Chapter 14 – Determination

Carli's POV

The orange rhino shoves me into the cell and shuts the metal bars behind me. Another cell across the hallway and a bit further down is opened, which Jayden is put into by his captor.

"Hi there," says a voice behind me, and I turn around to look at her as the cell is locked up again. My cellmate is a tall girl with pale yellow hair down to her waist. She pushes her Gracie sunglasses up so that they now sit on top of her head like a headband instead of covering her eyes.

"Hi," I say. "Who are you?"

"I'm Emmalina," the girl says, smiling. "But call me Emmy."

"Nice to meet you," I say. "I'm Carli."

"Nice to meet you, too," says Emmy.

"So what is this?" I ask, critically examining the cell and looking at the small amount of furniture inside. "Some sort of jail?"

"Not exactly," Emmy says, shrugging. She lowers her voice to a whisper, motions for me to be quiet, and takes me to the back corner so we won't get overheard by any nosy guards that might be nearby. "They use this place to keep the humans they capture."

"Humans?" I ask inquisitively. Not just any law-breakers? And what does she mean by "capture"?

"They believe humans are a poison to maintaining a peaceful society," Emmy continues. "They want to get rid of all of us because they think we're evil."

I'm confused and stunned at the same time. It seems like there's a lot more to this than I thought.

"I thought I was just here because we tied up someone who was trying to make us live in Greyvale for the rest of our lives," I say.

"I'm pretty sure one of the people here was behind it, whether you think so or not," Emmy says quietly, shaking her head. "That person could very likely work here."

"What makes you so sure?" I ask. "How do you know all this?" Emmy takes off her sunglasses and wipes them on her shirt.

"About a month ago, I was on my way to my parents' house for a surprise," she says. "It was my aunt's funeral in a couple days, and my parents had sent me a letter asking if I'd come and stay at their place for a couple days and go to the funeral. I declined the invite. I'm not sure why, now. They live really far away from my town, and I'd have to take multiple trains to get there. And maybe just because I don't like funerals in general. But anyway, I regretted my decision and then went on the train to see them, hoping to surprise them. A minute after I stepped off the train in their town, something hit me on the back of the head and knocked me out. I woke up in some car, blindfolded and tied up. There were some people talking in the front seats, but they didn't know I was awake. I heard them talking about a whole bunch of stuff. They're planning to kill us all eventually."

"What?" I almost shout, forgetting Emmy telling me to be quiet, but I quickly lower my voice again to avoid attracting the attention of anyone from this place that might be close by still.

"I'm serious," Emmy says, a serious glint in her olive eyes. "One day, they're going to murder all of us. 'Exterminate', as they put it. They called this place the Society for the Extermination of Humans. I just don't know when it'll happen. I've tried to tell the others in here about it, too, so I think everyone knows. Not that it does us any good."

"Oh my gosh," I say, the full impact of her words sinking in. I collapse onto the bed, wondering why on earth people would resort to such severe measures. "That is messed up."

"Yeah," Emmy says. She goes and picks up a glass mug from on top of the radiator and looks into it before taking a swig of whatever's inside. "The best we can do is hope they put it off as long as possible."

"Wait," I say, standing up and crossing my arms across my chest. "That's what you say? Shouldn't we try to stage some sort of jailbreak? How many people are in here—ten? Twenty?"

"Twelve, with you and your friend," Emmy says. "I'm one of the newer ones. Tatalina—she's on the other side of this wall—has been here for months, and she's never escaped. I don't think a jailbreak is really possible here."

"Why not?" I ask. "Have you tried?"

"Not really," she admits, kicking the floor with her red sneaker. "There hasn't been a really good opportunity. I'd get caught."

"There must be a way," I say determinedly. "We just have to think of one."

"Good luck with that," Emmy says doubtfully. "No one's been able to escape from this place yet."

"Well then, maybe we'll be the first," I say, raising an eyebrow. I walk around the cell, lifting the lunch tray on the radiator and taking out a couple books from the bookshelf. I look at the silver title of a red hardcover book. Humans: Infecting Society.

"Subtle," I mutter.

The green bear cub comes by and is holding two trays. He slides each of them between gaps in the bars, holding them out for us to take. Each tray has a mug on it along with a small piece of bread.

"Here's your dinner," he says gruffly. Emmy promptly takes the empty lunch tray and mug from the radiator and then takes one of the trays from the bear, swapping it with the empty dishes. I take the other tray and the bear walks away, the keys around his neck jingling.

We need to get those keys.

I look across the narrow room at the other humans in this sick prison. Right across from me, a teenage girl with auburn hair and dressed all in purple, complete with an elegant hat, stares back at me wistfully, looking me over as I am her. I wonder if she has anything she wants to say to me.

To the left of her is a boy, maybe a year or two younger than the girl, who's eating the dinner from the guard. He's got forest green hair and is dressed in blue gym clothes. Looks like the jock type.

To the right of the girl are two more boys. One is lying down, probably asleep, on one of the beds inside. I can't see much about him except for his bright crimson hair. The other has pale green hair and slightly tanned skin, and is sitting up on the other bed. He's taken a book from the bookshelf down and is ripping pages out of it. He fashions a small paper airplane out of one of the pages and lazily flings it at the wall. It flies gracefully for an instant, then crumples as it makes contact and falls unceremoniously to the floor, among several other paper planes that have met the same fate.

These four people all look so different, yet similar at the same time. None look scared. None look like they're trying to figure out a plan. All of them look like they've resigned themselves to their fate.

Perhaps being jailed for all this time does that to you. Perhaps after what they've been through they just don't care anymore. Maybe they've tried to escape but failed, time and time again, and figured it's pointless to even try anymore. They all look like they've given up.

But not me. I will not give up.

The gears in my mind spin as I hurriedly try to think of a plan. I look up at the ceiling the way I always do when I'm trying to think. Our only options are escape or get our heads chopped off.

And I have no intention of letting the latter happen.