I couldn’t help questioning the offer of food . . . or the melancholy smile. If the gesture was calculated, it was a pretty good show—I had to give her that much. But it wasn’t like I was going anywhere, and she was right, it wouldn’t do me any good not to eat.
I eased down on the nearest wooden bench. There were rows of them, all with peeling paint, and all bolted to the tile floor. She set the plate down in front of me.
“Where are Simon and the others?” I asked when she straddled the bench, opposite the plate.
She just watched me for several long seconds.
Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by her. She was more than just pretty. There was something mesmerizing about her, about the purse of her lips and the way her dark eyes felt like they understood you—like she knew you—that made you want to just . . . look at her. I found myself searching for the right thing to say, and had to remind myself she wasn’t my friend.
“It’s safe here,” she said instead of answering my question. She glanced around the locker room, but I knew that wasn’t what she meant.
She was talking about this place, this camp, and I immediately thought of the way Simon had said that very same thing to me, right before he’d been taken away. That I was safe, and that he’d protect me, and that I had nothing to be afraid of.
So why wasn’t I convinced?
“You’re not what I was expecting.” There was no point pretending I trusted her. I reached for one of the polished green grapes and bit into it.
Food might not exactly be the same anymore, but fruit somehow tasted less cardboard-y than most other things. It might not be powdered-doughnut good or anything, but it was the closest to the taste I remembered from before.
She crossed her arms, a small frown pushing her brows together. “What were you expecting?”
I chose another grape, purple this time. I let the juice, sweeter than the green one, roll over my tongue. Shrugging, I answered, “I don’t know. I guess I thought I’d be grilled, maybe get the whole good-cop, bad-cop routine, while you guys tried to find out what we’re doing here.” I smiled because saying it out loud made it sound kind of absurd. “Maybe a little waterboarding.”
She smiled too, and I was bombarded by a sensation of wanting to please her. If she was anything, she was definitely the good cop. “What makes you think I’m not here for information?”
I pulled off a corner of the cheese, forcing myself to remember she was one of them—part of the camp holding us captive. “Just so you know, I don’t know anything important.” I wasn’t lying, at least not yet. The computers were Jett’s department, and weapons were Willow’s area of expertise. Simon was so damn secretive that even if there was anything to know, he never would have told me anyway.
I glanced at my watch. 12:52. I wished she’d just get to the point. I wanted to be taken to where Simon and Jett and the others had been moved to already.
“Why are we being held like this? We didn’t do anything wrong. When can I see my friends?” I met her deep brown eyes and tried to decide if there was anything unusual about them, like Simon’s and Natty’s, and Buzz Cut’s, whose blue was so charged, it practically pulsed. This girl’s cocoa-color eyes were deep and rich, but also very ordinary. Outside, I could hear voices yelling—the sounds of drills being called. I itched to look down at my watch again, but I held firm on the girl, determined not to give her any insight on me.
She shifted her weight and I purposely avoided looking at her as she uncrossed her arms. “Let me ask you a question, Kyra.” Hearing her say my name shouldn’t have surprised me. I’m sure they all knew who we were by now, but there was something about the way she said it. Her voice was low and she leaned forward expectantly. “Who is it you belong to? Simon or Thom?” She examined me closely, and that feeling of wanting her to like me vanished. Now I just wanted her to stop staring.
Her choice of wording made my skin itch.
I might feel a certain amount of loyalty to each of them, for different reasons, but I was my own person. I made my own choices. “I don’t belong to either of them,” I insisted.
“Ooh, a loner. I like that.” She got to her feet and stared down at me now. “We could use a girl like you around here.”
When she reached down and pushed a piece of my damp hair from my face, I jerked away from her. “Who are you? Where’s Griffin? I think there’s some confusion—we just came here because we needed a place to hide . . .”
She folded her arms over her chest. “There’s no confusion. We know why you’re here.”
Except I was still confused. “So . . . why hold us prisoner like this? I thought the Returned worked together. . . .”
“There are a lot of things you still don’t understand, although I can’t say I’m totally surprised. Simon does that, keeps things to himself; he was always that way. And Thom’s no better—he’s always been a man of few words. Even when they were here, it was hard to know what either of them was thinking.”
“So . . . you . . . you knew them?” She had my full attention then. It hadn’t crossed my mind, that she’d been here when they had. That this girl might know things about them, and their pasts, that I didn’t.
She sighed, giving me a conciliatory look. “You really have no clue, do you?”
There was a sharp rap on the door, and then Buzz Cut stepped inside. The brown-eyed girl was halfway across the room before the door had even swished closed again.