Four Skater boys were heading down the stairs. When they reached the landing below and turned the corner to go down the next flight, Lucy began to unfasten the vent cover. She heard a rumble up the stairwell. The Skaters turned on their heels and hightailed it back up the stairs and down the hall. A moment later, Lucy saw what they were running from.
Varsity flooded the landing. They poured out from around the corner and ascended the stairs, right under her nose. They kept coming, a river of yellow hair, fifty at least. It had to be half their gang, all walking together. Freshly dyed and in uniform.
The sight of a gang that size made her acutely aware that she was alone. She couldn’t believe she was a Scrap again. Her first time as a Scrap, after the Pretty Ones had kicked her out, had been horrible, but it had only lasted a few hours before David had entered her life as her protector. The other girls in the Loners had told her stories of what it was like for girl Scraps, and they’d painted a frightening picture. Boys offering protection in return for sex. Offering food for sex. Boys finding any leverage possible to get you to spread your legs. And if you made the mistake of actually doing it? They’d all know. They’d tell each other, and after that, they’d never stop hounding you, and they’d offer less and less in return each time.
That wasn’t going to be her.
She’d steal. She’d fight in the food drops by herself. She’d do what she had to do. The Sluts had taught her to be tough, to not take any shit She’d changed while she was with them. She knew she had. She was still the tougher, braver version of herself. She just had to keep repeating that in her head.
6
“GET HIM!” DAVID SHOUTED.
He’d just made a dive to grab a gopher, but all he had to show for it was a fist full of kale. He’d worked hard to make sure having one eye wasn’t a handicap, but there were times when he couldn’t count on his depth perception, and this was one of them. The little brown bastard was bounding through the crop and if he made it to the football field of wheat, they’d lose him for another day or two. Which meant more plants ruined by his little, gnawing rodent teeth.
Thankfully, Will was on the job. Where David had fallen, Will had closed in. He was moving at a good clip, only a foot behind the animal.
In the past month, Will had gotten great at catching gophers, among other things. The truth was that David was in awe of his little brother. He’d manage to charm most of the parents, Sam’s dad included, with his scrappiness and his humor. He’d been afraid they’d have a rocky relationship like they’d had in McKinley, but it wasn’t the case. They were getting along and Will was coming into his own right in front of David’s eyes.
The parents had enforced a regimented food drop, where every gang received their food separately, and no fighting was allowed. It had been rough getting it going, but now the food drops were violence-free, and going off without a hitch. He could barely believe it, peaceful food drops. David let out a contented sigh. This was as good as life had been for a long time.
Will made his lunge, but the gopher made a snap turn and dove into a freshly dug hole. Dry dust engulfed Will as he rolled onto his back and shouted in frustration.
“I had him!” he said.
A throaty cackle came from the wall.
“Screw you, Bertie,” Will said and threw up a middle finger at the man doing the laughing.
Bertie was the farm’s only prisoner, the hunter Will had taken down with the pickax, which had become everyone’s favorite story to tell about the night of the siege. Especially since Bertie had proved himself to be such a miserable excuse for human life. He lived in a custom cell in one of the tractor trailers that made up the outer farm wall. The parents had done him a favor by giving him a big, steel mesh window, so he wasn’t in the dark all day, but Bertie didn’t give a damn about the view. All he used it for was heckling.
“I been watching you two dumbasses for weeks, chasing gophers, setting pillowy, lil’ pussy traps. All you’re doing is wasting time while your food dies. And then you die. Why’re you killing yourself when there’s an easy answer right in front’a ya?” he said. His voice was a nasally assault, with the timbre of a chain saw.
“We’re not shooting them,” Will said as he dusted himself off.
Bertie cackled again. “That’s the rat in you talking, kid. One disease carrier sympathizing with another. Hey, one-eye, you sure little brother here is not still infected? ’Cause it sounds like his brain still is.”
Will started walking toward Bertie’s cell. David moved to stop him.
“Let it go,” David told his brother.
“You want me to come in there with a pickax again, old man?” Will said. “Maybe I should just finish the job.”
“You don’t got it in you, kid. None of you bleeding hearts do. That’s why you’re up on this hill, all scared and waiting. You know what’s gotta happen.”
“Oh, yeah, asshole? What’s that?”
“You’re sitting on a balloon full of poison! How long till it pops? You gotta burn ’em. Roast ’em. Put a bullet through every one of their heads, you pussies. You know that’s the only way. You’re just too blind to see it.”
David patted Will on the back.
“Let’s go,” he said. It took a little tug, but he got Will to walk away from the wall.
“You’re gonna kill us all,” Bertie said to their backs.
David could feel the tension in Will’s back, the urge to turn, but he kept walking.
“Ya hear me?” Bertie shouted.
“We did a heck of a job on that fence,” David said to drown Bertie out.
Will looked up at the farm wall and the razor-wire-lined chain-link fence that gleamed atop it. Three crows sat along the fence not far from the front gate. The gate doors, which were welded patchworks of rusted sheet metal, wavy aluminum siding, and a few road signs, looked more like folk art, but they were as high as a castle gate.
“You mean I did a heck of a job,” Will said. “All you did was ‘supervise.’ ”
“Somebody’s gotta be the brains in this family,” David said. He laughed and tapped his eye patch. “Besides, I’m handicapped.”
“Yeah, when it’s handy.”
David laughed again. The three crows flew from their perch, making the razor wire tremble at their takeoff. The guard on the wall, Mr. Miller, a bald man in green sweatpants, who had been David’s music teacher in elementary school, turned to face the farm. He mumbled in a panic, then called out to the others, “Uh, someone’s coming!”