And suddenly I know. I haven’t escaped anything. I’ve walked right into it.
We’re led to the second floor of the building’s east wing. The elevator opens to reveal a wide lounge. A few tables help fill the space. A couch and loveseat are positioned in front of a television. I smile bitterly, imagining the seven of us watching reruns of Glee together. Unlikely.
“Welcome.” Another individual waits for us, standing in the center of the room. She’s dressed in civilian clothes and hugs a clipboard and several file folders to her chest, rocking on her heels. She smiles at us as we drift forward. Her face is so tanned and sun-weathered it’s hard to estimate her age. A pair of guards flank her. They don’t smile. It’s as if she’s the only one allowed to.
“Take a seat.” She motions to the tables. “We have a few things to go over before we give out room assignments. Count yourselves lucky. With so few girls on the floor, you can each have your own room.”
I sit at the same table as the skinny girl. Maybe because I feel sorry for her. Or maybe I simply feel safer with her. She’s hardly a threat with her broken face and slight body tucked in on itself. I can smell the coppery scent of her blood. It’s a hard reminder of where I am and what can happen if I drop my guard. Of what can happen even if I don’t.
Another girl joins us at the round table. She moves with an inherent grace, holding her elegant, well-shaped limbs close to her body. Her dark hair gleams blue-black. The only thing darker is her gaze. Her black eyes watch me warily, eyeing my neck.
The four remaining girls sit at a neighboring table. The one who beat up Skinny crosses sinewy arms over her chest and assesses all of us with supreme confidence. Blood stains the front of her shirt, and it looks somehow right on her. Her face is horribly broken out with acne and pitted with old blemish scars. She bears no imprint. As though aware of this—and it’s some manner of shortcoming that marks her as soft—her stare passes between me and the other imprinted girl at her table, a redhead who busies herself by chewing on her thumbnail.
The redhead’s green eyes glitter in an unnerving manner, reminding me of an animal that’s ready to bite the first person who tries to touch her. I cross my arms, my hands chafing over my skin.
“The seven of you will sleep on this floor. The boys are quartered in the west wing. Every night, your doors will automatically lock, every morning they will unlock.”
I glance at my hands, thinking locked doors aren’t a bad thing among this bunch. I might actually get some sleep.
“Let’s begin with introductions, shall we?” The guard opens her first file. “Zoe Parker. Florida State Soccer Champion two years in a row. Midfielder.” She nods and glances at the redhead approvingly. The girl drops her thumb from her lips and lifts that wild green gaze to the guard. “That takes stamina. Impressive.”
She moves on to the next file. “Amira Bustros.” The girl with the ink-dark eyes beside me stiffens and slides her gaze to the woman fearfully. “You’re first-generation American. Your parents are from Lebanon. You speak fluent Arabic.” She continues nodding. “Useful.”
She flips open another folder and nods to the most petite member of the group. “Moving on. Marilee Davison. You’re a gymnast. Been training since age three.”
That would explain her tiny stature. She must be older, but she looks like a twelve-year-old.
“I was a gymnast.” Marilee juts her chin out defiantly. Her squeaky, girl-like voice makes me wonder if maybe she isn’t closer to eight.
“Yes, well, we’ll see about that,” the woman answers vaguely. “Your background will come in handy.”
“Davina Hamilton.” Her eyes scan my file. I wait, every muscle inside me pulling tight. “Piano, violin, guitar, and voice. Accepted into Juilliard. Very nice.”
I don’t waste my breath reminding her that that’s all in the past. Accepted and then rejected. But she knows as much. I’m here, after all.
The girl who beat up Skinny snorts and mutters beneath her breath, “A freakin’ Mary Poppins. Maybe she’ll sing for us.”
I shoot her a look. She holds my gaze, her thick forearms tightening across her chest. The woman continues down the list and I return my attention to her. Skinny’s name is Sabine Stoger. She moved here as an infant from Austria and speaks both German and French. Sofia Valdez is from Texas and speaks Spanish. Clearly being proficient in a language is an asset to them here.
The last name on the list is the stocky girl who attacked Sabine. Addy Hawkins, a track-and-field star. She preens as her qualifications are read, staring at each of us in a way that declares she is the strongest, the best: “Addy the Awesome and Terrible.” In case pounding Sabine hadn’t illustrated that.
Apparently, she jumps a mean high bar and throws the javelin. She qualified for the US Olympic team in both events before she was detected as a carrier. I shiver, imagining her throwing that spear. Only I don’t see her throwing it into the ground. I see her impaling someone with it.
“My name is Dusty,” the woman announces as she closes the last file.
“Dusty?” Addy snorts.
Dusty stares at her coolly before continuing. “I’m in charge of you seven while you’re all here. You’ve been selected because you possess special talents. You’ll be expected to cultivate these strengths and add other skills to your repertoire. If you’re not already bilingual, you will be expected to learn an additional language. If you’re in poor physical condition, consider that temporary. You will become a perfect specimen by the end of your stay here. If you can’t fight with any finesse, you will.” Her gaze sweeps over each of us, letting these words sink in. “Your DNA already tells us you can kill, but to succeed here you must become controlled, you must master your baser impulses and serve a purpose that is higher than yourself. We’ve assembled a staff to help you reach this goal.”
No one breathes. I stare at this woman. She’s more than a guard, I recognize that at once. Suddenly, I see her as some kind of Yoda figure, offering hope.
She removes several sheets of paper from her clipboard and hands them to us. “These are your schedules. Memorize them. There is no excuse for tardiness. We expect total obedience or you will be ejected from Mount Haven.”
I sense Amira tense beside me. It’s a fate I don’t want to face, either.
“You’ll send us to the camps if we don’t make it in here,” Addy states more than asks. It seems she’s the only one bold enough to say anything.
“If you’re lucky, you’ll be transferred to a detention camp.” Dusty’s expression turns grim. “You want to make it here. Trust me in that.”
Transference to a detention camp would be lucky? What would be the unlucky alternative?
Unthinkingly, I hear myself answer, “Agent Stiles told my mother if this didn’t work out I would go to a detention camp.”
Dusty looks at me then, her gaze hard as steel in her sun-browned face. My earlier hope that she’d be a benevolent mentor withers under her stare. “Agent Stiles is no longer here. I am.”
With schedules in hand, we’re led from the lounge area. The doors to our rooms are a pristine white just like everything else. A small, thick-glassed window is positioned at the top of each door—a reminder that we’ll never have total privacy here.
Sabine is in the room next to mine. Her wispy-thin form darts inside, clearly eager to escape everyone. Zoe, the imprinted redhead, is on the other side of me. She moves at a slower pace, looking at me eerily with those wild, green eyes of hers before disappearing inside her room. I shiver a little, knowing that I should have anticipated this. Even though the carriers here have all been screened, they’re positive for HTS. Some of them have to be dangerous . . . maybe even a little unhinged.
Dusty stops me before I get inside my room. “Hamilton, we expect great things from you.”
“Really?” I swallow uncomfortably. I didn’t want them to expect great things from me. I just want not to fail.
“You have the breeding the other girls lack. Gentility, if you will . . . it’s important that you don’t lose that here. We’re going to train you to be tough . . . a skilled fighter, but don’t . . .” Her voice fades as though she’s searching for the right words. “You still need to maintain some sophistication. It will serve you well when you’re on assignment in the field.” She reaches up and taps a finger against my throat. “Shame about this. Perform to our expectations and we’ll see about getting that removed. It’s a painstaking process . . . delicate, but it can be done.”
They could remove my imprint? I could walk freely in the world with no one marking me on sight as a carrier?
My chest swells at the promise of this. I never dreamed of such a possibility.
I nod eagerly. “I’ll do my best.”
“Excellent.” She motions to my room, indicating I should go inside. “Have a good night.”
Once I’m in, the door clangs shut. As I sink onto the single bed, a bolt falls into place on the other side, the sound heavy, jarring.
At least we get our own rooms. Clearly, they don’t trust us alone with each other. No telling what would happen in the middle of the night. I might wake with someone’s hands around my throat.
Sitting there, I think of Sean and Gil, somewhere on the other side of this building with forty-odd boys. Did they get the same type of introduction? Were they, too, expected to cultivate their talents? Gil’s a computer genius, but what about Sean? What did they expect from him?
A soft sound starts up on the other side of my room. Sabine is crying.
I move from the bed and tap the wall, pressing my face close to the plaster. “Hey, you okay?”
Her words come out muffled, “I’m never going to make it.”
“You’ll do great,” I say. “They want us to succeed. They’ll train us.”
She doesn’t say anything else. After a while, I sigh and step away from the wall. I change into a fresh T-shirt and shorts and lie down on the bed. Grasping the collar, I inhale the soft fabric of my favorite T-shirt. It smells like home.
I notice a pair of training pants and black T-shirt folded neatly on the chair. For tomorrow, I assume. Probably standard issue.
Sinking back on the bed, I study my schedule and try to block out the sound of Sabine crying next door.
Mount Haven Camp Schedule
ATHLETICS 6:00–6:45 A.M.
BREAKFAST 7:00–7:45 A.M.
ATHLETICS 8:00–9:30 A.M.
INDEPENDENT STUDY 9:45–11:45 A.M.
LUNCH 12:00–12:45 P.M.
CONDITIONING 1:00–2:30 P.M.
GROUP DRILLS 2:45–4:15 P.M.
INDEPENDENT STUDY 4:30–6:00 P.M.
DINNER 6:15–7:00 P.M.
COMMUNAL TIME 7:00–8:00 P.M.
LIGHTS-OUT 8:15 P.M.
TWENTY-TWO
IN LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, I DISCOVER just how out of shape I am. It’s a painful lesson. After seventy-two hours, I’m not sure I’ll survive one more day.
Every morning, the doors unbolt at six a.m. We have only a few minutes to dress before heading outside for a pre-break-fast run. The Mount Haven staff greets us with shouts and whistles and a clanging bell that makes me think I’m in a boot camp. The hard-core kind you see in movies. The type where cadets are driven to suicide. Only this isn’t a movie. And none of us are here to die. By the time we get to breakfast, we fall on our food, ravenous. Sean and Gil sit at the same table with me, but we’re so busy eating we barely speak.
This is my new life. We eat, work, sleep. Nothing more. Even Sabine has shaken off the effects of her thrashing. I haven’t heard her cry again since that first night. She even beats me downstairs most mornings.
We run a second time after breakfast. The grounds are vast, winding through thick trees, the mountains a great hulking shape in the horizon. The run lasts over an hour and they shout at us the entire time. I try to block them out, letting music fill my head as I lift one leg after another. Somehow, I’m not the last in the pack, which I like to think is saying something. Especially since we run as one group. Boys and girls.