“I care because it’s important,” he said. “I know what she … what she means to you.”
I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t even know what she meant to me. “Really? And what is that?”
Mason exhaled, frustrated. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem? Someone got murdered last night, and then they tried to … Well, we’re prisoners here, and Becky’s sick, and you want to stand around and talk about feelings. You know what she means to me? She told me that she trusted me. No one trusts me—no one should, as you can see by all the people who got killed at the fence, and the next day, and last night, and probably tomorrow.”
He started to speak, but I cut him off.
“Becky trusted me to get everyone out of the school, and now look at her. I need to make good on that trust. That’s what she means to me. And I don’t need you to come around here trying to apologize or whatever it is you’re doing.”
“But it’s my fault,” he said. “If she hadn’t gotten hurt, you would have escaped.”
I shook my head and turned back to the coop. “Too late for that.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not too late.”
I wanted to crawl back under that plastic and put my arms around her and wish we were somewhere else.
“They’ll come take Isaiah’s body,” he said, speaking with more urgency. “They always do when someone dies, because they want the implant back.”
I was going to have to hide—going to have to find a better place for Becky to recover. But I could tell that wasn’t what Mason was thinking about.
“So what?”
“I’m going to help you get out,” he said.
“Really.”
“Yes, really. Last night those guys left the body out in the road, but I moved it. It’s in the stream.”
I glanced over at the ford, but we were too far away to see anything. “Why?”
He spoke nervously, but with a glimmer of enthusiasm. Whatever he’d done, he was proud. “It’s a trap. I got the idea about it the day you got here and Harvard hauled you into the forest. This is the first time we’ve had the bait to make it work.”
“What did you do?”
“The body’s in the stream, under some brush that overhangs the water. Iceman’s going to have to climb in, jostle those branches. I ran some cables from the washroom lights, frayed them. I worked on it all night. He fights through the branches, the cable falls into the water, he’s toast.”
“Toast?”
“He’s a robot, right? I bet he can still be electrocuted. Pop some circuits.”
I paused and then gave a tired smile. “That’s how we got you. Your dupe, I mean. Becky hit you with a Taser.”
Mason looked uncomfortable, but laughed. “Then it works.”
“What good does it do to fry him, though?” I asked. “There are more guards than him.”
“He comes in the truck,” Mason said. “He gets zapped; you take the truck and burn rubber to the highway.”
I paused. It wasn’t a bad plan. I peered off where the dirt road disappeared down into the stream. “Do we know where that road goes?”
“It has to connect somewhere,” he said. “It’s not like they built the truck here. Listen, it’s getting light and he could come anytime.”
“Becky can’t go,” I said. “She couldn’t get to the truck fast enough.”
“I’ll take care of her here,” Mason said. “We’ll put her back in the Basement.”
I felt panic boiling up inside of me. “I don’t trust Birdman. Not anymore.”
“Then Shelly.”
“I have to take care of her,” I insisted.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “Now come on. I’ve got to get away from here so I’m not disabled right next to her.”
He started walking backward down the road to the stream.
This was too much, too soon. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t go without Becky.
“Do they have any other trucks?”
“What?”
“Do they have any other trucks?” I repeated. “How long will it take for backup to get here?”
He nodded. “I’ve seen three. There’s the flatbed they brought the lumber on, and two pickups, one white and one red. And we know there’re at least four four-wheelers.”
“So I could be driving back straight toward them, and they’ll have two trucks. They could chase me, or block the road.”
Mason shrugged. “You’ll have to be better than them.”
I looked at the road again. I’d bounced through foster care with poor families all my life; aside from driver’s ed, I could probably count the number of times I’d driven a car on one hand. I’d never driven a truck.
“Do you know if it’s a stick?”
He shook his head. “Don’t tell me you can’t drive.”
“I can drive a little.”
“You have to do this.”
We were halfway down the road, and I turned to look at the coop. Maybe I could hide there with her and get her to the truck. But how would I know when Iceman got zapped? And the bigger problem: what if he parked on the wrong side of the stream? I’d have to pass him, through the stream, to get to the truck.
Maybe I could bring Becky with me now, across the field, and we could hide in the fort and wait.
The warning bell rang, breaking the early morning silence of the town.
We were running out of time.
I turned back to Mason, but he was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t have made it all the way back to the fort, and he couldn’t be in the trees.
No, he was on the ground, face-first in the dirt.
Dread seized my whole body, pain running through my chest like a heart attack. I turned and ran.
They were coming. I could hear the truck now, its old unmaintained engine rattling through the trees.
Becky’s head was sticking out the low coop door, watching me in confusion. She waved her arms frantically, urging me to go faster.
I stumbled with almost every step, tripping on the uneven ground, the knots of grass. I felt like the adrenaline and panic coursing through my veins were making me drunk, like I didn’t know how to run anymore.
And then I was inside, and Becky and I dropped to the floor, collapsing onto the plastic.
I scrambled to look at the road, the coop entrance only open a crack.
I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear the engine. It sounded like it had stopped on the other side of the stream.
Becky pushed the door open.
“Wait,” I said, grabbing her coat.
“What?”
“Mason set a trap,” I said.
She started to get up. “I know. I was listening.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the truck,” she said, her words punctuated with a wheeze.
“We don’t know if the trap worked.”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“But what if it didn’t?”
She looked horrible—her face burned by cold, her skin pale and sickly, dark circles under her eyes.
“We have to go now,” she said. “Before someone else comes.”