Laura didn’t move, didn’t answer.

“Did they?” I screamed.

She looked shaken. “No.”

“I hope it was worth it.” I turned and stormed out.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lily and I stood outside the barracks, in the shadows, while Harvard scouted ahead.

“Laura was on trial?” I asked, taking deep breaths to calm down.

“If you want to call it that. Everyone here knew what she’d done before she even arrived. She got to say something in her defense, and then they locked her up.”

“She deserves it.”

Harvard was close to the tree line, talking to another kid. He’d said there were always guards out there, day and night.

“Why don’t you just run?” Lily asked, her voice low but intense. “You don’t have the implant. They’re already searching for you, and if they don’t find you out there, it won’t be long before they tear this town apart looking for you.”

“I have to wait for Becky.”

“We can take care of her. You go for help.”

“No.”

“Becky’s one of the worst,” Lily said. “Don’t you remember? She was in the same gang as Laura. They were roommates. Besides, I thought you and Jane—”

“Things changed after you left.”

Lily crossed her arms. “Apparently.”

A few minutes later Harvard trudged back through the snow, smiling like it was Christmas morning.

“We think there are beacons,” he said, motioning for us to follow him into the field. “Some kind of transmitters arranged all around the town, kinda like an electronic fence. That’s why, when we get too far out, the implants hurt.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t see anything out there.”

“It was dark this morning,” Lily said.

“It’s dark now,” I snapped.

“You weren’t looking before,” Harvard said.

“Those kids in the school—the sisters,” I said, changing the subject. “Why do you care? Just another couple of prisoners.”

We had reached the trees, and Harvard stopped and fished in his pockets, eventually producing a spool of twine. He handed one end to Lily, and then measured ten paces to her right.

“Because it’s weird, you know? It’s not the way the school does things. Everyone starts as a human student at the school, and then they either try to escape or get sent to detention and wind up here. But those two went straight underground.”

He pulled the twine tight between him and Lily.

“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.

Harvard’s voice was excited, and he stared at the forest like he was a few steps from freedom. “My thinking is this: there’s a series of transmitters somewhere out there, and they radiate their signal in a circle—well, a sphere, if we’re being accurate. So you and I will walk toward a transmitter, and we’ll each stop when we feel the pain. Presumably that means we’ll both be the same distance from the transmitter.”

Even in the dim moonlight I could tell Lily was rolling her eyes. “So?”

“So if we’re each the same distance from the transmitter, then Benson will go to the center of this string, and then walk at a perpendicular direction straight into the forest. He should walk right into the transmitter.”

Neither Lily nor I said anything. It didn’t make any sense to me, though I admit my mind was elsewhere.

“It’s geometry, folks,” Harvard said. “Some of us paid attention in school.”

Lily just looked at me and shrugged as Harvard began slowly walking toward the woods. She did the same, trying to stay in a straight line and keep the twine tight despite the underbrush and muddy snow she had to navigate around.

“What if the transmitter isn’t out here?” I said, watching them. “What if it’s in the center of town, and your implants hurt when you get too far away from it?”

Harvard paused. “Thought about that. But I can’t find anything in town.” He began again.

After a moment—he was standing only a foot from the first tree—he stopped. “I can feel it.”

Lily kept walking, taking a few steps into the trees and climbing over a rotted log before stopping as well. “Me too.”

“Hold it tight,” Harvard said, and motioned for me. “Stand in the middle and look perpendicular to the string—that’s ninety degrees.”

“I know what perpendicular means,” I said, peering into the dark forest. Even the slightest amount of camouflage could hide a transmitter in this darkness. And I wouldn’t know what one looked like in full daylight—an antenna, maybe? “I’ll be back.”

I entered the woods, my aching body fighting against me as I clambered over the thick growth here. I wanted to help them—of course I did—but this seemed like such a waste of time. We didn’t even know whether anything was out there to find. Maybe the best plan was just for Becky and me to get supplies and run.

I was only ten feet into the trees when I heard Harvard swear. I turned back to see him looking somewhere over to my left. Lily was crouched down and alert, like we were playing paintball again. I dropped to my knees, shrouding myself in the brush.

For a moment there was only silence, and then I heard boots in the snow. I was so stupid. Of course they’d come looking for us again, and here I was tromping through an open field. How could I have left Becky back at the fort with only Carrie to guard her?

Something moved in the brush.

I tried to peek out between the tangle of sticks and briars, but it suddenly felt much darker than before—darker and colder. I was a sitting duck out here. I wanted to get back to the Basement. I needed to get back there.

“Deer,” Lily whispered, much closer than I thought she’d been.

I exhaled.

“They watch us,” she continued.

“I know,” I said.

Lily scanned the trees, her eyes smart and vigilant. She was good at this—the best paintball player at the school. Most of the tactics the V’s used had been hers, and her tiny frame hid her surprising athleticism.

But they’d still caught her. She was still a prisoner here.

Lily ducked back down. “I don’t think it saw us.”

“I should have waited a couple days before I came out of the fort.”

“We’re okay,” she said. Whatever she’d seen—or not seen—had eased her tension. She wasn’t on lookout anymore.

“We don’t know that until the deer is gone.”

The forest was cold and claustrophobic; every twisted pine and tangled bush seemed to surround me like bars and chains. I wanted to run out into the trees, toward freedom, but I needed to get back to Becky. Right now I felt like I couldn’t move either way, like I was trapped. I didn’t want to listen to Harvard’s geometry or Lily’s trivia. I didn’t care. I—

“Hey,” I said, grabbing her hand and looking her in the eye. “What are you doing out here? What about the implant? The pain?”

She smirked. “That’s why this is a waste of time.” She tried to stand, but I didn’t let go, and she fell back to her knees.

“What is going on?”