorry for—the more doors we walked through, the more nightmares I was going to have. I’d seen stuff in these labs I’d never forget. It was making me hate all humans. All regular people. The only ones I’d met or seen had been complete assholes.

  Other than doors that were usually locked, I didn’t see any alarms or cameras. Like they were certain no intruder would make it this far. This was their clean, white kingdom of experiments. Where they could get away with anything and no one would ever interfere, or try to stop them.

  A slow rage was building in me—I tried to shove it down so it didn’t mess with our mission, but now it felt like it would shoot out the top of my head at any second. If I ran into a scientist, I would shove his nose up into his or her skull.

  Clete elbowed me, pointing to a door sign. LAB K. This was it. If they were alive, our friends would be here. I clamped my fury down, but it still smoldered, like coals in my belly rather than an outright fire.

  Meeting Clete’s eyes, I nodded, and he slowly pushed the door open. Like the other labs, this one was dimly lit. There was a wall with a big glass window in it, like for people to spy on this room. Behind the glass, I could see a table with computers on it.

  This room was so dim that it took my eyes a minute to adjust. Soon I saw that there were no tables in here, n
o cages or anything. But two walls had big thick iron rings stuck into them, and my family was chained to three of them. Rain and Moke, sitting on the floor with their hands chained above their heads, looked forward dully, as if they hadn’t noticed us yet. A third person hung by one arm, skinny legs folded underneath the unmoving body. Calypso.

  I clapped my hand over my mouth hard, the anger rising back up in a hot wave that wanted to come out in a scream. Calypso’s eyes were closed, the thin white arm she hung from stretched taut. Her head was low, lifeless. I understood Rain and Moke’s dull looks, why it seemed like nothing mattered to them anymore.

  Calypso was dead.

  CHAPTER 29

  I knew the second Clete saw her because I heard his quick intake of breath. I whirled, slapping my hand over his mouth so hard that I’d probably leave a mark. I waited until his eyes showed that he was under control. We stared at each other for a long time, and had a whole, silent, freaking convo about finding Calypso like this, being too late to save her life.

  We’d have to figure out a way to break or unlock their metal wristbands, but first, I needed to comfort my friends. I knelt next to Rain, touching her shoulder, and she turned her head slowly. Her eyes saw mine, but they were fixed on something far in the distance. I checked over my shoulder—there was nothing. When I turned back, Rain was smiling, her streaked face looking happy for maybe the first time in her life.

  “Butterflies,” she said dreamily. “They’re real. They exist.”

  I wasn’t going to take the time to argue that they’d gone extinct long ago. “Listen, Rain, we’ve got to get you guys out of here! Have you tried to get your hands out of the rings?”

  Rain didn’t move, didn’t react to my words. It was like she was looking through me to another world. “I’m in a car,” she said, sitting up a bit straighter, turning her head back and forth as if looking through car windows. It was the creepiest thing ever. She made the quiet humming of a car as if I didn’t exist.