Hunted (31 page)

I took a shower—the water was barely warm—and felt even better. I ate the half power bar and drank lots of water, then lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling and thought, I won’t let these people win.

The day dragged by. Holly never came to see if I’d changed my mind and I began to worry just a little. What if I had changed my mind? How long would she make me wait? Today was Saturday, which gave me just eight days before my deadline to reach the tunnel. Next Sunday was November tenth. If I decided to cooperate—which I hadn’t yet decided—then I needed to get out of here as soon as possible so I’d have time to see how everything was laid out and to develop a plan.

By the time the lights went out, I’d eaten three of the four remaining power bars, but I’d made sure to drink lots of water each time and I felt pretty good—not having withdrawal symptoms and still feeling like I was in control of my mind.

The next two days were a repeat of Saturday and as the hours passed with no contact from anyone—although someone came in to my room during the night to deliver the power bars each morning—my anxiety notched up higher and higher. I followed the same routine: keep three power bars for the day and flush the rest down the toilet.

When I woke up on Tuesday morning, something was different.

Chapter Thirty-One

Just like the past few mornings, the first place I looked when I woke up was the desk. Today however, there was no tray. I jumped out of bed and hurried over to the desk to make sure the tray just hadn’t been placed somewhere different. It wasn’t on the floor or anywhere else I looked—and I looked everywhere, including the closet.

No one had brought me any food. A feeling of panic began to swell within me. I didn’t have any power bars put aside and I was really hungry. Did they know I hadn’t been eating them? Or did they think I had and expected that I would soon be in a desperate state of withdrawal? Now I was extremely glad that I had kept my self-control and had only eaten the minimum to keep myself going. Otherwise I would be in dire straights now. Trying to ignore the gnawing in my stomach, I did some stretches, then showered.
 

While staring out the window I heard the lock on the door click. I spun around and stared at the door as my heart began to pound. It had been four days since anyone had come to see me. The last interaction I’d had was when Holly and her friends had injected the object into the base of my skull. Remembering that terrifying experience now, my anxiety skyrocketed as my gaze stayed glued to the door.

A moment later Holly walked in. She smiled at me as if we were old friends. Either she was a very good actress, or she was a sociopath who had no conscience. I had to assume it was the latter.

“Good morning, Morgan. I’m glad to see you up and around.”

I wondered if she was surprised that I wasn’t writhing in agony on the floor, desperate for some power bars. I just looked at her, not sure what she had planned for me and trying not to think about the horrors she could inflict.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

I was starving, but I wasn’t sure what the right answer was, so I settled on, “I guess.”

Her smile grew. “Good. I have a special treat for you today.”

The volume of adrenaline pumping through my body increased, but I was frozen in place.

Holly must have sensed my fear, because she held her hands out in an offering of peace. “Don’t worry, Morgan. This will be fun.”

Her idea of fun and mine were probably very different, but I tried to calm down, nonetheless.

“Follow me,” she said. “I’m going to take you on a little tour.”

That didn’t sound too bad, depending on where her tour ended, and I didn’t think she was giving me a choice, so I walked toward her, then followed her down the hall to the bank of elevators. She waved her card in front of the reader and a moment later we were headed down.

The doors opened onto a medium-sized cafeteria. It was smaller than the one at Camp Willowmoss, which made me think there were less people at this prison than at the F.A.T. center. No one was sitting at the tables, although there were a few kids cleaning up. Evidently breakfast was over.

“Come sit over here.” Holly led me to a nearby table.

I sat in one of the seats and she sat in the one next to me. A moment later a woman brought a tray to our table and set it in front of me. My mouth watered at the sight of the veggie omelet and fresh fruit.

“Go ahead, Morgan. Eat.”

She didn’t have to ask me twice. I picked up the fork—I doubted I would get a real fork if Holly wasn’t sitting right next to me, more likely a spork—and began eating. I’d had nothing but power bars for days and the explosion of flavor in my mouth was exquisite. It didn’t take long to eat the entire thing and when I was done Holly handed me two power bars.

“You’re probably wanting these about now. Am I right?”

I glanced at the bars and found I didn’t crave them as powerfully as I had feared. I couldn’t deny that I wanted them, but not in the way Holly probably expected. “That’s okay. I’m full.”

Holly’s eyebrows shot up, then they settled back into place and she smiled tightly. “Are you sure?” She kind of waved them in front of me, like she was tempting me.

My eyes followed the movement of the bars, but I held firm. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Okay.” She set the bars down. “Let’s move on, shall we?” She took me to a room next to the cafeteria. “This is the recreation area.”

I looked on with astonishment to see some kids hitting a ball back and forth across a ping pong table, other kids playing air hockey, and yet other kids sitting around talking to each other. Most of them ignored me, but some cut their eyes in my direction before looking away.

I also noticed several Enforcers standing around watching me, including Mills, the man who had brought me here and told me I was scum. My eyes met his and he stared back. Something about him reminded me of Hansen and I felt a small shiver as I looked at him leaning casually against the wall, his eyes on me.
 

“Doesn’t this look like fun?” Holly asked, gesturing around the room.

I had to admit that it looked way more fun than what I’d been doing for the last few days—sitting around my room trying not to die of boredom. And these kids didn’t even look mean. Were they all prisoners like me? What had they done?

“Well, Morgan?”

“What?”

“Would you like to be able to spend your days here? Or do you prefer to be in your room?”

Of course I’d rather be here. But I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what the trade-off would be. “Sure. It looks like fun.”
 

She smiled. “That’s what I thought you’d say.” She motioned for me to follow her. We stopped in the hallway just outside the rec room. “You can earn the privilege of being in that room, Morgan. It’s up to you.”

I decided to play dumb. “What do you mean?”

Her smile never wavered. “If you cooperate with us and answer our questions, then you will have the privilege of spending your days in the recreation room with the others.”

“So you’re saying I’d have to snitch on my friends, right?”

Now her smile did waver. “I wouldn’t categorize it that way.”

“But that’s what I’d be doing. Telling you all about them, which could hurt them.”

“I don’t know why you’d think it would hurt them. We just want to talk to them. Negotiate. You know, come to some sort of understanding.” Her smile grew. “We want peace.”

Did she think I’d forgotten what she’d said on the day I was brought here? That the people in power were deadly serious about putting an end to the resistance? I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

The smile on her face vanished. “What do you find funny about this?”

I stifled the laughter. “I guess I’ve just been on my own so long that I’ve gone a little stir crazy.”

She smiled, like she understood. “Yes, I can imagine. Now, what do you think? Do you want to earn the privilege of being in the rec room?”

I hesitated. I
really
wanted to be able to spend my days hanging out with these kids. They looked like they were having so much fun. This was nothing like Camp Willowmoss. But was I willing to be a snitch to make it happen? Was I willing to put the whole resistance in jeopardy just to satisfy my own desires? I pictured Amy and my brothers. As long as the status quo held, they would be in danger of being taken to a F.A.T. center and held against their will. And what about Dad? When I’d seen him on the day I was moved here, he’d looked beaten down, not strong and vigorous like a man who had just spent months getting healthy would look.

This world
needed
the opposing voices of the resistance groups. How else would there be any hope of change?
 

But then I considered the ticking clock and the fact that in five days the time for me to reach the tunnel would run out. Even if I cooperated, was there any hope I would be able to escape this place in time? And then if I failed and was stuck in this world,
and
I helped the people here defeat the resistance groups, I would end up suffering as well.

Before I realized I’d done it, I shook my head. My decision had been made. I couldn’t help Holly and her bosses, even if it meant putting my own future in jeopardy.

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you sure about this, Morgan?”

I wasn’t sure about anything.
 

She must have sensed my ambivalence because she grabbed my arm and tugged me forward. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t know where she was taking me, but fresh fear crept up my spine. A few minutes later we were back on my floor and she walked me to my room. She opened the door and motioned for me to enter. I walked in and turned to look at her.

“I’ll give you one last chance to decide, Morgan.” She looked at the floor and sighed, then looked at me. “Please decide wisely.” Then she left and I heard the click of the lock.

I sank onto my bed, emotionally spent, and put my head into my hands. With nothing to do but think, my mind wandered from one option to the other until I couldn’t think about it anymore. I lay down and closed my eyes and apparently fell asleep, because when I opened my eyes, I saw a fresh tray had been set on my desk. I pushed myself off of my bed and went to check it out. Six power bars were laid out in a neat row.

Feeling demoralized, I just stared at the bars, hating them, yet craving them. Finally I picked up four of them and flushed them down the toilet, then came back to the tray and ate one of the two remaining bars, saving the other one for later.

As had become my habit, I went to the window and stared outside. The small parking lot was full, but there was no activity just then. I spent the rest of the day doing a lot of thinking. Holly had said she would give me one more chance to decide, and I didn’t know when she’d come back to find out my answer, so I needed to decide soon.

As the afternoon turned to evening and no one came, I began to wonder how long she would give me to think about it. Eventually the lights went out and I went to bed, but I still wasn’t completely certain on what to do.

The next morning I woke to nine new power bars on the tray, which told me—if the pattern held—that no one would be coming that day. I followed my usual routine, flushing all but three bars, and rationing those three to keep me going through the day.

I spent some time exercising, but continually thought about Holly’s offer. As each hour passed, the possibility of making my tunnel deadline became less and less likely. It was now four days until the clock ran out, and as I thought about being stuck in this world for the rest of my life I became more and more agitated.
 

Maybe I should take her offer and hope for the best, I thought as I stared out the window. But what about Amy and the boys? Mom and Dad? What kind of society would I be condemning them to? If the resistance groups were stamped out, who would speak up for the helpless citizens who were tasered and dragged out of their homes to be locked up in F.A.T. centers? No one, that’s who.

When the lights went out I was exhausted and I fell right to sleep. That night I had a vivid dream.

Amy and I were playing hide and seek with our brothers out in the yard when a vehicle pulled up to the house. Dimples and Hansen, the same two men who dragged me out of the house, raced up to the door and burst inside, not even bothering to knock. A few minutes later they dragged both Mom and Dad out of the house and into their car.

After they’d tossed them into the backseat, Hansen came over to me and, with a sneer on his face, said, “I’m coming for you next, Morgan. Then your brothers and sister will be sent to a group home and parceled out to strangers and you’ll never see them again.” Then he laughed as he got into his car and drove away with Mom and Dad in the backseat.

I woke with tears in my eyes and a dark feeling in my soul. The dream was a nightmare, but a nightmare that could easily come true. And I was helpless to stop it. The only way to stop something like that was to do everything within my power to help the resistance groups, which meant that under no circumstances could I give Holly any information.
 

When I sat up and looked at the desk, I saw that the tray was absent, and deep within my gut I knew today was going to be a very important day.

Chapter Thirty-Two

I showered quickly and when I heard the lock on the door click, I turned the camera on, hoping there was still enough juice in the batteries to record what was about to happen.

“Hello, Morgan,” Holly said as she opened the door. She wasn’t smiling.

“Hi.” I stood next to the window, afraid to move any closer to whatever hell Holly had in store for me.

“I hope you’ve had enough time to make a wise decision.”

I nodded, one hundred percent certain of my decision now—no wavering. The feelings I had in the dream were very real and I felt them now.

“Good.” Then she smiled, perhaps expecting my answer to be to help them. “And what did you decide?”

“I’d prefer to stay in this room.”

Anger flickered across her face, but her features quickly smoothed out. “So it’s a no, then.”