He’d come in without knocking while Bellamy had been trying to clean the breakfast dishes. They only had running water a few hours a day, generally while his mother was working in the solar fields. Bellamy was so startled, he dropped the cup he was cleaning and watched in horror as it bounced on the floor and rolled toward the closet.
The officer’s eyes darted back and forth as he read something off his cornea slip. “Bellamy Blake?” he said in his weird Phoenix accent that made it sound like his mouth was full of nutrition paste. Bellamy nodded slowly. “Is your mother home?”
“No,” he said, working hard to keep his voice steady, just like he’d practiced.
Another guard stepped through the door. After a nod from the officer, he began asking questions in a dull, flat tone that suggested he’d given the same speech a dozen times already that day.
“Do you have more than three meals’ worth of food in your residence?” he droned. Bellamy shook his head. “Do you have an energy source other than…”
Bellamy’s heart was beating so loudly, it seemed to drown out the guard’s voice. Although his mother had drilled him countless times, practicing any number of scenarios, he never imagined the way the officer’s eyes would move around their flat. When his eyes landed on the dropped cup then moved to the closet, Bellamy thought his chest was going to explode.
“Are you going to answer his question?”
Bellamy looked up and saw both men staring at him. The officer was scowling impatiently, and the other guard just looked bored.
Bellamy started to apologize, but his “Sorry” came out like a wheeze.
“Do you have any permanent residents other than the two people registered for this unit?”
Bellamy took a deep breath. “No,” he said, forcing the word out. He finally remembered to affect the annoyed expression his mother had him practice in the mirror.
The officer raised one eyebrow. “So sorry to have wasted your time,” he said with mock cordiality. With a final glance around the flat, he strode out, followed by the guard, who sla cuarry to hmmed the door shut behind him.
Bellamy sank to his knees, too terrified to answer the question rattling through his mind: What would have happened if they’d looked in the closet?
11
Glass
As she trailed behind Cora and Huxley on their way to the Exchange, Glass found herself wishing that her mother had waited a few more days before spreading the news of her pardon. At first, she’d been overjoyed to see her friends. When they’d walked through her door that morning, all three girls had burst into sobs. But now, watching Cora and Huxley exchange knowing smiles as they passed a boy Glass didn’t recognize, she felt more alone than she ever had in her cell.
“I bet you have a ton of points saved up,” Huxley said as she wrapped her arm around Glass. “I’m jealous.”
“All I have is what my mother transferred to me this morning.” Glass gave her a weak smile. “The rest were eliminated after my arrest.”
Huxley shuddered dramatically. “I still can’t believe it.” She lowered her voice. “You never did tell us why you were Confined.”
“She doesn’t want to talk about that,” Cora said as she glanced nervously over her shoulder.
No, you don’t want to talk about that , Glass thought as they turned onto the main B deck corridor, a long, wide passage bordered by panoramic windows on one side and benches tucked between artificial plants on the other. It was midday, and most of the benches were occupied by women her mother’s age talking and sipping sunflower root tea. Technically, you were supposed to use ration points at the tea stand, but Glass couldn’t remember the last time she’d been asked to scan her thumb. It was just one of the many small luxuries of life on Phoenix that she’d never given a second thought until she started spending time with Luke.
As the girls strode down the corridor, Glass could feel nearly every pair of eyes turn to her. Her stomach twisted as she wondered what had been more shocking—the fact that she’d been Confined or the fact that she’d been pardoned. She held her head up high and tried to look confident as she walked past. Glass was supposed to be an example of the Colony’s sense of justice, and she would have to keep face as though her life depended on it. Because this time, it did.
“Do you think there’s any chance Clarke will get pardoned too?” Huxley asked as Cora shot her a warning look. “Did you guys ever like, hang out, while you were in Confinement?”
“Oh my god, Huxley, will you give it a rest?” Cora said, touching Glass’s arm in a supportive gesture. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that, when Clarke was sentenced just after you, nobody could believe it: two Phoenix girls in a few months? And then when you came back, there were all these rumors.…”
“It’s fine,” Glass said, forcing a smile to signal that she was okay talking about it. “Clarke got put into solitary pretty quickly, so I didn’t see her much. And I don’t know whether she’ll be pardoned,” she lied, remembering her mom’s imperative that she not talk about the Earth mission. “I’m not sure when she turns eighteen—my case was reevaluated since it’s almost my birthday.”
“Oh, ri fyway?strodght, your birthday!” Huxley squealed, clapping her hands. “I forgot it’s coming up. We’ll have to find you something at the Exchange.”
Cora nodded, seeming overjoyed to have found their way back to such an acceptable topic, as the girls approached their destination.
The Phoenix Exchange was in a large hall at the end of B deck. In addition to panoramic windows, it held an enormous chandelier that had supposedly been evacuated from the Paris Opera house hours before the first bomb fell on Western Europe. Whenever Glass heard the tale, she felt a twinge of sadness for the people who might’ve been saved instead, but she couldn’t deny that the chandelier was breathtaking. Dancing with reflected light from the ceiling and the windows, it looked like a small cluster of stars, a miniature galaxy spinning and shimmering overhead.
Huxley let go of Glass’s arm and dashed over to a display of ribbons, oblivious to the nearby group of girls who’d fallen silent at Glass’s arrival. Glass blushed and hurried after Cora, whose eyes were trained on a textile booth near the back wall.
She stood awkwardly next to Cora while her friend rummaged through the fabric, quickly reducing the orderly stack into a messy pile while the Walden woman behind the table gave her a tight smile. “Look at all this crap,” Cora muttered as she flung a piece of burlap and a few strips of fleece to the side.
“What are you looking for?” Glass asked, running her finger along a tiny scrap of pale-pink silk. It was beautiful, even with the rust marks and water stains along the edges, but it would be impossible to find enough matching pieces for a small evening bag, let alone a dress.
“I’ve spent a million years collecting scraps of blue satin, and I finally have enough for the slip, but I need to layer something over it so it doesn’t look too patchworky.” Cora wrinkled her nose as she examined a large piece of clear vinyl. “How much is this?”
“Six,” the Walden woman said.
“You’re not serious.” Cora rolled her eyes at Glass. “It’s a shower curtain.”
“It’s Earthmade.”
Cora snickered. “Authenticated by who?”