?It’s true,” she murmured, since we were now surrounded by guards. I was scouring the place for Tim, but stealthily.
“First you’ll get tested,” Cassie explained in a low voice. “Try to do your best. How well you do determines how long you last in here.”
Nathaniel looked a bit green.
“Okay, when you says, ‘killed,’” the kid said, “ya mean, like—”
“What’s your name, kid?” I asked.
He frowned and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Yeah what?”
“Yeah, that’s my name,” he said. “They call me the Kid.”
“Geez,” I said. “That’s original.”
“You there!” barked a familiar voice.
I narrowed my eyes and turned to see Tim in his guard suit, brandishing his billy club. “Shut up and keep moving!”
“Eff you,” the Kid began angrily, but I clapped my hand over his mouth and dragged him along.
There had been a glitter in Tim’s eyes. My face ached with wanting to smile, but of course I didn’t, just shuffled up into the bleachers with the others to await some fresh horror.
My life sucked more every day.
76
IT WAS MERRY.
Today’s victim was Merry.
My heart seized and I sucked in a shocked breath when I saw my roommate getting hauled onto the canvas floor of the ring. As usual, there was a gurney and two “nurses,” who were checking the equipment, filling syringes, getting ready to kill a kid.
Merry’s small face peered into the bleachers, but I knew she couldn’t see anyone past the lights. I wanted to shout out to her, which would be fine if I didn’t mind getting dragged out of the bleachers, beaten, and possibly tossed up on the stage next to her for a double feature.
All I could do was send her thoughts—pointless, I know. But it was all I had.
It’s okay, Merry. It won’t hurt. It will all be over soon. I didn’t know if I was trying to comfort her or me.
“What the hell they doin’?” the Kid whispered next to me.
“Shut up!” I hissed between clenched teeth. “Unless you want the crap kicked out of you.”
They put Merry on the gurney and hooked her up to the machines. I remembered how young she was, how hard prison was for her. I wondered where Diego and Vijay were. I thought about Robin, how she and Merry had helped me. Glancing over the Kid’s head, I saw Cassie staring somberly at the ring. Her face was still, her eyes heavy with unshed tears.
Merry was scared, her eyes wide with fear. Her fine, mouse-colored hair hung limply over the side of the gurney. She had parents. They didn’t know what had happened to her. Now she was about to die, and they would never know.
“Jesus H. Christ,” the Kid muttered next to me. When his wiry little hand gripped my arm, I took pity on him and let it stay there.
It was the usual, the machines, the injections. I’d seen it several times before, but I wasn’t getting used to it. It was still terrifying. It still made me feel frantic, sick, enraged, and helpless. My throat closed when I saw Merry’s eyes go blank, and I forgot to breathe as her heartbeat flattened out and stopped. I tried to ignore what was happening, tried to think about anything else instead, but found tears spilling out of my eyes and my nose stuffing up. Angrily I wiped my sleeve over my face.
“Every ending is a beginning,” Strepp announced, standing in the center of the ring. “Remember that.”
I’d never hated her more, never wanted to kill her more than right then.
As we got up to file out, Nate suddenly doubled over and threw up. Inmates shrieked and jumped away from him. Cassie patted his back.