My fingers relax, as do the muscles in my shoulder and arm. Sam always quiets me; she finds me and leads me out of these dark places. The tic is still there, but less noticeable if I slide my hand into the pocket of my uniform trousers. The Trainers would have told the PSFs and camp controllers the tic—that involuntary spasm of muscle and joints—is a Red’s calling card, and when it comes around, it means we’re heating up. We’re thinking, dreaming, tasting fire. Fine if it comes hand in hand with an order to attack, not so fine if it appears out of the blue. Mine has always been less pronounced than some of the others’. Disappears completely as long as I’m mostly calm. Thank God. I’d seen too many other kids get “treated” by a month’s worth of daily, repeated ice-water submersions if they so much as flinched at the wrong moment.
Finally, the doors to the Factory are dragged open, and a dripping, dark figure jogs inside. He brings the frigid air in with him, cooling my temper, freezing me at my core. He’s in what almost looks like civilian clothes—a black poncho, black slacks, boots. Under the heavy, rain-slick fabric, I see the lumps and bumps of a utility belt with a holstered gun. The man wipes the rain off his face as he pushes his hood back. The dark, graying stubble on his face gives it shadows that aren’t really there. He strides toward us, every movement strong, brisk, efficient. He isn’t military, but like the Trainers, he probably used to be.
I remember him. This is O’Ryan. He’s the one that gave us our “orientation” the night before, when we were brought in. He assessed us as we passed by, the way my mom used to examine the cuts of meat in the grocery store, then waved us on to collect our uniforms and our red vests.
camp controller. Shit. The camp controller. Something sticks inside my throat, sealing it off from the air I need to think.
Tildon shoots to his side, his face covered in grime and blood. Next to O’Ryan, who is as steady and silent as a mountain, he looks like an idiot as he flails and moves into the next phase of his tantrum. O’Ryan crosses his arms over his chest, listening but not listening, his eyes glancing between Sam and the PSF. Olsen speaks up toward the end, explaining how I was the one to finally restrain her, that I acted quickly and behaved exactly as I should have.
O’Ryan’s pleased expression turns my stomach. I hide my clenched fist behind me and give him a salute when he says, “Well done, M27.” And every second his eyes are on me, I have to wrestle with the anger all over again. I have to think of Mia’s face when my fingers rub against each other, ready to snap a flame into the air. Hurting him helps no one. It wouldn’t get me closer to finding my sister, it wouldn’t do a single thing to help Sam—but I have a feeling it would be pretty gratifying to set the ass**le on fire. I want so badly for all of them to experience the kind of hurt they’ve inflicted on us.
But more than that, I want to cover Sam. I want to cover her so none of these people can see her like this, too weak to even lift her head. The other kids are only just coming out of their daze, waking back up to this nightmare. They stay in the positions they’ve been taught to assume, though—face down on the floor, hands on the back of their heads. Drip, drip, drip goes the rain through the holes in the roof, splattering over them, into their plastic bins. The room smells like damp animal and urine and cigarette smoke. The lights flicker as the wind picks up.
“Fine, then put her in isolation. Two weeks,” O’Ryan finally interrupts.
“Isolation,” Tildon sneers. “She attacked me! The little bitch deserves at least twenty-five strikes! And I want her in the cages, not the Infirmary.”
It’s the first time Sam shows any reaction since the Calm Control. Her hands claw at the ground at that word cages. Where the hell is that? The blood is draining out of my head. They said they sometimes tie them to the fences outside of the Garden, but isolation is the upper level of the Infirmary. Little padded, lightless cells. The kids there are broken, or need to be broken. Every hair on my body seems to prick and stand at attention.
“Fine. A night in the cages and ten strikes.” I don’t know if he saw Tildon’s face light up, but O’Ryan quickly adds, “Delivered by Olsen.”
Her posture relaxes as she swings around, away from Tildon’s sputtering.
One last look from O’Ryan silences him for good. “Go clean yourself up,” he says quietly, layering his voice with just enough of a threat to make Tildon straighten, “and report to my office immediately after.”
He let a kid get the best of him—there’ll be some kind of disciplinary action, at least. He deserves to be smeared against the ground like the shit stain he is. It won’t be enough to balance out what he did to Sam, but it’ll be something.
Olsen flicks her hand toward Sam, staring at me. These PSFs are all the same, aren’t they? They resent the fact they brought us in to fill in the gaps in their security, but they love the power they wield in outranking us. We aren’t human to them, even now that we’re supposedly on the same side. We don’t get eye contact or words. It makes me feel like a damn dog, staring at a master shouting a command in a language I don’t understand.
It takes me a moment to translate what she wants, and, just as quickly, the horror slams right back into me. They’re going to do it right here—they’re going to hit her right here, and they want me to hold her up while they do it.
Fuck.
Them.
Olsen stares at me expectantly. The moment crashes down around me, and I feel something inside of me strain to its ultimate limit. I want to cry—I want to sob like a baby, Don’t make me do this, not to her, not to Sammy. Why did I have to volunteer for this place? Why did I have to come here and find her? I wanted Thurmond because that’s where they were supposed to take Mia. All I want is to find her. Mom and Dad are gone now. I’m all Mia has left. I’m her only chance to get out. I can’t blow this and show them I’m not what I’m supposed to be. But I can’t do this to Sammy. I would rather cut out my own heart.