The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [7]
I left my sister once and I can’t do it again. I can’t give up this chance that she’s real and safe and within my grasp.
I fight my way back to the door, start banging against it, but a Recruiter grabs my hands and twists my wrists painfully, his fingers digging into my skin. “Wrong way,” he says, pushing me back to the crowd waiting at the other end of the holding area, waiting for the bell to sound and the door to open so they can move forward on their journey across the bridge to the mainland.
“I have to go back,” I tell him, trying to rip my arms free.
“Not the rules.” He narrows his eyes, causing wrinkles to spread around his cheeks. His shirt’s dirty and reeks of smoke and overly ripe perfume. “Unless you have something to trade for it.” He tugs me a little closer until I have to look up at him, my hair falling back from my face.
He takes in my scars, his lips pressing thin. He drops my wrists.
I hear the bells ring down the bridge, hear the doors sliding open and know that she’s getting farther away from me. “You have to let me go,” I shout at him.
“Get to the end and then you can come back. This side is one way only—off the island,” he says. He can’t help but stare at my scars, a look of disgust in his eyes. “Either way, keep moving forward. That’s the rule.”
I see the door begin to grind open behind him, the creak of old gears and rusty metal separating me from my sister. He pushes me away from it, away from her. Away from the Neverlands and farther out over the river toward the mainland.
People flood in around me and press tight, making it hard to breathe. They crowd against me, just wanting to get to the other side, and I’m causing trouble and getting in the way.
I’m drawing attention and attention isn’t good. But I refuse to give up. Already she’s out of my sight. Already I may never find her again. The Recruiter must see the resolve in my eyes the moment before I move, because his muscles tense, ready for me. I’m just about to lunge at him, just about to fight my way through the door, when we both hear the fierce growling and barking of dogs and then the explosion of the alarm blaring over the bridge.
Every door rolls shut, the heavy metal pinning one poor woman’s fingers against the jamb, causing her to howl in pain. The Recruiter forgets about me and leaps for a rope ladder, climbing to one of the lookout posts at the top of each wall.
All around me people press against the side of the bridge, trying to see what caused the commotion, shouting at each other in confusion. I elbow my way through them, keeping low until I can shove my head through the gaps in the railing. The sound of dogs barking, their growls deep and ferocious, underscores the wailing siren piercing my ears.
It’s almost impossible to figure out what’s going on, but there’s clearly chaos at the checkpoint on the island end of the bridge. A few Recruiters gesture wildly and I watch as they push a young man to his knees against the metal wall circling the shore of the island. Dogs lurch at him, their backs spiked with rage.
He pulls something from his pocket—some sort of disk that looks like one of the old Recruiter IDs—and holds it out to them. One of the men snatches it and frowns, disappearing into the guardhouse as the young man kneels, his hands held up as if trying to entreat the guards who pull knives from their belts. The dogs smell the infection—they won’t allow him onto the island. He’s too dangerous.
The siren eats away at the air, cutting off everything except the sound of the woman still screaming as they try to pry her fingers from the steel door. Everyone around me jostles, all of us straining to see what will happen next.
A large man, his Recruiter uniform crisp and clean with a red sash across his chest, storms out of the guardhouse, towering over the young man. The Recruiter’s mouth moves but none of us can hear what he says and the young man keeps shaking his head, his hands raised palms-out.
Just then a blur bolts