The Battle Begins (14 page)

29

L
EESA WAS SITTING AT A DESK IN
M
S
.
H
OILES'S MAKESHIFT
classroom, puzzling over some algebra, when her tablet buzzed. It had to be Antonio. No one else would bug her in the middle of the school day.

Meet me at the ladder.

Leesa stared at the text for a minute, curious. Her friend meant the ladder to the Dome, of course, but they'd just been to a match last night—the Underdog battling the Cunning, which had been almost as hard
to watch as last season's final Mash-up—and the next Unnaturals' fight wasn't for two more nights. She tapped out a quick response.

Can't. School. Remember?

Antonio's reply came in almost instantly.

Ditch.

Leesa rolled her eyes. Antonio wondered why her mom thought he was a bad influence; maybe it was because he'd been trying to get her to drop out since she'd moved underground four years ago.

Come on, Lees. Better than spending the day with the Grubbs.

Leesa giggled. Her classmates were a runny-nosed brother and sister who whispered about her in nasally voices. Minnie Grubb shot Leesa a nasty look now and hunched over her math work sheet, guarding it like her answers were precious.

Leesa chewed on her stylus, considering. It was tempting. . . .

Ms. Hoiles glanced at her over the rims of her glasses. “Everything all right, Leesa?”

Leesa nodded and set the tablet back on the table next to the copy of
Charlotte's Web
, which she'd finished and meant to return.

Ms. Hoiles picked up the worn paperback and leaned against Leesa's desk. “Did you like this one?” she asked, thumbing through the pages.

“Very much.” Leesa beamed. She loved all books—the feel of them, the smell, the escape they offered—but this one made her feel powerful, like she might have something special in her that could change things.

Ms. Hoiles must've seen some of that in Leesa's eyes, because she smiled and said, “Keep it.”

“Really?” Leesa squeaked. The antique seemed so rare and fragile, so beautiful, she couldn't believe anyone would want to just give it away. But Ms. Hoiles pushed the cover toward her.

“It isn't often we stumble upon things we really love, is it?” she asked with a smile. “Just take care of it.”

“I will!” Leesa promised, nodding rigorously as she hugged the book to her chest. “Thank you!”

Then she put her head down to get back to work, but it was hard to concentrate. She kept thinking about what Ms. Hoiles had said, and she only got through two more math problems before her tablet buzzed again.

Come on. Just an hour. It's special.

Something about the text or the book or the luck of the day made Leesa reconsider this time. She felt guilty
for leaving after Ms. Hoiles had been so nice, but she knew she had to go. She looked up at her teacher apologetically.

“I'm really sorry,” she said, and gathered her things. “Something at home.”

On her way out, Leesa glanced at the text again, at that word—
special
—and started to run.

Antonio was leaning against the door to the ladder as he said he'd be, but instead of climbing up to the stadium like they always did, he beckoned Leesa farther on down the tunnel. It was dark and damp, and Leesa's boots made splashing sounds as she followed him. When they stopped, Antonio pointed up, and Leesa saw a circular hatch.

“What's that?” she asked uneasily.

“You'll see.” Antonio grinned, and rapped his knuckles three times on the iron door. He had a charged look to him, the bright eyes and wolfish smile he got when he was excited about something—usually something mischievous.

Leesa heard screws twisting from above, and then the lid started to come loose. Antonio took the circular disk from an unseen hand, and his arm muscles strained with the weight. Once he'd set it on the ground, they
were blinking up through a hole into the harsh light of the sun.

Leesa was shocked by the sight of it—it had been a long, long time since she'd been outside, but more than that, she was shocked by the stench.

“Is that sewage?” Leesa wrinkled her nose.

“The river. You'll get used to it in a sec.” Antonio heaved himself up out of the hole.

“But we don't have gas masks,” she called up to him, her voice echoing in the tunnel. Her mom said everyone wore gas masks now, because of the pollution. “Or sunscreen.”

“Still a sky kid at heart, aren't you, princess?” another voice scoffed.

Vince. No matter how many years Leesa had spent in the Drain, Antonio's brother would never let her forget that she wasn't really one of them. He reached a hand down to help Leesa up, but Leesa ignored it, wriggling into the sunlight by herself.

When Leesa stood up, her boots crunched on a beach of gritty sand, and she took a deep breath, blinking in the sunlight. The smell was even worse now, but after spending most of her time underground in the artificial light of the Drain, it was still amazing to be really, truly, outside.

Even if Vince was here to . . . what? Babysit them?
Leesa raised a questioning brow at Antonio, and Antonio glared at Vince, and Vince held up his hands.

“All right, lovebirds, I'll leave you alone,” he said with a laugh, which made Leesa feel even weirder. “I have an appointment at NuFormz, anyway.”

NuFormz?
Leesa's ears perked up at the name.

“We're on the island?”

“Yeah.” Antonio gestured over his shoulder. “There's the Dome.” Leesa had never seen the Unnaturals stadium from the outside, but she still recognized the iconic round roof. Beyond that, Leesa could see gray, windowless buildings set back from the water.

“Are we going in, too?” Leesa asked, the hope blooming inside her chest. Maybe that's what Antonio meant by “special.”

Vince raised an eyebrow, but Antonio was shaking his head. “To the compound? No. But there's something cooler than that, anyway,” he insisted, tugging her toward a steep bank. “Come on.”

In the fierce heat, Leesa was already starting to sweat as she followed Antonio toward the blue arch of a bridge. It led across the river—but they weren't on the Lion's Head side of the shore, Leesa noticed.

“I didn't know there was a bridge to the Greenplains,” she said.

“They closed it to traffic after the radiation accident a few years back,” Antonio said, and Leesa peered past him at the construction signs and caution tape. “Now it's all ours.”

He used his gangly arms to climb up the supports on the river's edge, but Leesa didn't swing up after him. Instead, she turned back to look at Vince, who had already started up the gravel path that led to the NuFormz compound.

“Wait!” she called down the path suddenly, and Vince turned. “Is there any way you can get us into NuFormz? Please?”

“Lees, no.” Antonio had jumped down now, and his high cheekbones flushed red. “That's not why we're here.”

But how could it not be? Now that they were so close to the place where her Chihuahua had been taken, how could Antonio expect her to be thinking about anything else besides Pookie?

She shrugged off Antonio and ran to catch up to Vince. “You said that guy owes you a favor, right?” she asked, breathless from the smoggy air.

Vince nodded. “Horace. But I don't owe you a favor, do I, princess?” Vince's expression was hard to read—it hovered somewhere between amusement and offense.

“Leesa . . . ,” Antonio warned.

“What?” She glared at him. “He said I have to take what I want, right?” When it came to Pookie, she was sick of waiting and wondering. She looked Vince in the eye and pulled her shoulders back, standing up straighter. “Well, the only thing I want is to see the mutants, so are you going to take me or not?”

Vince's poker face fell apart, and he chuckled. “She's sassy! I see why you dig it, Tony.” He elbowed Antonio, who coughed, making a strangled little sound, and Leesa could feel her face flushing red. “All right, Princess Leesa. Ask and you shall receive. Let's go see the mutants.”

30

“Y
OU'RE DOING SO GOOD, BUDDY.”

Castor panted in response as the medic called Pete hunched over him, loosening the electric collar. Pete had already given him an antivenom injection, but Castor's jowls and neck were still so swollen it was hard to breathe.

Castor's nose stung from the chemical-clean smell of the floor and the metallic tang of surgical tools. Somehow, he'd ended up back in the little room where he'd
first transformed, and back on the same table.

Trying to ignore the needle Pete held between two blue-gloved fingers, Castor focused on the medic's face—the hairs speckling the angular jaw that were so pale and fine they were only visible when the fluorescent light shined on them; the wire circles perched atop a narrow nose, magnifying eyes that crinkled with concern; the lips pursing in a thin line of concentration.

Pete's face blurred in Castor's vision. It was so hard to stay awake. He felt so weak. . . .

Pain jerked him back to consciousness, though, and Castor yipped.

“What did you do to him?”

Castor recognized the voice of the boy he'd once seen in the Pit—the one who had tried to protect him. From where he lay on the table, though, Castor couldn't see him.

“Quiet, Marcus!” Pete scolded. He had bent over sideways and seemed to be looking under the table. “I told you, if anyone finds out I let you in here again, that's it, I'm fired.”

The boy's head popped up from beneath the white sheet that covered the table. The wide blue eyes stared right into Castor's.

“I am being quiet,” he grumbled. “But you're not supposed to hurt him more. Look at him. He's shaking.”

“Marcus, I swear to you, I am hurting the Underdog as little as I possibly can.” He continued to tend to Castor as he spoke, his movements careful and quick. “The venom in his system still poses a serious risk, so we need him conscious. That means I can't give him any more pain meds, unfortunately.”

He's just trying to help me,
Castor repeated to himself. As distrustful as he was of humans—especially anyone with a whistle—he definitely needed help now. And this human had always seemed kind. Deja's bites had left Castor in pretty rough shape. His muscles were still twitching a little, but at least the seizures had stopped.

“The fight looked bad, but so did the one before it, with the Enforcer and the Swift. I was surprised when neither one of them was really hurt, so I was hoping it was going to be the same way with this guy—mostly fake. No such luck.” Pete shook his head and carefully tied off the thread, studying his handiwork. “I just can't believe he kept fighting after he was bitten,” he said.

That's how a dog would fight a snake,
Castor thought.
Valiantly.
Not that Deja turned out to be any ordinary garden snake.

“I told you he was special,” Marcus said. He reached out and stroked Castor's ear with one hand—the other was still held to his chest by a sling of fabric. The boy was injured just like him.

Maybe that's why he had so much sympathy.

“Special or not,” said the medic, “after that second bite . . .” He shook his head in disbelief as he dabbed the rotten skin on Castor's paw with disinfectant. “He's lucky he didn't lose that leg.”

Castor breathed a sigh of relief. He was in bad shape, but at least he'd be able to walk with all four legs again. Or, perhaps more important, run.

Castor heard footsteps over by the entrance. Marcus dove back under the table, and Pete froze. Another man peeked his head around the doorway, but all Castor saw of his face were two dark, squinty eyes floating above a blue paper mask and below a blue paper cap.

“Pete? Did you call me?” he asked, and Pete shook his head no. “Weird. I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

The young medic shifted on his stool. “I, um, was just finishing up in here.”

The other Whistler didn't answer, but Castor could hear the shoes squeaking on the floor, and the sound was fading. The man was walking away.

Marcus hopped back up almost as soon as he'd left.

“Time to change the dressing on that schnozz,” Pete said, gathering his tools.

When Pete removed the gauze, the exposure to air made Castor's snout a little tingly. But then, when Pete used forceps to dab at it with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, it was a lot more than a tingle. Castor let out a wrenching groan of agony.

“You okay?” Pete asked. But he wasn't looking at Castor. Over the rims of his glasses, Pete was eyeing the boy as he backed away from the table.

The boy nodded, but then he stumbled into a swinging light, making a clatter. It helped Castor to focus on the boy instead of his nose.

“Are you sure, Marcus? You look sort of green.”

Marcus nodded. “Just a little dizzy.” He put his hand against a wall for support.

“How about you go to the training center for a bit?” Pete stood up, ushering the boy toward the door. “If you're caught, it's probably better than you being in here, anyway. You remember where it is, right? I'll finish up here and come meet you.”

When Marcus left, Castor whined. He couldn't explain it, but he felt an odd connection with the human boy. Marcus made Castor feel a little calmer, and he
already missed the gentle scratches behind his ear. Now there was just the smell of antiseptic, the bright lights, and the medic delivering good intentions with a side of pain.

“Easy, buddy,” Pete said. “Just a little while longer, I promise.”