UnBound - Neal Shusterman Page 0,5
into the wild zone, he can say good-bye to his corporate high school and his parents’ expectations and his dull, lackluster life forever. Like Alph said, ferals are the future, and Jasper’s ready to be a part of that future, wherever it takes him.
“You steal this?”
“Easiest thing I ever did,” Jasper says proudly.
Alph keeps a poker face. He inspects the car. Jasper impatiently waits for his pat on the back, but it never comes.
“A car like this, every part’s got a molecular signature. If I try to chop it, it’ll point to me from every freaking direction.” Then, to Jasper’s horror, he tells another kid to take it and drive it into the river. The kid seems excited by the prospect and peels out in the stolen car.
“Alph, I’m sorry,” Jasper says, trying to salvage something out of this. “I just thought you’d want . . . I mean, I just wanted to show you . . . I mean, I can do better. I swear I can! Just tell me how. Tell me what you need me to do!”
Alph appraises him, then says calmly, “Come inside.”
Once they’re in, Alph, with a couple of the others, leads Jasper to an area separate from the rest of the theater. A broken display case. Rusted popcorn maker. It was once the theater’s concession stand.
“You want to be one of us?” Alph asks.
Jasper nods.
“You think it’s fun to scrounge for food and fight just to stay alive?” Then Alph lifts his shirt, showing half a dozen healed scars even worse than the one on his face. “Do you know how many knife fights I’ve been in? How many flash riots? Do you think I was in them for fun? Do you, for one minute, think I wouldn’t change places with your lousy stinking schoolie ass?”
“You’re free, Alph!” Jasper shouts. “You get to do what you want when you want.”
Then Alph pushes him so hard, he hits the wall behind him. “Can’t you see? I don’t get to do ANYTHING I want! Because I’m too busy just trying to stay alive. And you come here with your fancy school uniform and your mother’s jewelry and your neighbor’s freaking car, and you think you can buy your way in? What kind of idiot buys his way into the bottom?”
Now Jasper finds himself stammering. “But—but it’s not like that. I wanna—I wanna help. I wanna help all of you. I can be important to you!”
“What you need, Nelson, is to see what you have for what it is. You won life’s lottery, and you want to throw it away? Why would I ever want to associate with anyone that stupid?”
The others back away, sensing what’s about to happen. Jasper has no idea what to do now, what to say, other than “Kevin, I’m sorry!”
“And I told you to NEVER call me that!”
Then Alph takes a deep breath, calming himself down. Jasper thinks it’s over, until Alph rolls up his sleeves.
“Clearly your skull is so dense, there’s only one way to get through to you.”
And then he begins pounding on Jasper. Not fighting him, but hitting him, kicking him, beating him to a bloody pulp. And what makes it all the worse is that Alph does it with such emotional detachment. He’s not angry. He hasn’t lost control. He’s simply doing his job.
When it’s over, and Jasper lies on the ground sobbing, Alph has Raf haul him to his feet. Then Alph gets in his face, speaking gently, but with a threat beneath his words as deadly as an undertow.
“You’ll tell your parents you were beaten up on the other side of town. You’ll say it wasn’t ferals. You’ll make them believe it. And then you’ll go back to your lucky little life that the rest of us wish we could have, and you will make something of yourself. Outta respect for the rest of us who can’t. And if you ever think about spitting out that silver spoon again, remember what happened here today. Because the next time you show up here, I’ll kill you.”
And then they hurl Jasper out into the street.
• • •
Jasper’s parents come back early from their dinner party. Their car is in the driveway when he gets home. He knows he’ll be in trouble, but his battered face will buy him clemency if he plays it right. He stumbles in the front door, wishing he could just slip into bed and pretend he’d been there all night, but he knows it’s