Variant

I looked back at Becky. She was smiling—the same tour-guide grin—only now with red swollen eyes.

“What if we just stick together for a while?”

She seemed almost embarrassed to ask the question, but I nodded and put on an optimistic smile.

“Sure. We’re going to be okay, though.”

Becky laughed, shaking her head and turning away. “I know I’m going to be okay,” she joked. “I’m worried about you. Trouble seems to follow you.”

There wasn’t anywhere to go. There was no point in studying, and Havoc wasn’t doing any cooking in the cafeteria. We sat in the common room and talked.

Becky was real. She had to be.

Chapter Twenty-six

Becky leaned back in her overstuffed chair and giggled softly.

“My grandma was great,” she said. “And she would have hated you.”

I put up my hands in mock protest. “What’s wrong with me?”

“I told you—I grew up on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t trust anyone from the city. You’re all liars and criminals. She used to keep a rifle by the front door in case any of your kind came around.”

“Oh yeah?” I laughed. “Well, in Pittsburgh we think people on ranches are hillbillies.”

Becky stuck out her tongue.

“Hang on,” she said, reaching for the back pocket of her jeans. “Someone’s paging me.”

“You brought your pager to a gang war?” I asked as she pulled the minicomputer from her pocket and opened it.

“Habit,” she said with an embarrassed smile. “I’m always on call.” She paused, reading whatever message had come through on her computer.

“Yours is networked?” I asked.

“It has to be so it can page me,” she murmured. “A lot of . . .”

I watched as the color drained from her face. She glanced at me, terror in her eyes, and then back at the screen.

I jumped from my chair to read over her shoulder.

“They’ve given the security contract back to Isaiah,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “They’re supposed to send you and Rosa to detention and lock down the school. Martial law.”

Her eyes met mine.

“This is the school’s answer?”

“He won’t do it,” Becky said, but her eyes betrayed her. She knew he would.

I stood up. “What’s he going to do first? He’ll have to get everyone together, right?”

She looked panicked. “Yeah, he’ll get them together.” She grabbed my arm. “But he knows that I’ve been with you all day. He’s not going to waste any time.”

“We have to get everyone out. Now. We have to escape right now.”

Becky nodded, swallowing hard. She was trembling. “I’ll—I’ll go to the girls’ dorm and warn Rosa. They don’t know that I’m not in the Society anymore.”

“What if they do?”

“Then I’ll hurry.” She took a step toward the door and then turned back. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ve got to get Curtis,” I said, “and Oakland.”

“You can’t go in there. Even if they’re not organized yet.”

“I’ll hurry, too.”

We stared at each other for a moment. We don’t have time.

“You have the radio,” I said, and then turned and ran.

I was charging into a hornet’s nest, and there was nothing I could do about it. Maxfield Academy had declared war on me and I was going to fight back.

Cracking open the door to the dorm, I peered inside. I couldn’t see anyone, but people were definitely down there. There was the sound of a video game, the smell of microwave popcorn.

I stepped in, holding the doorknob so it wouldn’t make any noise as it closed. I crept silently down the hall, keeping my feet close to the wall to avoid creaking. I don’t know why that worked, but I’d been doing it for years to sneak out of my foster homes.

I moved quickly, getting to the junction that led to both Havoc and the Society. Noise came from both sides. For the first time since I’d gotten to the school, I wished I was wearing the school uniform. Everyone in the school had to know my black and yellow sweatshirt by now.

I paused, leaning into the wall, knowing that if I was spotted I could be hauled down to detention. Or just killed on the spot. No one would have been surprised.

But there was no sense in waiting. I couldn’t tell what was going on around the corner of the hallway.

They must have been able to hear my heartbeat anyway.

Running the rest of the way, I reached Curtis’s door. It was locked, and I knocked on it as quietly as I could. He was probably asleep.

I glanced back down the hall. No one was following me yet.

I knocked again, harder this time.

“What?” Curtis shouted from inside. A moment later he appeared at the door.

I held my finger to my lips.

“Isaiah’s coming,” I whispered. “I was with Becky and she got the message on—”

Curtis’s eyes latched on to something down the hall, and I turned to see. One of Isaiah’s thugs was watching. He disappeared as soon as our eyes met.

“Damn it,” I said, turning back to Curtis. “The school put him back in charge. They’re supposed to haul Rosa and me to detention. Becky called it martial law.”

Curtis moved faster than I expected, grabbing his shoes and yanking them on. “You get the V’s, I’ll find Oakland.”

“’Kay.”

“And, Benson,” he said. “They outnumber us. Get out of here, fast.”

I opened my room, shouting to Mason to get off his bed, and then ran back to the hall. I knocked on every door. There was more noise down the hall now, and we were in a dead end. And the Society had all their security gear.

Some of the guys jumped to follow us, but not all of them. A couple didn’t believe me, and no one seemed to think it was as urgent as I did. But they weren’t marked for detention.

The radio squawked—it was loud, and I snatched it from my pocket to quiet it down.

“Benson,” Becky said, her voice tin and staticky. “They’ve got her already.”

“What?”

“Rosa’s gone,” she said, “and all the Society girls. They were gone before I got here.”

“How could that happen?”

I turned and looked at the other V’s, who were straining to hear Becky’s words.

“I don’t know,” she said. “They must have gotten the message before I did.”

My stomach dropped. Of course. They watched us on the cameras. They knew that Becky was with me—that she was lost to the Society. They’d done this to split us up. We were trapped.

“Get out,” I shouted into the radio. “Go now.”

Isaiah turned the corner, a dozen guys behind him. “She won’t get far,” he said. “The doors are all secured.”

There were only seven V’s here—five of us in the hall and two still in their rooms. Curtis was down with Havoc. Maybe he could find help there, but we were backed into a corner. Isaiah’s hands were empty, but the rest of the guys were all armed. Three of them had the long metal rods that I’d seen Laura holding out in the forest, and others had knives and clubs.