Free Sparks Rise by Alexandra Bracken Page A

recognize the sound now. It’s a bruise on my memory, one that’ll never fully heal.
    Someone is breathing hard, and it’s not me. I don’t think it’s Lucas, either.
    “There are plenty of cages here. Are you looking to join the little princess? You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?”
    Lucas says nothing. Tildon does nothing. I can hear him squeezing the baton in his fist, but he doesn’t hit Lucas. I try to imagine what he must look like, facing a Red, knowing what he’d done to torment the Reds in the past, knowing that some of them must remember it.
    Go, Lucas! My mind is screaming the words. If only I could see his face. He would know it’s okay to go. He can’t stay here for me. It’s not worth it.
    Lucas takes a halting step toward the door as Tildon walks around him, careful to keep an arm’s length of distance between them. Suddenly it’s needles and knives pumping through my veins, not blood. Tildon’s boots are the first thing I see, his mud-splattered boots. I can’t breathe. I realize it suddenly, the truth sinking deep inside of me. This is never going to be over. This is my life now, until the camp controllers step in and move him again, make him another girl’s problem. I hate that the thought actually gives me relief. I hate how selfish I have to be just to survive.
    He crouches down, tapping the lock with his baton. I do feel like an animal then. Caught in a trap, waiting for the knife. “Hi, sweetie. We didn’t finish our conversation earlier.”
    I won’t look at him. I won’t. I can feel his eyes rake over me, the way my wet sweats cling to me, the tangled mess that is my hair. I wish Olsen had just cut it all off before she left. I see what she does, now, the intensity of his gaze as it locks on the place where strands of my hair brush my collarbone.
    Tildon tugs on the lock to test it, laughs at the way I cringe as he drags his baton over the front of the crate, up and down, his eyes never once leaving me. I want to crawl out of my skin and disappear in the shadows. I want to dissolve the way Ruby did. I can’t be here anymore. I can’t.
    The entire cage shifts as the baton smashes against it. I’m rattled from the top of my head to my feet so hard I bite my tongue and the taste of blood explodes in my mouth. Tildon laughs again as I cover my face with my arms. The thin metal has warped where he struck it. The gap between the bars has expanded, bent and twisting inward unnaturally. He wedges the baton into the bottom corner of the door and starts to bend that, too, pulling the corner toward him, creating a hole large enough to stick a hand through. I twist around again, tucking my legs up against my chest, my left side against the back of the cage to avoid his touch.
    “Sweetie,” he calls, “sweetie— come here !” He punctuates the last two words with the baton. He can’t get to me while I’m in here. I’m safe in the cage—
    Tildon stands suddenly and seizes the front of the kennel and hauls it toward him, the center of the small room. The scream that leaves my throat is drowned out by the screech of the metal against the cement, the thunder of the empty cages above it filling in the empty space, crashing to the ground. He drops the weight with a satisfied grunt, a smile that’s all teeth. I can’t get away from him now. He stands over me, looking down through the bars, considering. I have to force myself not to look at Lucas, still facing away from us in the corner.
    He can’t help you—you have to get out of this—think, Sam, think—
    “This is M27 requesting permission to leave the cages to return to my post,” I hear Lucas say. His voice has a halting quality to it now, each word clipped. “Officer Tildon is here to relieve me.”
    Tildon’s breath whistles as it’s sucked in between his teeth. He twists around, pinning Lucas with a look of such undisguised malice, I can’t imagine how both of them will walk out of here alive.
    The instinctive