Unwind

Connor won't even look. 'Please tell me no one raised their hand.'

'About six girls—all seventeen years old, it looks like,' says Hayden. 'I guess no one wants to be a house- girl for more than a year.'

'This place isn't a refuge, it's a slave market. Why doesn't anyone see that?'

'Who says they don't sec it? It's just that unwinding makes slavery look good. It's always the lesser of two evils.'

'I don't see why there have to be any evils at all.'

As the meeting breaks up, Connor feels a hand on his shoulder. He thinks it must be a friend, but it's not. It's Roland. It's such a surprise, it takes Connor a moment before he reacts. He shakes Roland's hand off. 'Something you want?'

'Just to talk.'

'Don't you have a helicopter to wash?'

Roland smiles at that. 'Less washing, more flying. Cleaver made me his unofficial copilot.'

'Cleaver must have a death wish.' Connor doesn't know who he's more disgusted with: Roland, or the pilot for being suckered in by him.

Roland looks around at the thinning crowd. 'The Admiral's got some racket going here, doesn't he?' he says. 'Most of the losers here don't care. But it bothers you, doesn't it?'

'Your point?'

'Just that you're not the only one who thinks the Admiral needs some . . . retraining.'

Connor doesn't like where this is going. 'What I think of the Admiral is my business.'

'Of course it is. Have you seen his teeth, by the way?'

'What about them?'

'Pretty obvious that they're not his. I hear he keeps a picture of the kid he got them from in his office. An Unwind like us, who, thanks to him, never made it to eighteen. Makes you wonder how much more of him comes from us. Makes you wonder if there's anything left of the original Admiral at all.'

This is too much information to process here and now—and considering the source, Connor doesn't want to process it at all. But he knows he will.

'Roland, let me make this as clear to you as I can. I don't trust you. I don't like you. I don't want to have anything to do with you.'

'I can't stand you, either,' Roland says, then he points to the Admiral's jet.

'But right now, we've got the same enemy.'

Roland strolls off before anyone else can take notice of their conversation, leaving Connor with a heaviness in his stomach. The very idea that he and Roland could in any way be on the same side makes him feel like he swallowed something rancid.

* * *

For a week the seed that Roland planted in Connor's brain grows. It's fertile ground, because Connor already distrusted the Admiral. Now, every time he sees the man, Connor notices something. His teeth are perfect. They're not the teeth of an aging war veteran. The way he looks at people—looking into their eyes—it's as if he were sizing those eyes up, looking for a pair that might suit him. And those kids that disappear on work calls—since they never come back, who's to know where they really go? Who's to say they don't all get sent off to be unwound? The Admiral says his goal is to save Unwinds, but what if he's got an entirely different agenda? These thoughts keep Connor awake at night, but he won't share them with anyone, because once he does, it aligns him with Roland.

And that's an alliance he never wants to make.

* * *

During their fourth week in the Graveyard, while Connor is still building his case against the Admiral in his own mind, a plane arrives. It's the first one since the old FedEx jet that brought them here, and like that jet, this one is packed full of live cargo. While the five Goldens march the new arrivals from their jet, Connor works on a faulty generator. He watches them with mild interest as they pass, wondering if any of them would be more mechanically skilled than him and bump him into a less enviable position.

Then, toward the back of the line of kids is a face he thinks he recognizes.

Someone from home? No. Someone else. All at once it comes to him who this is.

It's the boy he was sure had been unwound weeks ago. It's the kid he kidnapped for his own good. It's Lev!

Connor drops his wrench and runs toward him, but gains control before he gets there, burying his mixed flood of feelings beneath a calm saunter. This is the kid who betrayed him. This is the kid he once swore he'd never forgive. And yet the thought of him unwound had been too much to bear. But Lev hasn't been unwound—he's right here, marching off to the supply jet. Connor is thrilled.

Connor is furious.

Lev doesn't see him yet—and that's fine, because it gives Connor some time to take in what he sees. This is no longer the clean-cut tithe he pulled out of his parents' car more than two months before. This kid has long, unkempt hair and a hardened look about him. This kid isn't in tithing whites but wears torn jeans and a dirty red T- shirt. Connor wants to let him pass, just so he can have time to process this new image, but Lev sees him, and gives him a grin right away. This is also different—because during that brief time they knew each other, Lev had never been pleased by Connor's presence.

Lev steps toward him.

'Stay in line!' orders Amp. 'The supply jet's this way.'

But Connor waves Amp off. 'It's okay—I know this one.'

Amp reluctantly gives in. 'Make sure he gets to the supply jet.' Then he returns to herding the others.

'So, how are things?' says Lev. Just like that. How are things. You'd think they were buds back from summer vacation.

Connor knows what he has to do. It's the only thing that will ever make things right between him and Lev. Once again, it's instinctive action without time for thought. Instinctive, not irrational. Impassioned, but not impulsive. Connor has come to know the difference.

He hauls off and punches Lev in the eye. Not hard enough to knock him down, but hard enough to snap his head halfway around and give him a nasty shiner. Before Lev can react, Connor says, 'That's for what you did to us.' Then, before Lev can respond, he does something else sudden and unexpected. He pulls Lev toward him and hugs him tightly—the way he hugged his own little brother last year when he took first place in the district pentathlon. 'I'm really, really glad you're alive, Lev.'

'Yeah. Me, too.'

He lets Lev go before it starts feeling awkward, and when he does, he can see Lev's eye is already beginning to swell. And an idea occurs to him. 'C'mon—I'll take you over to the medical jet. I know someone who'll take care of that eye.'

* * *

It isn't until later that night that Connor gets an inkling of how much Lev has truly changed. Connor is shaken awake sometime during the night. He opens his eyes to a flashlight shining in his face, so close the light hurts.

'Hey! What is this?'

'Shhh,' says a voice behind the flashlight. 'It's Lev.'

Lev should have been in the newcomers' jet—that's where all the kids go until they get sorted into their teams. There are strict orders that no one is to be out at night. Apparently Lev is no longer a boy bound by rules.

'What are you doing here?' Connor says. 'Do you know the trouble you could be in?' He still can't see Lev's face behind that flashlight.

'You hit me this afternoon,' says Lev.

'I hit you because I owed that to you.'

'I know. I deserved it, and so it's okay,' says Lev. 'But don't you ever hit me again, or you'll regret it.'

Although Connor has no intention of ever punching Lev-out again, he does not respond well to