The Wire Hanger

Chapter 39

She pressed an invisible button under her desk, and two different Protectors appeared to strongarm me back into my cell. I wondered what had happened to Bart. They were gripping me so hard I was sure I'd have fingerprint-shaped bruises on the fleshy part of my upper arms, but I kept my mouth shut. If someone else had been in my position, Jezebel or David or any of them, I was sure they'd be fighting and scratching the whole way, but without an actual plan that seemed like wasted effort. So I told myself I'd conserve my energy, let them think I wasn't a threat.

The fact that I really, really wasn't a threat was something to be dealt with later. But considering they had two full-grown men accompanying me everywhere I went made me feel oddly powerful. They clearly thought I was something I wasn't, someone with unknown power. In actual fact I was not sure I could successfully complete a push-up. I remembered struggling up through the hole in the ceiling on our first break-in at the Centre with a tinge of embarrassment. I should start strength training or something, now that I was on the lam.

Although I wasn't on the lam. I was well and truly captured. It didn't seem like they knew what to do with me yet; I was pretty sure Judith wasn't going to have me killed, just on principle, since that would negate her little speech about how little we mattered. Could they keep me here indefinitely? Would I end up like one of the women in the Centre, exhausted, starving, rat-bitten?

I was caught up in the thoughts of my potential future misery and barely noticed heads swiveling towards me as we made our way down the hall. "Out of the way," said one Protector to his fellows, quite grumpily. "Damn shift changes." Everyone here had a silver slash across their uniform; I guessed you didn't get promoted to the tower unless you were already elite. Everyone looked remarkably similar, too – pale skin, clean shaven with close-cropped hair, varying shades of brown and blond but nothing darker than that. With the uniforms they almost looked like a clone army, all of the... Then I was marched past my father.

I was about to shout out to him – all my childhood instincts came flooding back to me and I was sure my father could save me, rescue me, make this go away – but as soon as our eyes locked he looked away as though he hadn't seen me. It felt like he'd slapped me – something he'd never done. Then the door to my cell was opening, and I was being shoved inside (far more roughly than was necessary, considering how cooperative I was being – fat lot of good that had done), and the door was locked behind me.

I had a lot of time to consider my situation in the bright white room, but before my pity party could really get into full swing, Bart came in with two folding chairs under his arm, making him walk kind of like a duck.

"Have a seat," he said generously, once he'd unfolded them both with horrible squeaks and set them up facing each other.

I did so, warily.

"So it turns out," he said, as though we were having a casual conversation about the weather, "that this is something of a family affair."

My heart turned over in my chest, like a misfiring engine. Had they done something to my father?

"You were trying to sneak in to see your brother, weren't you?"

"Oh," I said involuntarily. "Yeah."

"How'd that go for you?"

"Not so great," I said, and set my mouth in a thin line.

Bart leaned back in his chair, as far as he could go without toppling over, and stretched his arms over his head. "Good kid, that one. Though I can't say much for his performance under pressure." He cocked his head at me. "Guess you got all the genes there, little miss vandal."

I shrugged.

"Because here's the thing," Bart continued. "Your brother there, he told us a lot. Probably thought it would save his skin. Well, yours actually. He didn't really get to talking until we told him you were up here having a chat with Judith. But the point stands."