Lucy heard a metal plink and looked up. The freezer door opened, and Violent stepped in. Lucy’s eyes widened with hope. She hadn’t seen Violent since her first night in the cafeteria, and she’d been getting more and more upset about it. She felt in her heart that if she could just talk to Violent, she could cut this whole Naked Week thing short. They had history together. The other Sluts never would have been so bold with their abuse if Violent had been there to see.

“Where have you been?” Lucy said through clacking teeth.

“None of your business, is it?” She shook her head at Lucy. “I hear you haven’t been doing well.”

“What? That’s not true. I’ve been doing everything anybody’s asked.”

“People have been saying that they don’t think you want to be here.”

“I—I don’t want to be cleaning people’s feet and getting kicked in the ribs and scrubbing ovens if that’s what you mean,” Lucy said.

“Lips told me about your attitude. Your lack of obedience. This is your chance to show us you’re Slut material, and you haven’t shown us anything yet.” Violent sighed. “You’re going to have start Naked Week over.”

“No,” Lucy muttered. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. It starts over now. This is day one.”

Violent turned and walked to the door. She stopped in the doorway, with her back to Lucy.

“First task,” Violent said. “Get out to the cafeteria and bring a mop. Someone threw up.”

Violent left, leaving the door open behind her. Lucy stood trembling. Whatever semblance of friendship she thought she’d had with Violent had been an illusion. She’d made an awful mistake joining this gang. The Sluts weren’t tough, they were sadists.

Lucy didn’t follow Violent out of the freezer. She began to pace again, much faster this time. Another week of being treated like she was subhuman? And what would happen at the end of that week? A third week? How about a month of being blindfolded and hit with sticks? She wasn’t cold anymore. She was sweating.

Fuck these girls, Lucy thought, I’m out.

She charged into the warmth of the dark kitchen, and out into the light of the cafeteria, which was filled with boisterous conversation, and the chock-ch-chock-chock of Sluts slamming their knives down into the long cafeteria table before sitting down to eat. Lucy didn’t slow a bit, she walked straight for the exit, on the other end of the dining room. The further into the room Lucy got, the quieter it became. She could feel all eyes on her, and although a growing fear was beginning to accompany her boiling anger, for the first time, she didn’t care one bit that she was naked.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going, slave?” she heard Lips say.

Lucy kept walking. Something hard whacked her in the ear. Lucy stumbled left as pain stabbed into the side of her head. Her filthy, blackened scrub brush fell to the floor in front of her filthier toes.

“Oh! Direct hit!”

Lucy turned to see Lips stand up from the table, about ten feet from her. Lips smiled until her eyes were little knife wounds and her mouth looked like someone had placed a small shovel on Lips’s face and stomped on it. Lucy pulled her hand away from her ear. Fury electrified her at the sight of her own blood.

She dashed at Lips. Lucy saw the surprise flash across her ugly face. Lucy punched her in the tit. Lips wasn’t expecting it, and she wasn’t blocking for it. Lucy hadn’t really been aiming for it either, she’d swung wild, and that was just where her fist hit. Lips winced, and Lucy was able to shove her to the ground. Lucy pounced on her, ready to beat her face in, but the other Sluts pulled Lucy off.

Then they did something unexpected. The Sluts started to cheer. The whole gang converged on her. They were smiling. They hugged her, they patted her on the back, and mussed her hair. They told her how great she did, how awesome that was.

“What’s going on?” Lucy said to them.

“Congratulations,” Violent said in a big voice, as she came weaving through the crowd. She wrapped Lucy in a heavy quilted blanket and pulled her close.

“Ladies! We’ve got ourselves a Slut!”

“I don’t understand,” Lucy said.

“I knew you had the killer instinct somewhere in there,” Violent said. “I just didn’t think it would take you so long.”

“What do you mean?” Lucy asked.

“Naked Week ends when you fight back. Naked Week could’ve been Naked Afternoon, if you had fought back that first day.”

Lucy furrowed her brow. She couldn’t help the flush of embarrassment.

“Some girls just need a little more time than others. But in the end every Slut gets tough. That’s what binds us, right, girls?” Violent said, and the Sluts nodded. “We don’t wait for permission, we don’t take any shit.”

Lips came walking up, smiling like a proud parent. She held a plastic salad bowl full of bloodred water.

“Not bad, girl,” Lips said. “Now, let’s get that white out of your hair.”

16

WILL OPENED HIS EYES. A WAVE OF NAUSEA rolled down from his forehead and plopped into his stomach. His temples throbbed with dull pain and his mouth felt like he’d been chewing on socks. He wasn’t in the elevator, and it took him a few seconds to remember why. He was lying on his side, on a bed in one of the processing facility’s containment cells. The baby chick girl from the party was standing over him, next to the bed. He watched her slip into a pair of black tights. She pulled on a gray cashmere sweater. Her wispy, white-haired head popped through, and when she saw him awake, she smiled.

“See ya around,” she said, and turned for the cell’s clear door, which was open to the hallway.

“Hey, wait,” Will said. He looked down at himself. All of his clothes were still on, even his shoes. “What, uh … what happened last night?”

“You don’t remember?”

Will shook his head. His brain felt like liquid sloshing up on the sides of his skull. “Parts, I guess. What did you and me, uh, do …?”

“Nothing X-rated. You feel asleep,” she said. Will was relieved in a way. He’d hate to have missed his first time. The girl laughed and skipped out of the cell. “Don’t forget your bag. It’s in the hall.”

Oh, no, the honey. Will sat up suddenly and he nearly vomited. Too fast, too soon. His body despised him. He stood and a head rush made him stumble one step sideways. He swore his head was about to collapse as he walked out of the cell.

Will’s backpack sat on the floor, just outside in the hall. He bent down, and the blood flowed to his head. His headache pulsed. He unzipped his bag fast. He was shocked to find his bottle of honey was still inside. He reached in and gave it a satisfying squeeze. He didn’t understand. How had no one taken it? They could have gotten away with it for sure.

Will looked down the hall to where some Saints were hanging out, beyond the airtight doors in the front room where the bus had crashed through. They were doing a massage train. The kid in front told an animated story and used his hands a lot because he didn’t have anyone’s shoulders to lay them on.

Will wished the party didn’t have to end. He thought about the life waiting for him in the elevator. Hungry, cold, and alone. Only going out at night. Trusting no one. He’d seen the love between the Saints last night. They worked together, had fun together, and watched each other’s backs. Will remembered what that used to feel like.

But he felt out of place. This wasn’t his gang. He didn’t want to push his luck by hanging out any longer and turning into the annoying house guest who wouldn’t leave. Will zipped up his bag and shouldered it. He headed for the exit.

“Where you going?”

Will turned to see Gates; he was disheveled and shuffling into the hallway behind Will. His eyes were barely open and he looked like he was in just as much pain as Will.

“Figured I should get going,” Will said.

Gates wiped his hand down his face. “Huh? Where?”

“Back home,” Will said. “I really appreciate you letting me hang out last night—”

“Home? I thought your whole gang bailed on you.”

Will didn’t like hearing his situation put so bluntly, but he couldn’t deny that it was pretty much true.

“I’ve got a smaller place now.”

“The elevator?” Gates said. “You’re not going back there. That’s depressing.”

“How do you know where I …”

“You mentioned it last night.”

Will groaned softly. He didn’t remember doing that. What had he been thinking?

“Look,” Gates said. “I know we haven’t known each other long, but, I’m not really one for waiting, in general. We need someone like you, someone who knows this school.”

“You want me to be a Saint?”

“I guess we’re stuck with that name, huh?” Gates said. “Anyway, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I think you should run with us in the food drop today.”

Just the thought of being on the quad again, in front of everyone, made Will’s hangover double in intensity.

“You don’t want me in your gang.”

“I do actually, that’s why I’m fuckin’ asking,” Gates said sharply. “We’re the new kids, there’s no hiding it. I can’t lead my people if I don’t know how things work, or if I don’t know who I can trust and who’s trying to hustle us in the market … I don’t know all that stuff. But you do.”

The picture was clear in Will’s head. He was seizing in the middle of the quad, everyone was laughing, and the Saints were walking away from him. It would happen all over again.

“I don’t get it,” Gates said when Will didn’t answer. “You don’t want forty pairs of eyes watching your back from now on? You don’t want to get your respect back? Walk out there with us and you could show all of them that they can’t keep you down.”