Hope pulls up her hoodie and tightens it. “Tell him whatever you want.”
“But he keeps asking and I don’t know—”
“Tell him I’m busy,” she snaps. “Tell him I’m trying to feed two Sisters and seventy-three Less Thans. Tell him someone needs to do the hunting around here.”
Diana looks down at her hands before asking, “And tonight? I can’t change your mind?”
Hope gives her head a shake and turns away. She has no interest in going to parties. Has even less interest in being seen.
“You know, you’re going to have to go out sometime. You can’t stay shut up the next couple months.”
“I get out,” Hope says. “I’m out now.”
“You know what I mean.”
Hope says nothing. The sun angles lower.
“Suit yourself,” Diana says, “but I hate being the lone girl.” Ever since Scylla was killed by the avalanche, Diana and Hope are the only two Sisters, surrounded by all these Less Thans.
“I’m not worried about you.”
“I’m not worried about me either. It’s those poor LTs I’m thinking about.” She shoots Hope a wink and pushes off.
As they ski single file down the mountain, headed for the ring of fire encircling Libertyville, Hope thinks about Book. The truth is, he can ask about her all he wants, but Hope won’t let him see her this way. She won’t accept his pity. As much as she likes Book, as much as she remembers every last detail of their time together, she knows there’s no going back. Not now. Not ever.
She zips down the mountain, ignoring the tears that press against her eyes. She blames them on the cold, on the setting sun, on anything but the truth.
Live today, tears tomorrow.
Later, after Diana has gone to the party and Hope can hear the muted, faraway sounds of laughter and music, she reaches beneath the tarp wall and sticks her hand into the snow, fishing around until she finds the two dead mice. She hasn’t had a chance to examine them since they returned, and the thought of them bothers her. At a time when every single person and animal is foraging for food, how is it that two mice died so oddly, and are left uneaten? It doesn’t make sense.
She pinches one by the tail and dangles it. It exudes a whiff of rot, and her eyes pore over the brownish-gray rodent. Although there’s no blood, she spies something she didn’t notice before: the belly puckers unnaturally, as though the two seams of skin don’t quite match up. She lowers the mouse to the table and pokes at it, revealing a razor-thin gash that runs from head to tail. An eviscerating slice like from a sharpened knife.
Or a wolf’s claw.
She examines the other mouse and finds the same. Another slit that runs the length of the tiny animal’s belly.
Okay. So a wolf killed these mice. But why go to that trouble and then not eat them?
Hope has heard the wolves at night, gobbling up the avalanche victims. If they’re as famished as the LTs and Sisters, why leave two mice to fester and rot?
Unless …
The hair rises at the back of Hope’s neck as she comes to a sudden realization. A moment later, she rushes out of the tent.
3. (#u3239141b-d125-57b8-8ebc-3ff8b1da0d77)
GROWING UP IN CAMP Liberty, we never celebrated birthdays. The only exception was when we turned seventeen, because that was the day we went through the Rite. There was a big ceremony on the parade ground, and following that, the birthday boys—the graduates—were shipped off to become the new lieutenants of the Western Federation Territory.
Or so we were told.
The truth was that the Less Thans were sold off to Hunters to be tracked down and slaughtered like prey. A very different future than what was promised us.
But now that we were free of Camp Liberty and there were a number of us who had turned or were about to turn seventeen, we decided to throw a proper birthday party. This was going to be a genuine celebration.
A couple of the guys even made decorations out of paper they’d found blowing around in camp. Personally, I enjoyed the irony of it. I doubt that anyone ever dreamed that the official Republic of the True America stationery would be turned into party hats and paper chains.
Some of the LTs had created a stage at one end of the mess hall and were performing skits. At the moment, two guys were prancing around in an improvised horse costume, and that was getting huge laughs, especially when the rear of the horse got separated from the front.
I found Flush and Twitch sitting at a table in the very back of the mess hall, poring over sheets of paper.
“You’re missing the fun,” I said.
“Some of us are preoccupied,” Flush said, cocking his head toward Twitch.
“I can still hear, you know,” said Twitch. “I know you’re talking about me. And I bet you’re cocking your head in my direction.”
Flush’s face turned bright red, and Twitch pointed at the paper.
“Look at this,” he said. “We’ve started working out some combinations.”
I bent down and inspected the paper. An elaborate chart showed numbers along the side and letters across the top.
“If we choose the column where ‘four’ is ‘n,’” Twitch went on, “then that means that ‘five’ is ‘o,’ ‘six’ is ‘p’ and so on. So then we get something like—well, read it, Flush.”
Flush picked up the paper and tried to pronounce what they’d come up with. “Nomsllkk-mskn,” he said.
Nomsllkk-mskn. If it was a word, it wasn’t an obvious one.
“I admit,” Twitch said, “it’s nothing definite yet, but if we added some more vowels in there, who knows?”
“You might be onto something,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Keep at it.”
Flush rolled his eyes. “Now we’ll never enjoy the party,” he moaned good-naturedly.
“When we get to the Heartland,” I said “the first thing we’ll do is throw a real party. And we’ll have those foods we’ve always read about.”
“You mean like cake and ice cream?”
“And cookies and brownies and everything else we can think of.”
Flush turned back to Twitch. “What’re you waiting for? Let’s crack this code so we can get out of here and celebrate.”
I turned back to the stage. The rear of the horse was chasing the front, trying to catch up. It had been a long time since I’d heard my friends laugh so much.
The one actor had just about caught up with the other when a voice interrupted them.
“We need to leave.”
