So he squirmed and writhed, getting rust and grime all over his clothes, and kicked off a shoe to make it seem as if he’d lost it while struggling.
“I’ll keep it up until I break a good sweat,” he told her, which was not hard to do considering that the container was oppressively hot.
Una went to meet their marks, and Lev was left alone with the stench and his thoughts.
That was over an hour ago.
He’s been alone in here for way too long.
It’s after dark now. The half-light spilling through the rust holes has given way to darkness as thick as tar. He has a moment of panic when he imagines the impossible—that the two parts pirates have killed Una. He wouldn’t put it past them. That would truly leave Lev imprisoned here with no means of escape. If that happened, then this container would be his tomb. That’s when the rats would come.
But no. He can’t let himself think that way. Una will be back. All will go according to plan.
Unless it doesn’t.
He shakes his head in the dark, banishing his anxious thoughts. With his arms secured so uncomfortably, he knows time feels like it’s dragging much more slowly than it actually is. He remembers another time he was bound like this, and for much longer. Nelson had held him and Miracolina captive in an isolated cabin. He was bound to a bed frame with cable ties similar to the ones on his wrists now, only that time it was for real. Nelson had played Russian roulette with them; five bullets in his clip were tranqs, and the sixth was deadly. No way of knowing when the killer bullet would come up. He didn’t fire at Lev, though—he shot Miracolina each time Lev gave Nelson an answer he didn’t like, and each time she was tranq’d into unconsciousness once more.
In the silence of the steel container, Lev’s mind now takes him to alternate realities. What if Nelson had killed Miracolina? What would Lev have done then? Would he have had the wherewithal to escape, or would the burden of her death weigh so heavily upon him that it would have crippled him?
And where would Connor be now, if Lev never got free from Nelson? Dead or in prison, probably. Or in a harvest camp, waiting until one of the proposed laws passes that allows the unwinding of criminals.
But Miracolina survived and helped him get to the airplane graveyard. He rescued Connor from the Juvies and from Nelson. He did good. He wishes he could tell Miracolina all the good he’s done—but he has no idea where she is, or if she even escaped.
He still cares for Miracolina, and thinks about her often—but so much has transpired in the weeks since he last saw her, it feels like another lifetime. She had been a tithe, which means she might be unwound by now if she held to the ideals she had when they first met. Lev can only hope that his influence had eroded her dangerously self-sacrificing resolve, but there’s no way to know. Maybe someday he will track her down and find out what happened to her, but personal curiosity is a luxury he can’t afford right now. For the time being, Miracolina Roselli must remain on his list of “maybe somedays.”
He hears a bolt thrown, and the creaking of heavy hinges. The doors at the front of the container open just enough to admit a streak of pale moonlight, and three figures enter. Lev slumps, feigning unconsciousness. Through his closed eyes, he registers the glow of a flashlight against his face.
“That’s not him, look at his hair!”
“Hair grows, you imbecile.”
He recognizes their voices right away: Fretwell, the lackluster one, and Hennessey, the one-eared ringleader with prep-school affectations. He was only in their company once, but those voices are burned into his auditory memory enough to make him fill with an angry chill. Lev opens his eyes, and lets his disgust and horror play out on his face, because it serves him to do so.
“I do believe this actually is Levi Calder,” says Hennessey, leaning in to examine him.
“It’s Garrity!” Lev grunts.
“Call yourself whatever you want,” Hennessey says with an antagonistic grin, “but to the world, you’ll always be Levi Calder, the tithe-turned-clapper.”
Lev spits in his face because he’s close enough, and because it gives Lev great satisfaction to do so—and to his surprise, Una steps in and smashes Lev across the face with a brutal backhanded slap that nearly spins his head around.
“Show respect to your new owners,” Una says bitterly. He responds by spitting at her, too.
Una steps forward as if to hit him again, but Hennessey grabs her. “Enough,” he says. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to damage the merchandise?”
Una backs off, setting down her flashlight on the rusty filing cabinet, painting the space in harsh oblique shadow. She looks away just enough to give Lev a wink that the two men can’t see. Lev just scowls at her, because that’s something they can see. The slap, Lev knows, was key to their illusion, even if it felt painfully real. He wonders if, on any level, Una took some satisfaction from it.
Now it’s Fretwell’s turn to taunt. He moves in closer. “We never shoulda let you go that first time,” he says. “Of course, that was before you were a clapper. You were nobody then.”
“And he’s nobody now,” says Hennessey, then he turns to Una. “We’ll give you five thousand for him, and not a penny more.”
Una is outraged, and Lev is, to say the least, insulted.
“Are you kidding me?” Una shouts. “He’s got to be worth at least ten times that!”
Hennessey crosses his arms. “Oh, please! Don’t be obtuse. The boy’s organs are damaged from the explosive solution—his growth is stunted, and he’s probably sterile. We are purveyors in flesh, sweetie. His flesh has no intrinsic value.”
Lev suppresses the urge to argue. His organs aren’t perfect, but they do the job, and no, he won’t grow, but the doctors never said anything about him being sterile. How dare they? But arguing for his own value won’t help things.
“I’m not stupid,” says Una. “There are collectors who would pay top dollar for a piece of the clapper who didn’t clap.”
Lev looks at them all with absolute disdain. “So I’m a collectible?”
“Not you, your parts!” says Fretwell, and laughs.
Hennessey throws a nasty glance in Fretwell’s direction—a nonverbal chastising for getting in the way of his negotiation.
“Perhaps, and perhaps not,” Hennessey says. “But collectors are fickle. Who’s to say what they’re willing to pay for.” Then he grabs Lev by the chin, turning his head to the left and right, looking him over like a horse he’s about to buy. “Seventy-five hundred cash. Final offer. If you don’t like it, try to sell him yourself.”
Una looks at the two men, suitably disgusted, then says, “Fine.”
Hennessey gestures to Fretwell. “Cut him loose.” Fretwell pulls out a knife and bends down to cut the tie on Lev’s right hand, while Hennessey pulls out his billfold. The instant Lev’s hand is free, he reaches behind him, grabbing a handheld tranq dart, and jabs it in Fretwell’s neck.
“Holy freaking mother of—” And Fretwell collapses unconscious before completing the thought.
Una, with lightning speed, has already grabbed her rifle and has it trained on Hennessey’s face. “One move,” she says. “Go on, give me a reason.”
But Hennessey is quick-thinking. He hurls the wad of money in Una’s face and bolts. The distraction is just enough to give him a full second head start. The bills drop from her face and she aims her rifle.
“Una, no!”
She fires but misses, blowing a hole in the front door of the container just as Hennessey escapes.
“Damn it!” She races after him, and Lev tries to race after her—only to realize in a most painful way that his left hand is still secured to the wall.
“Una!”
But she’s gone, and he must resort to searching for Fretwell’s knife that lies somewhere in the shadows.