UnBound - Neal Shusterman Page 0,96

that’s almost threatening, “Careful, Una . . .”

But Una is not one to tread lightly. Not even in a minefield. “Why?” she asks. “You think one soulless rewind means you all might be?”

This time Cam lets his mind go into lockdown rather than face the question.

7 • Keaton

Keaton twists, twists, twists the Rubik’s Cube, never seeming to come closer to solving it. He gets a single row of matching colors, but trying to get the next row ruins the first. He fights through his frustration and tries again.

“You know, there’s a trick,” a guard tells him. “I can show it to you.”

He holds out his hand, but Keaton holds the cube out of reach. “No. No trick. Figure it myself.”

“Fine,” says the guard. “Have it your way.”

Keaton tries to give all his attention to the toy but can’t help but be distracted by 00047. The one named Dirk.

Dirk is making plans. Keaton knows it but can’t be sure what those plans are. That rewind isn’t just dark; he’s opaque, like obsidian, jagged and sharp. For a while Keaton watched Dirk try to win the favor of other rewinds, but no one would have anything to do with him. He’s been shunned from the pack. They all sense that something is wrong with Dirk, although none have put words to it. Now Dirk just lingers and lurks, eats and sleeps. And he watches through those eyes that don’t seem to have anyone living behind them.

“Bad one, that Forty-seven,” one of the rewound girls says to Keaton. Most of the others still refer to Dirk by his numeric designation. “Ten-foot pole.”

“I hear that,” Keaton tells her. And although Keaton wants to keep a ten-foot-pole distance, Dirk is always singling him out for conversation—perhaps because Keaton’s cold shoulder isn’t quite as cold as everyone else’s.

“You, me, vroom-vroom!” Dirk says. “Born to be wild, hand of my hand.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

But “whatever” isn’t enough for Dirk. “You, me, Oswald, Ruby, Booth, then bail. Police have no leads.” He smiles an empty grin that couldn’t be more chilling on a skeleton and grabs Keaton’s arm, nails digging in. “Butch and Sundance.”

Keaton tugs free. For a moment he thinks he’s taken Dirk’s hand with him, because he can still feel those fingertips gripping his arm long after he’s gone.

• • •

The ward doors are left open during the day on Camus Comprix’s orders. He doesn’t want them to feel like prisoners. The doctor blusters about it, but he blusters about everything. He’s placated when extra guards are put on duty.

The compound is well fenced off from the rest of the island. In most places it’s a double fence with a twenty-foot no-man’s-land between, but not everywhere. There’s one spot where a jogging path is separated from an outside road by nothing but a single fence. It’s where locals will sometimes gather to get a glimpse of the rewinds they’ve heard about but haven’t seen.

It works both ways. The rewinds want to look out as much as the locals want to look in.

On this day Keaton takes the perimeter path, telling himself that he’s just going for a jog, but he knows that’s an excuse.

There are a few cars on the road, parked there on the other side of the fence. A few islanders wait for a rewind to show his face. Some are actually native Hawaiians, but just as many are sienna transplants from places they chose to get away from.

Keaton rests from his run, and a Hawaiian girl, sixteen, maybe seventeen, cautiously approaches the fence.

“Hello?” she says, like it’s a question, not a greeting.

“Hi,” Keaton says. “Scared? Don’t,” he says. Then corrects himself. “Don’t be scared. I mean.”

“Okay . . .” She seems a little scared anyway.

“Keaton,” he says.

“Keliana,” she answers.

Keaton points to his face. “Ugly. Right?”

But Keliana shakes her head. “No, just . . . weird.”

It makes Keaton smile. He can deal with weird. And his smile makes her smile.

And then suddenly something eclipses them both.

Out of nowhere Dirk hurls himself against the fence like an animal, gripping it with his hands. Keliana gasps and jumps back.

“PROM NIGHT!” shouts Dirk.

“PROM NIGHT—BACKSEAT!” he snarls at Keliana with the nastiest of grins. “MAKE YOU LIKE IT! MAKE YOU LIKE IT!”

“Ew!” Then Keliana looks at Keaton like Dirk is somehow his fault, and she runs away.

“No!” calls Keaton desperately. “Him not me! I’m not him!” But it’s too late. Keaton turns to Dirk. “Hate!” Keaton snaps at Dirk. “Hate you!”

Dirk doesn’t seem to care. He just holds up