Quarantine #2: The Saints by Lex Thomas Read Free Book Online

man on the roof, who had the graduation booth’s screen perched on a folding chair at the ledge. It had a circuit board and bushel of stray wires on the back of it. The man tilted his helmet down at Kemper and gave him a thumbs-up.
    “Okay, thumbs-up, that means you’re good, and so … that’s it. Pretty simple, right? Unless you get the thumbs-down. Then, I guess … I don’t know, better luck next time.” Kemper laughed. “I’ll keep thinking on this whole setup though. Maybe … Maybe I’ll stick around out there and noodle with some other ways to make graduation more—”
    “Kemper,” one of the Nerds interrupted. “You gotta go.”
    Kemper pursed his lips, then nodded. “Right. Okay. Well … Bye-bye, everybody.”
    Kemper gave the man a thumbs-up. The crane started and the cable jerked him upward. Kemper waved to his gang. They cheered for him. He raised his fists in victory. A little higher up, his stare became fixed on one spot. Lucy followed his gaze to Violent.
    Kemper waved to Violent, and smiled at her. Violent’s face was still as stone. She gave Kemper no emotion back, but it didn’t seem to bother him. The two of them held eye contact for a long time, way too long for it to mean nothing. Kemper ascended by cable, smiling the whole way, cheerful until the very end. He rose twenty feet above the quad’s walls, before the crane arm began to turn, and he was slowly swung out of view.
    Lucy looked over at Violent again. When other people’s dye jobs had faded over the hard times, Violent had maintained hers. Her hair was a deep shade of red. The rumor was that Violent soaked her hair in blood once a week. Some said she drew the blood from the boys she hooked up with. Others said that the Sluts had to donate their blood every Sunday, and Violent would boil it all in a big steel soup pot that she stirred with a rusty knife, until the blood was a dense crimson sludge that she would smear through her hair.
    A year ago, Lucy probably would have believed thoserumors. But she’d seen Violent cry. She’d seen her care about her friends. Violent wasn’t some vampire bathing in blood. She was another kid stuck in here like everyone else. Still, she was doing a lot better job of surviving in this place than Lucy was. Violent was the leader of her own gang of fighters, and everyone in school was scared of her.
    Violent snapped her eyes over at Lucy. Lucy looked to the ground out of instinct, then felt stupid for doing it. She gradually lifted her eyes again. Violent waved her over.
    Lucy looked to the Loners around her and then slipped away from Will and the others as they were starting to take bets over whether Kemper would actually stick around outside the walls like he’d said or get the hell out of Colorado and never look back.
    As Lucy got closer to Violent and the Sluts, she got more uncomfortable. Violent looked so mean. Her electrical tape eyebrows were cut into particularly angry arches today. She had scabs on her knuckles. A bone in her forearm jutted out like it was broken; it must have healed that way.
    “Juicy Lucy,” Violent said with a smile. She fixed Lucy with a drawn-out stare. “You look scared.”
    “No.”
    “You’re not hard to read. It’s in the way you carry yourself. But that’s fine, you should be scared.” She gestured toward the Loners. “How long do you really think that’s gonna last?”
    Lucy looked back to Will and the tiny group. “What are you talking about?”
    “It’s not just me. The whole school’s talking. No one thinks the Loners are gonna make it to the next food drop.”
    “Is that all? You want to tell me I’m ugly too?”
    Violent sighed. “Look, you handled yourself well in the Nerd’s hallway. That’s a fact.”
    Lucy wasn’t expecting that. It wasn’t every day that the toughest girl in school gave you a compliment. Lucy was surprised at the pride she felt. She stood a little straighter. Violent looked all around Lucy’s face