I was trapped and talking to a madman. “Why are you doing this?” I shouted.
He ignored me. “Now that you know the ground rules and the outcomes, let’s negotiate. You know something that I would like to know.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” I said. “This is threatening me for information.”
He laughed, wet and guttural. “All negotiations are threats. Every negotiation says, ‘Agree to this or there will be a consequence.’”
I rubbed my head on the pillow, trying to tell whether I had a bandage. Had they done surgery on me? I didn’t feel anything.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well, what?”
“You have information that you’re hiding from me.”
“What do you want to know?” I yelled. “Walnut always takes more than his share of dessert. Harvard takes long showers and uses up all the hot water. Gabby—”
He cut me off, his voice suddenly sharp and harsh. “Tell me where the students are.”
I paused. The note I’d left for Lily had worked: to hide as many students as she could in the tunnel and stay there. If it was true that the implants couldn’t track them down there, then Maxfield would have no idea where they’d gone. It was my bargaining chip.
“Which students?”
“Don’t play with me.”
“No, really,” I said. “I don’t know which students.”
“Lilian Paterson, Curtis Shaw, Caroline Flynn, Michelle Bowers … Need I go on? The list is quite extensive.”
I smiled.
“So you do know where they are,” the voice said.
“I assume they escaped,” I answered. “Good for them.”
There was silence for a moment.
“I’m going to make a slight concession,” he said. “And pay close attention, because this is the only one I’m going to make. And it’s what you call a limited-time offer.”
I waited. I knew he wasn’t going to offer anything I’d accept. I hadn’t come this far to not finish.
“You and Ms. Allred are protected,” he said. “You do not have to stay in the town. I’ll have a small house built for you elsewhere on the property. You won’t have to worry about the other students—the gangs and the fighting. You can live your lives there and be happy.”
I could see it, and for an instant it sounded perfect. It wasn’t freedom, but it was comfort. And I’d be with her.
He continued before I could answer. “I want you to know that she’s listening. She’s here with me.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“A negotiation is based on trust,” he said with a chuckle.
“The answer is no,” I said. “If she is there with you, and if you’d let her talk, she’d say the same thing.”
“Mr. Fisher—”
“You can go to hell, you son of a bitch.”
There was silence. For a moment I thought he was gone, but I could hear faint breathing.
“I’ll give you some time to think,” he said. “The offer is still on the table. For a limited time.”
The voice was gone. An instant later, the lights went out, leaving me in the dark. Something behind me glowed faintly blue, reflecting on the glassy tile.
I wondered whether she really had been listening. It didn’t matter. Neither of us could have agreed to that. It wasn’t about freedom anymore. For her it was about saving the others. For me it was knowing I’d have a lifetime of guilt. Maybe there was some nobility trapped in there somewhere. I didn’t know.
The voice didn’t come back for a long time. I fell asleep again, and I woke up to the sharp stick of a needle.
Ms. Vaughn stood beside my bed, a dimly lit shadow, injecting something into my arm.
“Truth serum?” I asked.
“Breakfast,” she answered.
And then she was gone. I didn’t know whether that was truth or a mind game.
I slept again.
I dreamed about the first time I’d seen Becky, stepping out the front door of the school and welcoming me with a warm, optimistic grin. She’d dressed like the Society then, with too much makeup and her brown hair molded with finger waves. She was beautiful.
I reached for her, but as I stretched out my arm she got farther and farther away, the stairs of the school multiplying into a mountain between us. As she got smaller, more distant, an arm—a tentacle—snaked out of the door, pulling her back inside. She screamed, and I screamed.
Suddenly I was awake, shaking in my bed and fighting the restraints.
The lights came on, and they felt like floodlights. I smashed my eyes shut and turned my head away.
“Good evening, Benson,” the voice said. “Have you thought about my offer?”
“The answer is still no.”
“They can’t have disabled the implants,” the voice said. “Do I need to raze the entire town?”
“Maybe they escaped while I was distracting you.”
“Impossible.”
“Maybe we’re smarter than you think we are.”
“You’re smart, Benson, but you’re not that smart.”
“If I tell you—” I stopped myself. I was going to say that if I told him then I’d have no more leverage—that as soon as I told him, he had no reason to keep his promises.
I couldn’t believe I’d almost said it.
“If you tell me what?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re not looking well, Benson,” he said.
“You’re trying to wear me down.”
He laughed. “I am wearing you down.”
“The answer is still no,” I repeated.
“Then make a counter! I’m here to negotiate. What will it take?”
“Let everyone go. Shut down the school.”
He guffawed—a loud, long belly laugh. “I don’t want to know that much.”
“No,” I said. “I think you want to know. The longer you wait, the closer they get to civilization and rescue. Time’s ticking for you.”
“I repeat,” he said, his voice perfectly calm, “you can’t have disabled the implants.”
“Why are the president’s daughters in the school?” I asked, trying to put him on the defensive.
“That should be the least of your concerns.”
“Who are you?”
The lights went out, but an image appeared on the wall in front of me, projected from somewhere over my head.
Becky.
I could feel panic rising in my chest, and I fought against the restraints.
She sat alone in her cell, her hands behind her back, her legs tied to the chair. Her face and T-shirt were wet with sweat.
“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?” the voice said. Becky’s head popped up at the sound of the voice.
“We’re all on a party line,” he said. “So maybe you ought to say hello.”
“Becky?”
“Bense?”
“We’re going to get out of here,” I told her, and felt tears coming down my face.
The voice cut in. “You certainly are. Becky, Benson here hasn’t been telling me what I want to know.”