They won’t hurt her if they think I don’t care.
Right?
“Don’t just stand there. Bring her in!” the Interrogator barks. The guards haul Sketch to her feet and drag her inside of my cell, dump her on the floor across from me. I wish I could crawl to her, but I’m bound to the bars.
They do the same to Sketch, circling her wrists with MagnaCuffs, then attaching them to the metal bars behind her back.
Up close, I can see how swollen her face is. I wonder if they’ve already been beating her, letting her heal, then starting it all over again.
“Don’t tell these asshats anything,” Sketch says. She spits blood on the floor, so close to the Interrogator’s boots that I smile.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I say.
Sketch winks a swollen eye, and the Interrogator bursts into laughter.
“Look at the two of you. Comrades, all the way to the end.” He snaps his fingers, and another guard scurries forward.
“It’s warm in here, soldier,” he says. “Why don’t you turn the air down a bit?”
The soldier nods, crosses to the wall and taps on a little screen embedded there.
There is a beep and a hiss, and suddenly the air vent overhead turns on. Cool air blasts my face, makes me feel a little more alive.
“Colder,” the Interrogator says. “Bring the winter to us.”
The soldier obeys.
For a while, the air reminds me of fall mornings on the beach, like the wind rolling in from beyond the Perimeter, raising the hair on my arms. Peri used to love the cool air.
But then it gets colder.
And colder.
So cold that my teeth begin to rattle and my fingertips begin to shake. The torn, bloody rags I am wearing are not enough to keep me warm. Soon, I can see my breath forming in puffs in front of me. Sketch trembles across from me. Our eyes meet. We simply sit and stare.
The Interrogator laughs again, claps his hands. “This is more like it, girls.” A soldier brings him a coat, and he shrugs it on over his shoulders, nestles into it and sighs. “Do you know what a Cold Cell is?”
He looks to me, then Sketch.
“No, I didn’t think so,” he says. “We used it back during the Fall. A simple way to break a man, when the room is so cold his blood threatens to freeze.” He makes a show of shivering, pulling the coat tighter around his body. I look away. “You’ll enjoy this tactic for the remainder of your stay.”
I think he is going to turn and leave, but instead he pulls the heretics fork out of his coat. I prepare myself for the pain, open my heart up to it the way my father taught me to.
But the Interrogator turns to Sketch, kneels in front of her. “I’d say I’m sorry about this, but . . . that would be a lie.”
He grabs her by the chin, thrusts her head up so she’s staring at the ceiling, her throat fully exposed. She tries to fight him, but he’s too strong. He takes the fork, and levers it so that one end of the prongs is positioned beneath her chin, the other end pointing down, against her chest. Then he straps the collar around her throat and buckles it tight.
“Now be a good girl, and don’t move an inch,” the Interrogator says. “Because if you do . . .” He pushes down, hard, on top of Sketch’s head. She screams as the prongs break through the skin on both ends of the fork. The Interrogator laughs, presses harder, until Sketch’s blood drips steady and bright. He looks over his shoulder at me, a snarl on his face. “You see, Miss Woodson? You see what the Initiative can do to those you care about?”
Sketch’s eyes find mine. They are wide, full of tears that splash down onto her cheeks. She shakes her head, the movement so small I hardly catch it.
But I know what she means.
I take a deep breath and smile at our torturer. “She means nothing to me,” I say. “You can kill her right now, if you’d like.”
His smile falters. He releases Sketch. Her gasps are so terrible I almost can’t take it.
But I do. I must.
He crosses to me. Leans down, grabs me by the hair, and pulls. I force my groan down to the pit of my stomach. “I’ll do whatever I can to hurt you,” he promises. “And you will hurt.”
I look right into his eyes. “Go ahead. I dare you to try.”
“We’re only just beginning,” the Interrogator says. “You’ll break soon enough.”
He stands, and as he passes, I make a promise to myself, and Sketch.
The second I get a chance I will kill this man with my bare hands.
CHAPTER 9
ZEPHYR
The Graveyard isn’t bad in the morning.
Sometimes, if you can get past the smell and the flies and the fact that you’re standing in the middle of a pile of crap, it’s kind of peaceful.
Rhone and I are making our daily rounds, searching for food, items to trade.
Before the failed mission, I came here with Meadow.
I kissed her for the first time.
As Rhone and I walk side by side in silence, looking for something worth gathering, it kills me. Because it’s like I can see Meadow in everything that moves.
A little girl who practices fighting moves with her dad, like a younger Meadow.
A boy who carries a dagger on his hip. The sunlight catches it, reminds me of how she used to flip her weapon across the tops of her fingers.
We pass by one of the steam towers, and I swear I can actually hear her voice in my head.
You can kiss my ass, Zephyr James.
Stars, I miss her so much it hurts. It wasn’t supposed to end up this way. We were supposed to be together and free, and now the Leeches could be doing anything to her.