got really sick.” She paused. “Maybe he even died.”
George was looking at her with big-eyed dismay. “Cynicism and teenage angst is fine, but tell me you don’t really believe that.”
“Well, I sure don’t want to,” Kalisha said.
“Shut up, all of you,” Nicky said. He leaned forward over the board, staring at Luke. “They kidnap us, yes. Because we have psychic powers, yes. How do they find us? Don’t know. But it’s got to be a big operation, because this place is big. It’s a fucking compound. They’ve got doctors, technicians, ones who call themselves caretakers . . . it’s like a small hospital stuck out here in the woods.”
“And security,” Kalisha said.
“Yeah. The guy in charge of that is a big bald fuck. Stackhouse is his name.”
“This is crazy,” Luke said. “In America?”
“This isn’t America, it’s the Kingdom of the Institute. When we go to the caff for lunch, Ellis, look out the windows. You’ll see a lot more trees, but if you look hard, you’ll also see another building. Green cinderblock, just like this one. Blends in with the trees, I guess. Anyway, that’s Back Half. Where the kids go when all the tests and shots are done.”
“What happens there?”
It was Kalisha who answered. “We don’t know.”
It was on the tip of Luke’s tongue to ask if Maureen knew, then remembered what Kalisha had whispered in his ear: They listen.
“We know what they tell us,” Iris said. “They say—”
“They say everything is going to be alllll RIGHT!”
Nicky shouted this so loudly and so suddenly that Luke recoiled and almost fell off the picnic bench. The black-haired boy got to his feet and stood looking up into the dusty lens of one of the cameras. Luke remembered something else Kalisha had said: When you meet Nicky, don’t worry if he goes off on a rant. It’s how he blows off steam.
“They’re like missionaries selling Jesus to a bunch of Indians who are so . . . so . . .”
“Naïve?” Luke ventured.
“Right! That!” Nicky was still staring up at the camera. “A bunch of Indians who are so naïve they’ll believe anything, that if they give up their land for a handful of beads and fucking flea-ridden blankets, they’ll go to heaven and meet all their dead relatives and be happy forever! That’s us, a bunch of Indians naïve enough to believe anything that sounds good, that sounds like a happy . . . fucking . . . ENDING!”
He whirled back to them, hair flying, eyes burning, hands clenched into fists. Luke saw healing cuts on his knuckles. He doubted if Nicky had given as good as he’d gotten—he was only a kid, after all—but it seemed he had at least given somebody something.
“Do you think Bobby Washington had any doubts that his trials were over when they took him to Back Half? Or Pete Littlejohn? Jesus Christ, if brains were black powder, those two couldn’t have blown their noses.”
He turned to the dirty overhead camera again. That he had nothing else upon which to vent his rage rendered it a touch ludicrous, but Luke admired him just the same. He had not accepted the situation.
“Listen up, you guys! You can beat the shit out of me, and you can take me to Back Half, but I’ll fight you every step of the way! Nick Wilholm doesn’t trade for beads and blankets!”
He sat down, breathing hard. Then he smiled, displaying dimples and white teeth and good-humored eyes. The sullen, brooding persona was gone as if it had never been there. Luke had no attraction to guys, but when he saw that smile, he could understand why Kalisha and Iris were looking at Nicky as if he were the lead singer in a boy band.
“I should probably be on their team instead of cooped up here like a chicken in a pen. I could sell this place better than Sigsby and Hendricks and the other docs. I have conviction.”
“You certainly do,” Luke said, “but I’m not entirely sure what you were getting at.”
“Yeah, kinda went off on a sidetrack there, Nicky,” George said.
Nicky crossed his arms again. “Before I whup your ass at chess, new kid, let me review the situation. They bring us here. They test us. They shoot us full of God knows what, and test us some more. Some kids get the tank, all kids get the weird eye test that makes you feel like you’re going to pass out. We have rooms that look like our rooms