I focus on my anger—let it burn away my fear. I will do this for Atlas’s father, and my mother, and Rose’s brother, and all the people in this city who don’t understand that they are in the dark. And I need do this for myself.
I unzip my backpack.
Maybe it would be easier if I could live with the lie, I think.
I shake the bag. Metal rattles inside.
But I can’t.
I pretend to trip. The backpack gapes open and two cans of spray paint fly through the air. The first bounces on the concrete with a metallic clang.
Heads turn.
The bright pink cap separates from the other paint can as it crashes to the ground. The cap flies one way. The can rolls to the edge of the sidewalk and off the curb onto the street.
Blood roars in my ear.
Someone reaches down to pick up one of the paint cans, and behind him a man in a dark blue suit jacket locks eyes with me.
Marshal!
His steps are fast and fluid. Icy terror streaks down my spine. I take a step back—two. Then, holding tight to the backpack strap, I turn and run.
“Hey!” someone shouts.
“Stop! Police!” is barked behind me.
He’s not the police—at least not the kind people think he is. But the heads snapping in my direction as my feet pound the concrete don’t know what I know.
Hands reach out for me. A boy in a red baseball cap not much older than I am steps in my path. I dart to the side of him, but a tall, very large man in a football jersey blocks that path and reaches out to grab me.
I stumble back and spin. Panic propels me away from the bulky man’s grasp and smack into the arms of the Marshal.
I scream for help as I try to pull away, but his grip is too tight. He shoves me to my knees, then wrestles my hands behind my back. No one helps me. The metal handcuffs clicking together echo louder in my head than the shouting people on the street or the cars honking or the Marshal thanking football-jersey man and the boy in the baseball cap for their assistance.
This is what was supposed to happen.
I have to stay strong.
Observers move back as a dark vehicle pulls up at the curb. The sedan has gold rims.
I try to take deep breaths and tell myself not to fight. It will only make things worse for me and for Atlas, who is watching this entire scene. He has to believe I will be okay.
Three sets of Marshal boots step onto the curb. One Marshal has my bag. The other two yank me to my feet and drag me to the back seat of the car where another Marshal waits. There is the faint flowery scent of perfume.
The car doors slam shut.
We start to move.
They’re supposed to think I’m afraid.
I open my mouth to scream as an arm snakes around my neck and steals my breath until everything goes black.
Seven
I blink my eyes open.
Everything spins in and out of focus. It takes all my effort to keep my eyes from closing and to not give in to the languorous pull of sleep.
Something isn’t right.
My brain is fuzzy—like there is a smear on my drawing tablet, making it hard to clearly see what is beneath. My mouth is impossibly dry—like I’ve been eating cotton that has sucked up every drop of moisture. The not-quite-white sheets feel scratchy against my cheek, which doesn’t make sense. Nothing about the bed and the room I’m in makes sense. Not the glare of the bright white bars of light or the dull gray wall next to my bed.
Fighting against the strange heavy sensation, I sit upright and take in the row of narrow beds made up only with a sheet and a single, stingy pillow. A man with dark curly hair dressed in a torn, dirt-stained yellow button-down shirt stares at the black metal door to my right as if waiting for it to open. He has deep-set eyes and a hint of stubble that makes him appear both disheveled and dangerous.
I shift my legs over the edge of the bed. It squeaks in protest and the man turns his head. That’s when I spot the large, sickly purple bruise blooming against the tan of his left cheekbone.
Fear bubbles. The fog clears and I remember.
I am in the custody of the Marshals now. My bag is gone, but I can still feel the device that’s hidden behind the lining of my shoe.
My heart pounds as I instinctively look around the room for some way—any way—to escape.
But there are no windows to tell me whether I am on the top floor of a skyscraper or a basement deep underground. There is only the solid black metal door that I walk to on spongy legs.
I face the six beds lined up against the wall like soldiers and steel my shoulders and my soul for what is to come.
This was my choice.
The Marshals think they caught me in their trap. I set the stage and I walked onto it in order to play my part.
After my dad left, I spent days in Dewey’s library looking for examples of the kind of information that would finally make people open their eyes and their minds to the truth. The real truth—not the one they have been conditioned to or personally prefer to believe.
While reading through the history books, there were several examples from the past that stuck with me.
The audio recordings that proved to our country that President Nixon was unfit for office. He resigned when the tapes were made public and he knew what people would hear him say.
The story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York that in the early 1900s killed almost a hundred and fifty women and girls who had asked for better working conditions but instead were trapped in a fire that burned most of them alive and caused others to jump ten stories to their deaths. Laws were changed and unions were formed when the horrifying details of their deaths were printed in black and white for everyone to read.
And the one that haunts me more than the others—the first photographs and stories of the Nazi “death camps,” which when published brought the horror of the mass murders to governments in countries around the world that were avoiding getting involved in the war.
Staying out of war was easy when it was abstract. It didn’t feel real when it was happening to someone else. But those stories brought to life the innocent women, men, and children who were being killed en masse. No one wanted to believe it was happening, but once people saw the photos, they couldn’t forget what they knew. They couldn’t turn away from those images.
I’m here in this room to find the words that won’t be ignored, sounds that will echo in people’s brains, and images they will see even when they close their eyes. Atlas will have followed me to wherever this place is. He’ll get me out before the battery life in the recording tracker runs out. Once he does, Mrs. Webster will publish it all. She’ll show people the Unity Centers they didn’t know existed and hopefully where the people go when the government makes them disappear. Rose said her father believed Isaac was still in the city. With any luck, I will find him here today. And Atlas and Dewey will help set both of us free.
My neck prickles. The man on the far bed is watching me with narrowed eyes and a half smile. I start to ask him why he’s staring but before I can get out a word, he places a finger to his lips. The man shakes his head, points to the door, then motions for me to sit on the bed next to his.
I don’t move.
The man rolls his eyes, puts his hands under his armpits, and moves his elbows up and down.
Really?
He’s calling me chicken?
Still, I suppose he has a point. It’s not like keeping my distance from a man who is as trapped as I am is going to make me any safer. If he wanted to hurt me he could have taken me out in my sleep.