Rebellion (21 page)

BOOM! BOOM!

I jam my fist into my left ear, because it’s still bleeding. The pain is almost too much to bear.

Behind me, smoke and bits of scorched metal rain through the air where the corridor blew open. People are screaming somewhere in the distance. Or maybe that’s just the ringing in my not-deaf ear.

It feels like a long time has passed already, but I haven’t reached the trapdoor yet. I must be limping more than I’m running.

When the exit comes into view, I see someone has already opened the door. A tall, lean figure climbs up the ladder into the corridor.

“Brea showed me this place, and the room with the explosives. I’m sure she’s up here,” he says.

It’s Hector.

“There she is,” he says, pointing at me as he gets to his feet.

White-hot anger courses through me. “You’re helping them?”

He doesn’t answer.

He’s the one who told me about this passage and the room with the explosives. Now he’s turning me in? He must be doing it because of Sam’s announcement. He must’ve decided a shot at Extraction was too important.

Another figure climbs into view and steps off the ladder. This man is a patrolman, all armor and authority—the kind of official who terrified me as a child. A carbon copy of the official who gave me the old scar on my jaw, before Charlie replaced it with a fresh one, down to the hazel eyes flashing at me through his helmet visor. But officials almost always look the same to me.

He lifts a rifle that’s nearly half my size. When he speaks, there’s an expert coldness to his voice, a stony hardness to his jaw. “Don’t move,” he says.

I almost want to laugh. I have nowhere to go. Doesn’t he know I blew up both ends of the corridor?

“Drop your weapons,” he says.

“I don’t have any.” I show him both my hands—the one covered with blood, the other holding nothing but a light stick.

“Drop the light,” he says.

I hesitate, weighing my options. The light is the only weapon I have, though it isn’t a good one.

But two more guards climb into view. I can’t take on three of them. I can’t let them shoot me; I need them to take me to Sam alive.

There’s one more play I can make for the rebels—an important play. If I can earn an audience with Commander Charlie, I can kill him before he orders my execution, or uses me for whatever he’s planning. I might be the only one who can.

“I give up,” I say, dropping the light stick.

The first guard and his second-in-command move forward. The second secures my hands behind my back. The first shines the light from a fixture on his armor into my face, nearly blinding me.

The third guard takes a few steps down the other side of the passageway. “This is the right corridor,” he says. “You can smell the smoke.”

“Good work, Hector,” says the head patrolman, the one pointing the light at my eyes.

“Thank you, sir,” Hector says.

There’s a hint of regret in his voice. It only makes me angrier. I don’t even care if he’s only doing this because of the shot the doctors gave him earlier. He means nothing to me now.

“So,” the head patrolman says. “Brea. Are you aware a storage room full of explosives was broken into tonight?”

“Of course,” I say, forcing calm into my voice. I don’t want these officials or Hector to know I’m afraid. “I broke into it myself. And my name isn’t Brea.” I look directly into the guard’s eyes. “It’s Clementine.”

“We guessed that,” the patrolman says smoothly. “We’ll need to run some tests to confirm your identity, of course. First, you’re going to tell us where your friends are. We know you couldn’t have pulled off a stunt like this alone.”

I’m not going to let them find the others. Not Nellie, not Logan, not anyone.

“You’re wrong,” I say. “I broke into the room on my own tonight. I blew it up afterwards, as you may have noticed, and then I blew up part of the security hub.”

A hiss of air escapes through the guard’s teeth.

I let out a light laugh. “Didn’t hear about that yet? You should really work on speeding up communication, or important things will be overlooked.”

“None of this explains the destruction of the quarantine facility,” the patrolman says, ignoring my comment. “I know you played a part in that, and I know you had help. Give me the names your friends are using.”

He must think he’ll get a bigger reward when he turns me over to Sam, if he’s already made me talk. But I don’t even know what names Skylar and the others are using so they won’t get caught. Mal’s using his real one, but he must’ve convinced everyone he’s not a Core fugitive.

But it’s better if this patrolman thinks I have information and I’m just not telling him, so he’ll keep me alive longer.

I look him in the eye. “My name is Clementine. My citizenship number is S68477. I was born on the Surface, and I was picked for Extraction—”

“Give me names,” the patrolman repeats, “or I’ll give your leg a bullet.”

He lifts his rifle and aims it at my left leg.

My head won’t stop throbbing, and dots speckle my vision no matter how many times I blink. But I keep my voice calm as I keep talking: “You won’t hurt me. Commander Charlie wants me alive and unharmed.”

The patrolman laughs. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration. ‘Alive’ is all I’ve heard anyone say.”

I need to keep talking. I don’t know if that will help me, but it’s all I’ve got.

“My name is Clementine,” I say. “My citizenship number is S68477. I was born on the Surface, and I was picked for Extraction—”

The patrolman lifts his rifle again. I see the butt of his gun flying at my face and feel pain exploding across my temple.

Then nothing.

19

My hands are bound behind my back with shackles—I can tell before I open my eyes. The skin of my wrists already feels sore from rubbing against the metal.

My head is hard to lift. I wince as pain shoots across my forehead.

I remember what happened: the explosions; Hector turning me in; the official knocking me out.

I don’t know where I am now, or how long I’ve been here.

It takes several seconds for my eyes to adjust. There’s hardly any light in here, only a flickering bulb high above. The room is small—a holding cell, most likely. But a strange cell; one of the walls is made of mirrorlike glass, and there’s an identical room on the other side of it.

I stare at my reflection, slumped against the wall. There’s nothing left of my curls but a few stringy strands of pasty blond. My eyes seem empty and desperate. I’ve had nothing to eat or drink in stars know how long. There’s a bandage over my left ear that someone must’ve put there while I was sleeping. There’s less pain in my ear, only a dull throbbing, but it feels like it’s plugged up with gauze. I can’t hear a thing out of it.

Even in the dim light, I can tell my skin and hair and clothes are covered with soot. Worse than the dirt is the blood I’ve collected over the past day. Blood on my pants, blood on my cheeks, blood on my hands. My own, and Joe’s. I have no way to wash it away, nor fresh clothes to change into. I have to wear his blood like a scar, a constant reminder of the way I am changing.

He lied to me,
I remind myself.
I didn’t have a choice.

But was it even worth it? I won a few extra hours of hiding and time to use those explosives, but I don’t know how much damage they did. I still ended up in this cell.

I force my eyes away from the mirror. I need to stay calm. I need to figure out as much as I can about where I am. Information will help me feel like I have some control over what’s going to happen to me, though I know I have none.

I use the wall to get to my feet. It’s difficult with my hands behind my back, but I manage.

There’s a security camera with a blinking red dot in the upper right corner of my cell. The exit door is to my left, a few feet away from me, but there is no handle or lock-pad, as far as I can tell. My guess is the only way out of this cell is if a guard opens the door from the other side.

I’m stuck in here until someone comes for me, and that will most likely be Sam, or someone coming to take me to him. I hate that I’ve escaped from him so many times, only to end up right back in his grip.

If my wrists were thinner, I could slip out of my handcuffs. If the glass wall weren’t so thick, I could break it and use a piece for a weapon. But someone would see me on the security camera anyway, and they’d stop me.

A door slams shut somewhere nearby, and my whole body stiffens. He’s coming.

Calm down.

I need to think about something else, anything besides what Sam’s going to do to me. The first good memory I think of, I play out in my mind like it’s happening again.

*   *   *

I’m ten years old. The sky is turning violet as faint stars speckle across it. Logan and I are sitting on a set of boulders on the edge of the Surface work camp. We’re sitting in silence, waiting for the moon to rise, when the guards will make us go inside.

Logan’s left hand rests on his knee, and his right hand rests on a boulder. I keep finding myself looking at his hand, instead of the sky. I’m used to holding his hand by now—he grabs my hand all the time, whenever we’re walking down the street to the departure station, or on our way to the fields, or heading home. It always feels like he’s trying to keep me from getting lost in the crowd. Like he thinks I’ll get hurt if I let go of his hand.

Tonight, we aren’t in any crowd, and I’m in no danger of getting lost. But I feel like holding his hand anyway. I’m not quite sure why. Because it feels nice, I suppose.

Part of me wonders if Logan will think I’m strange for holding his hand without a reason, but I decide I don’t care. I reach out and gently turn his hand over, and slide my fingers through the spaces between his. His palm is sweaty, but so is mine.

Logan doesn’t look at me, but he tightens his grip, gluing our fingers together. When I glance at his face, he’s smiling at the stars. And I know I made the right choice.

*   *   *

There’s a muffled sound of a door opening, and I ball my hands into fists. It’s not my door, though—it’s the door to the other holding cell, on the other side of the glass wall. A figure in guard armor, minus the helmet, steps in and flips a light on. His blond hair is tied in a ponytail.

Mal.

His eyes shift to mine for an instant, then away.

“Bring him in,” he says to someone behind him. The glass wall muffles Mal’s voice.

I wish I could get inside his head, so I would know for certain where his loyalties lie. He swore he’s on our side, but he has the other side believing he’s on theirs.

Another guard enters the room, pushing someone else in front of him. The person has a sack cloth over his head, and his hands are bound like mine. He wears trousers and a shirt covered in mud, and has no shoes.

The guard shoves the prisoner forward—so hard, his head hits the glass. He doesn’t even grunt; he must be unconscious. The guard unties the sack and rips it off the prisoner’s head.

It takes everything in me not to cry out.

Logan’s limp body slumps against the glass. Fresh blood trickles from his nose, and the skin around his left eye is black and blue.

I knew this would happen, sooner or later. Sam must’ve guessed he was also hiding in the camp and scoured the place for him, or someone gave Logan up.

Mal and the guard leave the room without sparing me another glance.

As soon as the door shuts behind them, I drop to my knees beside the glass. There’s so much blood on Logan’s face. His nose looks like it was broken and someone set it badly. I wonder if he fought the guards, or if he went quietly and they hurt him anyway so I would see.

Angry tears fill my eyes. I press my palm into the cold glass. I want to smash the wall and make the glass rain down on everything.

“Logan, I’m so sorry,” I say. “Whatever they do to me, whatever they do to you, please know I…”

I love you.
I haven’t said that to him yet, not in the right way, at least. Not since I realized how much he meant to me.

Now I want to say it, but he can’t hear me. He’s so close, and I can’t even touch him.

There’s a soft click behind me. I whip my head around as the door to my holding cell opens. I struggle to my feet, blinking fast so hopefully it won’t look like I’ve been crying. Two guards I don’t recognize enter.

Sam walks in behind them. He’s wearing his slick gray uniform, and there are gloves on his hands. White, like Charlie’s.

“Wait outside,” he says to the guards. “Tell them to turn off the cameras.”

“Yes, sir.” The guards leave. The door clicks shut behind them.My feet feel like they’re stuck to the floor. I’m practically trembling from anger and the memory of what happened the last time Sam and I were alone together.

He takes a step toward me, a cold smile forming at the side of his mouth. He has no weapons that I can see—no guns, no knives. Almost as if he was worried I’d find some way to steal them. That makes me relax a little. It reminds me that he’s scared of me. He hates me because I’m a threat.

“Did you think hair like this would suit your face?” He snorts. “If so, you were sadly mistaken.”

He takes another step and reaches for my head. I know he expects me to react, so I stand still, though I desperately want to run. He grabs a tuft of what’s left of my curls and pulls them up, inspecting them.

I keep staring straight ahead, at the small flecks of stubble on his face. The pain comes a few seconds later, when he wrenches my hair up from my scalp before he lets it go.

“You’re so dirty, it’s disgusting.” He wipes his gloved hand on his pants. “Worse than an animal.”

I give him what I hope is a blank face. Inside, I’m praying this means that will be the only time he touches me today.

Sam’s eyes narrow a little, like he finds something unsavory about my silence. He smooths out the creases in his gloves and makes himself tall. The smirk returns to his mouth. “So, how did you like my present?”

I must let a flicker of confusion cross my face, because Sam says, “The one behind you.”

Of course. I ball my hands into fists behind my back, wishing I could use them. Sam deserves a bloody nose to match Logan’s.