Free Quarantine #2: The Saints by Lex Thomas Page B

them as well as David used to, and even he couldn’t get them white. They were gray and speckled with black like an Oreo milk shake. She put them in a cabinet, next to where Violent put hers.
    Lucy followed Violent into the heat of the kitchen, where Sluts lay sleeping all over the floor. They were nestled in around each other like jigsaw puzzle pieces. The only light in the room came from the oven door windows, receding rectangles of glowing red.
    Violent led Lucy through the obstacle course of bodies. From what she could make out, most of them wore boxers and T-shirts with the sleeves torn off. Even that seemed too hot to sleep in. The heat from the ovens pressed in all around her like a sauna. The purr of the gas ovens softened all other sounds. Violent reached a clear spot of floor by the dishwashers, far from the ovens, but still entirely warm.
    “You can sleep here tonight,” Violent said in a low hush.
    Lips arrived silently and dropped a man-shaped mattress on Lucy’s spot of floor. The mattress was a pair of khaki pants and a long-sleeve denim shirt that had been sewn together and stuffed with pink wall insulation, which puffed out where the seams had come apart. Lucy lowered her bag to a spot right next to the mattress.
    Lucy opened her arms to hug Violent again. Instead, Violent patted her shoulder and walked off with Lips.
    “Okay,” she said, mostly to herself. “Okay, then …”
    She guessed that was it. This was her gang now. She lowered herself down on her headless, handless, footless mattress man. She scanned the nearby faces, trying to see if she recognized any of them. Not a one. She was sleeping with a bunch of strangers. What had she gotten herself into? Was she so desperate to prove Will wrong that she’d actually thought for a second she could be a Slut? When she knocked on the cafeteria door she felt like she knew what she was doing, she thought she wanted everything Violent had described aboutbeing a Slut. Now she feared that she was not like these girls, that she would not be accepted here, and she wouldn’t have what it takes to be one of them.
    You’re a coward
. She swore she’d never forgive Will for what he’d said. She cussed him in her mind, but no matter how many times she wrote Will off, she’d hear him say those sharp words again. She just wanted to forget about him, and the Loners and how everything had gone so wrong.
    She squeezed her mattress man. The oven heat seeped into her, soothed her. It made Will’s words hurt less and less. She felt sleep pull her under, into the warmth.
    It was the clong of a steel ladle on an iron skillet that woke Lucy up. It took a second for her to remember where she was.
    “Five more minutes for chores!”
    Every light in the kitchen was on. She looked around the floor and saw that she was the only one still sleeping. The other Sluts had already risen and stored their bedding away. Lucy sat bolt upright. No, it couldn’t start like this, with her looking like a big slacker. She looked over at a Slut standing by one of the stovetops. She held a huge steel pot by its towel-wrapped handles. The Slut tipped the pot and poured steaming water on the tile floor. The piping hot puddle spread fast toward Lucy. She sprung to her feet with barely enough time to keep from being scalded. She picked up her mattress man, just as the water touched it. The soaked fabric searedher fingers. She looked around for her bag, but it was gone.
    Lucy tiptoed around the scalding mop water. Steam rose knee-high. Every Slut she walked past ignored her; they were completely focused on their tasks. Lucy could feel the walls they had up against her; but she was determined to break through. She approached a bony Slut pouring ash into a tall aluminum broiling pot.
    “Um, can I help?” she said.
    The Slut responded without looking at her. “You’re supposed to be out there.” She flicked her head toward the cafeteria.
    “Thanks,” Lucy said.
For nothing
, she