Variant

Chapter Seven

The doors never did unlock that night. We slept outside.

It had been an experiment, just like Mason had said. While I was at the wall, ten sleeping bags had dropped out of the windows of the school. Someone had been in there—must have come up through an elevator, like our clothes did—but no one saw anyone. Just the sleeping bags. Ten of them for more than seventy people.

And, since Curtis had been in the forest with me, the V’s didn’t end up with any of the bags. In fact, the Society claimed them all, and for whatever reason, Havoc didn’t fight them on it. Instead, they tried to cram their whole gang into the two small groundskeeping sheds.

The V’s climbed down into one of the deep window wells on the side of the building—deep, broad holes that gave light to the large basement windows. It was fifteen feet wide and maybe eight feet down; we needed help getting in and out. Someone jokingly suggested that we just break the window, but no one looked like they were seriously considering it. I wasn’t sure what they were afraid of. Damaging property wasn’t one of the Big Four rules, and the punishment couldn’t have been worse than sleeping outside all night.

I didn’t know where the Society decided to gather. Once we were down in the window well I couldn’t see anything. The four-wheeler engines didn’t stop running all night, though, and before we all had climbed down I’d seen Isaiah arguing with Curtis about something. I’m sure it was me.

None of the V’s said anything about my escape attempt. They all had to know—they saw us come out of the forest, and they saw my bloodied knees and scraped arms and elbows. Maybe escaping was something that all the students tried when they first got here. Even Becky and Isaiah—maybe even Laura. Maybe their devotion to the rules and the Society was something that came from months and years of failing to escape.

I looked down the row at the other V’s. Curtis and Carrie were awake, softly talking, though Curtis’s eyelids were drooping low. Mason was asleep, his head hanging forward, chin against his chest. Lily was next to him, snoring just loudly enough that I could hear it a few feet away. Jane was beside me, eyes closed. I could feel her body move with each slow breath.

There were hundreds of stars in the rectangle of sky above us. Thousands maybe. I stared at them. I’d always heard about stars like this. I heard that you could see lots of them once you got out of the city, more than just the few dozen brightest ones that could break through the city lights. It seemed like I’d maybe seen a view like this once or twice, though I couldn’t really remember where. Maybe it was just on TV.

As I looked upward I felt a surprising thrill of freedom. I could see so many things in the sky that I never got to see back home—things I’d only heard about. If I got out of that well and got a better look I could probably see the Milky Way. Maybe a planet or two.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

Jane’s voice was soft, barely a whisper.

“Yeah.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Sore. Do you think I’ll get detention?”

She took her eyes off the sky for a moment and looked at me. “I don’t know. It depends on whether the school believes Laura and Dylan.”

I wanted to turn to her, but we were so close together that our noses would probably touch, so I kept my face toward the sky. I also wanted to ask her more questions. How had others gotten over the wall? Did they plan ahead? Take supplies? But I felt guilty. Jane and the others had come into the forest to rescue me. I didn’t know if that was a risk—maybe they’d get punished for it. To ask more questions about escape didn’t seem the best way to thank her.

“It’s cold,” she said. She reached out her hands and flexed her fingers open and closed a few times, and then folded her arms again.

“We could start a fire. Would that be against the rules?”

She smiled. “We don’t have any matches.”

“We don’t need them,” I said.

Jane raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You were a Boy Scout?”

“No,” I said with a little laugh. “But I’ve seen lots of movies.”

“There are movies that teach you how to start fires?”

“Sure. Didn’t you ever see Cast Away?”

Jane shook her head.

“Never? What about the Discovery Channel—Man Vs. Wild, or Survivorman? Heck, I think they even had to make fire on Lost.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen any of those.”

“What?”

“I’ve been in here for two and a half years.”

“Those are all older than two and a half years. Cast Away is way older.”

Jane shrugged and, much to my surprise, rested her head on my shoulder. Her hair smelled good—a little like honey. I thought maybe she wanted me to put my arm around her, but I didn’t.

In the window in front of us I could see my dim reflection. I looked just like everyone else. In the low light I couldn’t make out any facial features, and I was just another white T-shirt in a row of white T-shirts.

“Why don’t we break this window?” I asked quietly. “Get out of the cold. What’s the punishment for that?”

Her answer was sleepy and hushed. “You can’t break it. People have tried, but it’s bulletproof or something. Keeps us inside.”

I nodded. The unbreakable glass made it a prison—a prison we now wished we could get back into.

Shortly before she fell asleep, Jane touched my arm. “Don’t go anywhere tonight, okay? The Society aren’t the only ones who guard the wall.”

“There are guards out there?”

“I don’t know. There has to be something.”

Just before dawn the doors unlocked. In the morning silence we heard the buzz and click even as far away as we were. The Society kids must have spent the night close by; we could hear their groggy shouts of relief, and the sound of the doors opening, before most of us had even stood up. We followed drowsily, a few guys giving the others footholds to climb out of the window well. I was the last out and had to have Curtis and another V pull me up—my side aching with pain as they did so. No one bothered to say much.

Even though everyone had dismissed the lockout as normal, I was expecting something different inside the school. Maybe they forced us out so they could work—paint the walls or install new security cameras or put iron bars on the doors. But nothing was different. This happened all time, they said. Just a stupid test.

Let’s give them ten sleeping bags and see how they divide them up.

When we got back to the dorms, I went to the showers and turned the water up as hot as I could stand it. I washed the dirt and rocks out of my knees, and inspected my cuts. Nothing was serious. A deep purple bruise had appeared on my left side, but even that wasn’t as big as I’d expected. It felt a lot worse than it looked.

By the time I was finished and back in the room, Mason was getting dressed in camouflage.

“What is that?” I said.

Mason frowned and pointed at the ticker. “No class today. We have paintball.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

He sighed and pulled on a camo jacket over an olive green T-shirt. The jacket was mostly light colors—tans and browns. “This is our version of high school sports. Paintball, war games, debate, chess.” He paused and grinned. “It’s like the nerds meet the military.”