Sneak (Swipe Series)

disappeared. But she wouldn’t leave it at that, no, sir! Woman kept diggin’. Come to think of it, that mighta been how she found herself on the River . . .
    “In any case, poor woman dug up some whispers she mighta wished she hadn’t found. Whispers o’ her brother being frozen alive. Kept in some refrigerated cell. Just frozen there to think ’bout what he’d done. Hidden somewhere no one’s ever been found.” The man shook his head. “I don’t remember much else ’bout that story.
    But she did call that place Acheron. I do remember that.”
    “So it is a prison, then,” Blake said. “We weren’t sure . . .”
    The man shrugged. “Ain’t no prison I ever heard of. Not outside that tall tale, anyway. I do wonder, though, where Markless go, when DOME decides they won’t be comin’ home. They sure don’t go to any Marked jail—that much is certain.”
    “What makes you say that?” Peck asked.
    “You kiddin’? What gave you any illusions of Markless bein’ treated fair by DOME? Ain’t no Markless can call himself an A.U. citizen. Ain’t none of us citizens. You kids know that—that’s the whole point.”
    “Yes, sir,” Peck agreed.
    The man shrugged. “Gotta be an A.U. citizen to stay in an A.U. jail.”
    “But . . . we’ve had Markless friends taken by DOME,” Blake said. “I’ve never heard of any special Markless prisons.”
    “Your friends ever make it past the Centers?”
    Blake thought about it.
    “Centers are another matter. Them’s holding places. Markless come and go from Centers all the time, sometimes for questioning, or sometimes ’cause DOME can’t make even the smallest accusations stick. But if there’s a crime, and if that criminal’s a Markless . . .” The captain raised an eyebrow knowingly.
    Blake knew he was right. Joanne’s parents had disappeared without a trace. Others had done the same. Some went into the Centers only soon to be released. But had there ever been a story of a sentenced Markless landing in an A.U. prison? Blake couldn’t think of one, and neither could anyone else.
    “Sure, no one much talks about it. DOME don’t want any o’ its Marked thinkin’ we misers are bein’ mistreated. Not yet anyway. But A.U. prisons are an A.U. right. And you and me ain’t got none o’ those.”
    “Still,” Blake said. “If that’s true . . . how come Acheron isn’t mentioned more often? You’d think it’d be talked about among the Markless . . .”
    The man laughed. “How? Any poor miser who goes in ain’t ever comin’ out! If DOME won’t mention it, and if no one else ever lives to tell about it—well, then there ain’t all that much to talk about, now, is there?” The man shrugged. “ Or might could be Acheron don’t actually exist.” Then the man looked back at them, over his shoulder. “But whaddo I know? I’m just a crazy ol’ captain, chartin’ boats on the driest river man has ever known.” He shook the reins, and Blake watched out the wagon’s back as the man’s horses made waves all along that dusty trail.
    2
    That night Erin was supposed to be packing. But she wasn’t.
    Instead, she lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about how much she wouldn’t miss this place.
    She wouldn’t miss the town.
    She wouldn’t miss the school.
    She wouldn’t miss the apartment.
    She wouldn’t miss not having any friends.
    She certainly wouldn’t miss being stuck with her lunatic father a thousand miles away from her real home and her mother in Beacon.
    She wouldn’t miss the lonely skyline.
    She wouldn’t miss the cold weather . . .
    Erin sat up and walked to the cage her iguana was in. She didn’t let him out. She just stared at him, her face pressed against the glass.
    “I know how you feel in there,” she said. “But we’re not trapped anymore. We did it. We’re going home.” She frowned. “And that was the goal all along, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that all we wanted?”
    Erin waited now for Iggy to respond.
    He didn’t.
    You’re right , Erin thought, not able to say it out loud. That wasn’t really the goal after all, was it? Not by the end .
    The goal was Logan. And he’s as far away now as Beacon was then .
    Erin lifted the lid on Iggy’s cage and picked him up. He waved his tail and flailed his arms as she carried him over to her dresser, where she set him down and let him pace nervously from one side to the other.
    “I’m out of options, little guy. I’m out of ideas. With Logan