Downburst by Katie Robison

wrist. Then she slides her finger over the screen of my watch. Suddenly, the 6:34 is replaced by something else. The temperature. Then the date. Then my bunk assignment. Finally, a 273 appears on the band.
    “Two-seventy-three. That’s too bad,” Lila says. “I’m one-fifty-eight.”
    I don’t know what to say. What exactly is this thing on my wrist? And why is my number bad?
    “Should we go to dinner?” Lila asks.
    “Sure,” I stutter. I climb out of bed and twirl my hair into a bun. I can tell without looking that I didn’t do a good job.
    When she sees my bandaged hands, Lila suggests we walk instead of use the pole. As we plod down the ramp, I notice that most of the bunks have received occupants while I’ve been asleep. Not all of them though.
    Lila points to one of the empty beds. “Guess my sister was right,” she says. “She told me there’s at least one person from every group who doesn’t make it.”
    I purse my lips together and breathe out slowly. There must be a logical explanation—Lila doesn’t seem concerned. But neither did Jeremy when he said no one would come looking for us.
    “All part of keeping the testing grounds hidden,” Lila chirps. “The year my grandfather came to the camp was the year they caught the spy. He got to watch them torture her until she broke. The whole camp did!”
    What! The floor dips away from me, and I almost trip.
    “Torture?” I stutter.
    “Yeah, you know—when someone impersonated an initiate? They started with her fingers.”
    This time I do trip.
    “Are you okay?” Lila asks as I scramble back up.
    “Yeah, I’m fine.” I try to swallow, but my throat is too dry. Will they torture me if they find out I’m not Aura? I blink rapidly to control the dizziness, and when we walk across the rope bridge from wakemo fourteen to wakemo thirteen, I have to fight to keep my lunch down.
    As I stagger across the wooden slats, I notice a gleam on the forest floor. I peer over the rope railing at a boy standing on the ground below. He raises his hand, and all I see is a blur of metal whirring through the air before a tomahawk sinks into the tree in front of him. He walks over to the trunk and yanks the weapon free then runs his finger across the blade. Suddenly, I see the switchblade in the Shredder’s hand, see my fingers being chopped off, and the boy and the ground whirl away from me. A blend of sandwich and apple leaps into my throat.
    I clamp my teeth together and straighten up quickly. Lila’s curls bounce in and out of focus as I stumble after her. I turn my head to the right and then the left, taking in the wilderness that rolls out on all sides of the camp for hundreds of miles. If they decide to torture and kill me, no one would ever know about it.
    I make it to the dining hall without throwing up, but the pressure in my stomach tells me I won’t be able to eat a thing. I look around the room, full of initiates now, all of them wearing brown, beige, or green, laughing and joking just like the counselors had been. Some of them have wet, recently showered hair. Others are still dusty and sweaty, as if they’ve only just arrived. I notice dimly that the check-in tables have been moved elsewhere, probably so that late arrivals won’t have to fight their way through the crowd.
    The mob is gathered around a large buffet table brimming with food. While we wait in line, my eyes dart rapidly in all directions, refusing to focus on any one object. It’s then that I detect the retractable metal curtains along the tops of the windows. This room can become like the steel room downstairs. I scoop some mashed potatoes onto my plate and attempt to ignore the buzzing in my ears.
    There are hundreds of people, and as we look for a seat, I try to invent names for some of them, but I can’t concentrate long enough. Instead, I scan the faces of the initiates around me and look for Charity. I don’t see her, but I do spot Gander—and Dee and Dum. So they did make