I sighed. "I wish I knew."

"What's his name?" Her eyes were twinkling now.

"Blake."

"Blake. He sounds cute." She grinned. "Bet he misses you." She pinched my arm. "Bet he sleeps with your picture under his pillow."

I glanced around. The last thing I needed was to give the bullies another excuse to tease me. "I don't think he has my picture," I said quietly.

"Not even on his phone?"

I looked up. She was right. He'd taken one on his cell phone, that first day at the ranch.

"Yeah, he does." I smiled.

"See." She reached up and pinched my nose. "Told ya so." Then a look came over her face like she remembered something. "How do I look?"

"Why?"

"Oh, no reason."

I shook my head. "Sara, does this have anything to do with what you told me before? About a man coming here?"

"Maybe."

"Did you hear the name Prime Destinations?"

"I'm not saying." But she smiled.

"Sara ..." I buried my face in my hands.

"I really hope I get picked," she whispered.

My throat tightened. "When is he coming?"

"Soon. Is it true no one has seen his face, like, ever?"

I nodded.

"So what will he do, wear a bag over his head?"

"Maybe a mask."

"Like Halloween?"

I took her by the shoulders. "Where's the best place to hide here?"

"In the institution? Easy. The laundry room. It's buried in a funny corner of the basement, past the emergency exit. I hid there once to get out of garbage detail."

"What would you say if I told you I knew about Prime, that I'd been there before, and it's a bad place? You could lose your body forever."

She squinted, as if I was giving her a headache. "What are you talking about?"

"Just trust me. You have to hide when they come to pick out the girls."

"Hide? Why? It's my best hope of getting out of here."

I was about to tell her about how they had operated on my brain when a bell rang. Mrs. Beatty stood by the yard entrance staring a hole in me.

"Please. Think about what I said. I have to go."

"Already?"

"I only get twenty minutes. I'm the bad girl, remember?"

"Wait." She reached in her pocket and pulled out a tissue. Inside was something dark.

"What is it?"

"What's left of the Supertruffle you gave me." She smiled and offered it to me.

That had been days ago. The truffle had become dry and hard. I remembered it falling. She must have picked it up and saved it for herself to enjoy, little by little. And now she was giving it to me.

She placed it in my palm. I stared at it a moment.

"Go on, don't be shy," she said.

"Don't you want ...?" I gestured to it.

"No, no, you have it all."

I gingerly bit into the dried Supertruffle, hoping not to break a tooth. "Crunchy."

She beamed. Then she threw her arms around my neck and gave me a big hug.

"Is it selfish to say I'm glad you're here?" she said. "Because I am. I thought I'd never see you again and now here you are. My friend."

I smiled as best I could with my mouth full of brittle crumbs.

Sara was the one bright light in my day; the rest of it was agonizing. I lay on the cold floor thinking about Tyler, wondering where he could be and whether he was getting worse. I could handle this, no blanket and all, but he couldn't. Was he locked up in an institution like this one? Or was he with the Old Man?

I also thought about Blake and the time we had shared, and whether he'd ever find it in himself to forgive me. But the princess had lost her beautiful clothes, and her chariot, and had found herself imprisoned in the dungeon for life. The fairy tale was over. No prince was ever coming to rescue a princess who had tried to kill his grandfather.

The next day, I counted the hours until exercise period. When a guard came to escort me to the yard, I noted how his ZipTaser gun sat in the holster on his hip and imagined how I might steal it. But even if I did, I would have a swarm of guards on me, with many more ZipTasers. And a long way to the exit, where the gate was controlled by another guard. My odds of escaping were so small, there probably wasn't a fraction to express them.

And I wouldn't want to leave 37 anyway, not until I was positive that Tyler wasn't here.

Once I was in the yard, I scanned the faces, looking for Sara. Girls bumped me, and someone even slapped me hard on the back. I moved away. I stood in the corner where I'd seen Sara the previous day, and soon she appeared.

"Did you find out anything about my brother?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Sorry. But maybe he's here. Maybe they changed his name."

That thought just burned me up. Changing his name. Could they take anything else away from him? Where was he? Who was he with?

"Cheer up, Callie. I'll show you something."

She took my hand and led me to a barred opening in the wall. After she glanced around, making sure no one was watching, she squatted and pulled me down with her.

"Look," she whispered.

We peered out the opening and stared at a black bug of a heli-transport on the grass in the main quad. Beyond the heli, a tall metal ladder leaned against the external wall that separated the grounds from the outside. For a second, a delicious second, I imagined it as a means to escape. Except that there was an Ender standing on the thick wall, repairing the barbed wire that topped it.

Sara looked in the direction of a guard across the yard who was staring at us and pulled me up.

"That's the Old Man's heli," she said.

The Old Man. Here. My heart beat faster. Did he have my brother?

"Are you sure?"

"I heard the guards talking," she said. "They said no one could see his face. He wore a hat that covered it like this." She fanned her thin fingers and made a brim around her head.

She was smiling. The thought made me sick. "You're going to go with him, aren't you? I can't talk you out of it?"

"You're joking. I'd do anything to get out of here. And you come too. You're definitely pretty enough." She touched my cheek.

"Sara, would it be dangerous if anyone hit you, like on your chin? Or your nose? I mean, because of your heart condition."

She squinted. "No." Her eyes searched my face. "Why?"

I took a deep breath. "I really like you. Please remember that. Understand that whatever I do, it's because I'm trying to protect you."

She cocked her head at me, curious. Her innocence made it all the harder to do what I knew I had to. I pulled back my arm, curled my fingers into a tight fist, and punched her straight in the face.

"Ow!" she shouted. She fell backward on the ground. "Why?"

She got up and put her hand to her nose. Blood trickled from beneath it.

"I'm really sorry," I whispered.

And I hit her again to be sure.

This time, she didn't fall. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked so hurt, so betrayed, it cut me to the core. Girls around us stopped and stared. They asked what happened.

"I hit her," I said as loudly as I could without screaming.

Some called for a fight. The bully girl with the scarred hand came pushing through the crowd. I turned to face her and braced myself for what was to come.

Go ahead, do it fast, I thought.

I made no attempt to stop her. She reached into her pocket, then pulled out her fist. Something on her hand glinted in the sun. She punched me hard in my right cheek.

It stung. I reeled back but steadied myself. I took a quick look to make sure no one was coming at me from behind-I didn't want anyone hitting the back of my head-and went back for more. Suspicion darkened her face, but she hit me again, this time in the jaw, and one of my teeth was ripped out of my mouth.

The pain reached all the way back to my eye sockets.

I saw then that she had some metal rings wrapped around her fingers. Good, that had to have done serious damage. Some of the girls yelled warnings that the guards were coming. The bully slipped the metal device back into her pocket.

Sara stood a few feet away, crying, blood running down her face. I was happy to see that her eyes were already swelling up. My own face stung like I'd been hit by a cast-iron skillet. The bully came at me again, pulling my hair and dragging me to the ground. The guards ran over, swinging batons at anyone in their way. They hit the bully in the back and yanked her off me. Another guard hit me in the stomach.

I couldn't breathe. I fell to my knees from the blow.

A metallic taste filled my mouth.

Mrs. Beatty pushed through the crowd. I had thought her face couldn't get any uglier, but when she saw the blood, her expression was all wrinkles and frown lines.

"Girls. Not now," she said. "Just when we have a visitor."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

A guard accompanied Sara and me to the infirmary. If I did want to escape, this would be a good time, with one guard and two girls, but Sara probably wasn't in the mood to help me with anything at this point.

She held a cold cloth to her face. She was crying. "I thought you liked me. What did I do to you?"

I couldn't say anything in front of the guard. When the doctor saw me again, he showed no emotion, just a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

The doctor pointed to a stainless steel exam table, and the guard put Sara on it. I sat on the adjacent one. The guard explained the situation and said he would stay to make sure there wasn't any more trouble.

"That won't be necessary," the doctor said.

The guard insisted that Mrs. Beatty wanted him to stay and the doctor shrugged it off, as if it didn't matter. But I had the impression that it did.

"So let me take a look at you," the doctor said to Sara.

"She hit me. Hard."

"I can see that. And she's bigger than you." He touched her nose gingerly with his thumb and forefinger.

"Can you fix me?" Sara asked.

"I'll do my best." He moved over to me, turning my face. "That cut on your mouth will need stitches. Your jaw took a pretty good beating. But the back of your head is fine."