UnStrung by Neal Shusterman, Michelle Knowlden

that lowlifes and runaways don’t. We knew the truth without you saying a thing.”
    Starkey tries to move, but he can barely lift his limbs.
    “Don’t,” says a girl he can’t see from somewhere behind him. “Don’t move or I’ll zap you even worse than the wallet did.”
    Starkey knows he’s fallen for a parts pirate’s trap. He thought he was smarter, and he silently curses his luck . . . until the man who pretended to be drunk says, “You’ll like this safe house. Good food, even if it does smell a little.”
    “Wh-what?”
    Laughs from everyone around him. There may be four or five people in the van. But his vision still isn’t clear enough to get an accurate count.
    “I love that look on their faces,” the woman says. Now she comes into his field of vision and grins at him. “You know how they tranq escaped lions so they can bring them back to safety before they get themselves in a heap of trouble?” she says. “Well, today you’re the lion.”
     
    PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
    “Hi, kids! Watchdog Walter here, eyes open and nose to the ground! Not everyone can be a bloodhound like me, but now you can join my Junior Watchdog Club! You’ll receive your own Junior Watchdog kit, and a monthly newsletter with games and tips on spotting crime in your own neighborhood, from suspicious strangers to Unwind ‘danger-houses!’ With you on the job, bad guys and AWOLs don’t stand a chance! So join today! And remember, Junior Watchdogs—eyes open and nose to the ground!”
    Sponsored by Neighborhood Watch Inc.
     
    The safe house is a sewer pump station. Automated. No city workers ever show up unless something breaks.
    “You get used to the smell,” Starkey is told as they bring him in, which he finds hard to believe—but it turns out to be true. Apparently one’s sense of smell realizes it’s going to lose the battle and just goes with it—and, as they told him in the van, the food makes up for it.
    The whole place is a petri dish of angst, generated by kids whose parents gave up on them, which is the worst kind of angst there is. There are fights and ridiculous posturing on a daily basis.
    Starkey’s always been a natural leader among sketchy outcasts and borderline personalities, and the safe house is no exception. He quickly rises in the social ranks. Word of his escape act is already churning out smoke in the rumor mill, helping his status from the very beginning.
    “Is it true you shot two Juvey-cops?”
    “Yep.”
    “Is it true you shot your way out of lockup with a machine gun?”
    “Sure, why not?”
    And the best part is that the storked kids—who, even among Unwinds, are treated like second-class citizens—are now the elite, thanks to him!
    Starkey says the storks get served first? They get served first. Starkey says they get the best beds, farthest from the stinking vents? They get the best beds. His word is law. Even those running the place know that Starkey is their greatest asset, and they know to keep him happy, because if he becomes an enemy, then every Unwind there is an enemy too.
    He starts to settle in, figuring he’ll be there until he’s seventeen—but then in the middle of the night they’rerounded up and taken away by the ADR—shuffled like a deck of cards to different safe houses.
    “This is the way it works,” they’re all told. The reason, Starkey comes to understand, is twofold. One, it keep the kids moving closer to their destination, wherever that might be. Two, it splits them apart to keep any alliances from becoming permanent. Kind of like unwinding the mob rather than the individuals to keep them in line.
    Their plan, however, backfires with Starkey, because in each safe house he manages to earn respect, building his credibility among more and more kids. In each new location he comes across Unwinds who fancy themselves alpha males, trying to take charge, but in truth they’re just betas waiting for an alpha to humble them into submission.
    In every