“Mister,” Nate began, then cleared his throat. He went closer to the bed, drawing up the plastic chair from beside the bed table. What the hell should he say? Sorry I got your daughters disappeared? Here’s hoping they come back before you die?
Or…
What had Cassie called him? Dad? Pa?
“Pa,” Nate said, keeping his voice light. “It’s Cassie.” He reached out and patted Mr. Greenfield’s hand, trying not to flinch at the paper-thin skin. “I just wanted to let you know that everything’s okay. School is fine. The All-Ways is fine. The farm is fine.”
What else? What else could he say to this man who had been disgraced because he’d wanted to die by his own hand?
“Pa. It’s Becca.” Nate thought—what would Becca say? “I got a sixty-seven on a math test. The teacher says I can retake it.”
Nate patted Mr. Greenfield’s other hand. “But everything is fine. Um, a window accidentally got broken, but Cassie can fix it. Don’t worry. You just get better, okay?”
Mr. Greenfield would never get better. His labored breathing told Nate that the end he’d sought months ago was at last drawing near.
God, this was all a mess. His own mother, Cassie’s dad—the twins. How many more people would his father ruin?
“Okay, Pa,” Nate said. “I gotta go. My shift is starting at the All-Ways. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Feeling overwhelmed by a sudden grief, Nate stood and stumbled past the nurse coming in. The ride home had never been so long.
64
MS. STREPP
“SHE’S FITTING IN SURPRISINGLY WELL.” Warden Bell’s dry observation echoed what Helen Strepp had been thinking.
“Look here,” Ms. Strepp said, pointing at one of the screens from a bank that almost covered the wall. It was focused on the inmates’ recreation yard—an outdoor, chain-linked rectangle as gray and grim as the rest of the prison. Cassie Greenfield was sitting cross-legged on the cement, surrounded by fellow prisoners. She had the nerve to be playing one of those patty-cake hand games that Ms. Strepp had never gotten the hang of. Prisoners were gathered around, watching and raising their hands to be next. Some of them were actually smiling. In the past several weeks, Cassie Greenfield had become unusually influential.
“She’s… quite dangerous,” Ms. Strepp said.
“Yes,” Warden Bell agreed. “Just as we hoped. Don’t get attached to this one, either, Strepp. You know the one-way path she’s on.”
“I know.” Ms. Strepp was irritated at the Warden’s suggestion that she was getting soft, sentimental. It was nothing like that.
“How are the experiments going?” The Warden’s shrewd gaze seemed to look right inside Ms. Strepp’s head.
“They are… ongoing,” Ms. Strepp said shortly. In fact, she was concerned. The video feed showed Rebecca Greenfield standing by the chain-link fence, sullenly watching her sister. Ms. Strepp had expected the twins to immediately join forces, combining their strengths. Instead, the opposite had happened, against all her expectations.
“Okay, now watch this.” Ms. Strepp pointed at a screen showing the same scene from a different angle. The two women watched as a hulking behavior problem strode up to Cassie and kicked her none too gently in the back.
Cassie stood slowly, her once-animated face turning expressionless.
“Her sister beat her easily in the ring,” Warden Bell murmured.
“Yes. But that was weeks ago. She’s made progress.”
“Let’s hope this lunk doesn’t cripple her.” The Warden’s voice held a note of warning, telling Ms. Strepp not to push things too far.
Ms. Strepp was too tense to answer as the action unfolded on the screen. The guy outweighed Cassie by at least fifty pounds, and was six inches taller. Some inmates backed up to give them space, while others came to watch.
The guy made a fist and drew it back to give himself maximum power, but before he could even swing, Cassie launched herself at him as if she were a windmill in a hurricane. He was much more powerful, but she was lithe, hard, and fast. She flitted around like a mosquito, getting in multitudes of sharp, angry, well-placed jabs. It seemed only seconds before both of his eyes were swelling, his lip was split, his nose broken and bleeding. He limped from where she stomped on his instep, and was grimacing in pain from the killer kidney punch she had nailed him with—twice.
It was over quickly. The bully limped off to the jeers of the prisoners, his fists still clenched as he spit blood on the ground.
Cassie had a welt swelling on her jaw, a knot forming on her forehead, and her knuckles were bruised and scraped. She sat down again, somewhat stiffly—he’d landed one or two rib punches—and managed a smile.
Her devotees quickly sat down next to her, and as Strepp and Warden Bell watched, Cassie held up her hands again to start the game.