Shadows of Sherwood (6 page)

Many of the people were dark skinned, some light, and some in between, like Robyn herself. A whole range of colors, whereas most people in Castle were either quite dark or quite light. The dark-skinned men reminded Robyn of her father. He never spoke much about growing up in Sherwood, but she knew he had gone into politics to try to help the people back home.

The jeep bounced to a stop alongside a wide, low concrete building. The young MP exited the jeep and when he reached in to untie her, Robyn renewed her struggle to get free.

He grabbed her wrists tightly and yanked her toward him. She fell halfway out of the jeep.

“Don't fight it,” the young MP whispered. “If you value your life.” He had striking green eyes. Their gaze upon her seemed incongruously kind. The words seemed less like a threat and more like a warning. He lifted her out and set her on her feet, then led her inside.

Robyn followed calmly.

The larger MP opened the metal door, carrying Robyn's backpack. The young MP ushered Robyn into the cool, dry lobby of Sherwood District Jail.

The room was very plain and very intense. No windows. Three doors, including the metal one that led outside. The other doors were glass, studded with vertical steel bars and fitted with computerized keypad locks. One led to a room with a row of glowing blue computer screens on one side and a rack of cubbyholes filling the opposite wall. The next led to a long row of old-fashioned, metal-barred cell blocks. Robyn swallowed hard.

Behind a tall desk sat a heavyset woman in a wider version of the MPs' brown uniform. The desk surface held a computer monitor, a hefty ring of metal keys, a placard that read WARDEN, and an open magazine. Next to the warden stood another short, thin guard.

A large portrait hung on the wall behind the warden's desk, but the woman in the photograph was not the warden. A plaque on the gilded frame read, Marissa Mallet, Sherwood County Sheriff. Her still, dark eyes pierced the
room. Pale-brown hair hung straight at the sides of a light-brown face similar in shade to Robyn's own.

“This is the girl?” The warden turned a page in her magazine without even glancing up. Robyn forced her attention down from the portrait above.

The guard came forward and took Robyn's rope from the young MP. He yanked her toward the desk by her wrists. Robyn stumbled, her hip slamming painfully into the edge of the desk. She lurched forward and found herself staring down at a double-page spread of stylish stiletto heels. The warden was reading a fashion magazine. Robyn wondered if that kind of shoe came in camo print.

“Hands on the desk,” the warden said. Robyn complied. She pulled a wand from a drawer and waved it over Robyn's gloved hands, then sighed. “No Tag. Why am I not surprised?”

Robyn was confused. Of course she had a Tag. The ID chip was right there in her hand, like it was in everyone else's. You just couldn't see it, under the gloves, but the scanner should be able to read through the cloth just fine.

“Would you like me to input her?” the larger MP offered. “The prisoner database looks like it's up and running.” He moved toward the door of the computer room, Robyn's backpack in hand. The warden punched a button on the edge of her desk and the door buzzed, allowing him to enter. Robyn watched as he stuck her bag in one of the cubbyholes and tagged it with a paper on a string.

“I'll process her later.” The warden flipped to a page full of purses. “Burle, put her in the end. With the street rats,” she said.

The thin guard laughed. “She smells like one of them.”

“Hey,” Robyn blurted, automatically offended. It wasn't like there'd been a shower in the jeep. And she'd been running through the woods all night. Her clothes had been shredded by unseen sticks and branches. Not to mention that she'd been lying under fishy-smelling cardboard before that. No wonder they thought she was from Sherwood.

There was no chance to protest her arrest. The guard was already dragging Robyn toward the other glass door, which buzzed open to allow them access to the cell block. He led her down a dim corridor, lined with bars on one side and a solid concrete wall on the other.

The cells were crammed with people. Dozens. Hundreds maybe. Sitting, lying, standing. Heads in their hands, reaching their arms through the bars, as if there was some help to be had there.

Their evident despair sliced at Robyn's heart. The walk seemed to grow longer and longer as the strange new reality settled over her. She was a prisoner now, just like them. The thought left her cold, afraid.

The final cell in the row was empty, except for a small pile of rags in one far corner. The guard slid open the gate and pushed Robyn inside, harshly enough that she stumbled. She landed on her knees, thrusting her still-bound hands down to help break the fall.

The bars clanged shut behind her.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Rags Come to Life

“My hands,” Robyn said, holding them up to the guard. “You didn't untie them.”

“Tough luck.” He barely glanced down before he strode away, his boot heels clicking down the concrete hallway.

Robyn sat alone in the cool, dank cell as the echoing sound of his steps receded to silence. She blinked into the gray air. The surreal sensation of being under arrest quickly settled into actual fear. She was locked up. Behind bars. In jail. A prisoner. It was the sort of thing that happened in the movies, not in real life.

The cell was cold, with solid cement on all sides. Except, of course, for the bars that formed the door. Beyond them, the dim concrete corridor was lit only by the occasional bare bulb.

“I'll untie you,” whispered a small voice.

Robyn scrambled around to look behind her. The cell remained dark and empty. But she was sure she'd heard something.

The pile of rags in the corner began to move. Robyn edged away, until her back pressed against the corner where the bars met the cool concrete that separated this cell from the next one.

The pile of rags unfolded into a shabbily dressed, stick-thin girl. She emerged through the shadows, ghostlike and small, scooting toward Robyn on hands and knees until she reached Robyn's place at the front of the cell.

“Oh no,” Robyn gasped upon seeing her in the light. The girl had a bleeding gash along the right side of her face from temple to ear. “What happened?”

The girl gazed back at her. Curious brown eyes, wide open and unblinking. Her hair might once have been something akin to blond, but for now it hung in matted locks around her face, almost blackened with dirt and blood.

“What happened? To your head,” Robyn added.

“Oh.” The girl's fingers flitted absently to her temple. “Burle.”

“What?”

“The guard.”

“He hit you?”

The girl tipped her head, offering Robyn that curious gaze again. “I'll untie you,” the girl said finally. “Then you can do me.” She put out her hands, revealing slim, bound wrists like Robyn's own.

“Deal,” Robyn said. She extended the knot toward the girl. In a matter of seconds, Robyn felt the cord loosening. “Ahh.” She shook free. “Okay, give me yours.”

The girl tipped her wrists upward. Even in the dim light, Robyn could make out the thin traces of blue veins beneath her pale skin. The girl was bone thin. Starving.

“When was the last time you ate?” Robyn said softly, as she worked the knots. “Don't they feed you in here?”

“I just got here,” the girl said. “But, yeah, they do. That's the only good part.” She blinked and her eyes began to sparkle with excitement. “Three meals a day.”

Robyn's heart cracked a little. “You're happy to be here?”

The girl frowned. “Of course not. I'd be eating right now if they hadn't caught me.” She tossed her matted hair proudly. “I've never been caught before.”

“You steal food?” Robyn said. She knew people in Sherwood couldn't afford fancy things, but surely they could eat.

“Not exactly. But all of my food comes from the forest,” the girl said. “I have nothing to eat now.”

“You mean you don't have grocery stores in Sherwood?” Robyn asked.

The girl gazed at her with the same wide, liquid brown eyes. “Of course we do,” she said. “That's how I ended up here.”

“Oh.” Robyn ducked her head, embarrassed.

“I couldn't go into the forest, so I took things from the store.”

“And you couldn't use your Tag?”

The little jail cell fell silent. Silent except for the faint reverberations of the clanging bars. The smattering of low voices from the enclosures beyond. The noiseless yet deafening aura of fear.

“Who are you?” the girl said quietly.

“I'm . . . Robyn.”

“Laurel.”

“That's a pretty name.”

Laurel smiled, showing small, surprisingly clean teeth. She reached up and tucked a knot of hair behind her left ear. Her bare hand caught Robyn's attention. She reached out as if to touch the blank spot, but Laurel flinched.

“Where's your Tag?” Robyn asked.

“I don't have one,” Laurel said.

Robyn frowned. “Everyone has one.”

“Maybe where
you
live.”

Robyn was dumbfounded. She'd never seen anyone without an ID chip. Never even known it was possible. “How do you buy things?”

Laurel's liquid brown gaze remained steady. Robyn dropped hers to the floor, embarrassed once again. She knew better. The girl had just admitted having to steal food to survive. And Robyn's father had told her about growing up in Sherwood. About how there are people who struggle, who are poor, who live without. But as usual, she hadn't wanted to listen or believe.

“That's how I got caught,” Laurel said. “There's a new scanner thing at the grocery. Two sliding glass doors.” She held her hands parallel to each other.

New?
Robyn thought.
How else would people buy groceries?
All the shops in Castle District had InstaScan doors.

“I went in like usual. No one saw me take anything, I'm sure of it,” the girl said, with a mix of pride and confusion. “But when I came out, the doors closed on both sides and locked me in.”

“Probably because you don't have a Tag,” Robyn said. “When you step through the door, it scans your Tag and your purchases all at once.” The system made purchases very convenient if you had plenty of credit, but if your account was too low to afford what you tried to leave the store with, the system locked down. When this occasionally happened to people in Castle District, it was always embarrassing.

“Oh,” said Laurel. “Well, that explains it.”

“When we get out,” Robyn murmured. “I'll help you.” She didn't know what she would do, or how, but it just didn't seem right for someone to be so desperate, or so thin. Never mind that Robyn herself was hungry now, too. And she couldn't use her own Tag, which was tantamount to not having one.

“Why don't you understand how it is?” asked Laurel.

“What do you mean?”

“Everything's different now.” Laurel hugged her twig-like knees to her chest. “We're not going to get out. We're going to disappear.”

 

CHAPTER NINE