Behind the Gates (11 page)

I
’m clammy cold and frozen with fear. I listen in horror as Mrs. Brewster goes on.

“Emmanuelle, here is the list of students whose parents are Alliance agents. Gather
only
those girls in the cafeteria for further instructions. Sasha, get the phones from the office so everyone else can start making calls.”

I want to cry or throw up or scream, but I know that most of all, I have to move. Now! If the teachers come out and discover me, the consequences will definitely be much worse than simply being sent home.

Actually, being sent home would be a miracle right about now.

Sprinting as quietly as possible down the hall, I search for Maddie more frantically than before. Finally, finally, I find the door Evelyn told me about.

“Maddie?” I ask in a hushed tone, rapping lightly on the door. I’m down the hall and around a corner from the teachers’ TV room, but they’ve probably split up the party by now. And who knows who else is down here, wandering the halls.

“Louisa?” Maddie answers. “I’m here, but I’m locked in from the outside.”

In a stroke of crazy good luck, Rosie approaches from the opposite direction. “Maddie’s in here,” I tell her. “Help me find the right key to get her out.”

Together we search through the keys Evelyn has given us, trying one after another. My hand shakes but I keep trying. I must stay calm. “Wait till you hear what I found out,” I say to Maddie and Rosie as I try yet another key that won’t work.

“What?” Rosie urges me.

I recount it all to them. When I’m done, Rosie stares at me, wide-eyed and mouth agape. “This is an Alliance
training school?” she questions. “A sleeper cell? Are you sure?”

“Completely,” I confirm. The key I’m testing doesn’t work. Maddie’s door rattles as I pull it out and try another. “Basically, we’ve been kidnapped. If our parents won’t do as they say … I don’t know what they plan for us. I guess they’re gambling that our parents love us, and they’re probably right.”

“What if our parents have nothing to offer?” Rosie asks.

“If your parents have nothing to offer — not power, not influence, not money — then you wouldn’t be here,” I say logically.

“I suppose,” Rosie says.

Unless they’re already in the Alliance,
I think, but I can’t say it. Even in the dark hallway I can see that Rosie is pale with panic — we’ve had our differences, but I can’t believe she knew this was coming.

“Got it!” I announce in a triumphant whisper as the key finally turns in the lock.

“I heard what you just said,” Maddie informs us as
she bursts from the room. “We have to get back to the dorm to tell Evelyn.”

“She has to return these keys. No one can know that we’ve discovered this,” Rosie adds.

We race back to the dorm to find Evelyn waiting impatiently outside the door to our suite.

“What took you so long?” she cries when she sees us. “Never mind; just give me the keys!”

“Wait, wait,” I say, panting from our sprint and my terror. “You have to hear this.” Rosie, Maddie, and I push Evelyn into the room and start talking, quietly but fast, filling her in on everything I overheard in the main hall.

Evelyn does look a little shocked at first, but not as shocked as the rest of us. After all, she’s suspected this all along. She rallies quickly. “Okay, I have maps. I re-created them from my memory on the very first day, while it was still fresh in my mind.”

“We have to report this to someone,” Maddie says.

“Who?” I ask.

“Someone in charge,” Maddie suggests. “The police? The army?”

“But how?” Evelyn asks. “They have all our electronics — this is why they took them, so we can’t communicate with anyone.”

“Forget all that,” Rosie says in her firm, no-nonsense team-leader voice. “We’ve got to get out of here. Right now.”

“What about all the other girls?” Maddie asks.

“No, there’s no time,” Rosie says. “If everyone starts leaving, they’ll know something’s up. And we don’t know who we can trust, do we? But we have to go. Even if CMS isn’t a sleeper cell training camp —”

“Oh, it so definitely is,” Evelyn interrupts her.

“Well, whatever it is, Maddie is certainly in trouble and they’re bound to realize she’s gone from her isolation room in the morning,” Rosie says.

I’m struck with a powerful desire to go home. What good is a swimming pool if our families are at risk? It’s not like Chicago is that far away from Canada, either. And if CMS — or the Alliance — has bothered to take everyone’s kids … I just want to be with my parents, to let them know I’m safe.

“I’m leaving,” I announce. “Tonight. Who else is coming with me?”

“I’m coming,” Maddie says.

“All four of us should go together,” Evelyn says. “We can’t survive without each other.” She turns to Rosie. “We’re going to especially need your outdoor skills.”

“I’m coming,” Rosie assures us. “I don’t want to be used to fight my own country. If I have to go into battle, it’s going to be
against
the Alliance.”

“I want to go home,” I say.

“Me, too,” Evelyn agrees.

“Then let’s not stand here talking about it anymore,” Rosie says firmly. “Evelyn, return those keys and then hurry back here. We want to be as far away as possible before they realize we’re gone.”

“Mrs. Brewster said they were going to contact our parents tonight,” I remind them.

“Right, so we really have to move quickly,” Rosie says. Evelyn heads down the hall while Maddie and I hurry into our room. “Pack up as much stuff as you can get into your backpacks,” Rosie says. “It’s lucky we haven’t had to
return our camping stuff yet. We’re going to need that equipment, so pack all of that first.”

Maddie and I lash our sleeping bags and ground covers back onto our backpacks. After we include all the camping stuff, we jam in as much clothing as we can fit.

Suddenly I clasp my hand over my collarbone. “My locket!” I cry, realizing it’s no longer around my neck.

“Maybe it fell off in the room,” Maddie suggests hopefully, and we begin looking around for it.

“What are you two looking for?” Rosie asks as we extend our search out into the living room.

“Louisa’s dropped her locket somewhere,” Maddie informs her.

“Why were you
wearing
it?” Rosie demands, her calm leader voice gone for the moment.

“I don’t know,” I moan, as I kneel by the couch to peer underneath. “I just missed them….”

Rosie huffs, but she helps me and Maddie search the dorm for another fifteen minutes, until Evelyn returns. “Look what I found!” she calls happily. I jerk my head up hopefully — my locket?

But Evelyn has three packs of batteries in her arms. “I discovered the secret battery stash,” she gloats. “You guys can carry those. I have more in my stash of escapeplan supplies.”

Evelyn digs in the back of the only closet in the living room. She pulls out a cardboard box with a picture of carrots on its top and the NutriCorp logo. “I’ve been gathering stuff for this box since we got here,” she reveals as she opens the top and spills out the contents.

Sugar packs, bug repellent, plastic gloves, bandages, rubber bands, paper clips, pens, and her compass are scattered on the floor. She’s also managed to collect a pair of scissors, some writing stationery, and a staple remover.

“What’s the staple remover for?” I ask.

“You never know what will come in handy,” Evelyn replies with a shrug.

In her escape collection is a paper notebook with the map she redrew from memory on the very first day. “We can follow the highways home with this,” she says. “I think it’s pretty much accurate.”

“We should stay off the main roads,” Rosie disagrees. “They’ll be looking for us there.”

“We can follow the roads but stay in the forest,” I suggest.

Rosie nods. “Yeah, we’re going to have to do something like that.”

Evelyn tears the map from the notebook and folds it. She slides it into the front pocket of her jeans. “Wait a minute! How could I forget this?” she cries, running into her room and returning with the map printout she showed us on our first day here. “Right now this is the most valuable thing we own,” she adds as she slips it into her backpack.

Finally, we are packed and ready to leave.

The four of us gather by the front door. “Have we forgotten anything?” Rosie asks as she scans the room we’ve called home for more than two weeks.

Maddie crosses to the oil lamp and lifts it, picking up the matches that we kept there. “These will come in handy,” she says, pocketing them.

“It sure beats rubbing two sticks together for a spark,” Evelyn agrees.

Rosie crosses to the table to grab her copy of
Julie of the Wolves.
“I never did finish it, and it could make good reading around a campfire.”

The image of us all sleeping out in the open around a fire night after night frightens me. And it’s September — it’s going to get colder, and soon.

“Can I have another five minutes to look for my locket?” I request.

“There’s no time,” Rosie says. “Sorry, Louisa.”

I know she’s right.

There’s no choice. We can’t stay here.

The four of us leave the room. Moving quietly and quickly, we go down the fire stairs at the end of the hallway. Maddie pushes open the door and we stand in the brilliant illumination of the full moon’s second night.

“We need to get under the trees,” Rosie says. “In this light, anyone looking out a window will see us.”

One by one, each of us makes a dash for the darkness of the surrounding forest. When we’re all together again, Evelyn consults her compass. “That way is south,” she says, pointing into the trees. “South is what we want.”

The four of us begin walking, leaving CMS behind.

And none of us knows what lies ahead.

What will happen tomorrow?
Read on for a preview of
Tomorrow Girls #2: Run for Cover.

“Shhhh,” Evelyn says. “They might have bugged the trees.” Her dark skin blends into the shadows, but in the glimmers of moonlight, I can see her eyes darting around in that annoying,
everybody’s after us
way she has that drives me crazy.

“Bugged the
trees?”
Louisa says. “That’s a little paranoid, even for you.”

Evelyn flares up at once. “I might be paranoid, but I’m right, aren’t I? I mean, I was right about the school!”

I roll my eyes. “Maybe one or two of your insane theories were right, but when you’re shooting a million ideas into the sky, it’s not surprising that a couple of them will land.”

“I was right that it was a conspiracy!” Evelyn’s voice is getting too loud. “The Alliance
was
luring us into a trap! The secret locations, the weird classes, taking away all our electronics — it was all part of their plan!”

“Shh, all right,” Louisa says. “We’re not disagreeing with you. You were right all along. You’re a conspiracy-detecting genius. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Can we keep moving, please?” I say. Maddie sighs loudly, but she doesn’t argue as we start walking again. I would rather try to find our way in the dark, letting our eyes adjust, but not enough moonlight penetrates the thick canopy of branches, so we have to use a flashlight.
I let Louisa hold it, since she has a steady hand. Twigs and pine needles crackle and snap under our feet, and we’re surrounded by the Christmas smell of the pine forest. If our situation weren’t so utterly terrifying, it would be kind of nice and peaceful out here.

“I don’t understand their plan, though, Evelyn,” Maddie says after a minute. “If they were planning to hold us hostage for our parents’ money, why would they teach us survival skills and all that other stuff? Why train us like we’re soldiers? We’d never fight for the Alliance, no matter what they did to brainwash us!”

“Too right,” I say. “I’d break Mrs. Brewster’s face before I ever helped the Alliance.”

“Wow, Rosie,” Louisa says. “Tell us how you really feel. No, I’m kidding. I agree with you.” A low-hanging branch snags her blond hair and she stops to disentangle herself.

“Maybe —” Evelyn says, and then pauses. Her shoulders are hunched and her hands are shoved in her jeans pockets.

“Maybe what?” I say.

“Never mind,” she mumbles. “You’ll just think it’s stupid.”

“I won’t,” Maddie says, bumping her shoulder. “Go ahead and tell us. I like hearing your theories.”

I exchange a glance with Louisa. In the dark I can’t see her expression, but I’m sure she’s thinking what I am — that it’s kind of annoying how Evelyn and Maddie always stick together and encourage each other’s worst impulses. I don’t say anything, though. As long as we’re still walking, leaving CMS behind us, I don’t care how much talking everyone else needs to do at the same time. If I were them, I’d be saving my energy, but I can only boss them around so much without someone snapping. I need to pick my battles.

“Well,” Evelyn says, “I was just thinking … maybe not all the girls there were hostages. Maybe some of them were really on the Alliance’s side.” She hurries on before we can respond. “I mean, we don’t really know anything about them. Maybe a lot of the others were being trained
to fight in the War, and they knew it was secretly an Alliance training camp the whole time.”

“I did hear something like that,” Louisa says slowly. “The teachers were talking about getting certain girls to the cafeteria for a debriefing or something. The kids of Alliance parents.”

We all fall silent. I think about my friends at CMS — Mary Jensen and Chui-lian Lee especially. I miss them. They would be a lot more useful out here than Evelyn and Maddie — that’s for sure. I’d also take Anne or Erica or Rae or Carole over them any day. But were they all lying to me? Were they secretly working for the Alliance? Would they have turned on me and helped to hold me hostage if — when — everything came out in the open?

“I don’t believe it,” I say, but my voice catches, and I don’t sound as confident as I want to.

Of course, part of me can’t help wondering … if it’s true, is the secret I’m keeping any better than theirs?