The Fall of Crazy House, page 18
Tim scrambled up over the turnstile as I kept my gun pointed at the guards, waving it from one to another as they tried to intervene. Stepping on the lower wire, Tim held up the higher one so he could scramble through as the guards decided to take a chance and jumped up at him uselessly. Once he was on the roof, we both dodged bullets and ran, then windmilled to a stop at the far edge.
Below us, ladders hit the wall and guards started climbing up.
An alley separated this building from the next. I thought I could probably make it, with a running start. I looked up at Tim and we read each other’s minds. We both knew he could make it for sure.
Damnit.
100
BECCA
“GRAB YOURSELF AN APRON OVER there,” one of the sous-chefs snapped. I’d just stepped through the kitchen door and was already overwhelmed. It was enormous, several huge rooms connected by wide doorways. Servants rushed back and forth, all wearing crisp white aprons.
I didn’t see Nate anywhere—the air was steamy and there seemed to be hundreds of people, all shouting. I tied an apron on, then sidled along one wall, looking for Nate and trying to figure out what to do. Who did I need to talk to in order to make sure I was in the dining room with the President?
One sideboard I walked past held ten, eleven… fourteen cakes and pies. All I wanted to do was throw myself on top of them, snorfling them up like a pig.
And I thought: These people do this all the time. This amazing food is normal, regular. I thought about our school bazaar, where everyone brought their best cooking. This kitchen made the bazaar, once big and exciting, look ridiculous and pathetic. Ma’s pineapple upside-down cake used to win awards, and after she left for her mood-adjust, Cassie had made it and still won prizes. Now I looked at a three-tiered, finely iced chocolate thing dotted with sour cherries and I was filled with rage.
“Move!” I jumped when someone bellowed at me and darted to one side.
I was here on a mission, I reminded myself. I was here to right at least some of the wrongs these people had done to us cellfolk. And I needed to get cracking.
My goals:
—Find whoever was in charge of assigning waiters to the President.
—Get myself assigned.
—Kill the President, perhaps with a sterling silver fork, or maybe just pistol-whip him, since my still-bulletless gun was tucked into the waistband of my underwear.
Whatever happened after that didn’t matter.
101
HELEN
THE TALL, DARK SHADOW SEEMED to come from the ceiling, and Helen Strepp blinked at it in alarm. Sitting up on her hard bunk, she tensed her muscles, made her cuffed hands into hard blades of flesh. But when the strip of faint, dusky daylight showed off his blond hair, she relaxed a tiny bit.
“Gaz?” she breathed.
“None other,” whispered the Loner, and started to pick the locks on her cuffs.
“How did you get here?” she asked him.
His bright-blue eyes met hers for a second, then he made small flapping motions with his hands. She nodded. Of course.
“Is your part of the plan in place?” she asked as her cuffs popped off.
He nodded. “How about yours?”
“I hope so,” Strepp said, rubbing her wrists. “Did you get Becca into the palace?”
The Loner sighed, sat back on his heels. “Yeah. A girl less cut out to be a servant, I’ve never seen. Well, okay—I’ve seen one other. But still.”
“I know,” Strepp agreed ruefully.
“Duck,” the Loner said gently, touching her shoulder.
Strepp flung herself to the floor seconds before the wall of her prison cell exploded inward, showering her with chunks of concrete and dust. Alarms went off, people started yelling. Blinking dust out of her eyes, Helen saw that the large hole led outdoors, with sunlight and clouds.
“Come on,” the Loner said, grabbing her hand. They leaped through, her feet feeling pillowed on the manicured grass.
Ajana—Vice President Nielson—had told her to come home. Well, Helen was. Just not in the way anyone expected. This time she was coming back to see the President die.
102
CASSIE
“GIVE ME YOUR BACKPACK,” TIM yelled, and I tossed it at him. He threw it off the roof, along with his own, then jumped down after them. I peered over the edge—because of another fence, no guards were waiting below. Yet. When I looked behind me, I saw the top of a ladder and very quickly, the head and shoulders of a guard. I slung my rifle over my good shoulder and jumped down into Tim’s strong arms, jarred only a bit by my landing.
“Okay, now we run!” he said, and grabbed my hand. Most of the guards were on the other side of the fence—excellent planning, guys—so we had a tiny bit of a head start. We stuck out like cornstalks the reaper missed: the only citizens running, me trying to shove my rifle back under my somewhat shredded coat, Tim looking everywhere for a good place to hunker down.
And it had to be soon—you don’t run as long as you can. You run a little bit and then hide and disguise yourself. Blend in.
“Here!” Tim threw back at me, his words almost lost as we raced by. He turned into a market street—I’d seen pictures of them in old newspapers. It was like a Co-op, but everyone got to keep their own stuff, their own money. Weird.
“Okay, okay,” he muttered as we slowed down. My rifle was safely stowed and we continued to hold hands. It was time to hide—past time.
“Forty-seven, forty-seven,” he said under his breath. I looked around us—the stalls were numbered. At stall forty-seven, he pulled me inside. I was blind after the sunlight of the street, and I tensed, stopping dead, until my eyes adjusted.
“Come on,” Tim said, pulling me forward again.
“Where are we?” I hissed, seeing colorful fabrics draped from the ceiling, shelves full of pottery and glassware.
“I told you to memorize that little map!” he whispered back to me. “The one from the file!” He said nothing to the women who were working there, but the woman behind the chip reader met his eyes and made the slightest motion with her head. We took a sharp turn through lovely, draping silks, and before us was a long, dark, bad-smelling staircase.
Suddenly it occurred to me that I had put my complete trust in Tim sometime after we’d left the camp. Maybe when we were in the abandoned store with the wolves? When he hadn’t deserted me? It had just happened; I hadn’t noticed it.
So basically I had broken the very first, most important rule of Crazy House: Never, ever trust anyone.
103
BECCA
I WAS STUCK. I’D THOUGHT I’d be a lunch server, immediately leap through the air, knock the President out of his chair, and kill him somehow. I didn’t care what happened after that.
But the “dining room” was in fact an enormous dining barn practically as big as the Provost’s house back home. One wall was all windows opening to a beautiful garden. I had them pegged as one possible route of escape. The other walls were covered with gold-flecked wallpaper and lined with gorgeous sideboards laden with food and extra plates. I’d seen several easy-to-grab carving knives, if I could avoid the eyes of the armed guards stationed around the room.
So I had weapons and at least one possible escape route. What I didn’t have was proximity. I was at the opposite end of the world’s longest table, serving a woman with elaborate blond hair fading to pale green. There was one server per person, and she was mine. All I’d been able to do for the last endless hour was mimic the servers on either side of me: stepping forward to push chairs in, refill water glasses and wine goblets, remove empty plates, etc.
My bulletless gun hung uncomfortably beneath my skirt and apron, tucked into the granny panties they made me wear here. I shouldn’t have even brought it.
I was trained to assess risk and outcome. The risk here was high; I judged my chance of success to be about 25 percent, and the chances of me dying at 100 percent.
I told myself I was biding my time, waiting to make my move, but in reality I had no firm plan on what my move might be. Also, I was learning a lot standing here like an herb-picker, listening to the table talk. Servants are invisible; we might as well be robots. As we kept refilling wineglasses, the talk got louder—and looser.
“Any more news on the drought in the western cells?” a man asked my personal assignment.
She tilted her head and made a face. “Little or no relief, and death tolls rising.”
I glanced left and right to see if the other servers had “Oh, my God” faces on, but they looked expressionless and I quickly wiped my face to neutrality. They were talking about cellfolk. Cellfolk dying because of drought. While their big stag ice statue dripped silently into a silver tray of fruit.
The next time my neighboring server leaped forward to refill water glasses, I edged over to the sideboard and slid a long carving knife into the folds of my skirt. Over the next ten minutes I calculated how far I’d have to run to get close enough, how much time I’d have to do that, and how much force I’d use to sink the carving knife deep into the President’s chest.
The woman next to mine leaned over and lowered her voice. I immediately drifted up with a chilled bottle of rosé. They ignored me.
“If you’re planning to go south for a vacation, dear,” the other woman said very quietly, “don’t. Virtually everything south of here has been hit by plague.”
I almost let the wine spill but caught myself and stepped back. Everything south of here? Like, everyone south of here? Every cell?
“I heard there was… trouble in the east,” my woman murmured, and the other one made the very slightest appalled face, then took another bite of sorbet.
Okay, that was it. All I had to do was quickly slice a jugular, nick a carotid, swiftly run a knife beneath a rib cage—it would take two seconds.
I gripped the knife more tightly and took a step forward. Then one of the dining room doors opened and two guards admitted a tall man in a suit. I stared in disbelief and bit my lip hard so I wouldn’t gasp out loud.
“Ah, Provost Allen, is it?” The President’s voice drifted to me from far away. “From Cell…”—an aide whispered into the President’s ear—“B-97-4275, right?”
104
CASSIE
“I’M SURPRISED YOU’RE ALIVE,” MS. Strepp said to me.
I just gaped at her. Eyes wide in the dim light, mouth open like a goldfish. Slowly my head turned to Tim: he wasn’t surprised at all. Finally I looked at the stranger with us; he was very tall, very slender, and wearing an oversize, bulky trench coat.
“They call me the Loner,” he said, brushing fair blond hair away from his face.
Finally my brain could seize something. “Oh. You’re the Loner?” My eyebrows raised. “Okaaaay.” I turned away just as his blue eyes flared.
Time for some answers. I crossed my arms, feeling the comforting length of my rifle beneath my coat. “What happened?” I asked, narrow-eyed. “Why did you leave the camp?” Usually Ms. Strepp scared the crap out of me, but after all we’d been through, she was going to have to up her game.
“I was kidnapped,” she said, sounding unlike herself, as if she still couldn’t believe it. “I don’t remember much. But I woke up hooded and handcuffed in a van. They put me in a prison cell—a room in a prison,” she went on. “The Loner blasted me out of there today.”
“Who kidnapped you?” I asked.
“The President. Or rather, his henchpeople.” She sounded bitter. I saw raw red marks on her wrists. Was this another test? After wondering if I could trust Tim, could I trust her?
“Why would the President kidnap you?”
She looked me in the eye. “To stop me,” she said. “From leading a revolt. From training an army.”
I let out an exhausted breath. “So much for the army,” I said, rubbing my hand over my eyes, as if I could ever unsee all those bodies.
“What do you mean?” she asked harshly. “I’ve sent word for them to join us, to make their way to the capital!”
“Did you get a reply?” Tim asked, sounding as beat as I was.
There was silence for a minute, and all I could focus on was the strong, mildewy scent.
“No… not yet,” she said, looking back and forth between me and Tim.
“You won’t be getting one,” Tim said, sounding colder than I’d ever heard him. “Everyone at camp is dead. From a virus. They couldn’t even fight back.”
When she looked at me, I nodded.
Ms. Strepp almost fell back against a filthy wall, seeming horrified, stunned. I was pretty sure she wasn’t acting.
105
MS. STREPP BREATHED HARD FOR a minute, her eyes darting around this small, dirty room. Then she looked at me, Tim, and the Loner.
“I can’t believe—” she said, then swallowed and tried again. “That’s an awful thing, for all those soldiers—all those kids—” her voice grew quieter. “How did you two escape it?”
“We were up in the attic,” I pointed out.
She nodded. “Listen. I do have an army outside of the city—the second division. They’re going to infiltrate through the subway tunnels.” Strepp must’ve seen our looks of confusion. “The subway is like an underground train system. The Loner has been planting explosives all around the city, and he’ll wire the tunnels after we’ve gone through.”
“So we’ll be trapped with no way out?” Tim asked.
“The way out will be through,” she said, sounding more like her cool self. “Through the fine citizens of the capital. You, Cassie, and I will lead troops to the presidential palace. If the President isn’t already dead, then we’ll kill him.”
“How would he already be dead?” I asked.
She met my questioning eyes. “Because Becca’s there, and her only mission is to kill the President.”
“Becca’s there? Inside the palace, surrounded by United soldiers?” I almost shouted, then lowered my voice. “What about Nate?”
She looked annoyed by my questions, but too freaking bad.
“Yes, as far as I know,” she said, then turned to Tim. “Now I want each of you to fully comprehend our mission. The President will die, at any cost. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, my mind still exploding with joy that Becca was so close. I just hoped we could reach her before she made her move. Ms. Strepp might have been willing to sacrifice Becca, but I wasn’t. This wasn’t some stupid training exercise—I was sick of Strepp’s bullshit. I was not afraid to die, thanks to the Crazy House, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to live.
“Kill anyone else who gets in your way,” she ordered, staring at us intently. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I repeated, and Tim echoed me. I understood I was getting Becca back.
“Then let’s go,” she said, and opening one of the doors, led us into darkness.
106
BECCA
MY THROAT FELT LIKE IT was squeezing shut. Provost Allen! I kept my eyes down but felt almost light-headed with shock. What in the almighty hell was he doing here? Shit, shit, shit. He’d recognize me, almost certainly. His presence here lowered my probability of success to practically zero. I needed a new plan, fast. I had to get out of here.
“Psst,” I said to the server next to me, a guy in a black suit. “I’m feeling sick.”
“Too bad,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “Shut up and serve.”
You butthole. “You don’t understand,” I whispered. “It’s… it’s, you know, a woman thing.”
He shrugged.
Provost Allen was shaking the President’s hand.
“Look,” I said more firmly. “Aunt Flo has arrived. I am surfing the crimson wave. My visitor came. This is a code red. So I can shut up and serve with blood running down my legs, or you can cover me for two seconds while I go take care of business!”
“Go, go, go!” he said out of the side of his mouth, looking grossed out. “I’ll cover for you. But hurry up and get back here.”
I slipped out into the hallway, trying to think. Provost Allen! It felt like two or three lifetimes ago since I’d last seen him. God, what an ass! Then I had an awful thought: Nate! Did the Provost know that Nate was here? Had Nate contacted him? Had this all been a huge set-up?
One way to find out. I raced to the cavernous, steamy kitchen and grabbed the first person I saw.
“Where’s Nate?” I asked urgently.
The girl, her face red with heat, frowned at me. “Who?”
“Nate! The dishwasher!” I almost shook her, and she got angry.
“We have four dishwashers!”
“Uh… the tall, good-looking one?”
The girl glanced around. “He’s not here.”
I let her go and rushed back out into the hallway. Shit, Nate, where are you? Had he left or been taken by force? Had he joined his father?
“Well, hello, there,” a low voice said, so close to my ear that I jumped. As my brain registered that it was the repulsive Kirt, he grabbed my arms hard and yanked me backward into a room.
Oh, like I need this now, I thought grimly, my fury igniting. I spun easily out of his arms but he moved in again, pinning me against a long table.
“Bad touch!” I snarled, smacking his hands away. Kirt just grinned, gripped my hands behind my back and tried to kiss my neck. I gave a quick glance around—this was a walk-in pantry, so there were about five hundred things I could use as weapons.
“I’m going to scream!” I said, trying to free myself. Jeez, this loser was strong, and my hands felt crushed between me and the table.
“No one will hear you,” he assured me with a smile. “Not with all the commotion in the kitchen. Now, quit pretending you don’t want me. I’m Kirt Unser—I could do a lot for you.”
“I’m going to do a lot to you,” I promised. “Like break your nose and a couple of ribs.”
