The Prey

“Lemme ask you a question.” There he was again, standing beside me at the mess hall door. “You’re called LTs, right?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Why?”

“It’s short for lieutenant. A military abbreviation. ’Cause we’re the future lieutenants of the world.”

“Says who?”

“The camp leaders. Westbrook, Karsten, Dekker, all of ’em.”

Cat shot me a look of disbelief. “Seriously?”

The hair rose at the base of my neck. What was it about this guy that rubbed me the wrong way? “Seriously,” I said.

He tried—not very hard—to stifle a laugh. “So what happens when they leave here? The graduates?”

“You mean after they go through the Rite?”

“Yeah, tell me about the Rite,” he mocked.

“There’s a big ceremony where all the seventeen-year-olds pledge allegiance to the Republic, then they’re bussed to leadership positions elsewhere in the territory. It’s a pretty big deal.”

This time Cat didn’t bother trying to hide his laughter. It was a harsh, mocking laugh, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I brushed past him and stepped outside into the pouring rain. Cat was beside me in a second.

“You don’t have to get all pissy,” he said. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t need your help.”

“Fine. Your funeral.”

Something about his tone pushed me over the edge. I turned and gave him a shove.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” I demanded.

His expression was blank. Icy rain plastered his hair to his forehead.

“I’ve lived here nearly all my life,” I went on, “but you’re the one who acts like he knows everything. Well, screw you!”

“I don’t know everything …”

“Well, you definitely act that way.”

“… but I know some things. Like you’re crazy to think they call you LT because it’s short for lieutenant.”

“So if you’re so smart, what is it?”

“You really want to know?” His words cut through the rain like a knife. “It’s short for Less Than. Which is exactly what all of you are: a bunch of Less Thans.”

I felt like I’d been sucker punched. I was too stunned to respond.

Cat went on. “When you were a little kid, the Republic decided your fate. They determined where you were going to go, what you were going to be. Soldier, worker, Less Than, whatever.”

“Then how come none of us have ever heard that?” I asked.

“Probably ’cause the Brown Shirts didn’t tell you.”

I struggled to form thoughts. “How do they decide who’s a … Less Than?” Just saying the words made me uncomfortable.

“Handicaps, obesity, skin color, politics, who knows. They don’t announce the criteria, but it’s pretty clear. I mean, look around.”

I thought of the two hundred or so guys in Camp Liberty. Some of it might’ve been true, but that didn’t mean anything. Sure, I had brown skin, and Twitch and June Bug had black. Dozer had a withered arm, Red a splotch on his face, and Four Fingers, well, four fingers on each hand. But all that was just a coincidence. Right?

“Politics?” I asked. “What kid knows anything about politics?”

“Not you, your parents. If they’re dissidents, then you’re branded Less Thans for sure.”

“But why?”

“Because if the normal people want to survive the next Omega, we can’t have a bunch of Less Thans holding us back.”

My head was swimming. Not only was he suggesting we weren’t normal but that we might not even be orphans. “This is an orphanage,” I managed.

“Who said?”

“The Brown Shirts.”

“You don’t think they’d lie, do you?”

My knees felt weak. Was it even remotely possible he was telling the truth? That we’d been ripped from our mothers’ arms and sent here because we were considered “less than normal”? I felt the sudden need to get away.

“What’s the matter?” he called out. “Can’t face facts?”

That did it. I spun around and leaped toward him and we tumbled hard on the rain-soaked ground. My fists began pummeling him. Roundhouses and jabs and uppercuts, one after another, landing first on one side of his face and then the other.

The other LTs made a halfhearted attempt to break us up, but they seemed all too happy to watch. And then I realized: Cat wasn’t fighting back. He was letting me hit him, barely blocking my punches. It made me all the angrier.

“That’s enough,” Cat finally said, and he sent a fist in my direction. I fell to the side.

I pushed myself to a sitting position, blood trickling from my nose. Cat’s one punch had drawn blood; it had taken me a couple dozen to do the same to him.

“You showed him,” said Flush.

But I knew I hadn’t. The LTs drifted off to the barracks.

“Why didn’t you fight back?” I panted.

“I only beat up people if I have reason to. I don’t have a good reason to beat you up.” He sipped a breath. “Yet.”