Imprisoned (22 page)

“How are things in the gym?” I asked Alyx, wanting to see her reaction. I wasn’t disappointed as her cheeks flushed, pretty much confirming what Piper had told me. 

“Great. It’s a good job.”

I’ll bet, I thought, wondering how often she and Austin slipped away. “How long have you been working there, anyway?”

“About two months.” She took a bite of cooked carrot, a smile on her face.

I wondered how many people knew about her secret. Then it occurred to me that this was a very juicy bit of information that Mr. Madsen would no doubt be interested in. And it would get Mr. Muscles in big trouble. But if I told him, Alyx would get in trouble, too, which would defeat the whole point. I wondered what her plans with Mr. Muscles were once she got out. Were they still going to see each other? Probably not. She might believe they were, but I’d bet she was just a nice distraction for him and once she was gone, he’d move on to another girl. Just the other day he’d come on to me, so maybe he was already looking for his next victim. One thing was for sure—it wouldn’t be me.

As the end of lunch approached, Piper stood. “I have to run up to my room. You want to come, Morgan?”

Obviously she wanted to hide the knife. “Sure.”

She dropped off her tray—I hadn’t bothered to get one—then we went to the elevator and up to the sixth floor. We hurried to her and Cassidy’s room and once we were inside she stopped and looked around.

Her room looked just like the one I shared with Alyx. “What about under the mattress?”

She seemed to consider the suggestion, then said, “I have a better idea.” She got on the floor next to her bed and reached under the box spring.

Curious, I got down next to her to see what she was going to do.

She pulled the knife out of her waistband and showed it to me. It was a small paring knife and looked very sharp. I imagined using it to slice into my arm to dig out the chip and hoped I’d be able to go through with it. It was going to hurt, bad, but I didn’t see any way around it.

Next, she used the knife to cut a tiny slit in the gauzy fabric under the box spring, then pushed the knife through the opening and set it on the closest wooden slat.

“Nice,” I said, admiring her ingenuity. Unless you knew to look there, you wouldn’t know anything was amiss. Besides, there were several other places where the fabric was a little ragged or torn, so no one would suspect a knife was concealed there.

She stood, a look of pride on her face. “That should do it. Now we need to get matches and a first-aid kit.”

“Do you think Mrs. Coleman will notice that a knife is missing?”

“She might, but it was way in the back, so it might be a while before she notices.”

“Where can we get matches?”

“We’ll have to look around the kitchen and see if we can find any.” She paused. “See what Billy says too.”

“Right. Assuming he wants to be part of this.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’d better go.” I went back to the kitchen—Piper didn’t work in the kitchen again until dinner—and immediately started on the dishes. Twenty minutes after I got there Mrs. Coleman came by and asked how I was doing. “Good.” I wondered why she was asking me—she hadn’t shown any interest before. Had she noticed the knife was missing?

“Glad to hear it. You’re a hard worker.”

“I can do other things besides dishes, if you want.”

She smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She walked away and I went back to my soap-filled sink.

An hour later she asked me to help Josh carry boxes into a large storage room. Evidently a new shipment of food had arrived. Eager to do something besides wash dishes, plus wondering if I might find matches, I hurried over to the boxes stacked in a corner.

“Hey,” Josh said.

“Hi.” I pointed to the boxes. “Where do we take these?”

“Grab one and follow me.”

I picked one up that was marked
power bars
and followed him to an open door on the other side of the room. He set his box on top of another and told me to do the same. I noticed an open box of power bars and hesitated, remembering my promise to Beth.

“We’ve got a lot of boxes to move,” Josh said.

I turned away from the open box and followed him back to the stack. We made several trips, back and forth, back and forth. I purposely lagged behind him so we wouldn’t always be in the storage room at the same time. When I got to the room just after he’d left, I hurried over to the open box of power bars and grabbed four, shoving two in each pocket. I pulled my shirt down to hopefully disguise the bulge, then went back to help Josh finish carrying the boxes into the storage room.

On each trip I tried to check a different part of the room, looking for matches, but hadn’t seen any. How were we going to start a fire without matches or a lighter? I felt our plans to escape slipping away.

“Thanks for helping, Morgan,” Josh said as we set the last boxes in the storage room.

“Anytime.” I went back to my sink and washed dishes until my shift was over.

Not wanting to get caught stashing power bars again, I went to Beth’s room to bring her the bars, but no one answered, so I brought them back to my room and used Piper’s idea to hide them inside the box springs. I lay on the floor next to my bed and looked underneath, but it was hard to see, so I reached up and felt around until I found a place where the fabric was torn. I set the four power bars on a wooden slat, feeling confident they would stay safely hidden until I could bring them to Beth after dinner.

Since it was Sunday, there were no classes, leaving me over two hours of free time. Well, it wasn’t really free—I had to get in my two hours of exercise—but at least I didn’t have to go to school. I decided to take the chance that Mr. Muscles would be in the gym instead of Hansen and changed into my shorts and t-shirt, then went to the gym.

When I went to check in, Alyx was sitting behind the desk.

“Hi,” I said, happy to see a friendly face in this place.

“Hey, Morgan. How’s it going?”

“Living the dream, right?”

She gave me a half-smile. “Right.”

I stretched out in the warm-up area and saw Alyx’s boyfriend wandering among the kids who were working out. Ever the optimist, I hoped he would leave me alone. I did thirty minutes on the elliptical in peace, but ten minutes after I began jogging on the treadmill, he stopped next to me.

“Hi there, Morgan.” His eyes roved over my body and I forced myself to suppress a shudder. “Every time you come in here, you’re looking better and better.”

I knew what he was doing—grooming me to take Alyx’s place. The idea repulsed me more than stepping into the pit of spiders. Ignoring him, I continued jogging.

“I can help you, Morgan. I can make your time at Camp Willowmoss more pleasant.”

My eyes shifted in his direction, but then I stared forward again.

“Or, I can make it hell on Earth. It’s up to you.”

I couldn’t believe that he was so blatantly threatening me—until I remembered the order of things. I was the prisoner and he was not. My gaze cut to him. “I know about you and Alyx.”

Chapter Twenty Four

The look of stunned surprise on his face almost made me laugh. Until his hand shot out and gripped my upper arm, making me lose my balance and almost fall. He squeezed until I cried out. “Stop. You’re hurting me.” I used my free hand to press the button to slow the treadmill so I wouldn’t fall.

He leaned in close enough that I smelled the onion he must have had at lunch. “You listen to me, you fat loser.” He spoke in a soft but deadly voice. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep that to yourself. Got it?”

My heart pounded in terror as I had no doubt he wouldn’t hesitate to follow through on his threat. “Yes,” I managed to say through my suddenly dry mouth.

He let go of my arm. “Speed up that treadmill or I’ll get your favorite Enforcer to
make
you speed up.”

I immediately pressed the button to make the belt go faster. Obviously he was aware of the hate-hate relationship I had with Hansen.

He grinned, making it clear he knew that
I
knew that he was in charge. “When you’re done on the treadmill, I want you to spend fifteen minutes on the stair-stepper.” When I didn’t answer, he reached toward my arm.

“Okay,” I quickly said in a loud voice.

He withdrew his hand. “Good.”

When he walked away, a mix of relief and fear remained. Relief that he was not standing next to me, but fear that he would do something to me because he knew I knew about him and Alyx. I should never had said anything. I had hoped that if I told him I knew his secret, that he would leave me alone. That had certainly backfired.

I finished on the treadmill, then like an obedient child, went to the stair-stepper. I knew better than to defy him, but the anger at being forced to do something I didn’t want to do filled my veins with a cold-fury that I hoped I could draw on when it was time to face the difficulties of escaping this place.

Ten minutes into my stair-stepper workout, Alyx came over to me. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at me and with a venom I’d never heard before said, “I hate you.” Then she walked away.

My feet kept moving on the stairs, but my mind had trouble grasping what had just happened. What had brought that on? What had I done?

I finished my workout, only half of my mind on what I was doing, then went to my room, hoping to speak to Alyx. She wasn’t there. I showered then went to the cafeteria to meet with Billy before dinner.

It was twenty minutes before dinner and Billy wasn’t there yet. I watched the elevators, hoping no one would make me leave. The only other people there were the pre-dinner kitchen crew who were getting things set up. I waved to a couple of kids who worked the after-lunch shift with me, but no one bothered me.

A few minutes later one of the elevators opened and Billy waltzed out, looking unhurried. Anxious to hear his response to the plans Piper and I had made, I willed him to walk faster, but it did no good. Finally he reached the table. “About time.”

He grinned and sat in the seat next to me. “What’s the rush? Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Just waitin’ on you.”

“I see. You don’t like me to keep you waiting.”

“You know we don’t have much time until the others arrive.”

He nodded and leaned closer. “So what’s going on? What are these big plans you and Piper are making?”

I glanced around, though no one was anywhere close, then spoke in a whisper. “We’re going to get out of this place.”

He looked skeptical. “Is that so? And how, may I ask, are you going to do that?”

I hesitated at his seeming doubt. If he didn’t think we could do it, he wouldn’t want to join in. And if he wasn’t going to join us, I certainly wasn’t going to give him any of the details. “Maybe you’re the wrong person for me to talk to.”

“Oh yeah? And who should you be talking to? Cassidy, who’s afraid of her own shadow? Or maybe Alyx, who’s set to leave in a couple of weeks.”

He was right, of course. There was no one else I trusted who had any motivation to attempt an escape. “Look, I don’t want to tell you everything unless you’re going to join us.”

He sat back a little. “What makes you think I’d be interested in joining your little adventure?”

“How much longer until you get out of this place?”

“Just under a year.”

A year? I didn’t know it was that long. “What did you do, anyway?”

“That’s not relevant to this conversation.”

“Okay, fine. But wouldn’t you like to get out
now
?”

“Of course I would. That’s a stupid question.”

“Then will you join us?”

He was quiet for a minute. “Before I decide, I’d like to hear how you plan on getting out of here.”

Fair enough, I thought. “We’re going to set fires.”

He laughed out loud at that. “What?”

My face reddened and I wondered if it was a dumb idea.

“Wait,” he said. “You’re serious.”

“Well, duh. You asked and I told you.”

He nodded. “Okay. Interesting idea. Tell me more.”

“After everyone’s asleep, Piper and I will start a fire in two of the bathrooms on our floor using our text books as fuel. There aren’t any cameras in there, so they won’t see it happening. We’ll leave the doors to the hallway open so that the smoke will set off the alarm. In the confusion of the evacuation, we’ll slip away.”

He tilted his head. “Not bad, Morgan. Not bad at all.”

Pride flared inside me.

“What about the chips.” He patted his arm as he asked.

“We’ve already gotten a knife that we can use to cut them out. We still need matches to start the fires and some first-aid supplies to take care of the wound.”

He nodded. “I like it.”

“So will you join us?”

A grin lit up his face. “Absolutely.”

“Yes.” My smile matched his. “Will you start a fire on your floor?”

“Makes sense. More floors with fires will cause more confusion.”

“Exactly.”

He was thoughtful. “I think I can get a hold of matches.”

“Really? Where?”

“They keep all kinds of crap in the sheds outside. I’ll dig around and see what I can come up with.”

“Great. I’ll work on getting the first-aid supplies.”

He leaned close and I could feel his enthusiasm. “Sounds like we have ourselves a plan.”

“As soon as we have all of our supplies, we can set the date.”

“Right.” He paused. “Have you guys decided where you’re going to go once you get out of here?”

“Not really,” I hedged. Of course I knew
exactly
where I was going to go. To Fox Run and then to the tunnel that would lead me home. “Piper talked about some groups that help people like us who have escaped from F.A.T. centers.”

“Oh yeah?”

I nodded, elated that he was in. The noise in the cafeteria was beginning to increase and I saw kids getting in line. “Looks like it’s time to eat.”

He frowned. “That sucks that you only get those power bars.”

“Just one more day. And they aren’t too bad.”