The Fall of Crazy House, page 2
I shivered, my sodden hair dripping down my back, starting to freeze into a hard lump.
“I know it was superhard.” That was Mouse. She was so small and young that she shouldn’t be training as a soldier, but we needed every able body, even skinny twelve-year-olds. Anyone able to hold a weapon was being conscripted into the Resistance Army.
A guy came over and took a drink from the flask. “I was sure you were going to bail on killing Becca,” he said.
I almost had. “Me? No. No way,” I said, trying to inject some strength into my voice. “I knew I had to kill Becca.”
“If you had forsaken your duty, it would have been the wrong choice,” Ms. Strepp said coldly. “And it would have cost you—cost us—everything. These training scenarios are to prepare you for the realities of war.”
Someone moved toward me through the circle of soldiers—Nate. Nate Allen, my… boyfriend is such a stupid word. I don’t know what to call him. Anyway, he got to me and hugged me long enough that the heat from his dry body penetrated through my cold, wet clothes. I almost sighed with relief. When I finally looked up I saw Ms. Strepp’s eyes on me.
“Everyone head back to camp,” she ordered. “The show is over. You have time to run sprints before eating.”
We all groaned and headed back through the woods, automatically taking different paths so as to leave a more confusing trail for outsiders.
“I can’t believe it took you this many tries. There was a time back home on the farm you would’ve gladly killed me for borrowing your truck,” Becca said, walking beside me.
I knocked her shoulder with mine. “Smothering you in your sleep and ordering your bloody death by sniper are two very different things.”
Just then a couple of kids ran out of the compound, screaming, their hands clamped over their mouths and noses.
It hit all of us at the same time, stopping us in our tracks and making us scowl at the couple of rough outhouses that served the camp. Instinctively I quit breathing and pinched my nose shut.
Our pal Diego from the Crazy House came out of one, saw us, and waved, adjusting his pants.
“What’d I miss?” he asked. “Did you kill Becca this time?”
8
HERE’S WHAT YOU HAVE A lot of in training camp: Pain. Injury. Grit. Adrenaline. Anger.
Here’s what you don’t have a lot of: Softness. Gentleness. Patience. Lightheartedness. Cute clothes.
So when Ms. Strepp announced that we would have a celebration that evening, it took me a few moments to process that concept.
“Our last leadership member has finally passed a crucial test,” Ms. Strepp announced without looking at me. “You’ve all been working hard. Tonight you’ll be rewarded.”
Warm, recognizable food? Check. Sweet, fruity, punchlike substance? Check. Dressing up in fun, sparkly party wear? No. But I did shower.
Recent rains had left the middle of our camp full of frozen, churned-up mud, but we threw down a layer of dried pine needles and danced there anyway. Someone rigged a portable sound system and it hung from a tree, blasting music we hadn’t heard in forever. A cold, full winter’s moon hung low in the sky, casting long, silvery shadows, disguising bruises and dirt, highlighting scars with fine white lines.
The whole camp was dancing in one writhing, disorganized clump, but Nate and I and Becca and Tim tried to stay together as much as possible. The music was too loud, its bass reverberating in my chest and making my ears ring. Someone had spiked the punch—more moonshine—and all of my aches and pains and injuries melted away into the night air. I felt exhilarated and intensely alive. And despite the differences that Ridiculous Rebecca and I had, have had, and will have—in this new, post-cell life of battle and secrecy, violence and fear, there was no one I loved or trusted more. I guess she wasn’t really “Ridiculous Rebecca” anymore—not after the Crazy House. “Reckless Rebecca” on the other hand…
Nate grabbed my arm and spun me around, pressing close so our bellies touched. He smelled like harsh camp soap and I saw he’d worn his least-destroyed camo pants. After Becca, Nate was the person I was closest to. He and Becca’s boyfriend, Tim, had both easily passed leadership training, making hard, life-or-death choices with no hesitation. I was thankful they were with the Resistance rather than the United. Nate looked down at me, his eyes shining despite a darkening bruise on his left cheek, and I smiled up at him and looped my arms around his neck.
“Attention!” Ms. Strepp had to raise her voice three times before someone shut off the music. She climbed on top of a wooden crate and looked at us, these hundreds of kids she’d mercilessly trained and beaten into some sort of a military force.
“Some of you have been here a year or more,” she began. “Some of you have been here only weeks.” A kid got a flashlight and aimed it up at her, giving her a weird, statuelike appearance. “Some of you have a grasp on the broader picture of what we’re facing, and some of you have simply learned to shoot.” Her eyes, always frosty, raked over us. “But enjoy yourselves tonight. Feel young, feel free, feel hopeful. It’s perhaps the last time you’ll feel any of those things.”
I frowned—this wasn’t the cheerful, “Go get ’em!” speech I was expecting.
“Tomorrow, and every tomorrow after that, will be uncertain,” she said. “Starting tomorrow, we will officially be at war with the United. We will be on the path to overthrow them, to seize their power, to topple their leaders. It will be the only path we know, and we’ll stay on it until we succeed—or die.”
My buzz was wearing off and my dance-fever warmth had ebbed, leaving me chilly.
“My troops, my comrades-in-arms, my soldiers—we will be free!” She punched her fist in the air and shouted it again. “We will be free!”
The rest of us took up the chant, punching the air and yelling, “We will be free! We will be free! We! Will! Be! Free!”
9
BECCA
NODDING AT US IN SATISFACTION, Ms. Strepp jumped down from her box. Within minutes we were dancing wildly again, throwing off our coats, putting our hands in the air, and letting every instinct of life move us to the rhythm of the pounding songs. While we’d been in training, every moment had been controlled, focused, dedicated. This was the one night to let loose.
Thank God Careful Cassie had finally passed the last leadership test. I mean, good lord, what was so hard about it? After the last three months of training, she should have been like, Kill Becca? Sure! No prob. The last three months had made our stint at the Crazy House look like a goddamn spa.
“Here.” Tim handed me a cup and I took a sip, then smiled.
“Spiked!” I said, draining it. We headed back to the dance area and leaned together, arms wrapped tightly around each other, and swayed slowly to some sappy song about how love was like a walk in the rain.
“You feel good,” he murmured against my hair. I rested my head on his shoulder, glad I’d taken the time earlier to get most of the tangles out of my hair. A lot of girls here had gone the crew cut route: easier to care for, keep clean, and gave enemies nothing to grab. So far Cassie and I had both resisted, but I was weakening.
“You know what?” I said into his muscled chest. “I hope when we’re out fighting, we’ll find one of those non-cell towns Strepp told us about. The ones with the big houses and fancy cars.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Take it over, raid their food. Medical supplies.”
“Do you believe all that stuff she told us?” I asked. “All those pictures and videos of people with so much… stuff. And everyone in the cells with barely enough to scrape by? It just seems crazy. Not real life.”
“I guess I believe it,” he said slowly. “I want to think we’re fighting for something.”
For seventeen years, Cassie and I had lived in a regular ag cell, going to school, helping on our parents’ farm. It had been boring as hell. Now, with the whole United ahead of us, our army rushing out to meet whatever, I was too excited to feel fear.
Tomorrow, everything—my life—would really begin. This party, this celebration, felt like the last night on earth as we knew it. Slowly I edged us over to the food table, where I refilled our cups. He threw his back and I finished mine in three gulps. Grinning at each other, we rejoined and clung together, barely moving our feet.
“Tomorrow we’re getting our assignments,” he said. “Strepp has been dropping hints for weeks.”
I nodded. “Fingers crossed that the four of us end up on one team. She has to keep us together.” Cassie, Tim, and Nate had my back, without question. We would fight more effectively as a unit. A unit of trust.
“I can’t believe it’s finally happening,” he said, stroking my back. “All the shit we’ve gone through, the pain, the injuries—it’s all been leading up to tomorrow.”
“I know,” I said. “Strepp better make it worthwhile, that’s all I’m gonna say.” Reaching up, I wound my arms around his neck.
“Let’s sneak away,” I whispered, going on tiptoe to reach his ear.
He looked down at me, his fair eyebrows—one split in half—raising. “Out into the snow?”
I grinned. “You can keep me warm.”
He smiled back, doing a decent wolf impression, and we slipped past the trees and out into the darkness. The world—our world—might end tomorrow. But tonight I was going to live.
10
CASSIE
ANOTHER SLOW SONG CAME ON and we all groaned at its corny lyrics. Nate pressed me closer, and I loved the way he felt.
If only it could be like this forever, I thought dreamily. Not just me and Nate, but Becca and Tim, too. Sticking together. Living next door to each other. The four of us just seemed… right. Like we were linked. Supposed to be together. It was trust, I decided. We all had the ultimate trust in each other.
“Let’s go out where it’s dark,” he whispered in my ear.
“Why?” I asked, not wanting to move. “It’ll be cold out there.” I snuggled closer to him and let my eyes drift shut.
“I’ll keep you warm,” he promised, and took my arms from around his neck.
After the warm crush of bodies on the dance ground, the woods were super dark, oddly quiet, and, as I predicted, freezing. The cold caught my breath.
“I need my coat,” I said.
“Come here,” he said, and wrapped his coat around both of us. His chest was lean and hard, and his arms around me felt like steel bands. Had it been just this morning that I’d almost frozen to death, almost drowned?
Lowering his head, he kissed me. I tilted my head and opened my mouth, deepening our kiss, wanting this to never stop. A flame of happiness sparked into life in my heart and grew steadily. When was the last time I’d felt happy?
Maybe… maybe the last time had been before my dad had shot himself? That was more than a year ago. That was a long time to go between feelings of joy.
We ended up on the snowy ground, with Nate bearing the discomfort of the cold earth and me on top of him. I held his face in my hands and kissed him over and over, feeling his thick hair in my fingers, a ridged line of scar tissue on his skull from some fight.
Finally he pulled away, holding my face, looking at me. A thin shaft of moonlight wove through the dense trees and lit the side of his face, showing his beauty, the movie-star looks I’d always sneered at in high school.
“Tomorrow we’re going to get our assignments,” he said quietly, an intense expression on his face. “We don’t know where we’re going or what we’re gonna face. We don’t know if we’re coming back.”
I sat back, straddling his hips, keeping my hands on his chest, aware of his breathing. “We’ve been on this road for a year,” I said. “We’ve always known we might die. I mean, if there’s one thing the Crazy House taught us, it was that we were gonna die, and probably die young. But we’re prepared, and we’re alive and together now.”
He stroked his hands along my cheekbones, as if memorizing the feel of my face.
“Yeah,” he said, and then, “Cassie—I want to marry you. If we die tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, I want to know that we were married, that we belonged together. Forever.”
As soon as he said the M-word, I was shocked into stillness, my pre-kiss mouth open like a croaking frog. My brain had jammed, then whirled into frenzied activity as it processed this bizarre notion.
I hadn’t expected this. Slowly I let my gaze slide over his face until I could search his eyes, see if he was serious or just, you know, like, brain-damaged or something. Sure, people got married young in our cell, but…
My mind cleared. I leaned down and kissed him again. “Ask me later, on the other side.”
“I’m asking you now,” he said, a note of irritation in his voice.
“Then I’ll ask you later,” I told him.
“I want to feel connected,” he insisted.
I squirmed on his hips, seeing his eyes glaze for a second, and I grinned. “We can feel connected… if you want,” I said.
Much later, we stood up and brushed twigs and dirt and leaves off our clothes. I had an idea and took out the knife that was always with me. I flicked it open—it was seven inches of razor-sharp blade that I cleaned and honed almost every day.
Slowly, carefully, I made a small, stinging cut across the pad of my palm, then handed him the knife. Knowing what I wanted, he made a cut on his palm. Then we pressed our hands together, making sure the blood mixed.
“I love you forever,” Nate said solemnly.
“I love you forever, too,” I promised. “And we will get married. Someday.”
We sealed our pact with another kiss, then headed back to camp.
11
BECCA
MY MIDDLE NAME IS NOT “Patience.” I was about to come out of my skin, waiting here in the hallway outside Strepp’s office with a couple hundred of my closest friends. This was what we’d been waiting for, working toward, for months. This was why we’d left our cells, our friends, everything we knew behind. It had all come down to this: our assignments. What each of us would do to fight the United.
Since dawn, Strepp had been calling soldiers in—sometimes one alone, sometimes small groups. Cassie, Tim, Nate, and I stuck together and waited.
The door opened and three soldiers older than us came out looking grimly satisfied. When the door closed they gave each other high fives and sauntered out.
“They got a good assignment,” Tim said in a low voice. “Hope we’re as lucky.”
“I can’t believe this is it,” Cassie said. “This is why we were taken, why we went through the Crazy House, why we’ve been trained.” She shook her head and leaned against the concrete wall, looking still and thoughtful—two words that had never been applied to me.
“It’s our chance to strike back at the United,” Nate said. I’d noticed he and Cassie giving each other lovebird looks all morning, and I’d been grossed out until I caught myself gazing adoringly at Tim. In return his eyes glittered knowingly at me, and while I’m not a blushing-type person, I did feel a little thrill race down my spine.
I nodded and said, “This is for Ma and Pa and everyone back at the cell. The United won’t be keeping us on a leash anymore.”
“Never again,” Tim said, and we all repeated it: “Never again.”
Two more kids came out of Strepp’s office looking sad. One of them wiped tears away from his cheek.
“Bad assignment,” Nate muttered.
It went on, everyone but the four of us getting called, everyone then trooping out and down the hall. Some soldiers looked thrilled, some looked terrified, some looked kind of sick to their stomachs.
We were last. More than three hundred freaking soldiers were given their jobs ahead of us. What was gonna be left? KP duty? I could already feel my blood rising. I hadn’t trained like an effing dog all this time just so I could stay here and man the shortwave radio or some shit.
It was almost noon when we finally entered Strepp’s camp office. We were Strepp’s best fighters. I knew that. I was hoping that meant she’d held on to the toughest assignment, saving it for the A-team. Squaring my shoulders, I strode in and stood at attention in front of her desk.
“Your childhood is over,” Strepp said, standing up. “Your childhood has been over for a while now.”
Well, there’s a news flash, I thought.
“You’re adults now, with adult power… and adult responsibility.”
Cassie’s pinkie reached out slightly and touched mine. I didn’t dare look at her—we would both burst into laughter if I did.
“You think you’re hotshots,” Strepp said, her voice cold. She walked around us, raking us with her gaze as if she were watching a worm fry on a hot sidewalk. “Kids, you ain’t done nothing yet. Talk to me when you’ve saved lives, when you’ve stopped evil, when you’ve actually made one goddamn difference in this world!”
This was Strepp at her worst. She’d always been able to change her persona in an instant—there were times I’d swear I’d seen warmth or caring in her eyes. It was hard to imagine right now.
“This isn’t training,” she went on, pacing. “This isn’t just some battle, and we’re not trying to claim a cell. This is an all-out war. You’re fighting not for one cell, but for all cells. You’re fighting not just for your future, but for everyone’s future. The future of humankind. Do you understand? Do you fully grasp that concept?”
We all muttered, “Yes, ma’am.” What else could we say?
“Becca,” she said, whirling to look at me. “You’ll be a squad leader, commanding five soldiers. You’ll be advance scouts, covering a great deal of ground. Your squad’s job is to make maps, neutralize any United outposts, and make contact with undercover Resistance agents in the Outerlands.”
I clenched my fist at my side so I wouldn’t give a victory punch in the air. Yes! Oh, yes! This was going to be awesome! High risk, high reward—the way I liked it! I almost laughed out loud, picturing me, Cassie, Nate, and Tim crawling through underbrush, peering through binoculars—and best of all, I was in charge! I almost bounced on my heels with excitement and couldn’t wait to get out of here so we could all talk about it.
