They marched her to the rabbit pen, where about fortyhandcuffed Smokies sat inside the wire fence. A dozen or soSpecials stood in a cordon around them, watching theircaptives with empty expressions. By the entrance to thecompound a few rabbits hopped aimlessly, too addled bytheir sudden freedom to make a break for it.
The Special who had captured Tally took her to the endfarthest from the gate, where a handful of Smokies withbloody noses and black eyes were clustered.
“Armed resistor,” he said to the two cruel pretties whoguarded this end of the pen, and shoved her down to theground among the others.
She stumbled and fell onto her back, where her weightstretched the cuffs painfully across her wrists. When shestruggled to turn over, a foot planted itself into her backand pushed her up. For a moment, she thought the shoebelonged to a Special, but it was one of the other Smokies,helping her up the only way he could. She managed to situp cross-legged.
The wounded Smokies around her smiled grimly, noddingencouragement.
“Tally,” someone hissed.
She struggled to turn toward the voice. It was Croy, a cutover his eye bleeding down onto his cheek, one side of hisface covered with dirt. He scooted himself a bit closer. “Youresisted?” he said. “Huh. Guess I was wrong about you.”
Tally could only cough. Traces of the burning pepperseemed stuck in her lungs, like the embers of a fire thatwouldn’t go out. Tears still streamed from her eyes.
“I noticed you slept through breakfast call this morning,”
he said. “Then when the Specials came, I figured you’dpicked an awfully convenient time to disappear.”
She shook her head, forced words through the cindersin her throat. “I was out late with David. That’s all.”
Speaking made her sore jaw ache.
Croy frowned. “I haven’t seen him all morning.”
“Really?” She blinked away tears. “Maybe he got away.”
“I doubt anyone did.” Croy jutted his chin toward thegate of the pen. A large group of Smokies was on its way,guarded by a squad of Specials. Among them, Tally recognizedfaces from those who’d made a stand at the mess hall.
“They’re just mopping up now,” he said.
“Have you seen Shay?”
Croy shrugged. “She was at breakfast when theyattacked, but I lost track of her.”
“What about the Boss?”
298 Scott WesterfeldCroy looked around. “No.”
“I think he got away. He and I made a run together.”
A dark smile crossed Croy’s face. “That’s funny. Healways said he wouldn’t mind getting captured. Somethingabout a face-lift.”
Tally managed to smile. But then she thought about thebrain lesions that went along with becoming pretty, and ashiver passed through her body. She wondered how manyof these captives knew what was really going to happento them.
“Yeah, the Boss was going to give himself up, to help meget away, but I couldn’t have made it through the forest.”
“Why not?”
She wriggled her toes. “No shoes.”
Croy raised an eyebrow. “You picked the wrong day tosleep late.”
“I guess so.”
Outside the overcrowded rabbit pen, the new arrivalswere being organized into groups. A pair of Specials movedthrough the pen, flashing a reader into the bound Smokies’
eyes, taking them outside one by one.
“They must be separating everyone by city,” Croy said.
“Why?”
“To take us home,” he said coldly.
“Home,” she repeated. Just last night, that word hadchanged its meaning in her mind. And now home wasdestroyed. It lay around her in ruins, burning and captured.
UGLIES 299She scanned the captives, looking for Shay and David.
The familiar faces in the crowd were haggard, dirty, crumpledby shock and defeat, but Tally realized that she no longerthought of them as ugly. It was the cold expressions of theSpecials, beautiful though they were, that seemed horrific toher now.
A disturbance caught her eye. Three of the invaderswere carrying a struggling figure, bound hand and foot,through the pen. They marched straight to the resistors’
corner and dumped her onto the ground.
It was Shay.
“Watch this one.”
The two Specials guarding them glanced at the stillwrithing figure. “Armed resistor?” one asked.
There was a pause. Tally saw that o............