“Open his cell, Wren,” he demands.
“Woods, listen,” Wren replies, shaking her head slowly. “He’s not back from the Facility yet.”
I observe the hope whoosh out of Woods’s body, even though all I can see from here is his back. He seems to deflate, to crumble.
“He didn’t even tell me … I thought he just slept through exercise … When did he … how long has he been gone?”
“His Delay was at ten a.m.,” she replies. “It doesn’t mean he’s not coming back, Woods. People sometimes come back after days, you know that.”
“Yeah, but mostly they don’t come back at all.”
He’s right. We all know what has happened; we don’t need it explained to us. As Woods storms back to his cell and slams the door behind him, we all share a look that says that any one of us might face a surgery in our next Delay, any one of us might go the way of Winchester.
“Anyway,” Wren says, addressing the group, “enjoy your three hours.”
Slowly the noise levels rise back to their former volume as we put Winchester’s fate to the back of our minds and enjoy the time we have left. Aside from Wren’s rules, there are a few unwritten ones among the inmates: You don’t complain during the 2 a.m. club, you don’t talk about your past life, and you never ask why anyone is locked up in here. None of us want to think about that stuff.
Juno takes this opportunity to approach Wren. I watch her skeletal frame—which is barely substantial enough to keep her white jumpsuit from sliding off her shoulders—as she sidles up to the warden. She speaks in hushed tones, but from where I am, I catch every word.
“Did you think about what I said?” Juno whispers. “Last week? Did you manage to get hold of anything?”
“Juno, you know I can’t bring Ebb in here. They put you on the program, didn’t they? You’re off the stuff; why go back?”
Juno’s dull gray eyes bore into Wren’s bright green ones. She smiles cynically and shakes her head, her lank sand-colored hair falling across her face. “Do you know why people get clean, Wren? They get clean for the promise of a future. I’m going to die in here, that’s a fact, you know it is. There’s no future for me. Please?”
Wren’s eyes scan the emaciated face of the girl in front of her. “I’m sorry, Juno, I just can’t.”
Juno bites her bottom lip, trying to fight off the tears that well into her eyes. “All right,” she whispers.
“Do you need more paper? A new pencil? Your drawings are amazing, Juno; focus on that …”
But Juno is no longer listening. She turns and walks away, collapsing into a cross-legged position on the floor next to Pod and Igby, who sit opposite each other as they roll their dice and battle imaginary creatures. When Pod rolls, he counts the numbers by running his fingers over the indents in the face of each die, his blind eyes drifting up, seeing nothing. Pod, unlike Juno, is huge and broad-shouldered. Igby is shorter and slimmer. He is intelligent and quick-witted and swears like no one else. He’s from Region 19, formerly known as South Korea. He also has the worst receding hairline of any fifteen-year-old boy I’ve ever seen.
Pander starts singing again, one of the old songs from our great-great-grandfathers’ era. She’s only thirteen and doesn’t talk much, but she loves to sing. Pander’s eyes are big and brown, magnified further by her thick glasses. She has hearing aids in both ears and a scar on her neck, but these things that the Alts would call flaws seem to disappear when she sings. She also has tattoos under both eyes, needled into her with white ink to show up more clearly against her dark brown skin. These are gang tattoos that no one ever asks her about.
Chirrak and Catherine run past me, two young inmates who obviously have a crush on each other but—despite the constant threat of death—haven’t yet told each other. Instead they chase each other, playing playground games in the hopes they might stumble into intimacy.
Akimi goes through her usual 2 a.m. club routine; Wren hands her a paper bag full of clothes, and she disappears into her cell to change. When she comes out—now wearing a red summer dress with bright white sneakers—she swirls the fabric around her knees and begins to dance to Pander’s singing. Akimi has an accent, Region 70, what would have been known in the past as an Eastern European accent, but it only really comes out when she’s scared or mad, and when she’s mad, her sweet, sharp features become intimidating and scary.
Adam and Fulton could almost be twins, both short with black hair and pale skin. Usually they are joined by Winchester and Woods, but today it’s just the two of them, standing close together and discussing their latest plan of escape.
Reena Ito runs and skips around and around the wide corridor, laughing as she goes, her freedom countering the effects of the harvest, one outstretched hand running along the wall, her curly bright red hair bouncing from beneath her hat and falling into her eyes.
“You read the book yet?” Wren’s voice breaks me out of my observations.
“Hi,” I say, turning and smiling at her. “Nearly finished, and you’re right, it’s incredible.”
“It gets even better,” she says, smile widening. “Book three is my favorite.”
“I can’t wait.”
“So, any requests? Nonelectronic, remember.”
“I guess books two and three,” I tell her.
“Already got them,” she says. “I put them in your room.” She touches my arm and walks away.
“Hey, wait,” I say, and she turns back. I realize that I hadn’t planned to say anything, I just didn’t want her to go.
“Yeah?” she asks.
The silence grows, and I grasp at the first thing that pops into my head. “Are there rumors of a war coming?”
Wren’s luminous eyes narrow, and her smile broadens. “What?”
“You know, on the outside, is anyone talking about a war?”
She laughs. “No, Luka, who would we be going to war with? We’re one nation, one planet under one rule and all that stuff. War? That’s mad.”
“What about the Missing?” I ask. “Any news on them?”
“I mean, it’s still happening, in fact it’s happening more often, at least four a month, but …” She laughs again. “Luka, what’s this about?”
I laugh too. “Ah, it’s nothing, it’s just, you go a little stir-crazy in this place, and you hear things.”
“Well, rest assured there’s no war.”
“Great, and you know … thanks for all this. It’s crazy—you risk everything to give us this little bit of freedom and it means the world, you know?”
“It’s worth the risk,” she replies, pushing her golden hair behind her ear. “The way they treat you in here, it’s … I didn’t vote for it. I don’t care what Happy says, I don’t care how logical it is, I would never … It’s worth the risk.”
“Well, thanks is all I wanted to say.”
Not true. What I wanted to say was: I love you. I wish I could blow this place to a million pieces and run away with you. But even in my own head, it sounds impossibly stupid.