Crazy House (Crazy House 1)

BECCA

WAS THIS WOMAN BATSHIT CRAZY or was she telling the truth? Was this a trap or was she possibly trying to help us? Jesus. Of course it was a trap! What was I doing, standing here?

“Come on, guys!” I said, and that was when I noticed that Cassie wasn’t right next to me.

I strained to see up and down the dark hall. “Cassie?” I hissed as loudly as I dared. To my shock, she didn’t immediately pop out of an empty room, didn’t appear out of the shadows.

“Shit,” the Kid said, looking left and right. “She’s gone!”

This was so totally un-Cassie-like that I froze for a second, thinking it through. Cassie was a girl who, even when she was at her most furious at me, would still care enough to shout at me to take the shortcut home so I wouldn’t get in trouble. There’s no way she would have left me. No way at all.

I looked at the Kid, who seemed small and very young. He was relying on me. I nodded at him.

“Let’s go.”

As we ran almost silently down the hall, Strepp didn’t say a word.

85

CASSIE

THE LAST TIME I’D BEEN to the infirmary—the only time—had been after Becca had wiped the floor with me in the ring. I wasn’t totally sure of the way there; I’d been unconscious going in, and then a mess coming back.

The halls were empty. Everyone was in the auditorium. I thought about what was happening right now, some kid getting hooked up to a machine, and it sent a cold chill down my back.

I turned into one hall and crept most of the way down before I saw it was a dead end. Swearing under my breath, I darted from doorway to doorway, listening for footsteps, the sounds of doors opening, anything that would force me to abandon my mission.

After I’d retraced my path, I went down the second hall I found, and my heart leaped when I saw the broken, unlit sign: INFIRMARY. Keeping below the windows of these doors, I made my way along the hall, sticking my tongue out as I passed the HEALTHIER TOGETHER AT THE UNITED! sign. Just as I heard footsteps coming, I ducked through into the infirmary. Unfortunately, instead of turning, the footsteps grew louder: they were coming here!

Scanning the room frantically, I saw a cupboard beneath a sink and sprang over to it. It held only a few bottles of cleaner, and I crammed myself inside as fast as I could. The infirmary door opened and voices became loud.

“We’ll need to order more of the knockout drug,” someone was saying. “Warden Bell has upped the executions faster than we expected.”

The other person laughed and said, “Put it on the list. We need more paper towels, too.”

Inside the dark cupboard, folded up like an origami crane, my face burned. Ordering more of the drug to kill innocent kids was right up there with paper goods! These people were soulless monsters!

Steps came very close to me, and right above my head someone turned on the sink. I scowled as a cold drip, drip of water started leaking from the pipe jammed against my neck. The icy water ran down inside my jumpsuit and puddled at the small of my back. This was the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

After several long minutes, the water was turned off, the footsteps left, and the tiny crack of light at the cupboard door went dark. I waited a while longer, then cautiously opened the cupboard door, groaning at my stiff muscles from the cramped position.

Slowly I unfurled myself, and then crept toward the back of the infirmary.

There he was. Lying on the bare plastic of a hospital bed, one leg encased in a plaster cast from thigh to ankle, Nate was looking up at the ceiling. The muscles in his jaw were clenching and unclenching, and his face was bruised and battered. Black sutures held together the three-inch gash on his forehead.

I came up silently, so silently that he jumped when he realized I was standing there. Then he winced, suppressing a groan at how his startled movement had made everything hurt all over again.

“Hey,” I said softly. “Come with me now, or die.”

86

BECCA

THE KID AND I STRUCK out, tunnel-wise, in our quadrant of the jail, and we moved to the next block. My mind was racing, worried sick about Cassie and wondering what the hell had happened to her. I hadn’t heard her get dragged off—she must have left me voluntarily. Which made no sense, just no sense.

“Was your dad able to tell you anything at all about the tunnel?” I asked the Kid as we started down another hall. Time was running out—executions rarely took more than five minutes. Any moment now the alarm would sound and inmates would start filing back into their rooms, accompanied by guards. Lots of guards.

The Kid thought for a moment. “He said… he said it was behind a wall. In a room, behind a wall.”