Part 21 (1/2)

Clay curls his fingers over the hem of his s.h.i.+rt. ”My pa said I won't have to go on raids or trade with the road gangs. Just keep order in town. I told him he'd have to take you and Ethan in.” He lets his eyes wander back to the fire before they flicked up to my face. ”Everything's worked out okay, though. You're free and Ethan's got a place to grow up. And all I have to do is agree never to run away again.” Clay's eyes are distant, looking out my window onto the moonlit landscape.

I shake my head. ”We can't go home. My mama's at the Breeder's hospital. They have her knocked out in this room with all these half-alive girls.” How can I describe the horror? I think of her in the pitch-black room, wires hooked to her chest, the tube taped to her mouth. I wince and shake the image away. ”We gotta get her out.” I look up, pleadingly into his eyes. ”We gotta.”

He blinks, processing. He reaches for my hand. ”Riley, I'm sorry-”

The Sheriff's voice cuts through the room. ”Clay!” his father bellows. ”Get your a.s.s in here!”

He shoots a look down the hall. His hand, hovering inches from mine, drops to his side. ”I'll be back,” he says, turning.

”Clay, wait.”

He glances back with a look I don't quite understand. His heavy footsteps echo down the hall as he walks away from me.

I crumple into my mound of bedding and stare up at sagging plaster ceiling. I replay the last few moments. Clay so close. His fingers on my arm. The change in atmosphere when his father called him, like a switch flipped inside his head. One minute he was mine, the next he belonged to the Sheriff. I curl into the musty blankets and close my eyes. I may have Ethan and Clay back, but we're no better off than I was before.

I wake stiff and groggy. Orange firelight flickers dimly from the metal barrel. A lump beside me s.h.i.+fts. It's Ethan, curled in the sheets, one smooth pale cheek peeks from beneath a flowered blanket. I curl toward him.

Something stirs in the hallway. Someone's there. I look, but at first in the dark all I catch is a giant, lurking shadow. Hatch. I stare, barely breathing. His raspy breath and the creak of the floorboards under his weight seem deafening in the silence. I wrap my arms around myself and watch his shadow increase until it's ma.s.sive, a thundercloud blotting out the moon. If he comes in, I'll scream.

Moments pa.s.s with nothing but breath and the fear creeping up my shoulders. Don't let him come in.

The floor boards creek. Heavy footsteps thud away. I pull the blankets up to my chin and scoot closer to Ethan. It takes me hours to fall back asleep.

”Riley, wake up.”

I open my eyes to my room bathed in day. Sunlight dances through a battered cobweb across the window. Birds chirp somewhere in the distance. I've overslept.

I stretch the kinks out of my back as Ethan plops down a plate of breakfast-a lumpy mound of yellow eggs and a thick slice of brown bread. I want to gobble it all the minute he sets it beside me. Instead I take the fork and try to eat like a lady. Two bites and I'm shoveling the eggs into my mouth. It's so much better than hospital food.

My brother watches me eat, poking his fingers through holes in a moth-eaten blankets. The rose pattern of large pink flowers and cascading green leaves reminds me of the one stretched across my bed at home. Will I ever see it again? I turn my attention to Ethan. I've seen that wrinkled forehead before. He's stewing about something. I put down my fork. ”What's cookin', bacon?” It's an old Auntie phrase. Just saying it makes me homesick.

”What does that mean?” He c.o.c.ks his head to the side. His chin-length hair hangs off the side of his head like a brown curtain. He doesn't remember.

”What's going on in that noggin' of your'n?” I rap on his head lightly with my knuckles.

His face tightens. He looks to the door and then leans in close. ”I heard something, but I-”

”Spill it,” I say, feeling my pulse quicken.

He works his little fingers back and forth in the blanket holes. I know he's pretending they're worms poking out of the dirt. If I were feeling more playful, I'd pretend to pluck them out for some hungry baby birds. But playtime's done.

He sighs heavily. ”Last night I went to get my stuff from the van and I heard Clay talking to his daddy. I didn't really mean to easedrop.”

”Eavesdrop. What were they saying?”

”I wasn't listening good until I heard them say something about Mama.”

I haven't told Ethan about Mama yet. I just couldn't. Now, the hairs on my neck stand up. ”What'd they say?”

”They were talking about how Mama is stuck in the same hospital you were in. Is that true, Riley?”

I bite my lip. ”Yeah, bud. She was there.”

”She was?” He leans in closer, his eyes widening. ”Did you talk to her?”

G.o.d, help me get through this without crying. I tighten my jaw. ”She was in another part of the hospital, but she's okay.” I s.h.i.+ft my eyes from his. Lies. All lies.

He sinks back into the mound of blankets, his eyes distant as his mind works this over. ”I'm glad she's okay,” he says quietly. He goes back to working his fingers into the blanket.

I lay my hands over his. ”She is. Now what did Clay and his daddy say?”

Ethan frowns. ”Clay told his daddy that you wanted to get Mama outta the hospital. He asked if we could go get her. Clay's daddy said no. A deal's a deal, or something like that.” He shakes his head, trying to get it right. ”Clay said we need to go, but then Clay's daddy said if he kept bugging him, he'd leave you and me here and drag Clay's a.s.s back to town hisself. Then when Clay left, his daddy said something to Hatch about they're getting rid of the plan B patients in two days anyways. Something about it ain't working? I don't know.” He frowns, then looks up at me. ”What're we going to do, Riley? We have to get Mama.” His wide eyes search mine.

When I pull my hands off my knees, I've left white indents where my fingers dug into the skin.

Ethan asks again. ”What're we going to do?”

I dig through the pile of clothes next to me, looking for shoes. ”What'd you think? We're going after her.”

Chapter Twenty-Two.

When I was little I'd sit by my mama's feet and unwind yarn while she knitted. I used to spend hours unknotting those coa.r.s.e colored threads. My little fingers would pick at the knots until the tangles gave way. Despite the boredom, despite my sore fingers, I'd give anything to be back there again.

Alone in the mildewed room, I track down the s.h.i.+fting threads of my thoughts and unknot slowly. The facts are these. My mother has been sedated and is being used as a human incubator. Something bad is going to happen to her in two days. The Sheriff refuses to help because if he angers the Breeders, he might lose his kingdom. Plus, he probably couldn't care less. Clay gave in to this father when he said to drop it. Without Clay, our chances are slim.

Fact, says my petulant brain, you won't want to leave Clay behind if that's what it takes.

A pain shoots up my chest at this thought. I replay that moment with Clay again and again. The sweetness of the liquor on his breath as he stepped towards me. The touch of his hand on my wrist, hot like the fire that burned in the barrel behind us. I catch myself listening for his voice down the hall, for the tread of his feet on the gravel outside. But, he's the Sheriff's right hand man. Will he help?

I curl my knees under me and stare out the window where I can just see the top of a neighboring roof. Many of the semi-circular terracotta tiles have cracked and fallen away. A small, brown bird lands there for a moment and then ducks down into a hole in the tile where he's made his nest. I watch him settle in, feeling a wave of homesickness so raw I have to fight back tears. I wanna fly home, tuck myself in a warm snug place and fold my head under my wing. Then I think of Mama in that awful room. Whatever ”get rid of” means, I can't let that happen.

I take a deep breath and tick off the plan. We'll have to get away from the Sheriff and get back to the hospital somehow. Once there, we'll need a way in. And we need Clay. I'll have to get him alone to find out his plan for Mama. And if he won't help? I wrap my hands around myself. Let's hope it won't come to that.

He shows up at my door for lunch in dusty jeans and boots. His sweaty t-s.h.i.+rt clings to the muscles of his arms and chest. He wipes a hankie across the back of his neck. ”You up then?”

I gesture toward the noon suns.h.i.+ne streaming in my open window. ”It's the middle of the day. I'll go bananas if somebody doesn't give me something to do.”

He smiles faintly. ”Thought you could use the rest.” His eyes trace down my body. I'm dressed in his simple faded jeans, a cotton t-s.h.i.+rt. ”You look ... well rested,” he says, a blush running up his cheeks.

His blush sends a fire to my cheeks. I shake my head and focus on the question I have to ask. ”Clay about last night. There's something I-”

”Lunch is on,” he says loudly, his eyes tracing down the hallway as if someone's listening. ”Figured you'd like to join us.”