Unwind (6 page)

The officer follows the path made through the woods by the AWOL Unwind, until he comes to a lump on the ground. It's the hostage, just dumped in the path, his white clothes smudged green from the foliage, and brown from the muddy earth.
Good,
thinks the officer. It was a good thing this boy took that bullet after all. Being unconscious probably saved this kid's life. No telling where the Unwind would have taken him, or what he'd have done to him.

“Help me!” says a voice just ahead of him. It's the voice of a girl. The officer isn't expecting this.

“Help me, please, I'm hurt!”

Deeper in the woods a girl sits up against a tree, holding her arm, grimacing in pain. He doesn't have time for this, but “Protect and Serve” is more than just a motto to him. He sometimes wishes he didn't have such moral integrity.

He goes over to the girl. “What are you doing here?”

“I was on the bus. I got off and ran away because I was scared it would explode. I think my arm's broken.”

He looks at the girl's arm. It's not even bruised. This should be his first clue, but his mind is already too far ahead of him to catch it. “Stay here, I'll be right back.” He turns, ready to pick up his pursuit, when something drops on him from above. Not some
thing,
some
one
. The AWOL Unwind! The officer is knocked to the ground, and suddenly there are two figures attacking him—the Unwind and the girl. They're in this together. How could he have been so stupid? He reaches for his tranq pistol, but it's not there. Instead he feels its muzzle against his left thigh, and he sees triumph in the Unwind's dark, vicious eyes.

“Nighty-night,” the Unwind says.

A sharp pain in the officer's leg, and the world goes away.

Lev wakes up to a dull ache in his shoulder. He thinks maybe he slept funny, but he quickly realizes the ache is from an injury. His left shoulder was the entry point of a tranq bullet, though he doesn't realize that just yet. All the things that had happened to him twelve hours before are like faint clouds in his mind that have lost their shape. All he knows for sure is that he was on his way to his tithing, he was kidnapped by a murderous teenager, and for some strange reason the image of Pastor Dan keeps coming back to him.

Pastor Dan was telling him to run.

He's sure that it must be a false memory, because he can't believe Pastor Dan would do such a thing.

Everything's blurry as Lev opens his eyes. He doesn't know where he is, only that it's night and he's not where he should
be. The insane teen who took him sits across a small fire. There's a girl there, too.

That's when he realizes he'd been hit by a tranq bullet. His head hurts, he feels like he might puke, and his brain is still only at half power. He tries to get up, but can't. At first he thinks that's also because of the tranquilizers, but then he realizes he's tied to a tree by thick vines.

He tries to speak, but his voice comes out as a little groan and a lot of drool. The boy and girl look at him, and he's sure they're going to kill him now. They kept him alive just so he'd be awake when they killed him. Maniacs are like that.

“Look who's back from Tranqville,” says the boy with wild eyes. Only his eyes aren't wild now, just his hair—it's all sticking up like he slept on it.

Although Lev's tongue feels like rubber, he manages to get out a single word. “Where . . .”

“Not sure,” says the boy.

Then the girl adds, “But at least you're safe.”

Safe?
thinks Lev.
What could possibly be safe about this?

“H. . . h. . . hostage?” Lev gets out.

The boy looks to the girl, then back to Lev. “Kind of. I guess.” These two talk in an easy tone of voice, like they're all friends.
They're trying to lull me into a false sense of security,
thinks Lev.
They're trying to get me on their side, so I'll take part in whatever criminal activities they have planned.
There's an expression for that, isn't there? When a hostage joins the kidnappers' cause? The
Something
syndrome.

The crazy kid looks to a pile of berries and nuts obviously foraged from the woods. “You hungry?”

Lev nods, but the act of nodding makes his head spin so much, he realizes that no matter how hungry he is, he'd better not eat, because it'll come right back up. “No,” he says.

“You sound confused,” says the girl. “Don't worry, it's just
the tranqs. They should wear off pretty soon.”

Stockholm syndrome!
That's it! Well, Lev won't be won over by this pair of kidnappers. He'll never be on their side.

Pastor Dan told me to run.

What had he meant? Did he mean run from the kidnappers? Maybe, but he seemed to be saying something else entirely. Lev closes his eyes and chases the thought away.

“My parents will look for me,” Lev says, his mouth finally able to put together whole sentences.

The kids don't answer because they probably know it's true.

“How much is the ransom?” Lev asks.

“Ransom? There's no ransom,” says the crazy kid. “I took you to save you, idiot!”

To save him? Lev just stares at him in disbelief. “But . . . but my tithing . . .”

The crazy kid looks at him and shakes his head. “I've never seen a kid in such a hurry to be unwound.”

It's no use trying to explain to this godless pair what tithing is all about. How giving of one's self is the ultimate blessing. They'd never understand or care. Save him? They haven't saved him, they've damned him.

Then Lev realizes something. He realizes that he can use this entire situation to his advantage. “My name's Lev,” he says, trying to play it as cool as he can.

“Pleased to meet you, Lev,” says the girl. “I'm Risa, and this is Connor.”

Connor throws her a dirty look, making it clear that she gave him their real names. Not a good idea for hostage-takers, but then most criminals are stupid like that.

“Didn't mean for you to take the tranq bullet,” Connor tells him. “But the cop was a bad shot.”

“Not your fault,” says Lev, even though every bit of it is
Connor's fault. Lev thinks about what happened, and says,”I would never have run from my own tithing.” That much, Lev knows, is true.

“Good thing I was around, then,” says Connor.

“Yeah,” says Risa. “If it wasn't for Connor running across that highway, I'd probably be unwound by now too.”

There's a moment of silence, then Lev, biting back his anger and revulsion, says, “Thank you. Thank you for saving me.”

“Don't mention it,” says Connor.

Good. Let them think he's grateful. Let them think they're earning his trust. And once they're lulled into their own false sense of security, he'll make sure they both get exactly what they deserve.

Connor should have kept the Juvey-cop's gun, but he wasn't thinking. He was so freaked out at having tranq'd a cop with his own weapon, he just dropped it and ran—just as he dropped his backpack on the interstate so he could carry Lev. His wallet with all his money was in that pack. Now he has nothing but pocket lint.

It's late now—or, more accurately, early—almost dawn. He and Risa had kept moving through the woods all day, as best they could with Connor having to carry an unconscious tithe. Once night fell, he and Risa had taken turns keeping watch while the other slept.

Connor knows that Lev can't be trusted, that's why Connor tied him to the tree—but there's no reason to trust this girl who had come running out of a bus either. It's only their common goal of staying alive that binds them.

The moon has left the sky now, but there's a faint glow
promising a quick arrival of dawn. By now their faces would be everywhere.
Have you seen these teens? Do not approach. Considered extremely dangerous. Call the police immediately.
Funny how Connor had wasted so much time in school trying to convince people he was dangerous, but when it came down to it, he was never sure if he was all that dangerous at all. A danger to himself, maybe.

All the while, Lev watches him. At first the boy's eyes had been lazy and his head lolling to one side, but now those eyes are sharp. Even in the dimness of the dying fire Connor can see them. Chilly blue. Calculating. This kid is an odd bird. Connor's not quite sure what's going on on Planet Lev, and not quite sure he wants to know.

“That bite's gonna get infected if you don't take care of it,” Lev says.

Connor looks to the spot on his arm where Lev bit him, still puffy and red. He had tuned the pain out until Lev reminded him. “I'll deal with it.”

Lev continues to study him. “Why are you being unwound?”

Connor doesn't like the question for a whole lot of reasons. “You mean why WAS I being unwound—because, as you can see, I'm not being unwound anymore.”

“They will if they catch you.”

Connor feels like punching that smug look off the kid's face, but he restrains himself. He didn't rescue the kid just to beat him up.

“So, what's it like,” Connor asks, “knowing all your life you're going to be sacrificed?” He meant it as a jab, but Lev takes the question seriously.

“It's better than going through life without knowing your purpose.”

Connor's not sure if that was intentionally meant to make
him squirm—as if his life has no purpose. It makes him feel like
he's
the one tied to a tree, not Lev. “I guess it could be worse,” says Connor. “We could have all ended up like Humphrey Dunfee.”

Lev seems surprised by the mention of the name. “You know that story? I thought they only told it in my neighborhood.”

“Nah,” says Connor. “Kids tell it everywhere.”

“It's made up,” says Risa, having just woken up.

“Maybe,” says Connor. “But there was this one time a friend and I tried to find out about it while surfing one of the school's computers. We hit this one website that talked about it, and how his parents went all psycho. Then the computer crashed. It turns out we were hit by a virus that wiped out the entire district server. Coincidence? I don't think so.”

Lev's taken in, but Risa, fairly disgusted, says, “Well,
I'll
never end up like Humphrey Dunfee, because you have to have parents for them to go psycho—and I don't.” She stands up. Connor looks away from the dying fire to see that dawn has arrived.

“If we're going to keep from being caught, then we should change direction again,” Risa says. “We should also think about disguising ourselves.”

“Like how?” asks Connor.

“I don't know. Change our clothes first. Haircuts maybe. They'll be looking for two boys and a girl. Maybe I can disguise myself as a boy.”

Connor takes a good look at her and smiles. Risa's pretty. Not in the way Ariana was pretty—in a better way. Ariana's prettiness was all about makeup and pigment injections and stuff. Risa has a natural kind of beauty. Without thinking, Connor reaches out to touch her hair, and gently says, “I don't think you could ever pass for a guy—”

Then suddenly, he finds his hand tugged behind him, his
whole body spins around, and she painfully wrenches his arm up the small of his back. It hurts so much, he can't even say “Ouch.” All he can say is, “Eh-eh-eh!”

“Touch me again and your arm gets ripped off,” Risa tells him. “Got that?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Hands off. Got it.”

Over at the oak tree, Lev laughs, apparently pleased to see Connor in pain.

She lets him go, but his shoulder still throbs. “You didn't have to do that,” Connor says, trying not to show how much it still hurts. “It's not like I was going to hurt you or anything.”

“Yeah, well, now you won't for sure,” says Risa, maybe sounding a bit guilty for being so harsh. “Don't forget I lived in a state home.”

Connor nods. He knows about StaHo kids. They have to learn to take care of themselves real young, or their lives are not very pleasant. He should have realized she was a touch-me-not.

“Excuse me,” says Lev, “but we can't go anywhere if I'm tied to a tree.”

Still, Connor doesn't like that judgmental look in Lev's eyes. “How do we know you won't run?”

“You don't, but until you untie me, I'm a hostage,” Lev says. “Once I'm free, I'm a fugitive, like you. Tied up, I'm the enemy. Cut loose, I'm a friend.”

“If you don't run,” says Connor.

Risa impatiently begins untying the vines. “Unless we want to leave him here, we'll have to take that chance.” Connor kneels to help, and in a few moments, Lev is free. He stands and stretches, rubbing his shoulder where the tranq bullet had hit him. Lev's eyes are still blue ice and hard for Connor to read, but he's not running.
Maybe,
thinks Connor,
he's over the “duty” of being tithed. Maybe he's finally starting to see the sense
of staying alive.

Risa finds herself unsettled by the food wrappers and broken bits of plastic they start coming across in the woods, because the first sign of civilization is always trash. Civilization means people who could recognize them if their faces have been smeared on the newsnet.

Risa knows that staying completely clear of human contact is an impossibility. She has no illusion about their chances, or their ability to remain unseen. As much as they need to remain anonymous, they cannot get by entirely alone. They need the help of others.

“No, we don't,” Connor is quick to argue as the signs of civilization grow around them. It's not just trash now, but the mossy remnants of a knee-high stone wall, and the rusty remains of an old electrical tower from the days when electricity was transmitted by wires. “We don't need anyone. We'll take what we need.”