I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, but never went to sleep.
The doors remained locked for a long time. The screen on the corridor wall lit up shortly after dawn with the words classes begin at ten o’clock.
I was just starting to nod off when I heard the buzz and click of the doors opening. I scrambled to my feet as quickly as my sore body would let me, and opened my room door. Mason was right in front of me.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
“Got locked out.” I walked past him to the closet and started getting dressed. I wanted to get out of this dorm.
“I thought they’d hauled you away or something. I’ve been up all night.”
“Not me,” I said. “Walnut.”
Mason left the room. I could hear a lot of voices in the hall as everyone was finally allowed out of their locked prison cells and tried to get the news. He returned as I was lacing my shoes.
“Were you out there when it happened?”
“Yeah.”
“They didn’t see you, did they?”
The screen in the hallway chimed before I could answer, and both of us ran toward the door. The other V guys were already gathering around Iceman when we got there.
Iceman was staring just off center, as though he was looking at something behind the camera. His jaw was set, and his eyes were cold and gray.
One of the V’s—a kid named Hector—grabbed my arm. “Mason said you were there.”
I nodded, watching the screen. “It was Walnut.”
“They took him to detention?”
Iceman looked into the camera. It felt like he was staring right into my eyes.
“Wallace Jackson,” he said, his voice calm and low, “and Maria Nobles were sent to detention during the night.”
A V gasped and another swore. From down the hall I could hear angry shouts and curses.
I whispered to Mason, “Who’s Maria?”
“Jelly,” he said.
Jelly. I’d heard the nickname, but couldn’t picture her.
Iceman leaned forward slightly, and I almost thought his eyes darkened. “Let me make something perfectly clear. We do not make the decision to send students to detention. You decide that entirely on your own. Make better choices.”
“Turn him off,” Curtis said, shaking his head and walking away from the screen.
Iceman continued, “The rest of the daily punishments will be delivered in class. And Havoc—do not think that last night’s events have lessened your punishment for losing your match yesterday.”
I left, heading down the corridor to the exit. As I passed the Society row I could see that all of their doors were still closed. Would Havoc start something? The Society was bigger than Havoc—close to twice the size, but Havoc would be mad. And they had knives.
The school’s halls were empty and cold. The halls were always cold, it seemed. I think they only had the radiators on in the dorms and the classrooms.
Jogging down the stairs, taking two or three at a time, I got to Becky’s office in less than a minute. No one was there, so I pressed the small ring for service button mounted on the doorjamb. I waited.
Three minutes later Becky came hurrying down the hallway, her hair still wet and a towel hanging around her neck. Without her perfectly styled 1930s hairdo and her usual flawless makeup she actually looked normal. Then again, she was smiling cheerfully, despite everything that had gone on the night before. That was definitely the opposite of normal.
“Hey, Bense! What’s up?”
“I just wondered if I could talk to you for a minute,” I said.
“No problem at all.” She stepped in front of the door and the lock buzzed open. She turned the knob and opened it. “Come on in. What can I do for you?”
“What happened last night?”
She didn’t turn to look at me, but walked to her desk and straightened some of the loose papers.
“What do you mean?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean. Wallace and Maria.”
“Why don’t you sit down?”
“I don’t want to sit down,” I said. “I didn’t sleep for a minute last night and I’m sore from paintball and I watched a guy get dragged on his back down to detention.”
Becky turned, but stopped herself before our eyes met. She was fiddling with the cuff of her sleeve, trying not to look at me.
“I don’t know any more about it than you do,” she said simply.
“Come on. You have the contract.”
“No,” Becky said, glancing up at me but only for an instant. She sat on the couch and crossed her legs. She was wearing flip-flops instead of the dress-code shoes and socks.
“I meant the Society has the contract,” I said, leaning against the cabinets on the opposite wall.
“I don’t do security,” she said, finally looking into my eyes. “I promise. I have a deal with Isaiah. I do new-student orientations, and I don’t do the other stuff.”
“Dylan does both. He’s medical and security.”
She looked back down at her cuff. “I’m not Dylan.”
I rubbed my eyes. I was exhausted, and I didn’t have the energy to argue with Becky.
“But the others talk to you, right?” I asked. “You must have heard what was going on.”
“We got the message on our computers in the evening,” she said. Her gaze had moved from her cuff and now she was picking invisible lint off her skirt. “It told us what time to take the two students downstairs.”
“What rule did they break?”
“It didn’t say.”
“What?” I stood up from the wall, agitated, but the room was small and there was nowhere else for me to go, so I just stood there, arms folded. “It just said to haul them to detention, no questions asked?”
“That’s how it works.”
I thought of the howling glee that the Society guys had when they’d dragged Walnut down the hall. They didn’t even know what rule he’d broken. It wasn’t hard to guess, of course. There were only so many rules that got someone sent to detention. But still, for the Society to relish the job that much while being completely unaware of what rules they were enforcing? It made me sick.
I finally sat on the couch, slumped down next to her. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t like having that contract.”
We sat in silence for several seconds. Becky had stopped pretending to pick lint, and I just stared at the wall.
“I don’t suppose you have any ibuprofen here,” I said. “I don’t want to go to the infirmary.”
She gave a look that was half smile and half frown. “No. You’d have to go see Anna or Dylan.”
My hand went to the bruise on my side. “They actually pretend like Dylan is supposed to heal people?”
Becky looked uncomfortable. “If you want, I can see when Anna’s on call instead of Dylan. You could go then.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”
She reached over to the desk and picked up her minicomputer.
“I have to get out of here,” I said, staring forward. “This place is crazy. It’s a crazy school full of crazy people.”
Becky’s tour-guide smile appeared, and she cocked her head to the side. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do mean it,” I said. “Nothing here makes sense, and the place is run by thugs and… whatever Laura is.”
Becky folded her arms. “Laura’s my roommate.”
“She wanted to send me to detention.”
“Because you were trying to escape,” Becky snapped, and then glanced up at the cameras self-consciously.
“Look at you,” I said, raising my voice. “You’re afraid of people you’ve never even seen. Do you think this school could run without our consent? What would have happened if you Society guys just refused to take Wallace and Maria?”
Becky opened her mouth, but I kept talking. “What if all of us tried to leave—all seventy-four of us? Let’s just build some ladders and go. No one is keeping us in here except us.”
Becky sat down at the desk. “It’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple,” I insisted. “That’s all there is to it. Maybe the only real person on the other side of those cameras is that woman who dropped me off. She’s just some rich crazy lady, all alone, screwing with our heads.”