LIFE IS FULL OF weird surprises. You go about life expecting one thing and then wind up with something else. Maybe it was something you didn’t want. Or maybe it was the one thing you actually wanted.
But what’s worse is when that thing you got was something you wanted and dreaded at the same time.
And no amount of information can fully prepare someone for it. You think you have all the information you could possibly need, but then you discover it didn’t even come close.
Here are some of the things I knew...
After the White House in Washington, DC was bombed in the year 2087 and the government offices were relocated to South Carolina, the planning for DC Prison began. Several years later, the guards issued the final evacuation notice, closed the wall, and shut off power to the city.
The general public was told it was terrorists who fired a missile and bombed our country’s capital. But some people believe there’s more to it than that, that it was done by our own people. After all, why would a terrorist group stop at the capital? Wouldn’t they bomb other big cities? Did they really only have one missile? That was unlikely and incredibly ridiculous to assume.
The purpose of the prison was to reduce incarceration costs and labor resources. And the experiment was to find out whether or not criminals would reduce their numbers on their own. Would they kill each other and save the country the trouble?
Many of the prisoners came from maximum security prisons. They were convicted felons of serious crimes. I had never heard talk of the results, but the odds were good the prisoners would assist the country in cutting down the numbers. They probably already had.
But what does all of this have to do with me?
Well, as it turned out, the above-ground portion of Faction 73’s training facility was located in DC. Which meant we were standing right inside the prison’s walls.
But let me back up...
Chapter 2
AS WE HEADED EAST, toward the direction of the tunnel Don had told us would lead inside the prison, I stared at the door to Faction 73’s building, the one we had just left moments earlier. I kept thinking the door would reopen and my parents would rush outside, but it stayed closed.
I felt numb.
If it wasn’t for the touch of Gabe’s thumb lingering on my cheek, I didn’t think I’d feel anything at all. It’s funny how things linger. How you have an idea of a particular thing because of what you used to know.
People, for instance.
I thought I knew my parents. I had missed them. I had mourned them. They were everything to me.
You have this idea in your head of how these people were. But then when you find out they weren’t the people you thought they were, the people you always believed they were, you have a hard time believing the truth.
Part of me still wanted to believe I was stuck in some bad dream. Maybe I had imagined them. Or maybe they weren’t really my parents. Maybe those people were only pretending to be my parents for some sick and unknown reason.
I wanted to believe anything so long as it didn’t involve them working for an agency that believed everyone was replaceable, that the kids didn’t deserve a life on the outside, back in the real world.
To take away a person’s memories just because it served them better... How could someone do that? And how could the people you had grown up loving support an organization that did that?
The thought of having my memories erased made me feel sick. Living a life without the memories of childhood or the people you had loved wasn’t living.
The agency was using us. Every recruit, every field agent, was a pawn in their own sick game. To fake the video footage so the recruits would believe their schools were under attack or that the country needed trained operatives to fight terrorism when no such thing occurred... that was twisted. It was one thing to embellish the truth; it was another to lie.
“Emme,” Gabe whispered, touching my arm.
I shook my head a little, trying to clear away the thoughts, as I looked up at him.
“I don’t know how far east we need to go, but this is all forest,” he said. “The tunnel can’t be this way.”
I looked around at all the trees in the dark. The tree tops had closed in above us, blocking out most of the light from the moon and stars.
“I think we should head back.”
“How long have we been walking?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You tell me.”
I couldn’t see his smirk in the dark, but I could sense it in his tone. I shot him a smirk back even though I knew he probably couldn’t see it and then pulled up my sleeve. The faint glow of the clock hands of my wristwatch, the one Don had fixed and somehow programmed as a key card, displayed the time. Looking back up, I said, “I didn’t think to check the time when we got out, but it’s almost one in the morning.”
“Fifteen minutes, maybe,” Robert said. “It was after midnight when we left the kitchen.”
“How far should we go?” Gabe asked.
“Let’s go a little farther,” I said. “We can’t be too far off. Didn’t Don say the tunnel was on the other side of the forest?”
“I can’t remember.”
After another few minutes, we finally reached a break in the tree line. I let out a sigh of relief. My legs were starting to drag from lack of sleep and I had started to worry already about tripping on an exposed root and bashing my head on a rock. I was steadier on my feet now after all the fitness training over the last six weeks, but I was tired. Anything could happen at this point.
I was about to hunch over and give myself a rest when I realized a tall solid wall stood at the other side of the clearing. I froze and stared at it, eyes wide.
One of the guys groaned. And then both of them were jogging across the clearing toward the wall.
With a sigh, I followed, tilting my head back and taking in the sheer height of the structure. It had to be at least twenty-five feet tall and it was ribbed with thick metal wiring.
“Uh, guys,” Robert said, sounding nervous.
I looked over at him and then headed his way. When I saw the large sign he was pointing at and read the faded message, I frowned. Glancing at Gabe again, I said, “It says access is denied.”
He walked up to the sign as he turned on his flashlight. But then he took a quick step back. “It’s electrified. And it’s the property of DC Prison.”
