Sparks Rise (7 page)

“Strong doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

Still, she continues on, undaunted, and I love her for it. “She’s not Green. I would have seen her by now. There’s a chance she could be Blue. There are so many of them, and unless we have the same shift in the Garden. If she was Yellow—”

I don’t like the catch in her voice. “If she’s Yellow,
what
? There aren’t any Yellows here.”

“They took them out a little bit after the Orange and Red kids,” she says. “She might have been here and then taken out—moved. I don’t think they would have killed them. If they didn’t do it to the Reds—”

“Right. If the Red monsters get to live, then everyone else should be fine.”

“Stop it,” Sam says, and this time succeeds in pulling away from me. “Lucas, look at me. Look at me.” As helpless against her as always, I do. “The Reds who were here were...very broken. I don’t think it was their fault. But they were the only ones brave enough to try to do something. Fight back. I didn’t hate them then, and I don’t hate them now. I’m not afraid.”

“You aren’t afraid of anything,” I say.

“She could be here. I’ll help you look. We’ll find her,” she says. “Is that why you came here? Did you have a choice?”

I nod. They gave us the illusion we were choosing our assignments, thinking, I guess, that it would help us commit if we felt like we were making the choice of our own volition. All they did was open a door for me I’d been waiting to look through for seven years.

The rain and wind beat against the building, filling the silence. I finally see why the concrete under me is so wet—there’s a gap between the wall and foundation in the back corner of the room. I look back at the bags of wasted dog food and start to rise, thinking I can at least stop the hole up.

“No—” Sam says sharply. “Wait—Lucas, don’t—” Her voice falters. “Don’t go.”

I lower myself back to the ground. “I wasn’t leaving. I won’t leave you.”

She’s shaking again, watching me out of the corner of her eye. My heart gives a painful lurch.

“When—?”

“The change? A few weeks after we left Bedford—”

“That soon? Are you—”

“The same old Lucas?” I have to joke about this, I’m that desperate for one small part of this to feel normal. Normal-ish. Not soul-crushingly awful. “Unfortunately. Only now, I’m slightly more flammable.”

She doesn’t look amused, but my smile encourages hers, just a little bit. Her frantic plea fades from the room as if the rain were carrying it away.
“Fortunately.”

I try not to beam.

She studies me as openly as I study her. I feel caught somewhere between a memory and a dream, because everything about her is the same but just that tiny bit different. The roundness to her face has thinned out, and damn if what my mom said was true all those years ago—she looks a lot like her own mother. The difference is, Mrs. Dahl had this...frigid quality to her, like a doll whose sole purpose was to have her hair brushed and her clothes changed before being placed on the shelf again to be admired. Never played with. Sammy seems almost feral in comparison, adapted to her situation here the way a lost dog has to relearn how to live outside in the wild. She’s never, ever going to be trained; she’s always going to bite and bark and run away.

He knows that, too,
I think. Tildon knows that she’s a challenge and he won’t be satisfied until he’s broken her. Pulled out all of her teeth and claws.

Finally, Sam asks the question she’s been hovering around, unsure if she can approach it. “You’re...not like the others, are you?”

As if on cue, a voice in my ear buzzes,
“Still on auxiliary power. All PSF units, report in.”
I listen as twenty voices chirp in alphabetical order.
“Cabin one secure.” “Cabin two secure.”
Mess Hall, Infirmary, all of it, locked down. I sag against the crate. I have more time. It might not seem like much, but, to me, it’s everything.

“Lucas?”

I glance at her concerned face, remembering her question. “I’m different. I didn’t break.”

She starts to slide her fingers through the bars again, but catches herself before she can reach me. I bow my head toward her, heaving in a deep, tired sigh. I don’t know what to say. My mind is bending itself into knots of knots, trying to figure a way out of this, how I can help her, how the two of us can leave and find Mia together. It doesn’t stop, the ache in my skull doesn’t disappear, not until Sam tries again—reaching out to brush the dark, wet hair off my face. Her fingers are like ice, but I’m overheating, I’m burning.

“Don’t go near the others, Sam,” I whisper. “Don’t look at them. Don’t try to talk to them. There’s nothing...human left inside. They’ll hurt you. It’s what they were trained to do.”

“But not you?”

“I’m not...I’m not totally right inside,” I try to clarify. “I’ve felt what they want me to feel.” The sweet nothing that comes from pushing through the pain, leaving your mind empty. “But I have...ways of dealing.”

I see her digesting this, the moment her eyes light with understanding. There’s a faint smile on her face. “Turtle.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and nod. Mom’s nickname scorches my heart.

“It helps me cope. If I’m lost in my head, I can’t hear them. I don’t feel them. They can’t break me, but they can’t know they haven’t. So I have to...I have to do the things they ask. Bend. Follow orders.”

“Sometimes we have to bend,” she says, “to survive.”

“Is that what you call this morning?” I ask. “Bending? Looked more like snapping to me.”

Sam lets her hand fall away, turning her gaze away from mine. Her jaw sets stubbornly, jutting out slightly. It’s so Sammy, I have the irrational urge to laugh, but I’m not sure I really remember how. This is the girl who never wanted to play princess.

“Was that the first time he did that?” I say. “How long has he...”

“How long have I been
tempting
him?” She spits the word out. I see the lion coming back into her. Her nails curl against the floor like claws. “Since the rotation started a few days ago. He was just assigned to our cabin block. Some of the girls in another cabin...Look, it’ll be okay. I’ll figure out a way for him to lose interest.”

God. It’s exactly what I thought, isn’t it? He’s fixated on her. He’s fixated on other girls in the past. And instead of dealing with the actual issue, the camp controllers keep moving him around. Not even moving him to a block of
boy
cabins.

Unless they already tried that, too, and it didn’t matter to the piece of shit.
I feel like I’m going to be sick. There’s smoke in my lungs, filling my chest.

“It’s him, not you.” I say the words fiercely. “You’ve done nothing wrong. If he tries it again, I’ll—”

“Do
nothing
,” she says. “You can’t. No,
listen
to me. You have to find Mia and figure out...You have to get out of here. Promise me.”

“I won’t promise,” I say. “If he touches you again, he’s ashes.”

“You can’t do
anything
, Lucas. You can’t. That’s the point of this place.”

And that’s just it, isn’t it? They’ve taken everything away from us, including the right we have to protect ourselves. This is what it means to be powerless—we are dependent on them for everything, even common decency. We have to trust that they’ll behave like actual humans.

“Run. As soon as you get a chance. Get out of here and find your parents and—” Sam leans forward again, cutting herself off. Her brows draw together. I can’t hide my expression from her, and I know how it must look. I don’t want to have to hide the pain anymore. I can’t hide anything from her, anyway.

“Oh...oh, Lucas,
no
,” she whispers. The missing years stretch out between us, and I hate that I have to fill them, that I have to tell her this. I hate all of the what-ifs. What if we’d just stayed where we were and tried to fight through it? What if I’d come to Thurmond with Sam and Mia and I’d known, at least, where I could find them? “What happened?”

I try to shrug off the ache that pierces my chest. “We—we went up to Pennsylvania, to live with Grammy and Pops. You remember?”

“Of course.”

“We couldn’t stay with them after they started making those announcements about Collections. I’d already changed. It was too dangerous and people knew where we were. So we left and went a few towns over.” We lived out of our car in an abandoned parking garage, but I couldn’t tell her that, not when her face was already so shattered. It wasn’t even that bad, you know? We put up sheets in the window during the day, when Dad went out to look for work, and Mom and Mia would try to outdo each other with their stories. Sometimes I think about being small enough to lay across the backseat, my cheek against the fabric, just listening to Mom as she voiced each of her characters. Dad would come back with food and a smile, lean across the way and kiss her. I miss the days that were boring, hot, and long, because those were the days when I felt safe.

“It was just...it started as a carjacking. The two guys were out of their heads on something. It turned into something else when they realized me and Mia were there. My parents weren’t going to let us go. Mom reached for the money we’d been keeping in the glove box. They panicked, thinking she had a gun, too. Dad tried to cover her. It was over so fast.”

“Are you sure they’re dead?”

The stench of blood and smoke fills my senses, and the rumbling of pain starts at the back of my head, carrying forward like a rattling drum. I focus on the rain’s pattering so I don’t have to hear Mia’s screaming.

“God,” she said, “of course you are. I’m sorry. You can’t...you...” She’s blinking hard, trying to clear her throat until she gives up, and I see the first tears collecting on her lashes.

“Your folks?” I ask.

I didn’t like the Dahls. At all. Sammy was the best thing about them, and they never once recognized it. I don’t know how someone like her could survive in a house that’s just so...stiff. Stiff words, stiff hugs, stiff dinners. Mom felt so sorry for her, liked to tease out Sam’s devious, wicked streak with her own. Anything she lacked at home, we would have given her. We were always overflowing with the good stuff. My house in Bedford was loud and messy and so sweet, so bright the memories almost hurt to look at.

Sam shrugs. “Dad walked me to school. That was the last I saw or heard from them.”

I don’t know what to say to that that wouldn’t be horrible and offensive to the people who raised her. I can’t do anything, but lean against the crate. Sam does the same, and I try to imagine what it would be like if there wasn’t that barrier between us, if we’d lived our lives the way they were supposed to pan out. The missed things—games, dances, studying—those things just leave me hollow. But I know Sam is there. I know she is.

“Do you still see Greenwood?” Sam asks softly.

“Not like I used to,” I say. “There are other things I need to focus on. Remember.” I wish I still had the kind of heart to come up with the stories I used to. They were so pure and simple. And because we were making the rules, I always got to be the hero.

But there’s no room left for play or pretend in our lives. Even these minutes we’ve had are being stolen for reality. I need my shell, but I can’t lose my focus on the future because I’m letting myself get lost in the sweet glow of the past.

“I think about them all the time,” Sam said. “There was this one—Mia was the sorceress and she took over the fort and held you captive. I can’t remember why she was pelting me with her stuffed animals, though.”

I have to smile. Mia had a flair for the dramatic. She was happiest as a sorceress, an evil queen, or monster—and even happier if Mom let her raid her makeup to complete the look. “She could control the animals of the forest, remember? They were defending her.” Including her stuffed Tiger, Ty-Ty, because, of course, why couldn’t there be large predator cats in Greenwood?

“And she’d turned you into a beast, too! How could I forget?” Sam’s laugh is so faint I think I’ve imagined it. “Her weakness was water. I broke your Super Soaker.”

“But then you realized you could sing her to sleep,” I say. “Sammy saved the day again. How did that one go?
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart...
”

“And I’m so happy, so very happy...”
Her voice drifts off as she swallows hard. “I missed you. Is this even real? I can’t...Is this really happening?”

“I’m gonna bet I missed you more,” I say with a heat that has nothing to do with what I am, but who I am, who I want to be. “It feels the same.”
You never left me.

Sam sits back, her lips parting, but if she means to say something, I’ll never know. The lights overhead suddenly snap on and I rocket to my feet, straightening out. The drug-like daze rips away from my mind and I slam back into reality. Sam scrambles back against the metal bottom of the crate. In the second before she disappears from my line of sight, I see the desperation on her face, and I’m cut in half by the kind of pain that’s worse than any baton, any shock, any blade. My ear is buzzing with updates, the Control Tower coming through with a firm
“Power at full capacity, return to schedule.”

I force myself to walk toward the door, back toward the wall of crates, then toward the door again, trying to play off my indecision as pacing. My mind is looping. Olsen said to leave when notified that surveillance was operational—technically I haven’t been notified of that, only that the power is on. That’s an excuse they’ll buy, I think, that I took her words literally. They think our heads are vacant, waiting for them to pour in whatever thoughts or orders they want us to have. I can play dumb forever if it means not having to leave Sam alone.
Shit.

This is going to be a problem—I’m not going to be able to concentrate on what I came here to do, on playing the part of perfect toy soldier. I’m not going to be able to think of anything but Sammy.

She’s humming again, picking up that same song about joy and happiness, and it stops me in my tracks. It settles my mind.

The door swings open behind me, letting in a spray of rain on a strong gust of wind. I set my legs apart in a strong stance, like I could be the wall that keeps it from reaching her. I turn my head around, fumbling for some kind of excuse to give to Olsen for why I’m still here.