Chapter 16

chapter Sixteen

It was stupid of me not to have expected one or both of them to be packing some kind of heat, but my stomach tightened all the same. I turned away, looking at the splotches of old oil tattooed on the pavement, and waited for the car door to slam shut again.

"Here you go," Rob said, passing us each a black backpack. My fellow freak snatched his, checking its contents like it was a party favor bag.

"It looks like the bathrooms in the station still have some running water. I wouldn't try drinking it though," Rob continued. "There's a change of clothes and some necessities in there. Don't take a million years, but feel free to wash that camp off

you."

Wash Thurmond off me? Rub it off like a splatter of mud? I may have been able to erase everyone else's memories, but I couldn't scrub away my own.

I took my bag without a word, the beginnings of a headache rumbling at the base of my skull. I knew what that meant well enough to take a step back. My heel caught on the uneven cement, sending me stumbling toward the hard ground. I threw out my arms in a lame attempt to reclaim my balance, but the only solid thing I found was Rob's arm.

He may have thought he was being chivalrous by catching me, but he should have let me fall. My brain released a blissful little sigh as it went tumbling into Rob's thoughts. All at once, the pressure that had been building in the back of my mind released, sending a tingle racing down my spine. I gritted my teeth at the sinking sensation, anger flooding my system as I tried to yank myself away.

Unlike Cate's memories, which came and went like fluttering eyelashes, Rob's thoughts seemed almost lethargicvelvety and murky. They didn't piece themselves together so much as seep into one another-like ink dropped into a glass of water, the dark mass stretching and slithering until it finally polluted everything that had once been clean.

I was Rob, and Rob was staring down at two dark shapes-two dark sacks covered their heads, but it was obvious that one was a man and the other a woman. It was the latter that had my heart thrumming in my ears. The strength of her sobbing shook her entire body, but she never stopped struggling against the plastic ties binding her hands and feet.

Rain came down around us like an afterthought, running down through the gutters of the nearby buildings. Through the filter of Rob's mind, it sounded like static. Two enormous black Dumpsters came into focus out of the corner of my eye, and it was only then that I realized we were in an alley, and we were alone.

Rob's hand-my hand-reached out and ripped the hood off the woman, sending her dark hair flying over her face.

But it wasn't a woman at all. It was a girl, no older than I was, wearing a set of dark green clothes. A uniform. A camp uniform.

Tears mixed with rain, dripping down over her cheeks into her mouth, Her colorless lips formed the shape please and her eyes seemed to scream no, but there was a gun in my hand, silver and shining despite the low light. The same gun that was tucked in the back of Rob's jeans. The same one that was now pointed at the girl's forehead.

The gun jumped in my hand as it went off, but in that instant, the flash lit up her terrified face, an unfinished scream drowned out by the bang. A spray of blood flicked up over my hand as her face seemed to cave in on itself, staining the dark jacket I woreand the edge of the white cuff beneath it.

The boy died the same way, only Rob didn't bother to even take his hood off before he ended his life. The bodies were lifted into the Dumpsters. I shrank back and away from the scene, watching it grow smaller, and smaller, and smaller until the dark, cloudy haze of Rob's mind swallowed it whole.

I tugged myself free, coming up from the inky pool with a sharp gasp.

Rob released my arm instantly, but Cate dove forward and would have taken his place if I hadn't raised both hands to

stop her.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "You've gone pale."

"I'm okay," I said, trying to keep my voice calm and steady. "Still feeling a little woozy from the medicine."

Martin let out an annoyed sigh behind me. He was hopping from foot to foot, grumbling impatiently. He slid a suspicious eye in my direction, and for half a heartbeat I was afraid he knew exactly what had just happened. But, no-connections like that were fast, and lasted only a few seconds, no matter how long it felt to me.

I kept my eyes on the ground, carefully avoiding both the adults' faces. I couldn't bring myself to look at Rob, not after seeing what he had done-and I knew if I looked at Cate, I'd give myself away in an instant. She'd ask me what was wrong, and I wouldn't be able to lie, not convincingly. I'd have to tell her that her boyfriend or partner or whatever he was had left the brains of two kids splattered all over an alleyway.

Rob tried to offer me a plastic water bottle from the front seat, his mouth stretched in a thin line. My eyes settled again on the tiny red flecks staining his cuff.

He killed them. The words echoed through my head. It could have happened days, maybe even weeks ago, but it didn't seem likely. Wouldn't he have changed his shirt, or tried to clean it off? And then he came here-to kill us, too?

Rob smiled at me, all of his teeth showing. Smiled. Like he hadn't just snuffed out two lives at point-blank range and watched the rain carry their blood into the gutters.

My hands were shaking so hard now that I had to fist them around the backpack to keep him from noticing. I thought I had escaped the monsters, that I'd left them locked up behind an electric fence. But the shadows were alive, and they had chased me here.

I'm next.

I swallowed the scream working its way up my throat, and smiled right back at him, my insides twisting. Because I had no doubt, not one single wisp of uncertainty, that if he knew what I had just seen, Cate would spend the next few days bleaching my blood out of his shirt, too.

She knows, I thought, following Martin into the gas station. Cate, who smelled like rosemary, who carried me down the hallway, who saved my life. She must know.

And she kissed him anyway.

The inside of the gas station looked like it had been ravaged by wild animals, and there was a fairly good chance that it had been. Muddy paw tracks in all shapes and sizes created dizzying patterns on the floor, cutting over sticky patches of red and brown to the shelves of food.

The store smelled like sour milk, though the drink cases were still flickering with intermittent electricity. Most of them had been cleared out of sodas and beer, but there was a surprising amount left-and no wonder. The store had marked up milk to ten dollars a carton. The same went for the food. Some shelves had rows of untouched chip bags and candy bars, all priced like they were endangered, precious goods. Others had been picked clean, or were exploding with popcorn and pretzels after their bags had been gutted.

I had a plan before I even realized it.

While Martin entertained himself by fiddling with the soda dispenser, I grabbed a few bags of chips and chocolate bars. A flash of guilt cut through me as I stuffed them in my bag, but, really, who was I even stealing from? Who was going to call the cops on me?

"There's only one bathroom," Martin announced. "I'm using it first. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll leave some water for you."

Maybe if I'm lucky, you'll drown yourself in it.

He slammed the door shut behind him, and any guilt I might have felt about leaving him behind disappeared. Maybe it was cruel of me, maybe I would spend the rest of my life feeling guilty about abandoning him without so much as a warning, but there was no way I could tell him what I was about to do without alerting Cate and Rob. I didn't trust him enough to believe he wouldn't shout for them, or try to hold me there.

I wasted no time in stepping out of what had been Sarah's-Norah's-scrubs, leaving them in a heap on the floor. The uniform I was wearing under them was a dead giveaway to what I was, but the scrubs were too baggy to run in. I needed to get away fast.

Martin must have turned the faucet up all the way, because I could hear the water sputtering as I stepped around some of the broken glass from the store's big windows.

I came around a shelf just in time to see Rob break away from kissing Cate. He patted around his jacket pockets, and out came a cell phone. Whoever it was, he wasn't all that happy to be talking to them. After a minute, he threw the phone at Cate and moved to the driver's side of the car. She turned her back to me, spreading out what looked to be a map over the hood of the SUV. When Rob appeared again, he had a long black object tucked under one arm, and he was holding another by its barrel. Cate took the rifle from him without so much as even glancing at it, and pulled its strap over her shoulder. Like it belonged there.

I recognized them-of course I did. Every PSF officer that walked the perimeter of the electric fence carried an M16 rifle, and I was sure every camp controller that watched us from high up on the Tower had one within reach, too. Is that what they're going to use on us? I wondered. Or are they expecting me to use one, too?

The rational part of my brain finally kicked in, stomping down the chaos of panic and terror that had overtaken me. Maybe there was a reason Rob had killed those kids. Maybe they had tried to hurt him even though they were tied up, or maybe-maybe they had just refused to join up with the

League.

The realization rose inside my chest like fire, burning everything in its path. Just the thought, the image, of having to touch one of those guns, of being expected to fire one of them Is that what it would take to be a part of their family?

Or would I have to be like Martin and become the weapon myself?

My dad had served as a cop for over seven years before he had to shoot someone. He never told me the whole story. I had to hear it secondhand from the kids in my class, who had read about it in the paper. A hostage situation, I guess.

It wrecked him. Dad wouldn't come out of my parents' bedroom until Grams drove out from Virginia Beach to pick me up. When I came back home a few weeks later, he acted like nothing had happened at all.

I don't know what would force me to pick up a weapon like that, but it wasn't a group of strangers.

I had to get out. Get away. To where didn't matter in that moment. I was a lot of things, terrible things, but I didn't want to add murderer to that list.

There was a sound like crunching glass, just loud enough to hear over the bathroom's running water and the buzz of the drink coolers. The water shut off, and it was only then that I heard the rustling again. I whirled around, just in time to see the door with the EMPLOYEES ONLY sign swing open and shut behind the low food shelves.

A way out.

I glanced back out the window one last time, making sure Cate and Rob still had their backs to me, before bolting past the display of beef jerky and heading straight for that door.

It's just a raccoon, I thought. Or rats. Not for the first time in my short life, rats were a preferable option to humans.

But the crinkling came again, louder, and when I pushed the door open, I wasn't staring at a group of rats ravaging a bag of snack food.

It was another kid.