by her tone that it wasn’t someone she knew.
“Nina Doe?” said an authoritative voice. Moving silently across the kitchen, I peeked around the corner, and a gasp caught in my throat.
An official dressed in black and silver stood in the doorway. Beside him, with a deep scowl on his face, stood the Shield from the market.
II
Auction
“Is there something you need?” said Nina briskly to the men.
I pressed my back against the wall and frantically searched for a way out. I could escape through the back door, but there was a chance they’d brought others. Besides, the fence was too high to jump without Benjy giving me a boost, and I’d have to go around the front way anyway.
I was trapped.
“Ma’am, I’m Colonel Jeremiah Sampson. I’m looking for Kitty Doe,” said the official, and I forced myself to take a deep breath. Panicking wouldn’t help. There had to be somewhere I could hide.
My gaze fell on the cabinet underneath the sink, and I hurried toward it. It would be tight, but there was a chance they wouldn’t look there. I slipped inside and closed the door seconds before three sets of footsteps entered the kitchen.
“I’m sorry, but she isn’t here,” said Nina. “May I ask what this is regarding?”
“Government business,” said the Shield, and he didn’t need to elaborate. Nina and I both knew what that meant: a bullet with my name on it. But why was the official in the strange uniform there? Surely the Shield from the market was more than capable of pulling the trigger himself.
The footsteps grew nearer, and I held my breath, keeping as still as I could. My back pressed up against a pipe, and I had to curl into a ball to avoid hitting the sink above me. The chemical scent of cleaner burned my nose, and my heart pounded against my rib cage, trying to get in every last beat it could before it stopped.
The footsteps paused in front of the sink, and I winced at the rush of water when someone turned on the faucet.
“I’m happy to tell her you dropped by when she comes home,” said Nina, her voice distorted from the water, but nearby. She was in front of the sink, blocking the cabinet. Did she know where I was hiding?
“Do you mind if we look around?” said Sampson.
Nina shut off the water. “Since when do you people ask permission?”
Another shuffle of footsteps, this time from the other side of the kitchen. “Nina? What’s going on?”
Benjy. My body went numb, and I groped around for some kind of weapon to use. If they touched him, if they even so much as looked at him the wrong way—
“These men would like to know where Kitty is,” said Nina tartly.
“Couldn’t say,” said Benjy, and his footsteps grew louder as he neared the sink. I heard a light slap of skin against skin. He must have gone for the biscuits. “We got separated.”
“Turn around,” said the Shield, and for one awful moment I thought he was going to arrest Benjy. He couldn’t, though—Benjy was still underage.
“Still as blank as it was an hour ago,” said Benjy. His neck. The Shield was checking his rank. “She’s not stupid enough to come back here, so if you want to find her, I’d recommend waiting at the train station. Or possibly the clubs,” he added. “She’s considering that, as well.”
I opened and shut my mouth, horrified. Did he really hate the idea so much that he was willing to risk me being killed over it?
“Very well,” said Sampson. “Thank you for your cooperation. If you don’t mind, we will have a look around before leaving.”
“By all means,” said Nina. The men’s footsteps echoed out of the kitchen and down the hall, and above me I heard Nina mutter, “Politest bastard I’ve ever met. Is she back there?”
Benjy must’ve shook his head, and she sighed. “Then let’s hope she manages to get out of here before they see her.”
I didn’t announce my presence while the men searched, in case something was going on that I couldn’t see. Occasionally I heard the low murmur of them speaking in another room, and I froze whenever they sounded like they were coming back, but they never searched the kitchen. “Rotten, uppity nuisances,” said Nina after the front door opened and shut, and I knew the coast was clear. “Promise me that when you’re marked, you won’t turn into one of those VIs that thinks he’s better than the rest of us.”
“You mean there’s another kind?” I said.
I pushed open the cabinet. Benjy stumbled backward, and Nina dropped her spatula on the floor.
“You were in there the whole time?” said Benjy, and I nodded. “How did you fit?”
“I’m flexible,” I said. “I need to get out of here before they come back. Tabs said she’d be here by the time the kids got home.”
I gave Nina a kiss on the cheek and headed into one of the two large rooms filled with bunk beds that the forty of us shared. Benjy stormed after me, but I resolutely stared straight ahead.
“Kitty— Kitty. You had this planned before today?” He took me by the elbow, and I spun around to face him.
“Yes,” I said hotly, wrenching my arm away from him. “Because unlike you, we don’t all have superbrains to fall back on.” I hurried to my bunk, where my half-empty duffel bag sat waiting for me. I thought I’d be taking it into a better part of the city that evening, not Denver, and certainly not the club where Tabs lived. But I’d planned for the worst, thinking that when she arrived to pick me up, I’d tell her that I wouldn’t be going with her after all. Not this.
“Fine,” he called, disappearing into the boys’ bunk. Half a minute later, he appeared in the doorway holding his backpack. “I’m coming with you.”
I shoved my shirt into my bag. “What are you going to do in a club, Benjy?”
“We’re not going to the club,” he said. “We’re running away.”
“No, we’re not. I’m not going to let you do that to yourself.”
“I already told you. If you only earned a III, there’s no hope for me.” He grabbed a sweatshirt I’d borrowed from him and stuffed it into his backpack. “You’re just as clever as me and you know it.”
“No, I’m not,” I said, my face burning as I struggled not to cry. I hadn’t cried in years, not since Tabs had gone underground and we hadn’t heard a word from her for six months. By the time she’d finally waltzed back into our lives, I’d convinced myself she was dead in a ditch somewhere. “Either way, you can read.”
Before today, I’d managed to get by all right. Benjy had attempted to teach me to read for years, and while I could recite the alphabet, words didn’t make sense to me. We’d been seven when Benjy had taken pity on me after our teacher had mocked me for not being able to spell my own
