City of Savages (11 page)

12    SKY

His words come at me like an army of arrows.

No Red Allies.

No America.

The war destroyed everything.

Is Rolladin right, are these men from the woods just sick, deranged poachers—desperate lunatics?

Or are they the bearers of an almost impossible truth?

Are we alone?

Are there no soldiers camped outside the island, holding all of Manhattan prisoner?

If no one’s out there, then what’s keeping us in?

I want to doubt the Englishmen. I want all my instincts to rush to their feet like angry jurors and cry out,
No! That’s crazy. These are empty, desperate lies
.

But deep, deep in my heart, in my bones, I somehow know. I knew it when I saw my young woodsman in the forest after the street-fights. These men are here for a reason.

And the thick, slick snake of their truth slithers up my throat and stays there. There are no Red Allies out there anymore.

It’s only Rolladin and her Council, keeping us penned in like animals. Keeping us small, our lives frozen in time.

I think I’m going to be sick.

I look at Phee. Her face is contorted in confusion, her eyes glistening, and I want to hug her. I want to take her hand and run across the fields and back to Mom. I’ve never wanted to see her so badly.

But Rolladin’s answering the Englishmen before I can even think about how.

“Yes,” she responds icily. “I think I comprehend. My lesser lords, Darren, Cass—take these men back to the zoo. My verdict? Not guilty by reason of insanity. A life sentence of solitary confinement in the primate tower. Transfer them tomorrow.”

“Insane?
Insane?!
” The Englishmen all start roaring through the marble room. “You can’t do this! You can’t keep spewing these lies!”

“Such a tragedy.” Rolladin clucks in disapproval. “This war took so much from so many—people’s loved ones, and futures . . . and sanity.” Then I hear the steel door of the room below burst open once more and slam against the walls. “Council members, hang back a moment.”

“Rolladin, no!” the men bellow. “Please!”

But Rolladin doesn’t answer.

There’s a shuffle of boots on the floor, and the heavy door is pulled shut below us, leaving Rolladin alone with her Council.

“Rolladin, I had no idea who those men were,” Lory starts slowly. “I never would’ve brought the lesser lords if I’d known—”

A smack of a hand, a whack of metal, the sound of flesh dragged against the floor. Then a long, guttural cry.

“What did I tell you when I gave you that Council member cloak?” Rolladin snaps. “Now you share the truth. And you
protect
this city—the Park, the fieldworkers, the lesser lords—from that truth. Or don’t you remember your oath?”

“I remember,” Lory whimpers. “Please. Please show me the lords’ mercy.” Even though I know it’s her voice, I still can’t picture this beast of a woman breaking.

“The lords’ mercy,” Rolladin repeats slowly. Then, softer: “Those men are
insane
, do you all understand? It explains all their ramblings about England and traveling overseas . . . about the war being over.” She takes a deep breath. “We’ll tell the rest of the Park the official verdict tomorrow—that we moved the men to the primate tower. That they’ll be in solitary confinement indefinitely.”

Silence.

“But the Council needs to tie this up for good,” Rolladin snaps. “I don’t want any loose ends. So give that fat mouth, Cass, the order. Get her hands dirty. Shut her up.”

I don’t understand Rolladin’s orders, but the Council must. Because there aren’t any questions.

In fact, there’s not another sound, let alone a word, below for a long, long time.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Rolladin adds. “Tick-tock.”

The steel doors open and shut below us, and then the Council members are gone.

But I can’t look at Phee. Not yet. If I look at her now, I’m going to crumble, and Rolladin is still in the Great Hall, pacing below us, muttering in frustration. I keep my eyes closed, slide one of my hands around my sister’s wrist, and raise the other to my lips.
Quiet. Stay quiet until she leaves
.

Finally the steel door flies open and smacks the wall below us, and Rolladin’s heavy footsteps carry her down the hall, down the stairs, back to her chambers.

Phee slowly pokes her head above the mezzanine to check that we’re alone, but she starts whimpering before I can get a word out. “What the fuck?”

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her cry.

“Are those guys really telling the truth?” she whispers. “Is there actually no one freaking out there? But doesn’t Rolladin go to the borders every season? Haven’t we seen the fires over in Brooklyn?”

“But . . . but that could have been the Council, for appearances,” I say slowly, putting the pieces together. “These British men could be lying, Phee. Or insane, like Rolladin’s insisting. But their accents, and how sure they seem. Besides, what holdout—insane or not—would just show up at the Park in the middle of a field day?”

“But if those guys are legit, if—if they’re telling the truth—” Phee’s face is twisted and frustrated, her brow knitted, like she’s trying to wrangle a wild animal. “What the hell is all of this for?”

I shake my head and tell her the only truth I have. “I don’t know.”

I can’t begin to make sense of this, or get a handle on my thoughts. I’m breathless at the possibility of a world beyond this terrible city, regardless of what state it’s in. I have so many questions for these men about the war, about England. God, the ocean.

But I’m also furious. Is this all Rolladin’s twisted game? Does no one know the truth about the war but Rolladin and her Council members? They can’t.

“Sky,” Phee whispers, interrupting my thoughts. “What do we do with this?”

I look at my sister. For the first time in a long time, she looks helpless. Terrified, even. And I realize, for as much as what we’ve heard excites me to the point where I might burst, Phee definitely doesn’t feel the same way.

“We need to leave,” I say softly, grabbing her hand. “You know we can’t stay here now, Phee.”

She wipes the betraying tears from her eyes. “I just don’t understand. Where would we go?”

And for the first time in my life, I let myself entertain the question. “We could go south.” I start to let the hopeful smile that’s been begging to cross my lips see the light of day. “For the winter, like birds. Or we could go west—or to England, with these men, and start a new life overseas. They said they came by boat. We could cross the Atlantic, like Columbus in reverse.”

But Phee doesn’t catch my excitement. “We can’t just walk out of here. We just begged Rolladin for a chance to be whorelords-in-training. We leave, and she’ll know we were playing her. She’ll hunt us down through the city. We won’t make it to the water.”

Phee’s right, of course. The madwoman at the helm of the Park would never let us go. This dangerous, maniacal hoarder of lives, who we’re double—make that triple—crossing. And after the Englishmen showed Rolladin the tears in her web of lies, she’ll be even more paranoid, more controlling. Will lockdown continue? Will there be random searches in the fields? More innocents thrown in solitary, to prove a point?

“We leave tonight,” I whisper.

“What? You mean get Mom and pack up our stuff at the Carlyle? And just run? What if—what if those men weren’t telling the truth? I mean, honestly, how do we
really
know for sure?”

“We question them ourselves,” I say, nurturing my plan as it slowly takes form in my mind, like wind that laps a spark into a fire. “We find out everything we can. They told Rolladin they got into the city undetected, so they should be able to tell us how to get out of it.”

“Sky, they’re in prison—you did hear that, right? They’re being sent to the primate tower. We’re never gonna see them again.”

“Rolladin told the warlords to transfer the men tomorrow,” I say slowly. “So we go tonight to the cells, and talk to them. Maybe we can even figure out the way to their boat.”

I picture Phee, Mom, and me sailing into the horizon, breaking past the fence of skyscrapers and out into the great unknown. For a second I let myself see the young woodsman beside us—the image further warms me—but I don’t tell Phee about that part.

“But that’s crazy. What if there’re whorelords at the prison?” Phee asks. “What then?”

“Then we’ll forget it and find a way out on our own. Sneak back into the Carlyle, get Mom, get the journal. Get out before sunrise.” I stare at the ceiling, like I can break it open and conjure the sky, show Phee that the stars are still governing. Right now, I feel like anything’s possible. “There’s still time. This is our only chance.”

But even as I’m saying it, deep down, I know. This plan is ludicrous. Reckless. Brash. All I need is for someone to tell me otherwise. All I need is a voice of reason. One that cuts through all the secrets and the lies and the double-crossing and tells me I’m pushing too far, risking too much. Usually, I am this voice of reason.

But after tonight, I’m not sure I know myself, or this world I’ve taken as fact. Everything seems up for debate.

After a moment of thinking it over, Phee shakily says, “Okay.”

I paste on a grin to hide the storm of terror and anxiety that rumbles within. “Then let’s get moving.”

I guess who needs a voice of reason when you have a partner in crime?

I scramble to my hands and knees, heart clamoring, palms slick, and slip with Phee along the dark marble hallway of the Belvedere. We slowly feel our way back to the stairs, slither undetected into the entrance hallway—and then burst out into the night, the cold air of October smacking us as we run for the cover of the trees.

The stars are out, and the moon is full, bulbous and glossy like an onion. It paints the forest in deep greens and blues, drapes branches in cloaks of steely gray. A couple of times I stop and swear I hear something in the trees—
warlords?
Raiders? Feeders?

But I shake off my fear and grip Phee’s hand, and we rumble forward.

Phee and I don’t say another word until we reach the old polar bear pit on the north side of the zoo. Down a cobblestone path about a hundred feet are the reptile house and aviary used as the prisons. Past that, the primate tower—solitary confinement.

The pit’s guarded by a faded sign that reads
POLAR BEAR BEWARE!
and really isn’t a pit at all, but a sunken room bordered by walls on three sides and a window which looks out to an empty pool. I’ve never actually been in here, but I know the warlords sometimes use it for questioning.

Once we’ve settled between two of the pit benches, Phee finally breaks the silence. “Did you see? Some of the Park’s horses are tied up at the reptile house.”

“The lesser lords must have ridden them over here—they must still be in the prisons,” I answer her. “The lords have to be leaving soon—Rolladin said they aren’t moving the men to the primate tower until tomorrow.”

Phee shifts onto her left side and dislodges the small handgun from the pocket of her sweatpants. “I guess I should load the gun, right? If we’re breaking into prison.”

She looks at me for encouragement. I’ve never even held a gun before, let alone know how to use one. Plus, I’m still pretty angry that Mom gave it to her and not me. “We’re not going to need that.”

“Well, in case. I think I’ll set it up.” She pulls the bullets out of her pocket but doesn’t do anything. Just looks at the pistol for a long time. “What if it goes off in my pants?”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

She annoyingly starts to slot the silver cylinders into the empty chamber and rolls it closed. “Mom said this safety thing should keep it from going off,” Phee says. “At least we’ll have it if we need it.”

“Trust me.” I could strangle her. Even though this is clearly my plan, she’s somehow managed to grab the reins. “We’re not going to need it. The guys are behind bars.”

Phee shrugs. “Yeah, but what if we need to get information out of them?”

“What, you’ll
shoot
one of them to get them talking? Phee, that gun has already been more trouble than it’s worth. Keep it in your pants, okay?”

Phee shakes her head. “You never think I know what I’m doing.”

But before I can argue with her anymore, we hear voices waft over the abandoned zoo, then soft clomping of horses’ hooves on pavement.

“Quiet, all right?” I whisper. “They’re leaving.”

I can catch only snippets of the warlords’ conversations. . . .

“You think Cass and Darren can handle this?”

“They’ll have to. An order’s an order.”

Then there’s a chorus of neighs from the horses as they break into a gallop, and the crew of warlords is off, pounding against the cobblestone walkway, past our pit and back towards the castle.

“Okay,” I whisper. “Let’s go.”

We climb out of the pit, run across the cobblestone walkway, and duck into the shadows of the animal houses on the other side.

We pass boarded-up shacks labeled
SNACK BAR
and
RESTAURANT
, creep behind the aviary, and stop once we reach the back entrance of the reptile house. The thin flap of the back door isn’t locked, but all the cages will be chained with padlocks.

I take a deep breath before opening the door. I’m anxious, so anxious I can’t seem to catch my breath. What are we going to say to these men? What if they refuse to speak with us, or start screaming, and the warlords hear them and come back for us? Or what if there are other prisoners in here, and they give us away?

Phee puts her hand on my shoulder, grips it firmly, and gives it a little squeeze.

“I’m scared too,” she whispers. “But like you said, this is our only chance to find out the truth. One step at a time, right? Just open the door.”

I nod, pat her hand with mine, and then pull open the flimsy back entry.

As soon as we crawl into the belly of the reptile house, we hear moans. Whimpers. Pleading. It only takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, but what I see freezes me in my tracks.