“Yeah, yeah, a coward,” the others echo.
The chorus of support gives Starkey all the justification he needs to bury any doubts beneath his own blind confidence. “I’ve been here long enough to know that you’re nothing but a babysitter. We need more than that. We need someone who’s not afraid to take this battle to the streets. I gave you every chance to leave on your own, but you wouldn’t go. You leave me no choice but to take you down.”
“Not gonna happen.”
Connor is clearly outnumbered. Starkey’s inner circle of storks advance on him—but Starkey’s not the only one with tricks up his sleeve. Suddenly Hayden and half a dozen others, who’ve been waiting outside, begin piling through the door, firing tranq pistols at every stork in their path until half of Starkey’s inner circle is unconscious on the floor of the jet, and the others drop their weapons.
Connor looks straight into Starkey’s eyes. “Cuff him.”
“With pleasure,” says Hayden, pulling Starkey’s hands behind his back and cuffing them together.
Connor has been foolish enough to trust him, and to believe that Starkey’s ambition was healthy, not blind.
“The difference between me and you, Connor,” Starkey says, still defiant, “is that—”
“—is that you’re in handcuffs and I’m not. Get him out of here.”
Hearing the gunfire of tranq pistols, dozens of kids have gathered in front of GymBo, as they haul Starkey out and down the stairs.
“Put his little mutiny team in the detention jet with two armed guards,” Connor says.
“Starkey, too?” Hayden asks.
Connor knows he can’t put Starkey in the same holding pen as his coconspirators. It would just lead to more plotting.
“No. Lock him in my jet,” Connor orders, and one of the kids holding Starkey throws him to the ground, but Connor pulls the kid back.
“No! We are not the Juvies. Treat him with dignity. Whether he deserves it or not.”
They obey, although no one helps Starkey up. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he has to wiggle and contort himself to get to his feet.
“This isn’t over!” Starkey yells.
“Yeah, that’s what they always say when it is.”
Starkey is taken away, and Connor begins damage control. He tunes in to the rumbles of conversation on the perimeter. Some kids are just wondering what the hell happened, but there are other voices. Disapproving voices. The Stork Club. He wonders how much support Starkey has. It might be a mile wide, but Connor hopes it’s only an inch deep.
“Listen to me, all of you,” Connor says, knowing he has to sell himself as their leader more than ever. “Whether you’re a stork, or a ward, or bio-raised, we have to stand united now. What we do now will decide whether we live or die. The Juvies are about to make a move. We have to work together, unless you want to end up in pieces.”
s the bus hits a patch of rough road, it becomes painfully clear that holding it in is not an option. He will not foul the compartment . . . then he realizes that absorbency is only a luggage zipper away. He moves away from Miracolina and begins to unzip a suitcase.
“You’re going to pee in someone’s suitcase?”
“Do you have any other ideas?”
And suddenly Miracolina begins to snicker, then giggle, then cackle uncontrollably. “He’s going to pee in someone’s suitcase!”
“Quiet! Do you want the people in the bus to hear you?”
But Miracolina is beyond help. She’s entered into a full-fledged laughter fit—the kind that leaves your stomach hurting. “They’re gonna open their suitcase,” she blurts between bursts of glee, “and their clothes’ll be full of pee!
For Lev this is no laughing matter. He opens the suitcase and feels around to make sure it’s just clothes and nothing electronic, because that would be really bad—and Miracolina can’t catch her breath. “And I thought it was bad when shampoo spilled in mine!”
“Shampoo!” says Lev. “You’re a genius.”
Lev rifles blindly through one suitcase, then a second, until he comes up with a nice-size shampoo bottle. Then he frantically dumps the shampoo out in the corner of the luggage compartment and, without a second to lose, refills it with sweet relief. When he’s done, he caps the bottle tightly. He considers putting it back in the suitcase, but decides it’s best to just leave it rolling around at the far corner of the luggage compartment.
Lev releases a shivering sigh, then returns to his space next to Miracolina.