“Get your own hair!” Belinda said.
Belinda pulled the wig over her head and rejoined the Loners. They all backed up through the double doors to the hallway. The twins shut the doors, and Will stuck a pipe through the door handles. It would hold for a little bit. He turned away from the door and locked eyes with Lucy. His gaze fell to her neck where the diamond pendant still hung.
He hurried past her.
“Will, wait a minute,” she said, but he ignored her.
“Get in,” David said from behind her.
Lucy turned to see David holding open the door to the cage, the same cage that housed Dorothy’s corpse. Zachary shook his head in disbelief at David.
“David, get real. I can’t get in there. She’s dead.” David gripped his forehead suddenly and closed his eyes.
He cringed. He looked like he was in serious pain.
“You should’ve thought about that before you pulled a knife on me,” David said. “Now, get in!”
“You’re an actor,” Ritchie said. “Act like she’s Paul’s new girlfriend and snuggle up.”
Zachary climbed in, grumbling.
“I’ll let you out when we get to Freak territory,” David said.
“You’ve got my word. Now I want yours. If any of your Geeks try to get in our way, you call ’em off.” Zachary nodded but kept his eyes down.
“I want to hear you say it,” David said.
“You have my word.”
“Thank you,” David said as he closed the door.
Zachary kept his word. At every hallway intersection, in every classroom door, there were Geeks waiting for them, now heavily armed. Every time, Zachary motioned for them to stand down. Lucy could see that Zachary was in misery, utterly shamed in front of his own gang. What would happen to him once he was returned to the Geeks? It seemed too easy for people to turn on one another these days.
She looked ahead to Will, again at David’s side. She wanted to clear the air.
“Will,” Lucy said, hurrying to his side, “I shouldn’t have kept this.”
She began to unfasten the necklace. He gave it a glance, then looked ahead.
“Keep it. What am I going to do with it?” Lucy lowered her hands, leaving the necklace in place.
David turned and shouted back down the line, “Ritchie, come up here and swap with Will!”
Will looked at David, upset, “What are you doing? I’ve got this.”
“I need you watching for Geeks coming up the rear. Lucy, will you help him?”
Will sighed and walked back. Lucy gave David a thankful little nod. She caught up with Will.
“You can’t avoid me forever,” she said.
“I think I can.”
“I can be pretty annoying.”
Will stopped. “What do you want from me?”
“I want to make it up to you. I don’t want to lose our friendship.”
“I can’t be friends with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because”-he hushed his voice as Ritchie hustled past-“because I loved you. Real sorry, but I can’t go back from that. You can be as annoying or cute or whatever as you want, but it’s not going to change anything. When we get to the outside, I don’t really want to see you again.” Will walked away.
“Looks like somebody saddled the wrong horse.” Lucy looked over to Zachary rolling along beside her, in the cage. He was sitting cross-legged, his hands draped over the bars. He watched Will walk to the back of the line and relieve Ritchie.
“What?” Lucy said.
“You know, one of my best friends was supposed to graduate last week. She got migraines just before she started losing her marbles. She was holding her head just like David’s been doing up there. He’s dying, isn’t he?”
“No.”
“Clearly a lie. You’re a very bad actor. Do you want a tip? The key to a good lie is-”
“I don’t want anything from you. David’s always been a friend to you. How could you do what you did?”
“Hold on, honey. David and I are friendly. Not the same. My friends are going to starve if I don’t find a way to feed them.
Would you do any different?”
Long wrinkles cracked his cheeks. She hadn’t realized how emaciated he looked before, but now she was closer. Stage makeup was caked on his face, but it couldn’t hide the droop in the skin under his eyes or the hollows under his cheek-bones.
“I wouldn’t do what you did,” Lucy said.
“Oh, I’m just a bad person, is that it? Nobody knows what they’ll do till it happens. What are you gonna do when David’s dead on the floor? Are you going to fight?” He looked her up and down. “’Cause, honey, I think you’ll run,” Zachary said. He pulled his arms back through the cage and turned away.
David wasn’t going to die. They were going to get out. She and David would be able to go to the lake house and live the dream she.. Lucy stopped herself. No, she realized. It couldn’t happen that way. By tomorrow, David wouldn’t be immune to the virus anymore. He’d have to stay as far from her and any other teenager as he could. Once they were on the outside, Lucy would have to make her way with Will… no, not Will, he’d sworn her off. She’d have to make her way with Belinda, living where? Not with her parents. She was toxic to them as well. She and Belinda and whoever else was with them would have to live on the run until they phased out of infection. That would mean years before she could be in the same room with David again. Years without being touched by him. Could she wait for David? Could he wait for her? She didn’t know the answer. The brutal truth crept into her head: She might not ever see David again after today. She felt alone, as though she’d been kicked out of the Pretty Ones all over again, and thrown to the animals.
When the gang reached Freak territory, David opened the cage and made good on his word. He let Zachary go.
“We didn’t know Dorothy was a brave girl, but she showed us different. Sure, she made mistakes. We all have in here. But what’s important is that she kept trying,” David said.
David looked at all the Loners surrounding the cage where Dorothy lay. He strained to squeeze out his thoughts, and his head pounded.
“This place has forced us to make a lot of decisions that we shouldn’t have to make. And sometimes, doing the right thing just brings you more misery. You start to wonder if there’s any point to trying at all. Dorothy’s mural reminded me of when I stood in the quad with eight people behind me, facing all of Varsity. I was sure I was dead. But you all saved me. You came to my defense, and together we overcame. We can do it again. We’re gonna get out of here. We’ve still got trouble ahead, and when we make it outside these walls, who knows what’ll be going on. It could be worse out there than we ever saw in here.”
“Yeah, but we’ll be free,” Will said.
“And there’ll be food courts,” Belinda said.
“And fresh underwear,” Mort said.
“And cars. I just want to drive. Like a road trip, across the country,” Sasha said.
“And new movies,” Josh said.
“And parades,” Leonard said.
“Parades? What the hell are you talking about?” Ritchie said.
“If I want to see a parade, what do you care?” Leonard said.
“David’s trying to say something nice, you guys,” Lucy said.
“And hamsters,” the girl twin said.
“And sledgehammers,” the boy twin said.
Everyone stared at the twins. They twirled each other’s hair.
