“Seriously?” Cade laughed.
It felt good to laugh. It felt like the first time he had done so in a long, long time.
“Nah,” Spex sighed. “My parents are super religious, and I’ve been straying from”—he paused to crook his fingers into air quotes—“the path.”
He shrugged.
“They’d been threatening sending me to this place for years. If I missed church, it was, ‘We’re sending you to that boot camp.’ Skip class—‘boot camp.’ Bad grades—‘boot camp.’ Never thought they’d do it. Then one night they catch me out with a girl, sneaking a beer in the park. And I thought it would be a good idea to run away for a few days after that.”
Cade groaned in sympathy. “Worst. Idea. Ever.”
Spex nodded. “I won’t argue with you. Brazilian families, they can be judgmental, you know? I swear, half the time my parents were more worried about what my grandma would think than what they thought. And when I ran away, the whole family found out. Even back in Brazil.”
He gave a long sigh and pushed his glasses up his nose.
“I went back home when I ran out of money, and that was the last straw.”
Cade opened his mouth to speak again, but Spex was already on his feet.
“Maybe see you in the library sometime. Take care, Cade.”
Then he was walking away, leaving Cade to his thoughts.
Cade didn’t dare to hope Spex would hang out with him, at least not in public. But now Cade didn’t feel quite so alone. Not a friend but … someone.
Someone who didn’t hate him.
CHAPTER
5
Place:Unknown
Date:Unknown
Year:Unknown
The passage widened. One minute they were shuffling sideways through a tight corridor of rough-hewn rock, the next they found it falling away. Now they stood in a V-shaped opening, and beyond, an expansive plain of flat, white ground lay before them.
“Is this a salt flat?” Cade said, unable to take his eyes from the shimmering expanse. “I saw one in a documentary once.”
It was almost identical to the one he had seen all those years ago, stretching endlessly into the horizon, the crystals that coated its surface glimmering in the dusk glow. The dry heat seemed to suck the very moisture from Cade’s skin.
Cade turned as Eric grunted with surprise. They had walked out of one of three identical passages, all converging on the opening they now stood in.
“Look,” Eric said, pointing at the wall on their left side.
To Cade’s amazement there was a basin there, carved into the rock itself, protruding from its wall like a shallow bathtub. As they approached, they saw the barest trickle of water seeping into the receptacle from the cliff above, and within, a still pool waited for them.
Both immediately began slurping cupped handfuls of the lukewarm liquid into their dry mouths, gulping it down until their bellies sloshed full to bursting, then drinking some more.
It was heavenly, and, for the briefest moment, Cade could think of nothing else. He hadn’t realized just how thirsty he had been.
“Save some for us, would you?” a voice called from behind.
Cade spun, only to find himself looking at the gap-toothed grin of a scrawny ginger kid. He wore the same uniform, and he held a hand axe.
“I’m as thirsty as a hungover camel,” the kid continued.
Beyond, Cade spotted a second kid peering at him from the shadows of the passage they had emerged from, another bloodied hand axe in his hand.
“Scott,” the first kid said, giving Cade’s hand a cursory shake before scooping up a handful of water for himself. “And this is Yoshi.”
He leaned in conspiratorially and mumbled through a mouthful.
“But don’t mention Mario Kart, okay? He doesn’t like that.”
Cade backed away as Scott dipped his head into the basin like a horse at a trough. He watched as the water level fell with each heave of his shoulders.
Yoshi approached, his face dark with foreboding—a grim contrast to the smiling Scott. Yoshi was new to the school, and Cade knew little about him. His hair was thick, styled in a sweeping wave, with sharp cheekbones and a thin mouth beneath.
The boy sidled out of the shadows.
“’Sup,” he said, giving Cade a curt nod before joining Scott at the water basin. By now, Eric had stepped aside too, and the large boy looked bemused at the new pair. Somehow, everyone seemed a whole lot calmer than Cade felt.
By the time the two were done, there was barely any water left, and Scott groaned and clutched his distended belly with mock exaggeration.
“So,” he said, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “Any ideas how we got here?”
Cade looked at Eric, who shrugged, and said, “I think we’re dead.”
Scott slapped the hulking boy’s back and laughed.
“The big dude speaks at last.”
Cade remembered Scott now. Like Yoshi, Scott was new at the school. He’d been sent there for joyriding, or so Cade had heard. The kid was obsessed with cars.
But Cade didn’t have time to search his memory for long. A bloodcurdling scream drifted from the third passageway, tearing Cade from his thoughts and setting his teeth on edge. A human scream.
Then, before he could even consider heading toward it, the same glowing wall that he had seen before appeared, blocking the three passages.
“Sounds like someone didn’t make it,” Eric growled, striding to the wall and pressing his fists against its surface. “The vipers got them.”
Silence.
“You see the monsters too?” Scott finally said.
Eric gave him a slow nod.
“So, what’s the verdict?” Scott asked. “Mutants? Monsters that go bump in the night?”
“Hell,” Eric muttered, scooping up a handful of the reddish sand from the ground and letting it trickle through his fingers.
“He’s a cheerful one.” Scott winked. “Yoshi, any thoughts to add?”
Yoshi gave Scott a level look.
“No,” he said, taking another sip of water.
Scott chuckled and turned to Cade, who shrugged and looked out at the salt flats again.
“Someone put us here,” Cade said. “And someone built this place—the layout is the same down each passage, like identical movie sets. I think they’re watching us. Why else go to all this effort?”
“A military exercise?” Eric asked.
“Maybe,” Cade said, squinting at the horizon. “Maybe we’re guinea pigs in some kind of experiment.”
“So they knocked us out with gas or something in the dorm rooms,” Yoshi said.
“I don’t think so. I wasn’t sleeping, I just … appeared here,” Scott said. “And why this? A glowing force field, some creatures straight from a lunatic’s nightmares, and putting us in a weird canyon they built to look real. Then giving us nothing but a rock to fight them with? What the hell kind of experiment is that?”
Cade shook his head. “The real question is, what do we do now? There’s water here, but it won’t last us, even with that trickle refilling it.”
“We’ll go hungry too,” Yoshi agreed. “We can’t stay here.”