“Yeah. Which brings me to my point. You can’t just take off like that. If you’re looking for this guy, you need to be careful. Or else you’ll end up dead.” Jacks stares at me for a minute, his soft brown eyes studying my face. The look reminds me so much of the way Rice would gaze at me sometimes. There’s concern in his face, and a warmth that makes me feel at ease. Then Jacks leans in and for an anxious moment, I don’t know what to expect. But he wipes some of my attackers’ filth off my face and smiles.
“Also, if you start turning into a Florae, I need to be here to kill you.”
I exhale. “It’s nice that you care,” I reply with a smirk.
Jacks grins. “Seriously, I can help you. I can even protect you—as long as you don’t do anything idiotic, like run into the Yard alone.”
I nod. “Okay. That’s a deal. But I do think I just saw the guy I’m looking for. Can you come with me to look?”
“If . . . and that’s a huge if, that was him, he’s long gone. Why don’t you rest a little and think of a plan?”
“At your place?”
“Well. We can kick one of those kids out of their cardboard boxes, if you want.”
I look out into the Yard. Someone at the end of the row yowls.
“Fine. I’ll sleep on your floor for tonight.”
“Oh, I’ve got an extra bunk. We’re talking luxury.”
With no other choices, I put my hand out for Jacks to take. If I want to find Ken, there’s nothing to do but play the game.
Jack looks down with a faint smile as he takes my hand, and we make our way back through the crowds, I assume in the direction of his cell. Again, I’m horrified by the desperation in the eyes of the hungry.
“Can’t anyone help these people?”
“Sometimes the Warden makes a show of giving them food,” Jacks says. “He’ll have the Scrappers throw them a dented can or two. They’re all expired, but mostly they’re still good.”
I nod. “What’s a Scrapper?”
“Someone who travels far outside the walls to find food and supplies.” He steps over a rusty can, pointing it out to me.
“Thanks,” I say, although I’m in no danger. A sharp can won’t tear my synth-suit if a Florae’s claws can’t. But Jacks doesn’t know that.
We’re most of the way across the yard when another gunshot stops me in my tracks.
“Feels like the Wild West in here, doesn’t it?” Jacks says, pulling me back into motion. “People are just left to sort things out for themselves.”
“Yeah, or not sort them out.”
“Right,” he says. “Well, it makes things exciting. It’s weird, but I sort of like it. I always wanted to be a cowboy when I was young. . . . It’s a Texas thing, I guess.” He chuckles at his childish admission.
We come to a heavy, open door in the center of a massive gray building, the middle of three that rise past the shantytown of the exercise yard. The structure is built of cinder block and stone. The walls drip with condensation.
“This is our cellblock—B. It’s the middle one. . . . Don’t forget,” Jacks says, pointing out the large B on the door as we walk through an entryway and into a sort of multileveled atrium surrounded on all sides by jail cells. Walkways soar above us, and the walls echo with voices. Garbage litters the floor: empty cans and broken pieces of plastic and debris. Most of the cells are open; the ones that are closed are secured with thick chains and padlocks.
Jacks points at the second floor. “I’m level two, number sixteen.”
I follow him up the metal stairs to the second floor and down the walkway between the cells and the railing, stepping over shattered glass and around a discarded broken chair. I’m glad to see the cells are at least separated by solid walls instead of just bars. There will be that much privacy, anyway.
I’m passing the second cell down when a man with an ear-to-ear grin leans out like he’s been waiting for me. “My, my,” he says. “You anyone’s yet, sweetheart?”
I lurch away against the side railing. I can see on his wrist, in large block letters, the word POX.
Again Jacks steps between us and stares the man down. Without Jacks having to say a word, the man steps back and fades away into his cell.
Jacks takes my hand and leads me quickly past more cells. His aggression unsettles me, but when he looks back at me, I see he’s grinning. “Does it help if I don’t actually say the words ‘She’s mine’?”
“Sort of.” I offer him a small smile, but I don’t feel any better. “Does he have the Pox?” I ask. “Why is he out here with everyone?”
“He had it and recovered. Now he’s only contagious if he . . . well, exchanges bodily fluids with you. His tattoo lets everyone know so he doesn’t accidentally infect someone.”
I grimace as we reach Jacks’s cell, the door held closed with a bike lock. He pulls a key out of his pocket. “I know this seems like a total suck-fest, but it’ll be okay. One day at a time. And I have a feeling you’ll find this Ken guy soon.”
“Especially with your help,” I say.
Jacks undoes the bike lock and pulls open the cell door. “Home sweet home,” he says bleakly.
I walk into the dimly lit box. It’s tiny, crowded even with its sparse contents—a set of bunk beds, a single chair, and a small table strewn with notebooks and sketch paper. The walls are covered with artwork, life drawings, and vibrant tattoo ideas. In one corner a sheet hangs from the ceiling. Jacks pulls it aside, revealing a small metal toilet and sink.
“You can wash up,” he tells me, trying to place his art supplies into more organized piles. “There’s no electricity in this building, not like in the wall, but at least the plumbing works.” He hurries to the bunk beds and begins to clear papers off the top bunk.
“I’m okay for now,” I tell him, though the fact is, I could definitely make use of the toilet, and I know I could stand to clean up. Maybe I’ll get over my shyness later—I’d better—but for now, I’d rather wait until I’m alone in the cell.
There’s barely room to walk, the cell is so crowded. Not knowing what else to do, I study his artwork. It’s amazing—the colors in his intricate tattoo designs practically light the room, and the people he’s sketched look as if they could step down from the walls . . . Not a good thing in one case.
“You drew Tank?” I ask, pointing to a sketch near the tiny window. He studies it with a pained look, then shrugs and almost snarls, “I draw what’s around.”
“You captured his look perfectly.” Tank’s eyes stare back at me from the drawing, a predator after his prey. I shudder.
“Maybe we can take that one down for now?”
“Sure.” Jacks rips it from the wall and throws it on a stack of papers. “Sorry about the mess. I wasn’t expecting to get a roommate.”
“That’s okay.” I pick some more papers off the floor and put them on the table, trying to be of use. Shoved under the table are boxes of paints and paintbrushes.
“Where do you get all this?” I ask.
“From the Scrappers, in exchange for tattoo work,” he tells me, breaking down an easel from the middle of the room. Just putting that aside makes me feel like I have room to breathe.
I turn back to the table and shuffle through the drawings. Jacks must have sketched half of the people at Fort Black, each one of them so lifelike, I almost expect them to blink at me. I can’t stop looking at them. My eyes are drawn to maybe the hundredth sketch. The man’s face looks familiar. His features are delicate, almost pretty for a guy. Other than a heart-shaped mole on his left cheek, he seems like someone I should know. I pick up the drawing.
And then I realize why I recognize him. He looks familiar because he looks like Kay.