“Thanks,” Jack said.
“It’s been a real privilege, sir. I’ll help out any way I can.” She left to go back to the sixth level.
We went in and checked out our new home. The place looked tidy. I wondered about the previous occupants and where they might be now. Culled? Shot during the riot? How long had it been empty?
“Why was Bron acting that way with you?” I asked.
“I told you Liberty has supporters, and I guess she’s one of them. Why did you take the coal?”
“My hair.” I took off my cap and threw it on the table. My hair was still in the tight bun I’d worn under Leisel’s wig. I took out the elastic and shook it loose. It felt good. I picked up the coal and rubbed it against a lock of hair. “See? No more red. You should use it too. No one has light hair down here.”
I finished rubbing the coal through my hair and handed it to him. He took it, looking at it dubiously. Then he took off his cap and started rubbing his head with it.
“Not like that. You’re making a mess.” I sat him in the chair and rubbed the coal just against his short strands, staying away from his scalp. “There.” Dark hair didn’t suit him at all, but I decided to keep that to myself.
I walked over to the sink and turned on the faucet, hoping the previous occupants hadn’t used up all their water rations. The water flowed. I took a glass down from the cupboard and filled it.
“There won’t be any food in here, but we have water,” I said. I had almost drained the glass when there was a knock at the door.
“Is that the guard for the check-in?”
I nodded, went to the door, and opened it. A guard stood there with a scanner. We waved our hands over the scanner and received green lights. I realized too late that we didn’t have our hats on, but at least we’d covered our hair with coal. The guard moved on to the next apartment.
“How can your father do the check-in if he can’t get out of bed?” Jack’s voice held a note of concern.
“Bron’s been the guard in that section for as long as I can remember. She’s probably checking him in.”
“He looks really sick,” Jack said softly.
“He is.” He was sick with grief over the death of my mother; sick with despair knowing his own death was only months away. I should be with him, but I was trapped. “And thanks to you, he’s on his own.”
Jack held up both his hands as if to ward off a blow. “I didn’t know.”
“I told you! Before your wedding, I told you my dad was sick and I had to look after him. But you didn’t listen because you didn’t care.”
“I’m sorry.”
I saw the sincerity on his face, but the sentiment had come too late. My father was alone because Jack didn’t want to be left on his own down here. I blamed him for my predicament.
“I need sleep.” Without another word, I escaped into the bedroom and closed the door. I didn’t care where he slept or even if he stayed. I just crawled onto the thin mattress and tried to blot out the last three days of my life.
I felt so hopeless.
Chapter Twelve
It wasn’t the sound of the bong bongs going off that startled me awake but the reaction of the person in the next room. I sat up, eyes wide open.
“What the hell is that?” Jack asked, as he raced into the bedroom.
“What are you doing?”
“Aren’t there any windows in here? What’s going on out there?”
“Relax. It’s just the morning call to work. The lockdown must be over. That’s why no one came to check us in again during the night.”
“Morning call to work?” He looked confused.
“Happens every morning down here in the Pit. We have about fifteen minutes to get to the common room for breakfast. Exactly one hour from now, we need to scan in at our place of work. And we can’t be late or we’ll lose our jobs, and Benjamin and Autumn will be homeless and no better off than Jack and Sunny.”
I got out of bed. I realized I still had the bulletproof vest on, and it was beginning to feel like a dead weight. “I have to take this thing off.”
“Leave it on if you can stand it. It makes you look heavier—less like Sunny.”
He was probably right. Plus the added protection against bullets might come in handy if I was caught.
We went out into the living room. Jack donned his hat and threw mine at me. Hats weren’t very popular in the Pit, but there were a few people who wore them, so we shouldn’t look too out of place.
I decided to go to the sixth-floor common room for breakfast. There was already a lot of traffic on the stairs—early risers hoping to be first in line for breakfast. Technically we were supposed to stay on our own level for meals, but the guards never bothered to enforce that rule. Mealtimes were about the only time throughout the day when we could socialize, and the guards didn’t mind, as long as we went about it peacefully.
We reached the sixth level, and I turned toward my home to get my dad to come to breakfast. I was hoping I could get him out of bed quickly, because I didn’t want to miss out on the food. It had been more than twenty-four hours since I last ate and it appeared that I would have to go and work a full day in the laundry room. As I rounded the corner in the hall, I could see Bron standing not far from my father’s apartment. She looked startled to see me and silently shook her head.
“Stop,” Jack said, grabbing my arm to prevent me from going any further. “Something’s wrong.”
I gave Bron a questioning look, and she mouthed the word “guards.” I didn’t know if she meant someone was at my father’s house right now or if they had been there. I wondered if my father was okay, or if the guards were there to kick him out of the apartment now that I was no longer there to support him.
“Turn around,” Jack said. “Take us to the common room. There’ll be a bigger crowd there to get lost in.”
Since I had no choice, I did as he asked. I had to trust that Bron wouldn’t let anything happen to my father. At least I’d been able to get food and water into him the night before.
There was a long line of people already waiting for the common room to open its door. Meals weren’t served during a lockdown, so everyone was starving. I scanned the faces of the people in line hoping to see Summer or Reyes. I saw a lot of familiar faces, but not those two. I hoped no one would recognize me.
The doors to the common room opened, and everyone began to shuffle in to get their breakfast ration. Jack and I shuffled along with everyone else, keeping our heads down. When our turn came to enter the room, I saw the big television screen was lit up with the presidential seal, which could only mean that there was going to be an announcement. People were groaning at the sight, not wanting to sit through another lecture. So much of our day was spent working that meals were considered a special time to spend with friends and loved ones. No one liked being interrupted by President Holt.
“Again?” someone behind me complained loudly when he entered the room. “Does the president think we need more reminding of how lucky we are?”
“Yeah, we were all real lucky yesterday,” someone else chimed in.
“Don’t start another riot!” a third person said, his voice booming as he stepped out of line ahead of us. It was Reyes, his glare directed at the two in the back making all the complaints made even more impressive by his tall, muscular frame and crop of curly dark hair.
Even though I had been searching the crowd for him, his appearance was still a shock. All I could do was stand there and stare at him. Now that he was in front of me, what could I say to him? How could I explain everything that had happened? He scanned the line to see if anyone wanted to challenge him, and his eyes came to rest on me. I could tell by his shocked expression that he recognized me right away. I was afraid he might give me away, so I looked past him at the guard standing at the back of the room. His gaze followed mine, and he nodded in understanding. He made a slight motion with his head in the direction of the tables. He wanted me to join him.