“If she’d caught you—”
“She didn’t, and there aren’t any cameras in her office. Nobody watches Auntie. She said use elevator three to take the body down to the tunnels tonight, after Lights Out, and to the crematorium. She said how the dead girl was a street rat anyway, and a waste of time and resources.”
The burn in Dorian’s chest erupted into fire. “I’m going to kill her one day.”
“Dorian, grip it. Tunnels. That’s a way out for sure.”
“You need a swipe for the elevators.”
“That’s where you come in. That’s what you do, right?”
Maybe she’d worked the streets, the tourists—and maybe exaggerated her skill just a little—but this was different.
“You want me to lift a swipe card?”
“The plan doesn’t work without it.” Mina’s absolute confidence radiated, and infected. “You get the swipe as close to Lights Out as you can.”
“Even if I get the swipe, it doesn’t work inside our rooms. We’re locked in at night.”
“Tonight we won’t be. I’ve got that part. You get the card, and at ten-thirty, take the elevator down to the infirmary. Pick me up there, then we go all the way down, and we get out.”
They’d talked too long, both knew it, but Mina risked another minute. “We’ve got to get out, Dorian. I was telling Auntie how much I wanted a handsome master to buy me beautiful things, and she said the auction was coming up soon. I wouldn’t have much longer to wait.
“They’ll sell us. We have to get out now.”
Sold, Dorian thought. No more pretending then, and no more Mina to help her stand the pretending.
“I’ll get the swipe.”
“Ten-thirty, infirmary. Something I ate didn’t agree with me.”
It didn’t seem real. For months she’d dreamed and schemed of a way out. But now all she could think of were the punishments if they got caught.
More likely when.
But they had to try. They had to or Auntie would sell them like—like a candy bar in a twenty-four/seven.
She knew, of course she knew, her ancestors had been sold into slavery, and when she’d still gone to regular school, she’d studied about the whole damn war fought over it.
But this was 2061, for fuck’s sake! People couldn’t just sell people.
But they would. They would.
She felt sick to her stomach, and really hot—like maybe she had a fever and she needed the infirmary for real.
But she reminded herself that she had a talent for one thing. She knew how to pick pockets. She knew how to take something from a mark and move on.
With fifteen minutes to Lights Out, Dorian scurried down the corridor to her room carrying a small bag. Since scurrying broke the rules, she knew the hall matron would stop her, issue a demerit and a warning.
“238!”
Heart pounding, Dorian skidded to a stop.
“Running in the hallways, one demerit. How many does that make this time?”
“Three, Matron. I’m very sorry.”
“You should be. What do you have there?”
“Hygienic supplies, Matron.” All innocence, Dorian held out the bag containing a small roll of toilet paper, a tiny tube of soap, and a tube of facial cleanser.
As the matron—a big, beefy woman with a shock stick strapped to her belt—grabbed the bag, Dorian shuffled an inch closer and, ears ringing, palmed the swipe card hooked to the woman’s left jacket pocket.
“I was getting ready for bed, and saw I was out of some supplies for hygiene and skin care. I needed to—”
“That’s two demerits, 238, the second for carelessness. It’ll be three if you’re not in your room and properly prepared for the night by Lights Out.”
“Yes, Matron. Thank you.”
She walked blindly to her room—cell, she corrected. And didn’t allow herself to shake until she’d closed the door.
She prepared for bed as usual because the hall bitch might check on her. But she kept her clothes on under the ugly nightgown.
When the lights blinked their one-minute warning, she got into bed, pulled the sheet and thin blanket up to her chin.
And as she’d feared, her door opened.
Fear exploded inside her as the matron marched to the bed.
She knew! She knew!
The woman stared down at her with mean eyes—monster eyes to Dorian’s mind. She braced for the fire of the shock stick.
But the matron just peered at Dorian’s face, swiped a finger over her cheek.