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THIRTY-SEVEN
33 MINUTES
“I DIDN’T WET my bed or anything,” Justin said. “At my house I mean.”
Mary ignored him. Instead she watched Astrid’s performance. It made her bitter. Of course Astrid had found a way out of the hole she’d dug for herself. Smart, beautiful Astrid. It must be great to be Astrid. It must be great to have so much confidence that you could just stand up there handing out a set of
rules and then blithely walk away, with your pretty blond head held high.
“Can I go see Roger after we eat?”
“Whatever,” Mary said. She’d be out of it all soon. Done with this awful place and these awful people. She’d sit outside with her mother and tell her stories about it.
Astrid was lining up now for barbecue. Astrid and Little Pete together. Kids were clapping her on the back. Grinning at her. Liking her more than they had in the past. Why? Because she had admitted she had screwed up and then she’d quit and left them with a new set of rules to follow.
In her own way Astrid had taken the poof, Mary thought.
How many minutes left until Mary had her own chance at escape? She pulled Francis’s watch from her pocket. Half an hour.
After all the worry and anticipation it still seemed to rush up at her, the time.
John was looking at her now, even as he herded the kids toward the front of the food line. Looking at her. Expecting something from her. Just like everyone else.
Mary should go stand in the food line herself, of course, show Astrid up as a liar for calling her anorexic.
But really, what did Mary have to prove to anyone?
She ignored John’s wave, ignored kids around her, and headed back into the day care.
It was quiet and empty.
This place had been her whole life since the FAYZ. Her whole life. This messy, stinking, gloomy hole. She stared at it. Hated it. Hated herself for letting this define her.
She didn’t hear anyone behind her. But she felt it.
The back of her neck tingled.
Mary turned. There. Behind the milky translucent plastic that covered the jagged hole between the day care and the hardware. A shape. A form.
Mary’s mouth was dry. Her heart pounded.
“Where are they, Mary?” Drake asked. “Where are the snot-nosed little monsters?”
“No,” Mary whispered.
Drake looked at the edges of the cinderblock with detached interest. “This was clever, the way Sam did this. Burned right through the wall. I didn’t see it coming.”
“You’re dead,” Mary said.
Drake snapped his whip hand. The plastic was sliced from top to bottom.
He stepped through. Into the room where he and the coyotes had threatened to kill the children.
Drake. No one else. No one else had those eyes. No one else had that python arm the color of dried blood.
He was dirty, that was the only difference. His face was smeared with mud. Mud was in his hair. Mud was on his clothes.
The whip writhed and curled like it had a life of its own.
