Page 1 (1/2)

1

THE OUTSIDE IT WAS A PLACE WHERE THINGS were alive, where forests grehere your friends weren’t trying to kill you, and the air didn’t taste like dust The door to the outside was now open

Hissing torches filled the dark hallith red Will held Lucy’s hand They ran like one back to get their gang when those gun-toting kids from the outside had opened the doors Will watched the Loners ahead of him dash around the corner and pour into the front foyer He heard happy screaht strearaduation doors The rest of the Loners were already crowded at the doorway, fighting each other to get through first Half of them were in tears Sunburned kids fro on their rifles and waving the Loners forward

Will and Lucy charged toward the light Will wanted inside that room so badly, but the rest of the Loners were ahead of hiainst the backs of the Lonerfeet filled the halls behind hi All of them

"Faster!" Will shouted at the Loners in front of hiraduation doors ahead

Shrieks of joy echoed through the foyer as kids fro flooded into the foyer fro down the central staircase Cla students slah the graduation doors and knocking the white rooht away, they would have been trampled

The white room It was uncharted territory The only McKinley kids that had everto ht that overexposed the rooenerator He realized that the entire, wide ceiling was one large panel of light, except in the center, where there was a giant ht metal arms that each held a hose with a spray nozzle at its end The device’s arms were drawn in on itself, like a dead spider The floor and walls were all white ceraht-foot metal door to Will’s left and an observationby the ceiling

Lucy’s hands grasped Will’s arm and lifted him off the floor

"Come on," she said "Hurry"

Will and Lucy floith the croard a door at the other end of the room They fell in beside Belinda and Leonard, but the crowd around them had mostly become a patchwork of different-colored heads They left the white roo corridor They teetered at top speed, and clung to each other for balance On either side of the cells, each with a thick, clear, plastic door Hanging ceiling lamps revealed that each cell contained a cot, a sink, a toilet, and a desk bolted to the wall Stacks of azines lay on the floor of some cells, a deck of cards was scattered in another, and in the last cell, Will noticed that the walls were graffitied with per over a graveyard

The crowd bottlenecked again at the next doorway People behind Will and Lucy started pushing harder, screa to move faster They squeezed into the next rooht Metal closets lined the walls The little room was packed beyond capacity A bunch of Skaters behind Will and Lucy pressed against the croith solid, continuous force Will felt e grinder Finally, they were spit out through the second door They stuht Outsiders blocked those passages and waved everyone forward

This new room was lined with desks that les of wire remained Desk chairs were strewn over the roo into a dead, potted palod," Lucy ht on Will’s arm

Will had already seen it In the center of the wide far wall, beyond the writhing, ht streamed in froed Loners ahead were s too Will saw the outside in glireen grass sprouting up across the front laaying trees A pigeon flying in a quartz-colored sky

"Yes, yes, yes," Lucy said on repeat, as they raced toward the doors

One outsider stood at the exit, holding one of the doors open, as kids wrestled their way past hiet out first The kid was tall, he had long white hair, and one of his eyes was so bloodshot that the white of his eye was a deep red

"Keep going, keep going!" the red-eyed boy said to Will as he reached the doors

Lucy tugged Will back He looked back at her in a panic What was she doing? They were only a few feet from freedom Her face was taut with terror Will heard the blast of a car horn

"Bus!" Lucy said

Will turned to see kids in front of hi yellow school bus was barreling toward Will, seconds fro The outsider kid hadn’t seen it yet; he was still shouting at the crowd inside

Will shoved Lucy to the side, away frorabbed the outsider kid, and yanked him out of the way

Will and the outsider hit the floor just as the bus plunged through the entrance The iainst concrete Chunks of ceiling dropped, nearly crushing thehts in the facility flickered and died

For awas still and silent

Will breathed in dry air He was alive The outsider pushed hiled with the creak of an to rise around the room The entire structure had collapsed around the crushed face of the bus, covering the doors and windshield with gigantic slabs of concrete All that could be seen was the bus’s front grille and bumper; not a speck of the outdoors was visible anyh the thick dust, and stared deep into the new darkness

"No," Will heard hi over at Lucy She was unconscious He scurried to her and took her head in his hands He brushed her soft tangle of white hair away from her face He touched her pale cheek; it was cool

"Lucy Wake up," Will said All he wanted was for her big, beautiful eyes to open, son of life, but her body re weaker with e

All around, kids struggled to their feet They pulled at the rubble, but the heaviest slabs stayed put, locked in place around the bus There was no budging any of it

The wailing began Kids cried, and held each other They beat at the bus with their fists Dust still swirled in the headlight’s path