“There’s a… grate in the wall right below the ceiling,” I told him. “Clogged with basically the grossest stuff ever.” Grimacing, I pulled it away like it was horrible, dirty witch hair. I pressed closer to the grate and could hear the voices more clearly. I slid off Nate’s shoulders and we both stood on the metal cot.
“That’s Dad,” he said quietly. “I’d know that bellow anywhere.”
My eyes narrowed. “Did you tell your dad where we were?”
His face flushed and he jumped to the floor. His hands made fists and when he looked back at me I realized I’d never seen him so angry. “Screw you!” he snapped. “You think I’d go through all this to help my dad? The dad who basically lobotomized my mom? You asshole!”
He looked ready to punch me, and I decided I was convinced of his loyalty.
With dignity I said, “Okay, I stand corrected.”
Above us, Provost Allen was reporting grim conditions in his cell: crop failures, food shortages, people revolting—especially the teenagers—and worst of all, an outbreak of the plague.
“Shit,” Nate breathed. “That’s home he’s talking about!”
“The plague?” I said. “I heard people talking about it in the dining barn. But what plague? Did you hear anything about it in the kitchen?”
Shaking his head no, his face paled and I remembered that his mom was in our cell. Barely living, but still. Both my parents were gone, and who knew where Cassie was? Still being Strepp’s pet librarian, safely back at camp while our friends and neighbors were dying back home?
A heavy door slammed somewhere down the hall, and without speaking we both jumped down and sat on the metal cot with bored expressions on our faces. I didn’t know what was coming, but I knew enough to look broken down.
The face that appeared on the other side of our bars was only too familiar, except he’d gotten his head injury bandaged. He stared at us with loathing, then smiled a horrible, knowing smile that made my skin crawl.
“Here it is!” he shouted back to someone down the hall. “I found the fire! Turn on the water!”
That’s when I saw he was holding an emergency fire hose in his hands.
110
I DID AN IMMEDIATE SURVEY of our cell—the cot was fastened to the wall and there was nothing else. Nowhere to hide.
“Shit,” was all I had time to say before the fire hose came alive in Kirt’s hands. He struggled to control it, then aimed it right at us. I braced myself, my arms crossed over my face, but the full force of the water was like a cannon, easily knocking Nate and me flat on our backs on the stone floor. Keeping my back to Kirt, I struggled to get to my hands and knees but every time the water blasted me, I was flattened. If I was on my stomach, my face scraped against the stone floor. If I was on my back, Kirt aimed at my face with gleeful rage until I wondered if I had skin left. It was harder and harder to breathe—water filled my nostrils, blew my mouth open, peeled my eyelids back.
The violent, freezing water was like a living beast that couldn’t be slain. If only I could grab it by the neck, crack its spine, break its nose. Instead it pinned me to the floor, to a wall, and it felt like my skin was being flayed from my bones.
Above the rush of the hose I got glimpses of Nate not faring much better than me. He was bigger and heavier and seemed to be trying to reach me but was shoved back by the powerful force each time.
“I’m going to drown you, you bitch!” Kirt screamed over the noise. “And then you’re going to hang for treason, you and loverboy both!” Once again he trained the hose at my face, its power knocking my hands away, making me gulp water and gag. My lungs were starting to scream for air. He was drowning me, minute by endless minute of incessant assault. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t swallow fast enough, couldn’t move. Was this how I was going to die? Being drowned in a dungeon cell beneath the President’s house? The President I was supposed to kill? Not only was I dying, but I was dying a failure. I just needed to breathe, goddamnit!
When the water stopped abruptly I still heard its roar in my clogged ears. My skin burned. I was gagging.
“You are the biggest asshole!” a high-pitched voice screamed.
“Get the hell out of here, Mia!” Kirt roared in rage. “This is none of your business!”
Slowly, on trembling arms, I sat up, coughing up water, feeling it run out of my nose and ears.
“I swear I’m going to tell everyone you were wasting precious water, you prick!”
Nate was sitting up now, his face scraped and red, eyes bleary, coughing up water like me.
Throwing down the hose nozzle, Kirt stomped toward Mia. There was a lot of hushed, angry arguing, then Kirt trod heavily down the hallway. We heard a door slam loudly, and then Mia approached our cell.
“Sorry,” she said abruptly. “He’s a complete dick. Always has been.”
“Can you get us out of here?” I asked, my voice raspy.
“I can’t,” she said regretfully. “Not until I ask my father. I’ll try to get you out when I can, but he’s super busy. Anyway, I brought you this—don’t tell anyone.”