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She pushed a paper bag through the bars, then left quickly.
Nate opened the bag. Inside was a loaf of bread and a small glass jar of honey.
“Is there a hacksaw in the bread?” I asked, and he tore it into pieces.
“Nope,” he said, shaking the bag for the last thing to fall out. It dropped into his lap and we both stared at it. Then, freezing, sopping wet, our skin raw, we started laughing. Mia had thoughtfully provided a monogrammed sterling silver honey-dipping spoon.
111
CASSIE
FOUR MORE TRAINS WENT BY. Each time I was literally inches from death. Each time I waited for my spine to be ripped open as it passed over me. Each time I clung to Tim’s hand like a total wuss, unwilling to give up his strength. I wasn’t afraid that a train would kill me. I wasn’t afraid to die. I was afraid that it would kill me horribly, messily, and for a long time.
After each train we sprang to our feet and kept marching while I tried not to think about Tim eating rats. We were even columns, two by two, but then someone carefully pushed past me.
“Ms. Strepp?” It was a short, slight girl dressed in black.
Strepp halted, so the hundreds of rows of us halted, too.
“The President has just left the building,” the girl reported urgently. “Something about a meeting. He’s supposed to get back for a late dinner.”
“Goddamnit!” Ms. Strepp said and looked at her watch in the dim light.
From far off, I felt the faintest rumble: yet another goddamn motherlovin’ freaking train.
“Okay,” Ms. Strepp said. “We probably won’t get to the palace for another two or three hours anyway. Getting through these tunnels is slower going than I had anticipated.”
Two or three more hours? Slower going than she’d thought? Gee, I don’t know! Maybe it’s because of all the goddamn trains! I shouted inside my head.
Ms. Strepp nodded briskly, then turned and headed back into the darkness. Softly, as if speaking to herself, she said, “By the time we get to the palace, the President might well be back. If not, we’ll wait until he is. There’s no point attacking the palace unless he dies.”
112
BECCA
“WAIT, STOP,” I MURMURED. “NATE, stop, hold on.”
He paused in mid-chew and looked at me.
“We don’t have time for this,” I said, standing up. “We don’t have time to be stuck in a prison cell. The President is supposed to be dead already!”
He pointedly looked at the stone walls of our cell.
“Do you have a sledgehammer on you?” he asked politely.
“No. But look—” I took a small piece of bread and rolled it into a tiny ball, then smeared it with honey and stuck it to my face.
“That’s… so incredibly gross,” he said, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.
I did it a couple more times, putting one on my arm, another on my face, smoothing the edges.
“You look like a leper,” he said conversationally. “A really horrible one.”
“I look like I have the plague,” I said. “They were talking about a plague!”
An hour later, Kirt came back to torture us again, as I’d known he would. He found us lying limply on the floor, covered with oozing pustules.
He shot back down the hall, yelling for a guard.
