The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Min - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,142

something we couldn’t see.

“Come on, Cubby,” the sleepy-voiced girl said, hanging back. “Deal with them later. You know how the others get when they don’t see you there. Let the rooks live with the fear for now.”

“No one’s going to be afraid if you give them advance notice!” Priyanka said.

The girl—Cubby—resisted for a beat longer, then slid the stake back up her sleeve. As the fabric shifted, I saw how she had tied strips of cloth up her forearm to keep the weapon in place.

“Better listen to your babysitter,” I said.

The bell shut off as abruptly as it had started. Just before Cubby turned to follow Doc, she pointed at me, as if in warning.

I pointed at myself. “What? You want me to be your babysitter now?”

“You two are distressingly good at making enemies,” Roman said as we watched the two of them follow the same path through the tents.

“We’ve got to keep you entertained somehow,” Priyanka said. “So what are we missing here?”

The question was tossed to me, as the resident—and only—expert on the workings of Psi camps.

“No clue. The only time we had alarms at camp, it was to wake up and—”

Oh.

“What?” Roman prompted.

“Meals.”

At Caledonia, blocks of rooms rotated through the commissary. We’d walk in a straight, silent line up to the kitchen window and receive a Styrofoam plate of mushy food. Even if we finished early, we’d remain seated until the bell rang to dismiss us, then we’d walk our plates and plastic cups to the trash cans positioned at the exit. The rooms on clean-up duty for that week would stay behind to mop and disinfect the table under the watchful eyes of PSFs. It was as neat and orderly as a military operation.

Mealtime in this hellhole was…not like that.

“What is happening?” Priyanka managed to get out. “Am I hallucinating this? Is this a rage dream?”

Near the center of the main cluster of tents, there were four large trapdoors in the ground. We arrived just in time to see those doors bang open, sending a spray of mud into the faces of the kids eagerly gathered alongside them. Elevator platforms cranked up, bringing crates of what looked like the UN’s prepackaged rations. The same ones they had distributed in cities right after they took control of the country.

Cubby pushed forward to the front of the crowd. Before she could reach the closest crate, a small girl darted forward and snatched a ration, bolting through the legs of the Psi clustered nearby. A few more tried it, but all were blocked by the same kids we’d seen at the entrance.

All those assumptions that they were somehow trying to help us flew away.

“Now, who do I hate least today?” Cubby said, climbing up onto one of the crates. She bent to pick up a ration kit. They reminded me of the old-school lunch sets you could buy in the grocery store: mystery meat that didn’t need to stay refrigerated, stale bread, freeze-dried fruit, and packets of instant soup and oatmeal I doubted were very popular.

She tossed one ration to her nearest friend, who laughed, shoving back a boy who looked thin enough to be carried off by a strong breeze. One by one, Cubby’s friends received their share—multiple shares, in some cases.

The others seemed to be wilting in front of our eyes. It was their blank faces that worried me—the apathy that had somehow overpowered any humiliation and anger at being placed in this situation. They looked like they barely had enough strength to keep their bodies upright, never mind the energy it would take to fight back.

The camps and places like this relied on that resignation. That final surrender of your dignity in exchange for routine. Survival in these places often meant accepting the path of least resistance to food, water, safety.

Meanwhile, the hired guns up on the rafters watched, doing nothing to stop it. If anything, they were entertained. Laughing, pointing out the smaller kids who stood at the edges of the crowd.

“This is disgusting,” Priyanka said. “Everything about it. It’s appropriate that they’re feeding them like caged animals, because they’re watching them like this is a goddamn zoo.”

I swallowed hard. The dryness in my throat reminded me of how long it had been since I’d had any sort of water. There seemed to be faucets of some kind along the right wall. Three girls had taken the opportunity to quickly wash themselves while everyone else was occupied. With their uniforms clinging to them, I could