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She plays on the roof of the Chop Shop, and her music carries across the fields to the ears of more than a thousand souls waiting to go under the knife. The joy of having her fingers on the keys again can only be matched by the horror of knowing what's going on beneath her feet.
From her vantage point on the roof she sees them brought down the maroon flagstone path that all the kids call "the red carpet." Kids who walk the red carpet have guards flanking them on either side, with firm grips on their upper arms—firm enough to restrain them, but not enough to bruise them.
Yet in spite of this, Dalton and the rest of his band play like it doesn't matter at all.
"How can you do this?" she asks during one of their breaks. "How can you watch them day after day, going in and never coming out?"
"You get used to it," the drummer tells her, taking a swig of water. "You'll see."
"I won't! I can't!" She thinks about Connor. He doesn't have this same reprieve from unwinding. He doesn't stand a chance. "I can't be an accomplice to what they're doing!"
"Hey," says Dalton, getting annoyed. "This is survival here, and we do what we have to do to survive! You got chosen because you can play, and you're good. Don't throw it away. Either you get used to kids walking down the red carpet or you'll be on it yourself, and we'll have to play for you."
Risa gets the message, but it doesn't mean she has to like it. "Is that what happened to your last keyboard player?" Risa asks. She can tell it's a subject they'd rather not think about. They look at one another. No one wants to take on the question. Then the lead singer answers with a nonchalant toss of her hair, like it doesn't matter. "Jack was about to turn eighteen, so they took him a week before his birthday."
"He was not a very happy Jack," says the drummer, and hits a rim shot.
"That's it?" says Risa. "They just took him?"
"Business is business," says the lead singer. "They lose a ton of money if one of us turns eighteen, because then they've got to let us go."
"I've got a plan, though," says Dalton, winking at the others, who have obviously heard this before. "When I'm getting close to eighteen, and they're ready to come for me, I'm jumping right off this roof."
"You're going to kill yourself?"
"I hope not—it's only two stories, but I'll sure get busted up real bad. See, they can't unwind you like that; they have to wait until you heal. By then I'll be eighteen and they will be screwed!" He high-fives the drummer, and they laugh. Risa can only stare in disbelief.
"Personally," says the lead singer, "I'm counting on them lowering the legal age of adulthood to seventeen. If they do, I'll go to the staffers and counselors, and the friggin' doctors. I'll spit right in their faces—and they won't be able to do anything but let me walk right out that gate on my own two legs."
Then the guitar player, who hasn't said a word all morning, picks up his instrument.
"This one's for Jack," he says, and begins playing the opening chords to the prewar classic "Don't Fear the Reaper."
The rest of them join in, playing from the heart, and Risa does her best to keep her eyes away from the red carpet.
56 Connor
The dormitories are divided into units. There are thirty kids per unit—thirty beds in a long, thin room with large shatterproof windows to bring in the cheerful light of day. As Connor prepares for dinner he notices that two beds in his unit have been stripped, and the kids who slept in them are nowhere to be seen. Everyone notices but no one talks about it, except one kid who takes one of the bunks because his mattress has broken springs.
"Let a newbie have the broken one," he says. "I'm gonna be comfortable my last week."
Conner can't remember either the names or the faces of the missing kids, and that haunts him. The whole day weighs heavily on him—the way the kids think he can somehow save them, when he knows he can't even save himself. The way the staff keeps waiting for him to make a mistake. His one joy is knowing that Risa is safe, at least for now.
He had seen her after lunch when he stopped to watch the band. He had been searching for her everywhere, and all that time she was right there in plain view, playing her heart out. She had told him she played piano, but he never gave it much thought. She's amazing, and now he wishes he had taken more time to get to know who she was before she escaped from that bus. When she saw him watching that afternoon, she smiled—something she rarely did. But the smile was quickly replaced by a look that registered the reality. She was up there, and he was down here.
Connor spends so much time with his thoughts in the dormitory that, when he looks up, he realizes that everyone in the unit has already left for dinner. As he gets up to leave, he sees someone lurking at the door and stops short. It's Roland.
"You're not supposed to be here," Connor says.
"No, I'm not," says Roland, "but thanks to you, I am."
"That's not what I mean. If you get caught out of your unit, it's a mark against you. They'll unwind you sooner."
"Nice of you to care."
Connor heads for the doorway, but Roland blocks his path. For the first time Connor notices that in spite of Roland's muscular build, they're not all that different in height. Connor always thought Roland towered over him. He doesn't. Connor prepares himself for whatever Roland might have up his sleeve and says, "If you're here for a reason, get on with it. Otherwise, step aside so I can get to dinner."
The look on Roland's face is so toxic it could take out an entire unit. "I could have killed you a dozen times. I should have—because then we wouldn't be here."
