UnDivided by Neal Shusterman Page A

painful, because it is. Little blond Jesus crucified in a big steel box. Letting his head fall completely slack completes the illusion.
    â€œYou look positively helpless,” Una said when she stood back to look at him, “but still a little clean, even with the blood on your wrist.”
    So he squirmed and writhed, getting rust and grime all over his clothes, and kicked off a shoe to make it seem as if he’d lost it while struggling.
    â€œI’ll keep it up until I break a good sweat,” he told her, which was not hard to do considering that the container was oppressively hot.
    Una went to meet their marks, and Lev was left alone with the stench and his thoughts.
    That was over an hour ago.
    He’s been alone in here for way too long.
    It’s after dark now. The half-light spilling through therust holes has given way to darkness as thick as tar. He has a moment of panic when he imagines the impossible—that the two parts pirates have killed Una. He wouldn’t put it past them. That would truly leave Lev imprisoned here with no means of escape. If that happened, then this container would be his tomb. That’s when the rats would come.
    But no. He can’t let himself think that way. Una will be back. All will go according to plan.
    Unless it doesn’t.
    He shakes his head in the dark, banishing his anxious thoughts. With his arms secured so uncomfortably, he knows time feels like it’s dragging much more slowly than it actually is. He remembers another time he was bound like this, and for much longer. Nelson had held him and Miracolina captive in an isolated cabin. He was bound to a bed frame with cable ties similar to the ones on his wrists now, only that time it was for real. Nelson had played Russian roulette with them; five bullets in his clip were tranqs, and the sixth was deadly. No way of knowing when the killer bullet would come up. He didn’t fire at Lev, though—he shot Miracolina each time Lev gave Nelson an answer he didn’t like, and each time she was tranq’d into unconsciousness once more.
    In the silence of the steel container, Lev’s mind now takes him to alternate realities. What if Nelson had killed Miracolina? What would Lev have done then? Would he have had the wherewithal to escape, or would the burden of her death weigh so heavily upon him that it would have crippled him?
    And where would Connor be now, if Lev never got free from Nelson? Dead or in prison, probably. Or in a harvest camp, waiting until one of the proposed laws passes that allows the unwinding of criminals.
    But Miracolina survived and helped him get to the airplane graveyard. He rescued Connor from the Juvies and from Nelson.He did good. He wishes he could tell Miracolina all the good he’s done—but he has no idea where she is, or if she even escaped.
    He still cares for Miracolina, and thinks about her often—but so much has transpired in the weeks since he last saw her, it feels like another lifetime. She had been a tithe, which means she might be unwound by now if she held to the ideals she had when they first met. Lev can only hope that his influence had eroded her dangerously self-sacrificing resolve, but there’s no way to know. Maybe someday he will track her down and find out what happened to her, but personal curiosity is a luxury he can’t afford right now. For the time being, Miracolina Roselli must remain on his list of “maybe somedays.”
    He hears a bolt thrown, and the creaking of heavy hinges. The doors at the front of the container open just enough to admit a streak of pale moonlight, and three figures enter. Lev slumps, feigning unconsciousness. Through his closed eyes, he registers the glow of a flashlight against his face.
    â€œThat’s not him, look at his hair!”
    â€œHair grows, you imbecile.”
    He recognizes their voices right away: Fretwell, the lackluster one, and Hennessey, the one-eared ringleader with