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EIGHT YEARS EARLIER…

ELI

“I want to go home,” I whimper. “Please. Take me home.”

A boy with a dead-eyed stare slides off the top bunk and lands with a thud on his feet. He turns to face me, casting me under his shadow. He towers above me, as tall as a grown man. I’m eleven, and he’s thirteen, but he looks much older. Something about him is off. He isn’t… right. No one here is.

“This is your home now,” the boy says.

Tears drip down my dirty cheeks. All I wanted was to hitch a ride.

It’s not the first time. I’ve done it loads before.

When the man picked me up by the roadside, he promised to take me somewhere special.

I thought we were going to get ice cream, but I knew I was in trouble when he drove past the shop.

I kicked and screamed until he pulled over, then everything went black.

“I don’t want to be h-here,” I stammer, struggling to breathe. “I want to go home!”

“Shh,” the strange boy hushes, kneeling next to me. I flinch as he wraps his arm around my shoulder. “You have to be strong to survive here, okay? I’ll look out for you. Don’t let them see you cry, you hear me?”

I sniff and nod, feeling other eyes on us. We’re not alone. We’re in a room with four others. The other boys don’t speak. They only watch, quivering under their thin blankets like scared mice.

“Good,” the boy replies, cracking a smile. “What’s your name?”

I look at the number sewn into my new shirt. That’s what the doctor who brought me to my room told me my name will be from now on. Twenty-Five.

“Twenty-Five,” I say, not stupid enough to risk another blow to the head.

“Good.” The boy nods, satisfied with my answer. He leans to whisper in my ear, “Don’t let them hear you say anything else. To them, that is your name.”

It’s not the first time I’ve stayed silent to avoid a beating. Mom and Dad argued constantly, until one day, their arguing stopped.

I was there when it happened.

He pushed Mom down the stairs and laughed.

Her body toppled like a pile of tumbling blocks, bouncing off every step.

I watched her head hit the wooden floor and burst open like a cracked watermelon.

Blood spilled out, lapping at my feet, and stained her pretty brown hair.

While Dad ran, I stayed with her and stroked her hair.

The soft hair that always smelled like fresh shampoo, hair that draped over my face when she sang songs, hair I cried into after scraping my knees.

I pulled what was left of her head onto my lap and stroked her hair until the sirens got close.

The door to our room opens to reveal a woman. There’s no sparkle in her eyes, and her lips are fused shut in a straight line. Not like Mom, who always smiled.

She clears her throat and checks her notebook. “Twenty-Five and Zero,” she calls. “Come with me.”

The boy who consoled me stands up, clenching his jaw and balling his fists. He catches my eye and tilts his head, encouraging me to copy him.

We follow the woman along a long, windowless hallway with no pictures. After a few turns, the gray walls all merge into one.

“Where are we going?” I whisper to Zero as the woman quickens.

“Where we’re going doesn’t matter. Just remember what I told you,” Zero replies under his breath. “Do as they say and don’t make a fuss. That’ll keep you alive.”

I gulp. How much farther? We pass through so many doors with electric locks and keypads. My heart sinks. There’s no sign of ice cream anywhere.

She leads us into an enormous white room. It’s like a spaceship. Seeing men in lab coats makes me giggle. Zero elbows me sharply in the ribs to silence me.

“Zero,” Doctor Acacia, the man who introduced himself upon my arrival, says. “We have a new subject joining you today.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Zero says, hanging his head.

“We will put him in the tub first.”

The thought of having a bubble bath perks me up. Mom used to make bath time so fun. I hope they have nice shampoo. Shampoo that smells like her. This place can’t be so bad after all…

“No.” Zero steps up. “I’ll do it.”

“It’s okay,” I chime in. “I don’t mind.”

Zero’s shoulders slump, and he glares at me. I’ve said the wrong thing, but I don’t know why. Maybe he’s jealous.

“See?” Acacia smirks. “He doesn’t mind. Follow me, Twenty-Five.”

Acacia takes me into an adjoining room. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to see Zero staring after us. I don’t understand the look in his eyes. It’s almost… sad.

I frown at the deep metal tub that fills the space. Next to it, wires come out of strange beeping machines.

“Undress yourself,” Acacia commands.

I do as he asks, and a few of the men in coats join us. I open my mouth to tell them that I don’t need any help washing myself, but I don’t get the chance. One of them begins attaching the wires to me.

“Ouch!” I yelp as metal clamps grip areas of loose skin. I reach to pull them off, but Acacia slaps my hand away.

“You will follow my orders, Twenty-Five,” he warns. “Get in.”

Shivering, I step into the tub, trying to ignore everyone else. I squeal when my toe breaks the freezing water’s surface. A firm hand on my shoulder stops me from jumping out.

“Sit,” Acacia spits through gritted teeth. “Now.”

My teeth chatter as I lower myself into the icy bath. Something is wrong. Very wrong. I focus on the symbols on the screens of the machines surrounding me, imagining that we’re about to fly into space to visit another planet.

Once I’m seated, Acacia reels off a list of numbers and mentions something about an experiment. I can’t think straight or feel my legs. It’s even worse than last summer when I ate too many Popsicles and had a ten-minute brain freeze.

“Begin,” the doctor says.

My entire body jolts as a bolt of lightning shoots through me. I scream. A bloodcurdling scream. The same noise Mom made before she fell. I grip the sides of the tub, thrashing and clambering to escape.

“Let me out!” I yell. “Let me out!”

Arms force me back down. Shocks keep coming, again and again. So do my screams. I don’t know how long I’m there, but I pray for them to stop. Maybe this is my punishment for not saving Mom. I’d take a thousand of Dad’s belt lashings over this. Eventually, I give up fighting. It’s pointless.

Suddenly, it stops.

Someone fishes my limp body out of the water.

I struggle to stand as dry clothes are thrust into my arms.

“Twenty-Five,” a man says. I can’t remember his name now. “You did very well. That’s it for today.”

I smile, because that’s all I can do, and put on the scratchy sweater and pants before I’m ushered into the main room.

“Take them back,” a voice says.

I focus on putting one foot after the other. I’m back in the long hallway again, trying not to slip. My wet hair sticks to my face, and my mouth hangs open. I try to close it, but I can’t. My body isn’t under my control anymore.

“Twenty-Five,” someone says. My eyes flit to the other boy with a black eye by my side. I wonder what happened to him. “Are you okay?”

I say nothing and keep walking until I’m pushed into a room.

“I’ll bring food soon,” a woman barks before slamming the door behind her.

We’re alone again. The boy puts his hands on my shoulders and stares into my eyes, like he’s searching for something.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Twenty-Five,” I mumble.

“No,” he says, shaking his head in disappointment. “What’s your real name?”

My voice trails off. “I…”

“I’m Aiden,” he says.

“I’m…” I will myself to remember through the aftershocks. “Eli.”

As soon as I say it, I’m brought back to reality, even though it feels like a terrible nightmare.

“I’ll look after you, Eli,” Aiden says with a big smile. “Together, we’ll get out of here. You’ll see.”