Part 21 (1/2)

He chooses to share his little box with a wisp of a girl who is giddy at having been chosen by him. Not that he particularly likes her, but she is so slight that she'll barely take up any room. Once they're wedged in together in a tight spoon position, they're handed an oxygen tank and then closed into the darkness of the coffin together.

”I've always liked you, Mason,” says the girl, whose name he can't recall. He's surprised that she knows his first name, since he never uses it anymore. ”Of all the boys in the safe houses, you're the only one who makes me feel safe.”

He doesn't respond; he just kisses her on the back of her head, to maintain his image as the safest port in her storm. It's a powerful feeling to know you make others feel safe.

”We . . . could, you know . . . ,” she says coyly.

He reminds her that the ADR workers were very clear. ”No extracurricular activities,” they had said, ”or you'll use up your oxygen and die.” Starkey doesn't know if it's true, but it certainly is a good argument for restraint. Besides, even if someone were stupid enough to tempt fate, there's not enough s.p.a.ce to move, much less generate any sort of friction, so the point is moot. He wonders if it's some sort of twisted joke the adults are having, shoving hormonal teens into tight quarters but making it impossible to do anything but breathe.

”I wouldn't mind suffocating if it was with you,” the girl says, which is flattering, but makes him even less interested in her.

”There'll be a better time,” he tells her, knowing that such a time will never come-at least not for her-but hope is a powerful motivator.

Eventually they settle into a sort of symbiotic breathing rhythm. He breathes in when she breathes out, so their chests don't fight for s.p.a.ce.

After a while, there's a jarring motion. With his arm now around the girl, he holds her a little more tightly, knowing that easing her fear somehow eases his own. Soon there's a strange kind of acceleration, like they're in a speeding car, but the angle changes, tilting them.

”A plane?” asks the girl.

”I think so.”

”What now?”

He doesn't answer because he doesn't know. Starkey begins to feel light-headed and, remembering the oxygen tank, turns the valve so that it slowly hisses. The coffin isn't quite air tight, but closed tightly enough that they would suffocate without that oxygen, even in the pressurized hull of a plane. In a few minutes the stress-induced exhaustion puts the girl to sleep, but not Starkey. Finally, an hour later, the sudden jar of landing jolts the girl awake.

”Where do you think we are?” the girl asks.

Starkey is feeling irritable from the tight quarters but tries not to show it. ”We'll find out soon enough.”

Twenty minutes of antic.i.p.ation, and finally the lid is unlatched and opened, resurrecting the two of them from the dead.

There's a smiling kid with braces above them.

”h.e.l.lo, I'm Hayden, and I'll be your personal savior today,” he says brightly. ”Oh look! No vomit or other unpleasant bodily fluids. Lucky you!”

With barely any blood circulating in his feet, Starkey joins a limping procession out of the jet's cargo hold and into the blinding day. What he sees before him as his eyes adjust seems more like a mirage than anything real.

It's a desert filled with thousands of airplanes.

Starkey's heard of places like this, airplane boneyards where decommissioned aircraft go to die. Around them are teens in military camouflage, carrying weapons. They're not unlike the adults back at the last safe house, just younger. They herd the kids into a loose formation at the bottom of the ramp.

A Jeep drives up. Clearly this is the approach of someone important, someone who will tell them why they're here.

The Jeep comes to a halt, and out steps an unremarkable-looking teenager in blue camouflage. He's Starkey's age or maybe a little bit older, and he has scars on the right half of his face.

As the crowd gets a good look at him, people begin to murmur with excitement. The kid raises his hand to quiet them down, and Starkey spots a shark tattoo on his arm.

”No way!” a fat kid next to Starkey says. ”You know who that is? That's the Akron AWOL! That's Connor La.s.siter.”

Starkey scoffs, ”Don't be ridiculous, the Akron AWOL is dead.”

”No, he ain't! He's right there!”

The very idea sends a surge of adrenaline through Starkey's body, finally bringing circulation back to his limbs. But no-as he looks at this teen trying to rein in the chaos, he realizes this couldn't be Connor La.s.siter. This kid does not look the part at all. His hair is tousled, not coolly slicked back, the way Starkey always imagined it would be. This kid looks too open and honest-not quite innocent, but he has nowhere near the level of jaded anger that the Akron AWOL would have. The only thing about him that could even slightly resemble Starkey's image of Connor La.s.siter would be the slight smirk that always seems to be on his face. No, this kid before them, trying to command their respect, is n.o.body special. n.o.body at all.

”Let me be the first to welcome you to the Graveyard,” he says, delivering what must be the same speech he delivers to every batch of new arrivals. ”Officially my name is Elvis Robert Mullard . . . but my friends call me Connor.”