line flowing out through the open gate, they’d left behind their spare summer uniforms. Shorts and a t-shirt would be brutal in the freezing rain, but so much better than his uniform.
“Change into this!” I barked, closing off the part of me that felt agonized about this. “Hurry up!”
I turned my back, drifting toward the door, and watched the shockingly calm progress of the kids being ushered forward by men and women in ski masks. The firing had stopped, but here and there you could still pick up the crack of one-off shots. When I turned back, Lucas was in the green uniform, shoeless.
I looked for a pair of the camp-issued slip-ons, I really did, but if the choice was between him going barefoot and someone noticing his black boots, I would risk the boots. He pulled them on, silent and efficient, so machine-like. I knelt down, searching his face, trying to find some hint of what he was thinking or feeling—Lucas was someone who registered pain on such a deep level, who let himself live in feelings of soul-lifting joy, and this…Lucas in front of me had all the working parts, but not the electricity to spark them.
“Follow me, stay close beside me, don’t say anything, don’t look at anyone—”
Lucas let out a sharp yelp, his hands digging into his hair like he was trying to crush his skull. It was only then that I realized how close I was to the edge of breaking down completely.
I made the mistake of trying to touch him again, and this time he threw me off hard enough to send me slamming to the ground.
Suddenly, Lucas curled down, moaning as his hands slid down, pressing over his ears. Blood dripped down his chin from where he’d bitten his lip. I’d only ever seen kids react this way for one thing, and one thing alone: White Noise. But I couldn’t hear anything, only a metallic grinding sound coming through squeaky, sputtering speakers. It wasn’t anything like what they used to blast us; it didn’t cut, it didn’t split me open.
No time, no time, no time…I dug through his uniform, still warm from his skin. My hands fumbled with the pockets and pouches on his belt until they found the earplugs I had seen them use when the Camp Controllers turned on the White Noise for us.
“Put. These. In. Now!” I bit out, knowing better than to try to do it myself. “Follow me. Say nothing. Do nothing but follow me. Understood?”
Lucas didn’t even blink.
“Understood, Luc—M27?”
He let out a sharp breath. Nodded. I dropped the earplugs onto the ground in front of him, and another little piece of me broke off into numbness as he scrambled for them, jabbing them deep into his ears with a heaving sigh.
This will work. This has to work.
“What the hell are you still doing here?”
The deep voice rocketed me out of the moment, slamming me back into full-on panic. I whirled, finding an older man, his face stained with soot, gun at the ready. “These cabins are supposed to be cleared! Get going, or you’ll be left behind! Go!”
I didn’t need to be told twice, and neither did Lucas. It was back out into the rain. Back on the sopping wet, muddy trail between the cabin that would lead to the main path out. I felt him a step behind me, a walking radiator against my back as we fell in line with the rest of the stragglers being waved forward, forward, forward by another set of kids, their ski masks up around their faces.
Do they know Ruby, too? That boy—I hoped he found her, that she was already clear of the fence. I knew there was something crucial I was missing here, some obvious connection between her return and this, but my thoughts were as scattered as the PSFs were across the grounds of the camp. Some lay on their backs and stomachs, unmoving. Others were bound hand and foot.
Several of the older soldiers had bullhorns in their hands—the source of the White Noise that only Lucas and the other Reds could hear?
Lucas jerked at my back. I turned, strangely hopeful that I’d find some kind of feeling reflected on his face. Instead his dark eyes were hooded, fixed on the spots of crimson a few hundred feet away. Two men were dragging a limp Red forward, easing her down in line with the others. More men in black masks were working quickly, snapping cuffs around their