“Turn it on me! She has nothing to do with this!”
“Two!”
“I’m the one with the wrong answers! Not her!”
“Three!”
“No! Wait! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”
He cocks the trigger. “Better make it quick.”
Lev takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Indian Echo Caverns. In Pennsylvania. It’s where the AWOLs from the East Coast are hidden. They take them deep in the caverns and keep them there until they turn seventeen. Connor’s helping them run it.”
“Hmm,” says Nelson, considering it. “It’s on an Indian rez. I’ll bet stinking Slotmongers are always giving sanctuary to AWOLs.”
He puts the gun across his lap and leans back in his chair. “Now I have a dilemma. Of all the AWOLs I’ve tagged, none of them have gone in that direction. So who should I believe? You or my data?”
“Where were you tagging them?” Lev asks quickly. “If they’re west of Pittsburgh, they probably go someplace else if the resistance picks them up—and don’t ask me where, because I don’t know!”
Nelson smiles. “You know, I’m so glad you didn’t blow yourself to smithereens last year, young man. Because you’ve just saved this girl’s life. Assuming, of course, that you’re telling the truth.”
“If I’m lying,” says Lev, “you can come back and kill us both.”
That makes Nelson laugh. “If it turns out you’re lying, I would have done that anyway, but thank you for giving me permission.”
Then he leaves, making no attempt to free them from their bonds.
54 - Lev
“Were you telling the truth?” Miracolina asks,
“Of course I was,” Lev says, just in case Nelson is still listening. A few moments later he hears Nelson’s van start and drive off. The fact is, it hadn’t mattered what Lev told him—what mattered was Nelson believing it. Lev pulled the location out of his memory—he had been to Indian Echo Caverns with his family many years before. He remembered the guide saying that it used to be a hideout for outlaws. Lev stayed close to his mother, fearing that those outlaws might still be lurking in shadowy crevices. Lev has no idea if AWOLs really are hiding there. He hopes not, now that he’s unleashed Nelson on the place.
“So what do we do?” Miracolina asks. “If he catches your friend, he won’t be back, and we’ll starve to death, and if your friend’s not there, he’ll come back and kill us.”
“I thought you weren’t afraid of dying.”
“I’m not. I just don’t want to die a senseless death.”
“We won’t. Not if I can help it.” Then he begins to roll back and forth on his bed. His hands are secured tightly to two of the metal bedposts with the cable ties, but his feet are able to build a kind of rocking momentum. He throws his weight left, then right, over and over again, and the bed begins to scrape on the ground beneath him as he does. He tries to flip the bed but can’t build the momentum, and eventually he has to rest.
“It’s not working,” Miracolina says, stating what’s more than obvious.
“Then maybe you should start praying. I sure am.”
After a few minutes’ rest, he tries it again. This time he’s able to slide the bed over a little bit more with his rocking, until one of the legs catches on an uneven floorboard. Now when he rocks the bed, the legs on the other side rise slightly off the ground. He loses his strength, and the pain of the plastic ties digging into his wrists gets to him. He has to stop, but after a few minutes of recovery he tries again, and again, each time getting closer to the exact force, and the exact torque it will take. Then finally, releasing a clenched-jawed groan, he hurls all his weight toward the far wall, practically wrenching his arms out of their sockets—and the bed rises, its future dangling like a coin between heads and tails—and then it flips upside down. The metal frame and the mattress land on top of him. Lev’s elbows smash painfully on the rotting wooden floor, splinters digging in. With the bed lying on top of him, he has a momentary flashback to the explosion in the town house and being pinned beneath the sofa. His brother’s face, and Pastor Dan’s. He tries to draw strength from the moment, rather than let himself be overwhelmed by grief.
Lev
Lev is woken by a burst of ice water in his face. At first he thinks he’s out in the storm again. A tornado was coming—did he get hit by a tree? He has to get up. Must keep running. Running.
But he’s not in the storm. He’s not outside. His focus is blurry, but he can see enough to know he’s in some sort of room, looking at a dirty wall. No, not a wall, a ceiling. A water-stained ceiling. And he’s lying on a bed. And his hands are tied above his head. Tied to the bed frame. His mouth tastes like battery acid, the air smells like mildew, and his head pounds, pounds, pounds. Now he remembers! He was in a van with Miracolina. Hail was pummeling the van. Then they were tranq’d by—
“Awake?” Nelson says. Lev remembers his name now. Nelson. Officer Nelson. Lev had never seen the man’s face, but his name was in the news almost as much as Lev’s. He doesn’t look much like a Juvey-cop now.
“Sorry for the water alarm. I’d have given you a wake-up call, but there’s no phone service here.”
On a bed next to Lev is Miracolina, still unconscious. Like him, her hands are tied to her bed frame with plastic cable ties.