UnBound - Neal Shusterman Page 0,100

in.

“No!” he shouts. “Eraser! Fumble! Red X!” He forces the right words. “Mistake! You’re making . . . a mistake!”

And a boeuf-looking teen closest to him—one of the ones throwing stones the other day—glares at him with a brutal look of hatred and says, “You’re the one who made a mistake. And it’s going to be your last.”

11 • Cam

“This could be worse,” Una tells Cam as they drive the short distance to Kaunakakai, followed by a whole military entourage.

“Really? How?”

“The girl could have been hurt, but she wasn’t.”

Practically the same moment the security detail found the hole in the perimeter fence, the call came in from the Kaunakakai sheriff about the attack.

“One of your damn monsters came after a girl.” The sheriff had spoken with such seething vitriol in his voice it made Cam wince. “I want you to know I’m authorizing the use of deadly force.”

Cam pounds the steering wheel of the jeep hard enough to bruise his hand.

“Easy,” says Una, “that won’t help anyone.” Then she adds, “Besides, those hands were meant for better things.”

He takes a deep breath and tries to dispel his frustration. This is entirely his fault. He should have given in to everyone else’s paranoia. He should have treated them like prisoners. He should not have let his personal feelings get in the way. Maybe the rewinds need to prove their humanity before it can be granted to them. But he knows it’s not all the rewinds, is it? There’s only one that’s a problem. One that’s profoundly different from the others. Number 00047. Dirk Mullen. Even when he chose his name, he just pointed randomly to the page, as if he didn’t care. As if he knew his existence didn’t warrant a name. For so long Cam had obsessed over whether or not he himself had a soul. Now he realizes he must. Because he’s seen into the eyes of one who doesn’t, and that void within—whatever it is—is the very definition of hell.

“Of all the rewinds to escape, why did it have to be Forty-seven?”

“What about the other one?” Una asks.

“Keaton,” Cam says. Dirk might still be a number, but Keaton is not. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Forty-seven killed him.”

“I hope not,” Una says. “He’s a good kid.”

“They all are,” Cam points out, then has to qualify. “All but one.”

They’re headed to the police station, but a commotion on what should be a quiet residential street pulls their attention. Shouts and headlights and revving engines, like some sort of street race—then the blast of a shotgun followed by silence.

“I was wrong,” Una says as they turn a corner and race toward the crowd. “This couldn’t get any worse.”

12 • Keaton

Five minutes before Cam and Una hear the gunshot, the mob’s emotion reaches a fever pitch. They will have justice. They will not wait for it to be meted out; they will take it themselves.

Keaton cannot speak. They have gagged him. But what would it matter if he could? They did not listen to his protests before; why should they listen to him now? They have their man. He fits the description. And what are the chances, really, that there’d be two rewinds running around town? Much less two rewinds with one umber hand and a cut on the forehead?

Keaton knows from their angry shouts what Dirk has done. Not the details but the gist of it, and it’s enough. He doesn’t blame the crowd for what they’re doing. Were he one of them, he might do the same. Or maybe not. Because their choice of punishment is far too visceral, and Keaton feels the terror of every single Unwind within him. A hundred screams fill his head.

They have him stretched out on the ground in the middle of an intersection with ropes tied to each arm and each leg. The ends of those four ropes are tied to four vehicles, each pointed in a different direction. The ropes are slack now, but they won’t be for long.

The boeuf-looking teen gets in his face—the one who probably threw the first stone the other day. He’s so incensed, spittle flies from his mouth when he speaks.

“You’re gonna die, you know that, don’t you?”

“You tell him, Todd,” goads one of his buddies.

Keaton doesn’t give him the satisfaction of mumbling from behind the gag.

“This is what they used to do to people who didn’t deserve to live,” Todd says. “Back when punishment fit the crime. It’s called quartering. We’re gonna pull apart what never