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“Jesus!” the soldier said, lifting his goggles. “They’rekids!”
“Do yourself a favor,” I said. “Don’t turn your back.”
We’d already sorted through the students from the main attack force, separating them by age. The oldest were about nineteen, and some looked as young as fifteen. They were divided into groups of ten, with one or two commandos watching over each bunch. Other commandos had set up a perimeter outside the compound to snare ATV riders as they returned.
Confiscated weapons were being collected in a huge bin. Rifles and clubs were just the start. A lot of the kids had pistols strapped to their ankles or tucked into their waistbands. Some of the older kids had grenades and stun guns clipped to their belts. They all had knives up their sleeves.
As I walked across the yard looking for Kira, I spotted a slight girl with braids inching backward on the grass at the edge of her group. The next second, she jumped up and started sprinting toward the outside wall. One of the soldiers who’d been minding the group turned and started after her.
“Stay there!” I shouted. “I got her.”
The girl was fast. She was almost at the wall when I caught up. When she realized she had no way out, she whipped around to face me. There was a razor blade in her hand. She held the blade across her wrist. I inched closer. Her lips curled into an eerie smile. She slid the blade across her skin, drawing blood.
“Stay back,” she said.
“You must’ve skipped a class,” I said, tracing a line up my forearm. “Vertical cuts work much better.” She blinked. That’s all the time I needed. I snapped my arm forward, grabbed her hand, and squeezed it until the blade dropped into the dirt. Then I scooped her up sideways with my hand wrapped tight around her waist. She started kicking and clawing like a wildcat in a trap. Then she started screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Run, you assholes!” she shouted at her schoolmates. “Fight back! They’re going to kill us all!”
I’d had enough. I flipped her right side up and sat her down hard on the dirt. “Knock it off!” I yelled, right into her face. She was so stunned that she quieted down. I did, too. “Nobody’s killing anybody,” I said softly. “Not anymore. That’s done. You’re all going home.”
She stared back at me, eyes blazing.
“Fuck you, Paul Bunyan!” she said. “Thisishome!”
Two soldiers ran over with a set of zip cuffs and hauled her away.
“Careful,” I said. “She’s stronger than she looks. And get a medic to check her wrist.”
I realized I didn’t have any answers for the girl. Foranyof them. They’d never known any life but this. These kids had been raised here since they were babies, the same as Kira. No wonder they were out of their minds. In the last hour, their whole world had exploded.
I saw a group of soldiers heading into the main building and jogged over to join them. The first team through the door stopped to check for booby traps. When they gave us the all clear, we moved in. As we swept through the first floor, we found young kids hiding in closets and under desks. One by one, the commandos dragged them out.
Some of the instructors and security guards tried to make a run for it, but we rounded them up pretty easily. They were all worn down and scared. From the looks on their faces, I think they all expected to be executed, too.
While the soldiers marched the students and teachers outside, I walked up a curved staircase to the second floor by myself. One of the commandos was on his way down, guiding a line of toddlers—Sesame Streetage. Some of the kids looked terrified. Others just looked stunned.
When I got upstairs, everything was quiet. I walked down the long empty corridor. It was littered with clothes and other belongings. Some of the rooms had been barricaded with chairs and desks. When I got to the end of the hall, I stopped and looked into the last room.
And there she was.
She didn’t even look up when I walked in. The room was filled with metal cots arranged in neat rows. There was a sink against one wall. Kira was staring out a window. It was blocked with heavy metal bars. As I got closer, I could see scorch marks on the sill, like old cigarette burns.
“Is this where you slept?” I asked.
“Tried to,” she said softly.
She ran her fingers over the windowsill.
“This was my way out,” she said. “This is where I jumped. I was eighteen.”
I looked at the bars. Not even a skinny teenager could have slipped through. “How?” I asked.
“I burned through the bars and bent them,” she said. “These bars are new. Stronger. They made sure nobody else escaped.”
“You burned through a set of metal bars?” I asked. “With what?”
“Acid,” she said.
