Rebellion by Stephanie Diaz Page B

camp. So, officials are less likely to look for me there.
    I force the word out before I can change my mind again: “Okay.”
    “Okay?” Beechy says.
    “I’ll do it.”
    Even if I fail and end up captured, I will be one step closer to Charlie—one step closer to killing the man who has taken almost everything from me. I owe it to Oliver, to Cady, to avenge their deaths. I owe it to everyone Charlie has ever stolen from me.
    “Good,” Beechy says. “As I said, I’ll do my best to protect you.”
    “How come you trust me, even after what I did to Cady?” I blurt out the words. I’m sick of not talking about this. I’m sick of pretending it’s not my fault she’s dead. “You saw what I did in the jet. You saw how I lost control. I … I killed her, Beechy.”
    In the silence, Beechy doesn’t say anything, and his expression is impossible to read. I keep talking because I don’t know what else to do.
    “I didn’t know what I was doing.” The words come out hoarse, like I’m wrenching them from my lungs. “I started hallucinating and I thought I was back in Karum. I thought Charlie was strangling me, and I couldn’t do anything to stop him. But I need to stop him. He needs to lose something, since he’s stolen so many people from us.”
    “He will.” Beechy moves closer to me. His palm touches my cheek, gently guiding my face to look at his.
    My eyes water, but the warmth of his hand helps me focus. The emergency lights turn his normally brown eyes a shade of midnight blue, making me think of the sky I sometimes wish would swallow me whole.
    “We’ll beat him,” Beechy says softly. “You and I. All of us, together. But only if we don’t fall apart.”
    “It’s hard not to.”
    “I know.” He presses his fingertips into my cheek, then lets his hand fall away.
    Silently, I promise myself I won’t cry for a long time, maybe not ever again after we leave the KIMO facility. I need to shed my weak skin and put on armor, or there’s no way I’ll survive.
    In my next breath, I make a decision. Wiping my eyes, I push past Beechy until I reach the wall of compartments. I open them until I find a medikit with a small pair of scissors inside. The blades seem a bit dull, but they’ll have to do.
    I put the medikit back where it goes and walk down the perpendicular corridor to the passenger bunk room. There’s a mirror inside. The light is dim, as it is everywhere, but there’s enough of it for me to make out my reflection. I pull the elastic band out of my hair and watch my curls fall down. They’re longer than they used to be; the tips reach well past my shoulders.
    I open the scissors and slide the blades between my hair, lining them up with the base of my neck and moving them higher. Shorter is best. Short like a boy, so hopefully I’ll be harder to recognize.
    I make the first cut to my hair, then the second. Again and again, keeping my hands as steady as I’m able. Beechy helps me cut the back straight.
    When we’re finished, my reflection stares back at me, unfamiliar. She looks uncertain at first, fingering the short ends of her hair.
    Slowly, the edges of her lips curve upward. When she smiles like that, she looks braver than I feel, but maybe that’s all that matters.

 
    7
    When I return to my bunk room around four thirty in the morning, the compound is starting to wake up. All my roommates’ beds are empty; they’re probably in the mess hall. Logan is rubbing his eyes and pulling on his boots in the dim light from the space heater.
    He looks up after I walk in.
    “Hey,” I say.
    He opens his mouth to reply, but freezes as soon as he notices what’s different about me. My cheeks flush under his gaze.
    My hair isn’t just shorter; it’s also blonder now. I spent the last half hour soaking my curls with bleaching chemicals Beechy helped me find in the storage room, to better my disguise. It’s not foolproof, since the color won’t last forever and there’s not an easy way for