The Capture (23 page)

T
HEY CREATE A LINE
and pull Book up six inches at a time. Hope is the anchor, the final one in the row, and when the rope strains and slips, she coils it tighter around her wrist. It cuts into her skin—grows soggy with rain and crimson with blood.

Still, she will not let go.

When Book's hands finally edge the top of the cliff, Scylla and Flush grab him by the armpits and pull him up the rest of the way. He lies there motionless like a caught fish, pummeled by rain. The others bend over, hands on knees, struggling to catch their breath.

Hope watches as Book pushes himself to his feet and slowly looks around. He stumbles through the driving storm, eyes darting left and right as though in search of
something lost. Something he desperately needs.

He locates Hope. Their eyes meet, stopping her heart. Her arms hang limp and lifeless by her side. Her chest heaves.

Book crosses to her.

“I'm sorry,” he says, and before she can respond, he puts his arms around her and pulls her into a hug, his hands pressing against her back. Hope's first reaction is one of shock; she doesn't know what to do. Doesn't know what she
wants
to do.

Only gradually do her arms return the embrace, tentatively at first, as though Book is made of fragile glass. But soon her grip grows tight, holding him like she never wants to let him go—as if they're two colors on a painter's palette melding into one. His heart thumps in answer to her own.

They stand there, serenaded by rain. When Book releases the embrace, he presses his forehead against hers. Hope can feel the heat from his face, their mingling breaths. She begins to cry.

“
I'm
sorry,” she says, the words barely manageable through choking tears.

Book shakes off her apology. “You just saved my life.”

“That was all of us.”

“I'm not talking about that.”

He slides his hands to either side of her face, pulls her toward him, and kisses her. His lips are soft, moist
with rain and the salt of her tears, and in that kiss is hunger, yearning,
need
. When at last he pulls away, Hope can barely catch her breath.

Book turns to the others. “Thank you,” he says, going to each of them in turn to give them a hug and express his gratitude.

When he reaches Flush, Flush rolls his eyes and says, “Can't we all just agree we're awesome and get on with it?”

Argos barks, and everyone laughs.

“Come on,” Book says. “Let's get out of here before the Crazies figure out where we are.”

He bends down to undo a knot in the makeshift rope, letting his arm brush against Hope's. Neither attempts to move away.

They follow the river upstream. When the sun breaks through the morning clouds, it shines down on endless prairie. No trees, no cultivated fields, no signs of civilization. Once more they're back in vast wilderness. Sun-drenched grassland.

Every so often, a large
thwump
shakes the ground. A peek behind shows fingers of smoke rising from the cornfield.

“What's that?” Flush asks.

“They're blowing up the caves,” Hope says.

More muffled blasts follow.

She feels an enormous pang of guilt for leaving those women behind. Although the Skull People were their captors, no one deserves to die at the hands of the Crazies.

Despite the blazing heat, there is pleasure in being on the move. They've been cooped up far too long, and the beating rays of sun invigorate them. Conversations pop up, up and down the line.

Hope is silent. Her mind dwells on past events: the loss of Faith, the Crazy who assaulted her, Book and Miranda. Her feelings are a confusing mass of contradictions. On the one hand, she still doesn't know whether she can trust him. And yet he keeps coming to her rescue; he keeps
protecting
her.

Then there was the kiss. The mere thought of it sends shivers down her spine.

As her feet carry her across the prairie, she dares a glance at the back of the line. Book is as silent as she is. She wonders what's going on inside his head. She wonders if she'll ever know.

A memory of Faith flashes through her mind. Although she tries to think of happy times, it's the other recollections that intrude. Faith's look of hurt before they separated. Faith's slow deterioration in camp. Faith's shivering body in the tank of ice water. Hope is filled with a terrible sadness.

And that's when she decides: no matter how drawn
she is to Book, no matter how much she longs for the touch of his embrace and the press of his lips, she dares not allow herself such feelings. The potential hurt is just too great. Bad enough to see Miranda lean her head adoringly on his shoulder; any hurt worse than that would kill her.

No,
she thinks,
I won't let myself fall for him any more.

As Hope marches along in the hot sun, silent tears spill from her eyes. The back of her hand swipes angrily at the offending moisture. Still, she knows it's better to feel this minor pain today than endure a major one tomorrow.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

—
A
LBERT
E
INSTEIN

W
E MARCHED UNDER CLOUDLESS
skies. When the landscape sloped downward and brought us to the river's edge, we were suddenly afforded an unending supply of water and food: fish and crawdads, frogs and turtles. A welcome change from our diet of grasshoppers and squirrels.

As we slogged along, following the twisting, bending river, one question echoed in my mind: Why would the Hunters want to arm the Crazies? I wondered if it was somehow related to Goodman Nellitch's words before he fell to his death.
After the Conclave happens, I want to be on the winning side.
Of course, I had no idea what Conclave he was talking about, and wondered if I ever would.

Hope insisted on leading the march each day, as though trying to put as much distance between her and me as possible. I couldn't understand it. Ever since our kiss atop the cliff, she'd barely spoken to me. Couldn't even look me in the eye. It was as though I'd ceased to exist.

I assumed it had something to do with Miranda, and frankly, I didn't know what to think about her. When we had last seen her in the Compound, she'd promised to distract the Crazies so we could escape. And yet they'd found us anyway. Had she done the best she could, or just the opposite—told the Crazies exactly where we were?

Days passed. The nights grew cold. The air smelled of autumn. The first morning we woke to frost, our clothes were as stiff as boards, crinkling when we first got up. We picked up our pace. We had to get to Camp Liberty before the snow flew and winter froze us in our tracks.

The river forked and we followed the smaller tributary north, just as Miranda had instructed. At night, we made bowstrings from yucca leaves and knapped flint into arrow points. Each morning, we practiced, firing arrows until our fingers bled.

Still, it was impossible to imagine just how we were going to defeat a camp of Brown Shirts, even with a canvas knapsack full of explosives.

One night, after the others drifted off to bed, Cat remained sitting at the fire's edge, his gaze lost in the flames. I threw something at his feet.

“What's that?” he asked, not bothering to pick it up.

“Your new arm.”

His eyes squinted as if I was spoiling for a fight. “I left that back at the Compound,” he snapped.

“I know. I picked it up.” I had stuffed it in the knapsack with the explosives.

He spat on the sand and turned away.

“I'm serious,” I said.

“Yeah, well, why don't you just mind your own business?”

“Let me show you how it works.” I bent down and tried to attach it to his arm. He flung my hands away.

“I said skip it, all right?”

I met his stare and didn't flinch. “You don't want to just try it?”

“Why should I?”

“You'll be able to fire an arrow again.”

He scoffed. “I'll never fire an arrow like before.”

“You're right. You won't fire like before. But maybe this new way will be even better.”

He looked at me like I was from another planet. “You don't get it, man. I'm not who I was before. I got
this
now.” He raised his stump of an arm. “I can't do the shit I used to do. I'm a . . .”

“What? A Less Than?”

He gave his head a long, slow shake and turned away.

“You're right,” I said. “You're different now. And yeah, you'll have to make some adjustments, but you'll figure it out. You're Cat—you're still the best athlete any of us have seen.”

The flames glimmered in his blue eyes, and his piercing gaze tore through me. “What if I don't want to make those changes?”

“You mean what if you just want to drink yourself to death?”

His jaw clenched.

“I don't know why you crawled back under the fence and came with us,” I said. “If you want to feel sorry for yourself, go ahead. But you're alive. That's more than June Bug can say. Or Frank. So I'm going to Camp Liberty to free those Less Thans, and if you want to be a coward and stay behind, be my guest. Just don't expect me to think much of you.”

I stalked off to bed, not waiting for a response.

T
HE MEASLY TRICKLE OF
the river leads them to the far edge of Camp Liberty. To the north rests Skeleton Ridge, already shrouded in snow. When stars begin to pop in the sky and a full moon rises orange and bulbous in the east, the group comes out of hiding and tiptoes forward.

What they see shocks them. The camp is surrounded by a fence. It is old, rusty chain-link, obviously stripped from some other site and set up here. It is topped with a coil of razor wire, the jagged edges catching moonglow. While Hope and the Sisters are used to fences, it comes as an obvious surprise to the Less Thans.

“Why would they do that?” Flush asks.

“Maybe because of us,” Book says.

A new reality sinks in. It was going to be difficult enough to rescue a hundred LTs; now it just got harder.

They circle north, reaching the firs and ponderosa pines that separate Camp Liberty from the stables. The Brown Shirts haven't bothered to stretch the fence this far, but what surprises the Less Thans is that the stables are no more. The barns and corrals have been razed to the ground. In their place are bulldozers and the beginnings of an enormous hole.

“What's all this?” Hope asks, but Book doesn't have an answer.

They inch their way to the pit, their breath frosting in the night.

“I don't get it,” Flush says. “Why put up a building on the outside of camp?”

“Maybe they're not going to put a building there at all,” Twitch says, “but something else.” There is something about his tone that stops everyone cold.

“Like what?”

“Bodies.”

Flush scoffs at the idea. “You wouldn't put bodies in a big hole.”

“You would if it's a mass grave.”

They hike an hour up the mountain, stopping to make camp only when the snow gets too deep. When they clear away the snow and get a small fire going, they
resume the conversation.

“For burying people?” Flush asks.

“And hiding them,” Twitch adds.

“So what're you saying? The Brown Shirts no longer use the cemetery?”

“That's right.”

“Because it's full?”

“No, because they intend to hide the evidence.”

“What evidence?”

“The fact that we've been prey for all these years.”

Hope knows Twitch is right. She remembers the letter, the one from Chancellor Maddox. The Final Solution. This is what the Brown Shirts are up to.

Suddenly, the bulldozers they first witnessed in the middle of nowhere make sense. The Western Federation Territory is trying to cover up what it's been doing all these years.
Leave no trace.

Wind
shoosh
es
through pine needles, and Hope knows they're all thinking the same thing: they're the last hope for saving the Sisters, the Less Thans, the Skull People. If they don't do something, the Republic will be a nation of Brown Shirts.

Flush's hands dig at his face as though trying to rub away a bad dream. “So if we don't free those Less Thans, they'll be slaughtered and buried.”

“That's right.”

The problem is, how do they break into an armed
camp and sneak out a couple of hundred Less Thans? Plus, the seasons are changing fast. The aspens are golden and shimmery in the afternoon sun, but the nights are icy cold. A thick blanket of snow already covers the mountains. If they're going to free the Less Thans, they have to do it soon.

“We need those Less Thans to help us,” Hope says. “They need to be our army.”

“Okay,” Flush says, “but how do we convince them of that?”

For the first time since their kiss, Hope's eyes fall on Book. “Someone needs to break in there and tell them.”

I
T WAS DECIDED THAT
two of us would slip inside. I volunteered—in part because Hope had basically challenged me to, but also because this was my idea in the first place. I was the one who'd convinced the others to come back to Camp Liberty.

Finding a partner wasn't so easy. Flush wanted no part of it, and I couldn't really blame him. Four Fingers and Twitch weren't possibilities. The three Sisters were willing, but given that it was a camp for boys, that didn't seem the best idea.

That left Cat.

“You'll do it?” I asked.

“Do I have a choice?” His tone was surly and not the least bit cooperative.

Of the four entrances into camp, the gate on the
western edge appeared the most promising. It opened onto a series of sheds and seemed unwatched.

As we crawled through sand and tufts of matted grass, I realized we weren't all that far from where we'd first found Cat that sunny spring morning—dying of dehydration at the edge of the No Water. How everything had changed since then.

The entrance was double gated, with a thick chain and padlock holding the two frames together. There was no way to undo the lock, of course, but by tugging the one door forward and pushing the other back, we managed to create an opening maybe six inches wide. Just enough space for a couple of emaciated Less Thans like ourselves.

“Where to?” Cat asked after we slipped through.

“The barracks.” We needed to recruit those LTs.

We clung to shadows as we tiptoed forward. It felt strange to be there. We'd gone to such lengths to get away, and now here we were again—by our own choice, no less. It was impossible not to feel the grip of panic.

We edged around the buildings. Although faint lights glowed from the camp's eastern edge—the Soldiers' Quarters—this section of Liberty was lit only by the moon.

The Quonset hut stood big and hulking, its high curved roof cutting into the star-spattered sky. But
when I gave the front door a tug, it didn't budge. A closer inspection revealed it was locked.

We circled around to the back, hearing the snores of LTs reverberating through the walls. I couldn't wait to see their reactions when they caught sight of us. We'd have to quiet their celebrations so we wouldn't be discovered.

The back doors were locked as well. Strange.

“Guess Dekker wised up,” Cat offered.

I grunted a response. It was painful just thinking of Sergeant Dekker: his oily hair, his noxious smile.
Slice Slice
, he'd called me, in honor of my failed attempt at suicide. I could well imagine his glee at locking up the LTs.

“I guess that's that,” Cat said. He made to return the way we'd come.

“Not so fast,” I said, grabbing the back of his shirt.

I led him around to the side of the building, to the lavatory window. It was where we'd jumped free the night of our escape. Surely they couldn't dead-bolt a window. The window was covered up with a large piece of plywood, nailed firmly to the frame. But when I ran my fingers around the edge, I found a small gap between the wood and the building. I jammed my knifepoint in and managed to separate board from window. I lowered the plywood to the ground and slid the window upward.

“Be my guest,” Cat said, motioning for me to go first.

I hoisted myself in, landing with a quiet thud on the tiled floor. I remembered this floor—remembered this
room
. It was where we'd conducted more than one secret meeting . . . and where, two years earlier, I'd tried to end my life.

My body went clammy at the thought of it.
Dripping blood. Darkness closing in. My vision narrowing to a pinprick.

I shook the thought from my head and helped Cat haul himself through the window.

We tiptoed to the door and pulled it open, easing into the bunkhouse itself.

Even before my eyes adjusted to the dark, my nose was assaulted by a strong, offensive odor. The ammonia smell of urine and the foul odor of feces . . . coming not from the lavatory but from the bunks themselves. How was that possible?

We slid forward in the black, stopping when we reached the far edge of beds. By now my eyes could make out the general shapes and forms of boys.

No, not so much boys as
bodies
—scores of them—crammed onto the wooden bunks. Alive, yes, but just barely so. More like skeletons than living, breathing human beings. So thin they lacked the strength to sit up. So weak they'd soiled themselves in their own bunks.

That's when it hit me: this was my dream—my
nightmare
. For weeks I'd been seeing this very sight, picturing the tethered Less Thans beneath the tennis courts, but it was worse than that. They were right here—
in the barracks themselves
. Carcasses wasting away to nothing. The Republic hoped to starve them to death, then toss their emaciated corpses into the pit and cover them with dirt.

Something else occurred to me, too. These LTs were far too weak to be the army we'd envisioned. Too weak to even register our presence. A far cry from what I'd expected.

I gave a glance to Cat. He was in shock like me, his jaw working back and forth.

“This ain't right,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

I nodded my agreement—what more was there to say? Even as I looked around and spied LTs who had bullied me in younger days, I felt no sense of victory. On the contrary, I would gladly have gone back to that time in a second.

“Book,” a voice said, strangled and raspy. “Cat.”

Our feet shuffled forward, pulled by the sound of our names.

“Over here,” the voice said, and Cat and I shifted one aisle over.

We finally located the body, and even though my eyes
traveled up and down the thin skeleton, for the longest time I couldn't figure out who it was. Only when I saw the enormous red splotch on one side of his face did I realize.

It was Red. We were reunited once again.

“You made it,” he said. His voice was weak and strained, but it was still the same old Red. I hadn't laid eyes on him since the night I'd jumped from the train.

“What's going on here?” I asked.

“They've locked us up.”

I couldn't help but stare at his emaciated body. His neck was no thicker than the trunk of a sapling. He weighed maybe half as much as when I'd seen him last.

“Do they feed you?” I asked.

He tried to laugh—it sounded like he was being strangled. “A piece of moldy bread a day. A cup of water. Once a week some soup. Makes me miss those grasshoppers.” He noticed Cat's missing arm. “That from the ambush?”

Cat nodded grimly.

“Sorry. At least you're alive.”

Cat didn't respond. His eyes were flinty and hard.

“How'd you get here?” I asked.

“Beat you, didn't I?” Red swallowed. His Adam's apple seemed huge set against his scrawny neck. “They shipped us here.”

“They?”

“Brown Shirts.”

“How'd they find—?” Red's eyes flicked away, and I didn't bother to finish the question. I didn't need to.

A thin sheen of moisture covered his eyes. “After we saw the bulldozers, I snuck back and told the Brown Shirts where we were. Thought it was for the best. They promised they wouldn't sell any more Less Thans to the Hunters. Then I saw how they ambushed us, and well . . .” He trailed off.

I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. Red had sold us out.
Red.

“Not Dozer?” I asked.

“Nah. He joined up with them later on—once he saw there was no way out. I'm the traitor.”

Poor Red. I reached out and took his hand. It was bony and cold to the touch. “It's okay,” I said. “You didn't know.”

He nodded, but I could tell he didn't believe me.

Cat and I looked around at the living skeletons. Their mouths were stuck open in grimaces of horror. Yellow pus oozed from their eyes.

What kind of hell is this,
I wanted to know,
where people starve others to death just because they're somehow different? Just because they consider them Less Thans?

My knees went wobbly. It was all I could do to remain standing.

“Why're you here?” Red asked.

“Like we said back at the Heartland: we came to free the Less Thans.”

“Good luck with that.”

I understood his sarcasm. As we looked around at the skeletal bodies that lay on the bunks like so many corpses in a morgue, it was impossible to imagine how we were going to lead them to safety.

“I don't mean to discourage you,” he said, “but it seems kinda, um, impossible.”

I had no good response to that. Fact was, I was beginning to feel the same way.

“One good thing,” he said. “It's just us. There's no nursery anymore.”

“What'd they do with the kids?”

“Shipped 'em out one night. I don't think we want to know where.” Then he added, “Sorry about siding with Dozer. Don't know what I was thinking.”

“Don't worry about it.”

I could see his decisions ate at him. I understood the feeling. I still struggled with some of the choices I'd made. Just part of life, I guess. Regrets and all.

“Hey, there's someone else here, too,” Red said. “He might even have some brilliant ideas.”

“Who's that?”

“Over there.” Red pointed one aisle over and one row up. “You'll see.”

We left Red's bunk and approached a sleeping body. The breaths were jagged and uneven, like the rusty teeth of a saw. We stood over the LT, not recognizing who it was. As his chest strained to rise and fall, my gaze settled on the skull-like face. When I saw the scar that traveled from eyebrow to chin, I had a shiver of recognition.

It was Major Karsten. Cat's father.