Variant

“So you’ve never gone in there?” I asked.

“No.” She bent down to get a closer look at the pipe. Or, to make it look like she was too busy to talk.

“You’re one of the oldest here, aren’t you?” I said, trying to draw the conversation out. I slowly unfolded a new garbage bag and placed it in the basket.

“Um, yeah,” she said. “I guess so. I’m eighteen.”

“So you got here when you were, what, sixteen?”

“Yeah,” Rosa said, turning her head in my direction but not looking directly at me. “Listen, I’ve got to finish this up and then there’s a broken light switch in the girls’ dorm. I need to concentrate.”

“And you’re sure you’ve never been in that room, not even a long time ago?”

“Very sure.”

“Okay,” I said. “Good talking to you.”

“Yeah.”

I pushed the large garbage can back out into the hallway and headed for the next room.

I needed to take things to the next level.

Chapter Twenty-one

I sat alone at dinner. I ate almost every meal alone now.

I took my plastic dinner tray and sat on the fourth floor, in the common room that no one ever used. It was already dark outside-sunset was earlier and earlier now. I watched as a few people walked past my door. Three Society girls were somewhere down the hall, talking and laughing about something that had happened in class that morning. I still couldn’t fathom it-how could they be so calm? How could they be laughing?

One thing I hadn’t figured out was where I’d go when I finally broke out. Of course, I’d go to the police first, and if they didn’t help I’d go to the newspapers. But after that, I didn’t know. I guess, up to now, I’d kind of assumed that escaping would be the happy ending-it’d be so much better than inside Maxfield Academy that it didn’t really matter.

But it hadn’t been that long since I’d left my foster family, and I hated it there. I didn’t want to get shipped back. I didn’t want to return to Pittsburgh at all-I wanted something better. I wished that I actually was in a private school, like the scholarship had advertised. Real teachers, real learning-real people. A real life.

I left the room and walked to the broad windows that overlooked the grounds in front of the school. I’d stood at these windows and waited for Jane the night of the dance.

I cupped my hands around my eyes and leaned against the glass, trying to see past the glare of the hall lights and into the darkness. There was fog or mist that hung over the trees in the distance. Could it be smoke from a guard camp? There didn’t seem to be enough moisture here for fog.

I heard soft footsteps padding up behind me.

“Hey, Bense.” Becky.

“Hey.” I kept my eyes on the forest.

“What are you looking at?”

She leaned beside me and peered outside.

“Just the woods. Do you ever see the campfire smoke out there?”

She pulled back from the window and so did I. She was wearing thick green flannel pajamas and flip-flops, but her makeup and hair were still flawless.

“Yeah,” she said. “Not very often. It’s not far.”

I looked into her eyes for a minute. Was she real? And if she was, was she one of the Society members who doled out punishments? Had she been lying to me?

I turned back to the window.

“What do you think it is?”

“I like to think that it’s a town,” she said. “But it’s probably too close. Some people say it’s guards.”

The stars were almost entirely blotted out by clouds, but there was one dark patch of sky where a few bright lights twinkled through. I wished I could get out of the school and see them.

“You said you don’t do security, right?”

“Right.”

“But you have the contract, so your necklace can open doors, right?”

“Sure.”

I turned to look at her-stared. I gazed into her eyes, studying the iris and the color and the eyelashes. Up close her eyes were bluer than they looked from far away, and right around the iris they were tinged with reddish brown. Everything about them-the delicate blood vessels, the streaks of color, the pink of her tear duct-seemed so real. So human.

Becky smiled awkwardly. “What?”

“Come with me,” I said, and started toward the stairs.

She didn’t move, so I turned back and grabbed her hand. “Come on.”

We hurried down the empty stairs and made our way to the first floor and the big open foyer. I led her to the front doors.

“Can we go outside and look at the sky?” I asked.

A flash of concern crossed her face, but she hid it quickly. “Why?”

“I like being outside at night,” I said. “I promise-we won’t leave the front steps.”

She looked at me, her lips pursed in thought.

“Listen,” I said. “When I was back home, I was always outside at night. That’s where I’d go to think. And I can’t do it here.”

Becky took a deep breath. Her eyes were suddenly somber and intense. “You promise? Don’t lie to me.”

“I promise,” I said. “All I want to do is stand out there-we’ll be right next to the door.”

She moved toward the door. It buzzed and clicked, and she pushed it open.

We stepped out and stood side by side, looking at the forest.