The Rabbit Pen
They marched her to the rabbit pen, where about forty handcuffed Smokies sat inside the wire fence. A dozen or so Specials stood in a cordon around them, watching their captives with empty expressions. By the entrance to the compound a few rabbits hopped aimlessly, too addled by their sudden freedom to make a break for it.
The Special who had captured Tally took her to the end farthest from the gate, where a handful of Smokies with bloody noses and black eyes were clustered.
"Armed resistor," he said to the two cruel pretties who guarded this end of the pen, and shoved her down to the ground among the others.
She stumbled and fell onto her back, where her weight stretched the cuffs painfully across her wrists.
When she struggled to turn over, a foot planted itself into her back and pushed her up. For a moment, she thought the shoe belonged to a Special, but it was one of the other Smokies, helping her up the only way he could. She managed to sit up cross-legged.
The wounded Smokies around her smiled grimly, nodding encouragement.
"Tally," someone hissed.
She struggled to turn toward the voice. It was Croy, a cut over his eye bleeding down onto his cheek, one side of his face covered with dirt. He scooted himself a bit closer. "You resisted?" he said. "Huh.
Guess I was wrong about you."
Tally could only cough. Traces of the burning pepper seemed stuck in her lungs, like the embers of a fire that wouldn't go out. Tears still streamed from her eyes.
"I noticed you slept through breakfast call this morning," he said. "Then when the Specials came, I figured you'd picked an awfully convenient time to disappear."
She shook her head, forced words through the cinders in her throat. "I was out late with David. That's all." Speaking made her sore jaw ache.
Croy frowned. "I haven't seen him all morning."
"Really?" She blinked away tears. "Maybe he got away."
"I doubt anyone did." Croy jutted his chin toward the gate of the pen. A large group of Smokies was on its way, guarded by a squad of Specials. Among them, Tally recognized faces from those who'd made a stand at the mess hall.
"They're just mopping up now," he said.
"Have you seen Shay?"
Croy shrugged. "She was at breakfast when they attacked, but I lost track of her."
"What about the Boss?"
Croy looked around. "No."
"I think he got away. He and I made a run together."
A dark smile crossed Croy's face. "That's funny. He always said he wouldn't mind getting captured.
Something about a face-lift."
Tally managed to smile. But then she thought about the brain lesions that went along with becoming pretty, and a shiver passed through her body. She wondered how many of these captives knew what was really going to happen to them.
"Yeah, the Boss was going to give himself up, to help me get away, but I couldn't have made it through the forest."
"Why not?"
She wriggled her toes. "No shoes."
Croy raised an eyebrow. "You picked the wrong day to sleep late."
"I guess so."
Outside the overcrowded rabbit pen, the new arrivals were being organized into groups. A pair of Specials moved through the pen, flashing a reader into the bound Smokies' eyes, taking them outside one by one.
"They must be separating everyone by city," Croy said.
"Why?"
"To take us home," he said coldly.
"Home," she repeated. Just last night, that word had changed its meaning in her mind. And nowhome was destroyed. It lay around her in ruins, burning and captured.
She scanned the captives, looking for Shay and David. The familiar faces in the crowd were haggard, dirty, crumpled by shock and defeat, but Tally realized that she no longer thought of them as ugly. It was the cold expressions of the Specials, beautiful though they were, that seemed horrific to her now.
A disturbance caught her eye. Three of the invaders were carrying a struggling figure, bound hand and foot, through the pen. They marched straight to the resistors' corner and dumped her onto the ground.
It was Shay.
"Watch this one."
The two Specials guarding them glanced at the still writhing figure. "Armed resistor?" one asked.
There was a pause. Tally saw that one of the Specials had a bruise marring his pretty face.
"Unarmed. But dangerous."
The three left their captive behind, their cruel grace marked with a touch of hurry.
"Shay!" Croy hissed.