Imprisoned (15 page)

Anger boiled inside me, making me bold. “What’s your problem, Beth?”

“You are.”

I stared at her. “Why? What did I ever do to you?”

She seemed surprised by the question, like no one had ever asked her such a thing before. “Nothing. I guess I just don’t like you.”

The unreasonableness of her answer washed over me and I stared at her. Deciding not to escalate things, I turned my back to her and picked up the pot I’d dropped.

“Tell you what, Morgan,” she said.

“What?” I didn’t turn around.

“I’ll make you a deal.”

I turned to face her.

“If you give me your power bars each day—and don’t report it—I’ll leave you alone.”

Those power bars are what kept me from feeling famished each day. Without them I wasn’t sure I’d have the energy to do everything that was expected of me. But if Beth kept her end of the bargain, maybe it would be worth it. “I’ll give you half of mine.”

She shook her head. “Nope. I want it all.”

I’ll bet you do. “I need to keep a few or I’ll be too hungry.”

She laughed. “Why would you think I care?”

I felt stupid for even suggesting it. She must have taken my silence for refusal.

“Well, if you’d rather not, I understand.” Then she jabbed me in the forehead with her finger at the same time that she stomped on one of my feet.

“Ow,” I cried out. A few people looked our way, but Mrs. Coleman and the other adult supervisors were busy and hadn’t noticed. “Okay, okay. I’ll give you four.”

She scowled. “What are you, an imbecile?”

I was surprised her vocabulary included three-syllable words.

“It’s all or nothing, Morgan.”

My foot throbbed and I felt a small bruise forming on my forehead. I’d gotten nearly a bruise a day since I’d been at Camp Willowmoss and I had no desire to get any more. “Fine.” My teeth clenched as I spoke. “You can have them all.”

She smiled. “Bring them to my room after dinner each night.”

I watched her turn and walk away. Feeling defeated that I’d let her win, I turned back to the sink and tried to put her out of my mind. But then a new worry filled my thoughts as I wondered what my punishment would be if they caught me giving away my food without reporting it.

Chapter Seventeen

At lunch I sat with my group. As we ate, the two power bars on my tray seemed to mock me. I finished my meal and the others ate their power bars, but mine sat untouched.

“Are you gonna eat that?” Billy asked, pointing to the wrapped bars.

“Of course. But I’m saving them for later.”

“That’s kind of frowned upon,” Cassidy pointed out.

“Why?”

“I guess they don’t want anyone to stockpile food. They want us to eat it when they give it to us.”

I picked up both power bars and shoved them in my front pocket. They might get a little smashed in there, but I had nowhere else to put them. “I think it would be better for me to eat after my workout.”

Cassidy shrugged.

I wanted to stash them in my room before going back for my final shift of kitchen duty, so I excused myself, dropped off my tray, and headed towards the elevator. I hurried to my room and put the bars under the clothes in my closet, then went back to the kitchen and started working on the pile of dishes that had materialized since I’d stopped to take my lunch break.

I got through the shift without incident and went back to my room to do a little homework before class.

When I got to Social Studies, I decided to do a little test. I sat in the same seat I’d sat in before—the one Beth had claimed was hers—then waited for her to arrive. A few minutes later she walked in. She glanced at me, then sat in another seat and ignored me for the rest of the class. Elated that she seemed to be keeping her end of the deal, I decided sacrificing some of my food was worth it.

At the end of class I gathered my things and went to Science. Harley was already there and the seat next to him was empty, so I hurried over and sat down. Ever since I’d found out that he used to sit at my table, I’d been wondering what had happened.

“Hi, Morgan. How’s it going?”

“Good.”

“Any more trouble with Beth?”

I remembered Piper’s warning to be careful what I told Harley. “Not really.”

“That’s good.”

Now that I had the opportunity to talk to him, I didn’t know how to broach the question of why he’d been banished from our table. “So, how long have you been here?”

He looked thoughtful. “About three months.”

“Oh. How much longer until you can leave?”

“Five weeks.”

I didn’t have any more small talk and I wanted to get to my question before class started, so I dove in. “So, I heard that you used to sit at the table where I sit.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

Obviously he wasn’t eager to talk about this. “Uh, from Piper?”

“Piper, huh?”

“Yeah. Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“That you used to sit at that table.”

“Why do you care?”

“Nevermind,” I muttered, embarrassed now for prying.

He ignored me and began reading his textbook.

I didn’t want him to be mad at me—I had few enough friends as it was. “I’m sorry I asked. It’s none of my business.”

He looked up from his textbook and gave me a small smile, then the teacher arrived and class began.

At dinner I put my two power bars in my pocket as soon as I sat down so that it wouldn’t be so obvious that I wasn’t eating them.

“Tomorrow’s the big day,” Billy said. “Challenge day.”

No one at our table seemed excited about it and I wondered if it was as bad as they’d said or if they were exaggerating.

“I wonder if they’ll let us pick our teams this time or if they’ll assign us,” Cassidy said.

“I’m not sure which is worse,” Alyx said. “Remember when they had us in groups of five and they had four of us carry that huge tire over our heads and the fifth person had to sit on top?”

“Yeah,” Piper said. “And Cindy fell off and broke her leg.”

“I felt so bad for her,” Cassidy said. “I can still remember the sound of her bone breaking.”

“Yeah, that was pretty awful,” Piper said, grimacing.

Accidents can happen even if you’re having fun, I thought, trying to reassure myself that this Saturday Challenge wasn’t as bad as they made it sound.

“It probably never would have happened,” Billy said, “If the Enforcers hadn’t sprayed that grease on the ground right in their path. When that team stepped on it, there was no way they could keep that tire up.”

The Enforcers wanted them to fall?
The idea horrified me, but when I thought of the “discipline” I’d experienced in the gym at the hands of Hansen and the other Enforcer, the idea that they would purposely make people get hurt didn’t surprise me. Suddenly I was certain that this Saturday Challenge was a lot worse than I had imagined.

Anxiety pulsed through me and my mind frantically sought ideas on how I could escape. I needed a way to get outside and I needed to cut the chip out of my arm. Both things seemed nearly insurmountable. As awful as it sounded, the idea of slicing open my arm, digging around until I found the tiny chip, then pulling it out and stopping the bleeding seemed an easier task to accomplish than getting to the ground floor undetected and making my way away from this place. But both things had to be done if I had any hope of getting back to my home world.

Trying to push back the fear of what this Saturday Challenge might be like, I focused instead on the opportunity it might give me to get away, or at a minimum, to scout out a possible way to escape.

“What do you think, Morgan?” Piper asked.

“What?” I’d been so absorbed in my thoughts, I hadn’t heard the question.

“Would you want to be on our team if we get to choose?”

“Of course,” I said without hesitation. Who else’s team would I be on?

“Good.” Piper smiled and the feeling that this small group of kids was my family now grew.

When I got to my room I grabbed the two power bars I’d stashed after lunch and hurried to Beth’s room. I knocked softly, afraid for anyone to see me there. A moment later the door opened.

“You got ‘em?” she asked.

“I only have the ones from lunch and dinner today.” I held out the four power bars and she grabbed them from my hand, then shut the door in my face. Irritated that I was the one taking the risk and she couldn’t even bother saying thank you, I stood there for a moment, feeling helpless, then went to my room and put on a pair of shorts and a tank top, and went to the gym.

Since I’d worked out for an hour earlier, I would only have to spend an hour at the gym. When I arrived I didn’t see Mr. Muscles and hoped I would have a reprieve from his presence. I checked in, got my towel, then went to the warm-up area and stretched out.

I got on the elliptical machine and began my workout, going the pace that I preferred. It was hard to focus on the workout since I found myself constantly looking around for Mr. Muscles. After a while I got into the rhythm of the workout and let down my guard. I felt, rather than saw, someone standing next to me. Dreading the sight of Mr. Muscles, I slowly turned my head.

My worry about seeing Mr. Muscles turned to alarm when instead I saw Hansen standing there, a grin on his face. He wasn’t wearing his normal Enforcer uniform, but instead was wearing sweats and a t-shirt. For a split second I thought he looked less terrifying—until I looked into his cold, cold eyes. “You’re not Mr. . . Austin,” I blurted.

“No, I’m not. Unlike you, he gets to have a life, so I volunteered to cover his shift.”

My heart pounded and I looked away, hoping he would leave me alone, but like most things I hoped for in Camp Willowmoss, it didn’t happen.

“You need to pick up the pace, Morgan,” he sneered. “You’ve got a lot of fat to burn off.”

Fury and fear mixed together, making me lose focus, but my hands tightened on the grips and I made myself go faster, terrified what would happen if I tried to defy him.

He looked at a small device in his hands, then looked at me. He stood there for several minutes, his eyes going back and forth between me and the device. Finally he said, “Good. Now keep that pace going for twenty minutes.” He paused. “I’ll be watching.” Then he turned and walked away.

To keep myself going, I replayed the scene when I’d first arrived here and I’d driven my knee into his groin and he’d collapsed to the ground. A small smile parted my lips as I pictured the surprised looked on his face when it had turned out I’d been conscious the whole time and I’d bested him.

I began my frequent fantasy about escaping this place and finding the tunnel that would lead me home, but I must have gotten too caught up in my musings and slowed down, because I suddenly felt a sharp pain in the back of my right leg. Whipping my head to the side to see what had happened, I saw Hansen standing there, his baton in his hand.

“Didn’t I tell you to keep that pace going?” His eyes were like ice. “When I tell you to do something, Morgan, I expect you to do it.”

I stared back at him, petrified to say or do anything that would anger him.

He held up his baton in a manner that could only be described as threatening. “Agreed?”

“Yes,” I whispered as I moved my feet faster.

He slammed the baton into his other hand with a
whack
, then he smiled. “Hey, I just realized that tomorrow will be your first Challenge day.” A look of anticipation lit his face. “That’s my favorite day of the week.”

When he walked away, I couldn’t stop tears from filling my eyes. Blinking rapidly to clear my vision, I glanced at the kids nearby who seemed absorbed in their own workouts—whether they really were or whether they were just trying to stay out of the trouble I was in, I didn’t know.

Misery settled over me like a thick and suffocating fog, but I kept my feet moving, too afraid to do anything else. Though I wanted to lose myself in my escape fantasy, I kept my mind focused on my workout, not wanting to give Hansen another excuse to hit me.  As much as I hated Mr. Muscles, at least he’d never hit me. Hansen had hit me twice now—and enjoyed it both times.

As I finished my time on the elliptical and moved to the weight machines, I tried to ignore the throbbing in the back of my leg and instead just get through my time. When I had fulfilled my workout hours, I checked out and quickly headed to the relative safety of my room. Alyx wasn’t there and I allowed myself to sob quietly for five minutes as I mentally listed all of my woes: stuck in this horrific world, imprisoned in this labor camp where I was beaten if I didn’t exercise in a way that my tormentor wanted, only allowed limited food, bullied by other inmates, and forced to have a computer chip in my arm to track my every move.

At the last thought, I rubbed the place where the chip resided until I felt the tiny hard lump, knowing I would have to jam a knife or other sharp instrument into my flesh to dig it out before I had any hope of escaping this place. I wondered if I could get a sharp knife from the kitchen without anyone noticing. So far I’d only been allowed to wash pots and pans—someone else must be responsible to clean the knives—but I decided I would at least locate where they were stored.

Feeling better, I showered, then worked on homework until it was time to meet with Mrs. Reynolds and the rest of the criminals.

When I arrived in the classroom, most of the other kids were there, including Billy. I sat in the seat next to him.

“Hey,” he said as he smiled at me.

“Hey.” I remembered what he’d said the night before, about breaking the rules to help someone you cared about and again wondered what his story was. I didn’t know how to go about asking him, so I just sat there and said nothing.

“Good evening,” Mrs. Reynolds said as she strolled in, in her typical happy mood.

After we recited the pledge, she looked at each one of us in her x-ray vision way, which always made me uncomfortable. Her gaze seemed to linger on me and Chad Beacon.

“As most of you know, tomorrow is Saturday Challenge. We have two new campers this week who have not yet had the opportunity to participate in our Challenge day.”