WITH her skirt hitched up around her thighs, Rosa disappeared between the two buildings. The guards shouted things, words I couldn’t make out because the adrenaline was already roaring through my body. One immediately tore after her. Another picked up his radio and gave a few clipped orders before following. The girls whispered feverishly, but no one moved.
The blood pounded through my temples. Where was she going? Had she seen an exit I hadn’t?
The thought hit me that I should run the other direction. Rosa had distracted the guards and the rest of the seventeens; they might not notice if I slipped away. I could race back up the stairs toward the front gate and… and then what? Hide in the bushes until a car came through and sneak out behind it? Right. No one would notice that. The bus ride hadn’t revealed any signs of civilization since before dawn, and it wasn’t like I could walk down the highway wearing a reform-school uniform without someone reporting me.
Think!
A telephone. There had to be one in the dormitory. Or maybe in the medical clinic. Yes! The staff would need one in case someone was seriously injured. The clinic was close; we’d passed it just minutes ago. It was right beside that brick building with the fire hydrant.
All eyes were still trained on the alley between the buildings where Rosa had disappeared. Even the guards that remained close by were looking that way. The air prickled. I took a slow step back, the grass crunching beneath my newly issued black flats. It was now or never.
Then a hand clamped down hard on my arm. When I spun right, Rebecca’s blue eyes were sending ice cold darts through me. Her fury was surprising. I hadn’t thought she’d had it in her.
No, she mouthed to me. I tried to shake her off, but she grasped me harder. I could feel her nails digging into my skin. Her skin had whitened in reflection of the morning sun.
“Let go,” I said in a low voice.
“They got her!” someone cried.
All the girls, Rebecca and myself included, inched curiously toward the break between the buildings. I’d managed to rid myself of my roommate’s grip, but it hardly mattered now. The moment had passed. The guards were watching us now that Rosa had been captured. If any of us felt inspired to follow in her footsteps, they were ready. Rebecca had ruined my chances.
I pushed between two girls and saw Rosa, twenty feet in front of me, cornered inside the dead end of the alleyway, trapped. Our two line guards were trying to box her in. They held their arms out wide and low, like they were herding a chicken. Rosa shrieked as she burst through them up the middle, back toward the wide-eyed group of seventeens. The ugly soldier beat her there. He rammed into her from the side and sent her sprawling to the ground.
“No!” I shouted, struggling to reach her. A new guard blocked my way. The skin was tightly stretched across his face, and his insidious glare gave me chills.
Try it, he seemed to say, and you’ll be next.
Everyone watched as the jeering, pock-faced Randolph contained the flailing Rosa with a knee, harshly planted between her shoulder blades. After catching his breath, he hauled her body to a stand and locked her hands behind her back with a zip tie.
And then he hit her.
My belly filled with horror as blood spewed from Rosa’s nose and painted her dark skin. I would have screamed if I’d had the breath. I’d never in my life seen a man hit a woman. I knew Roy had hit my mom. I’d seen the aftereffects. But never the actual act. It was more violent than anything I could have imagined.
And then it hit me, like a punch to my face. If this was what could happen to us, to the girls in rehab, what were they doing to the people who actually committed the so-called crimes? What had Chase done to us? The urgency to flee grew even stronger. I was more afraid for my mother than ever before.
“She’s crazy,” I heard one of the seventeens say.
“She’s crazy?” I said in disbelief. “Did you not see that he just—”
The girls beside me parted silently as Ms. Brock pushed her way through. She stared at Rosa, then at me. My blood turned to ice.
“That he just what, dear?” she asked me, brows raised in either cold curiosity or challenge, I couldn’t tell.
“He… he hit her,” I said, immediately wishing I hadn’t spoken at all.
“And placated the beastly child, thank God,” she spouted with feigned relief. I felt my mouth go very dry.
She assessed Rosa down her pointy little nose for several seconds, clicking her tongue inside her mouth. “Banks, take Ms. Montoya to lower campus please.”
“Yes ma’am.” The sandy-haired guard shoved Rosa past me, leaving her attacker behind smirking with satisfaction. I tried to meet Rosa’s eyes, but she still appeared dazed. The ripe twinge of blood elicited a wave of bile up my throat.
And then Ms. Brock turned, humming, and walked away.
WE spent the next hours in silent meditation. Class, they called it. Where we sat on stiff-backed wooden chairs and read until our eyes crossed, while cow-eyed attendants occasionally interjected comments like “Heads down,” and “Don’t slouch.”
I was afraid for Rosa. They hadn’t brought her back. Whatever was happening to her was taking a long time.
The guard Banks had returned, and he and Scary Randolph patrolled the rows, deterring any notion of escape or misconduct. None of the other girls whispered now. They seemed shaken by the morning’s events and were on their best behavior.
Because no one, not even Rebecca, would pass me a sidelong glance to validate the craziness of the situation, I read. Nothing fictional like Shelley’s Frankenstein, or even the Shakespeare we’d been reading in English. Nothing that in some way might have transported me from this hell.
We read the Statutes. I’d read them only halfheartedly in school, but now, as my eyes tumbled over the words again and again, I knew they would be seared into my brain forever.
Article 1 denied individuals the right to practice or “display propaganda” associated with an alternative religion to Church of America. Apparently this included taking off school for Passover, like Katelyn Meadows had done.
Article 2 banned all immoral paraphernalia and 3 defined the “Whole Family” as one man, one woman, and children. Traditional male and female roles were outlined in Article 4. The importance of a woman’s subservience. The necessity for her to respect her male partner while he, in turn, supported the family as the provider and spiritual leader.
I thought again of my mom’s one-time boyfriend. Roy had been neither a provider nor a spiritual leader, and when I searched for some clause prohibiting domestic violence, I found no mention of it, not even in Article 6, which outlawed divorce, and gambling, and everything else from subversive speech to owning a firearm. How pathetically predictable.
Article 5 I memorized. Children are considered valid citizens when conceived by a married husband and wife. All other children are to be removed from the home and subjected to rehabilitation procedures.
All the Articles had one thing in common: Violation permitted full prosecution by the Federal Bureau of Reformation.
But what did that mean, prosecution? Rehab? I wondered if my mother was in a room like I was in right now, reading the Statutes, or if she was awaiting trial, possibly even in jail. I wondered if Chase had let her go, and if she was already waiting at home for me to call her and tell her where I was.
I raised my hand.
The Sister at the front of the room rose from her desk and walked toward me. Up close, I could see that she was younger than I had originally suspected. Maybe in her mid-thirties. But her gray peppered hair and drooping eyelids made her appear much older.
A sick shudder passed through me. The Sisters did to women what the MM did to men: tore away the soul and brainwashed what was left.
“Yes?” she said, not quite meeting my eyes.
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” Rebecca, who was seated in front of me, flinched but did not look back.
“All right. Randolph, please escort Ms. Miller to the restroom.”
“I can find it on my own,” I said quickly, blushing. What am I, five years old?
“It’s procedure,” she said, and returned to her desk.
I stood, nervously biting my lower lip. I didn’t want to go anywhere with this soldier alone. Even if he hadn’t punched Rosa, he was too creepy.
Silently, he led me from the building, taking care not to stand directly in front of me, but at a slight angle so I was always in his peripheral vision. As we walked, an image of Chase filled my mind—Chase the soldier, in a uniform like Randolph’s, carrying the same baton, the same gun. What was he doing now? Was he with my mother? Was he willing to stand before Morris’s raised weapon for her, the way he’d done for me? Because no one here had blocked Randolph’s fists.
I shut him firmly from my mind.
We left the classroom and proceeded down a linoleum-floored hallway toward the main entrance. Sun filtered through the windows. It looked almost summery outside.
There was a women’s restroom just inside the front doors. I ducked in, waiting for a moment to make sure that Randolph wasn’t going to follow me in. When he didn’t, I darted over to the toilet and removed the porcelain lid to the tank.
There’s one thing I can say about living without a father: You learn to problem-solve a lot of home-repair jobs on your own. It only took a second for me to unhook the chain, allowing the water to refill the tank, and lightly replace the lid.
A moment later I was back in the hallway.
“The toilet’s broken,” I told him. As I expected, he pushed past me to check for himself.
Apparently Randolph had not grown up living month-to-month on government checks. His family probably could afford to call the plumber. Densely, he flicked the handle several times, and sure enough, the toilet did not flush. He didn’t even bother lifting the lid to check the chain.
“Isn’t there another one?” I whined.
He nodded, radioing in the problem as we headed outside. The fresh air prickling through the loosely woven sweater gave me a rush. We turned left outside of the building and followed the stone path back around toward where Rosa had run several hours ago.
“There!” I said, walking more quickly past the alleyway where I could still see Randolph hitting her. “The clinic will have a restroom, won’t it?”
We were only twenty yards away. A dubious look crossed his face, and for a moment I thought he would argue just so I wouldn’t dictate our course. But then he seemed to realize the inconsequentiality of my request, and we veered toward the clinic.
The waiting room was small and sterile and smelled vaguely of cleaning products. My shoes squeaked across the shiny floor as he pushed past a counter where a brunette nurse was reading the Bible. She looked up but didn’t ask any questions as I made my way across the short hallway.
I found what I was looking for on the counter of a blood-draw station, right between a mini fridge and a plastic box of alcohol swabs and plastic syringes. A telephone. My heart leapt in anticipation.
As nonchalantly as I could, I entered the bathroom and closed the door, racking my brain for ways to distract the nurse and my evil guard. I didn’t have to think long. There was a noise outside, loud enough that I could hear it through both the bathroom and outer clinic walls. It was a screeching sound, like a car makes when someone hits the breaks too fast, originating from that building next door with the fire hydrant. But when I heard it again, I wasn’t so sure that the sound wasn’t human. My heart rate quickened. It felt like someone was gripping my spine. I forced myself to focus on the task at hand.
I cracked the door and saw that both Randolph and the nurse had gone into the waiting area. Seizing my chance, I sprinted around the restroom door and into the small booth where the nurses drew blood. A second later the phone was in my hand.
A scuffle on the floor startled me. I jumped, spinning around, and saw Randolph two feet behind me. Staring. The phone clattered against the countertop.
“Go ahead,” he offered. He’d known exactly what I wanted to do.
I sensed this was a trick, but the offer was too tempting to refuse.
I snatched the phone and lifted it to my ear. There was a clicking noise, and then a man picked up.
“Main gate, this is Broadbent.”
Randolph smirked. I turned away from him.
“Yes, can you connect me to Louisville?” I said urgently.
“Who is this?”
“Please, I need to dial out!”
There was a stretch of silence.
“There is no line out. The phones only connect within the facility. How did you get this number?”
My hands were trembling. Randolph snatched the telephone away and hung up, a self-righteous sneer on his face.
A veil of hopelessness fell over me.
THE hours passed. Randolph had decided to keep a closer watch on me based on my stunt in the clinic, and though I was allowed to go with the other seventeens to the cafeteria, I was permitted only water. No lunch. No dinner. Watching them eat was torturous, but I refused to show Randolph or Ms. Brock or even Rebecca that I was bothered.
I’d gone stretches like this without eating before. There had been a few months during the War before the soup kitchen opened when the only meal I could count on was my government-issued school lunch. I’d always saved three-quarters of it: half for my mom, and what little there was left—an apple, a pack of peanut-butter crackers maybe—for dinner. The gnawing hunger I felt now reminded me of my days rib-counting in front of the bathroom sink.
With a sharp pang I wondered if my mother had eaten today. If it was a sandwich—she liked sandwiches—or something off the line at the soup kitchen. For my sanity, I banished this from my mind. But other forbidden thoughts surfaced.
Chase. The same question, over and over. How could he? He’d known us all his life. Had he honestly thought when he’d promised to return to me that it would be like this?
But that was the problem. He hadn’t returned. Not really. That soldier at my doorstep had been a stranger.
In the evening I was permitted to go to the common room with the other seventeens, and was alarmed to learn that Rosa was still not back from her punishment. I wondered if she had a concussion, then I thought of the empty girl we’d seen this morning and worried that Rosa had been injured worse.
While I agonized over these thoughts, Rebecca recited with a sickening amount of enthusiasm the school rules for the new people. Then we prayed. At least, they prayed. I continued to ruminate anxiously.
Before we were excused, the guard announced that there was one final issue to attend to. I cannot say exactly why, but I knew from the moment Ms. Brock set foot into the room that she meant to harm me.
“Ladies,” she began slowly.
“Good evening,” several of them chimed, Rebecca included. I said nothing.
“There was another incident today. A breach in the rules. Those of you who have been with us some time will know how we handle these issues, yes?”
I concentrated on sitting tall, with my chin lifted and my eyes fixed on the witch that moved soundlessly before me. Apparently starvation had not been enough; she meant to humiliate me publicly for the telephone incident. She could do whatever she wanted. I refused to show her I was afraid. Someone needed to stand up to the school-yard bully.
The next thing I knew, Randolph was yanking me out of my chair. He dragged me over to a side table in the common room, testing my commitment to be brave.
“But Ember is new, Ms. Brock!”
Rebecca could not completely sugarcoat the defiance in her tone. Her face was streaked with red. I was shocked that she was defending me.
“She is entitled to a probation period while she learns the rules. Ma’am,” she added as an afterthought.
Another guard placed himself between us. The girls were staring from their SA, to me, to Brock in quick succession. No one spoke.
Ms. Brock glared at my roommate for several seconds. I held my breath. I didn’t want Rebecca’s support, but I sensed it was better to keep my mouth shut.
Finally Ms. Brock exhaled loudly through her nostrils.
“You’ve worked quickly, Ms. Miller,” she said. Her harsh stare traveled to Rebecca. “Like a virus, infecting our brightest. But you see,” she announced to the rest of the room, “Ms. Miller has already attacked a soldier, and her actions today cannot go unpunished.” The other girls were watching, some in shock, several now in interest. It was sickening.
“Here, Ms. Miller.”
Ms. Brock motioned to the table, sidling around to the opposite side. Randolph stepped behind me and removed the baton from his belt. He had an absent, almost dead look in his eyes. My breath quickened.
“Would you like to tell the other seventeens how you broke the rules today?”
I locked my jaw as tightly as I could.
“You have been asked to explain yourself, Ms. Miller.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Brock,” I told her clearly. “You told me if I have nothing to say, better just to keep quiet.”
I felt a wave of triumph speaking the words out loud and thought, with both pride and trepidation, that my mother would have approved. Several of the other girls gasped. I broke away for a moment to see Rebecca’s expression grow grim.
Ms. Brock sighed. “It appears insubordination is a communicable disease amongst our new students.”
“Speaking of, where is Rosa?” I asked.
“That was not the question,” she said. “The question was if you would like to—”
“The answer is no. I feel no need to explain myself,” I answered as assertively as I could. I was so mad my organs vibrated.
Ms. Brock’s face pinched with fury, and her eyes lit with fire. She removed a long, slender stick from her belt that had waited beneath the folds of her skirt. It was thin like a chopstick, only twice the length, and flexible. The end of it swung back and forth as she waved it before my face.
Who was this woman?
“Hands on the table,” she commanded coldly.
I took a step back and nearly tripped over Randolph. A chill swept through me. This wasn’t the Middle Ages. Human rights still existed, didn’t they?
“You can’t hit me with that,” I found myself saying. “That’s illegal. There are laws against that sort of thing.”
“My dear Ms. Miller,” Ms. Brock said, with patronizing warmth. “I am the law here.”
My eyes shot to the door. Randolph read my intentions and raised his baton higher.
My mouth hung agape. Her beating. Or his.
“Hands on the table,” Ms. Brock repeated. I looked at the other girls. Rebecca was the only one standing, and most of her was hidden behind a guard.
“Girls…” I started, but I couldn’t remember their names.
None of them moved.
“What’s wrong with you?” I shouted. Randolph grabbed my wrists and slammed them down on the table. They burned and then went numb as I struggled. “Let go of me!”
He did not. With his free hand he brought the baton right in front of my face, so that I nearly went cross-eyed staring at it, and then he smacked me once, right in the throat.
I couldn’t breathe. It felt like my windpipe had been crushed and what was left was on fire. A choking reflex took over, but the more I gasped, the more I panicked. No oxygen was getting through. He’d broken my neck. He’d broken my neck and I was going to suffocate. Bright, white streaks cut across my vision.
“Oh, for pity’s sake, take a deep breath,” chided Ms. Brock.
I tried to scratch at my neck, but Randolph held my hands down. His face was getting blurry. Finally, finally, a tiny bit of air siphoned through. The tears streamed down my face. Another breath, then another. God, it hurt.
I’d fallen to my knees, my tingling hands still pinned to the table. I tried to speak but no words came out. I gaped at the faces of the girls around the room, who refused to meet my eyes. Even Rebecca was now staring into her lap.
No one was going to help me. They were all too scared. I was going to have to do what Ms. Brock said or I would be hurt much worse. My body felt as if it were filled with lead. Eyes on Randolph, I flattened my quaking hands on the table.
And with that, Ms. Brock wheeled back and slammed the narrow rod across them while the other girls watched, paralyzed by fear. A silent scream broke through my constricted throat. Immediately red lines from the whip burst into welts over my knuckles.
The look on Ms. Brock’s face was pure madness. Her eyes swelled until the irises were islands within a sea of white. A row of blunted teeth emerged beneath her retracted lips.
I jerked my hands away, but Randolph raised his baton again. He was a machine. Cold. Dead. Completely inhuman.
I snapped them back into place, swallowed a burning breath, and ground my teeth together.
Again and again, Ms. Brock struck the backs of my hands. I pressed them so hard against the table my fingers turned white. I forgot my audience. The pain was excruciating. I buckled again to my knees. Long welts criss-crossed over one another, until finally one cracked and bled. There was blood in my mouth, too, from where I had bitten the inside of my cheek. It was warm and coppery and made me want to vomit. Tears poured from my eyes, but still I made no sound. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of hearing me crumble.
I despised Ms. Brock with a level of hatred I had never known. I hated her more than I hated the MM and the Statutes. More than I hated him for taking my mother. More than I hated myself for not being strong enough to fight back. I directed every fiber of hatred toward this woman until the pain and the anger became one.
Finally, she stopped, wiping away a line of sweat from her brow.
“Dear me,” she said with a smile. “What a mess. Would you like a Band-Aid?”
HE’Dleft a flower on my pillow. A white daisy, with clean, matching petals and a long green stem. The thought of him lifting the window, placing it delicately where I rested my head made something ache deep inside of me.
My eyes were drawn to the windowsill, where he’d left another flower, this one smaller but no less perfect. It made me smile to picture him picking just the right ones. I pushed up the window and leaned out, half expecting him to be waiting, but he wasn’t.
Another daisy lay evenly spaced between our houses, on the grass. Thrilled with the game, I climbed through the window then bent to add it to my growing bouquet. I glanced around and found another, a few yards down, near the back of the houses. It angled into his yard.
Giggling, I followed the trail, one daisy at a time. My anticipation grew, envisioning how he’d take me in his arms when I found him, how he’d touch my face just before he kissed me.
I climbed the deck and called his name as I pushed through his back door. The room was dark, and it took several seconds for my eyes to adjust.
Something was wrong. I felt it, tingling at the base of my neck, warning me to go no farther.
“Chase?”
He was wearing a uniform. The blue jacket was pulled back to reveal his belt. My insides went hollow when I saw the gun and the empty slot where his baton should have been.
“Ember, run!” I jumped at my mother’s voice. She was kneeling on the far side of the room, her fingers spread over the coffee table. Ms. Brock was there, her whip raised high.
I looked down in horror to see the blood running freely over Mom’s knuckles.
I dropped the daisies and tried to get to her, but Chase blocked my way. His eyes were cold and empty, his body only a shell of the boy I’d known. With a baton in one hand he backed me into the corner, crushing my flowers into the carpet beneath his boots.
“Don’t fight me, Ember.”
I BURST from the nightmare, sweating, even without the blankets. Moisture beaded on my forehead, my neck, and dampened my hair. My throat was hot and thick and bruised to the touch. My hands throbbed furiously, as if my skin were on fire.
The vision continued to poison my mind. Ms. Brock in the house next door, beating my mother’s hands. Chase blocking me in the corner. Don’t fight me, Ember.
I tried to focus on the real memory: My Chase had been waiting inside, ready with a smile and his open arms. But after everything he’d done, even the memory seemed false.
Slowly, the world became familiar. I was still at the reformatory. Still in my dorm room.
I heard something click, then rattle. It was coming from Rebecca’s side of the room. From the window.
Someone’s breaking in! My muscles coiled, ready to bolt out the door.
“Rebecca!” I croaked, forcing a painful swallow. My sock-clad feet were already on the floor. The skirt that had bunched at my hips untwisted around my legs.
She didn’t move. I listened, but there was no sound.
No sound at all, actually. Not even Rebecca breathing.
I forced myself to steady. It was probably a gust of wind against the glass. A tree branch or dead leaves or something. It wasn’t an intruder. No one was coming to get me. Not even if I wanted them to.
“Rebecca?” I asked, this time just above a whisper. She didn’t stir.
I slid off the bed and padded toward the window, still watching the glass.
I said her name again. She lay absolutely still.
I put my hand on the mattress. The moon shone through the window and lit the bandages on my bloated knuckles a pale blue. My fingertips stretched farther, feeling the blanket.
And the pillow beneath it.
“What the hell?” I said out loud. My eyes shot up, through the glass, into the woods, where a figure in white crossed the tree line. My jaw hit the floor.
Rebecca was running, the fraud. She’d stopped me earlier from the same, while she’d been planning this all along. There was no time to focus on that, though. Rebecca had found some way to escape, something more planned than Rosa’s impulsive flight, and I’d be damned if she was going to leave me behind.
I stuffed my feet into my shoes and threw the jacket on my chair across my back. I wasn’t tired or hungry. The thrill of anticipation collided with the absolute terror of being caught. Defiance surged.
I didn’t think twice about stepping onto Rebecca’s bed in my dirty shoes; I would have relished more in the action if I had. I propped the window open. It made the same click and rattle that I had heard earlier, when I had thought someone was breaking in, not breaking out.
From our room on the bottom floor it was almost too easy to slide out the little frame and swing my legs to the ground. So easy, in fact, I wondered why everyone hadn’t tried. Sudden doubt gave me pause—there had to be a reason the whole school hadn’t disappeared after curfew—but if Brock’s prized little Sister was out here, she had to know what she was doing.
I forced a slow, pained breath and continued. My skirt rode up around my hips, and the cold night bit into the skin at the tops of my thighs, but as soon as my feet hit the ground I was running.
The night was bright enough that I could partially see the way. I sprinted across a narrow lane and into the woods where I had seen Rebecca disappear. The hum of a power generator masked the crunch of dead leaves under my footsteps, both a blessing and a curse. No one could hear me, but I couldn’t hear them, either.
Though I worried about getting caught, my feet continued on. Rebecca had been here three years. She knew this system, this facility. She wouldn’t be attempting an escape unless she was positive it was a sure thing.
The deeper I dove into the woods, the darker it became, even under the starlight. I wondered where we were going. To a broken fence maybe. The long shadows blended with the night sky, leaving only highlights of bare branches and textured tree trunks. I walked with my hands in front of me, feeling my way forward. I was getting anxious, fearing I’d lost her. The generator was getting louder.
Finally, I heard voices. One male, the other so bubbly it couldn’t be anyone but Rebecca. I stopped dead in my tracks and ducked, hiding behind the broken tree trunk. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. As stealthily as possible, I scooted closer.
“I can’t believe Randolph smacked her,” I heard Rebecca say.
“Yeah. He liked it, too, the sick bastard.” The voice was familiar.
“Sean… what did you all do to her?”
“Brock said take her to the shack. Come on, you knew that was coming.”
My muscles hardened. They weren’t talking about me; they were talking about Rosa.
In my mind’s eye I saw the unmarked brick building beside the clinic. Was that the “shack”? Brock had said to take Rosa to “lower campus”; maybe that was what she’d meant. My memory conjured the metallic screech I’d heard when I’d found the clinic’s phone. Had that been Rosa’s scream?
My head was spinning. I still couldn’t place the other voice.
Rebecca was quiet for a moment. “I guess I did.”
“What, you feel sorry for her? Aw, don’t be sad, Becca. Hey, I bet I can cheer you up.”
They were quiet, and I was gripped by the fear that they were moving on without me. In a panic, I lifted my head to see over the log.
My mouth fell open.
Rebecca Lansing was sitting on the generator, wearing a big blue canvas coat. Her bare legs were wrapped around a guard’s hips—the soldier with the sandy hair. The nearly handsome guard who had approved of her line this morning. He had one hand shoved through her messed blond hair, the other on her bare thigh. Their lips were smashed against each other with a frenzied passion.
Part of me knew this was a dream. There was no possible way in the history of the human race that prude, holy Rebecca, my roommate, my Student Assistant, was getting it on with a soldier. On school grounds. In the middle of the night.
Anger scored through me. Rosa was in the shack being punished while Rebecca was screwing some guy on the generator. My hands balled into fists. My jaw clenched. And if reason hadn’t completely abandoned me earlier, it did then.
Before I knew it, I was standing.
“What was—”
I wasn’t surprised to be blinded by the flashlight. It caught me right in the face, blacking out the people behind it. I threw up a hand to guard my eyes and marched forward blindly around the log, over the branches and debris.
“Who is that?” I heard Rebecca say. And then, “Oh, my God.”
The guard cursed. Sean, she had called him. He detached himself from Rebecca and lunged forward toward me. I almost wanted him to reach me. All I saw when I looked at him was his stony face as he’d dragged Rosa away.
“Stop it!” Rebecca hopped down off the generator and jumped in front of him. “Ember, what are you doing here?” I hated that perky little voice.
“You liar!” I growled.
“What? How long have you been here?”
“Long enough, Becca.” My words, though raspy, flew out like water from a busted pipe.
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“Oh, really?”
“I thought you said she was asleep!” Banks nearly shouted.
“Shut up, Sean!” she snapped. When he didn’t answer, she grabbed my sleeve and tried to jerk me toward the facility. “Come on, we’re going back.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m done listening to you.”
“You have to come. The next guard will be coming through in a few minutes. You get caught, you’re done for. Get it?”
“Just me? I don’t think so,” I said, in a voice that sounded like mine but far bolder. Everything about me seemed disconnected. My skin was ice cold, but the blood running beneath was hot. My organs all felt like separate fragmented pieces. It took great effort to breathe the frigid air. I did not feel like myself at all.
“You think they care that Sean and I are out here?” she said, waving her arms in frustration. “You think they haven’t done the same thing? They watch each other’s backs, okay? They’ll punish you for telling on him.”
“Maybe they will,” I agreed, and felt my resentment kick up another notch. “And maybe the guards don’t care, but I’m sure Ms. Brock would love to hear how her shining star is sneaking around with one of the soldiers.”
Banks looked at her, his face twisting with panic—with real emotion. Then he stared at me, terror melting into desperation.
“She’ll never believe you,” he said to me.
“Maybe not. But they’ll watch her, won’t they? They’ll have a guard by our room, making sure she doesn’t try anything, and—” In all honesty, I didn’t know what Ms. Brock would do, but Sean’s darkening look told me I’d hit the mark.
“You can’t tell her… Miller, right? Becca’s out in three months. You have to give her that long.”
“Let me handle this, Sean,” she said.
I was taken aback by his burst of chivalry. Was he really trying to protect her? I crossed my arms over my chest. Maybe they weren’t all as dead inside as they seemed.
Well, maybe some of them weren’t, anyway.
“You… you can’t tell, Ember. You can’t.”
“And what’s stopping me?”
With an audible intake of breath, Sean flicked the strap off the gun at his waist. I could tell by his round, conflicted eyes that he didn’t want to shoot me, but that didn’t stifle my fear one bit. In that moment I remembered Randolph’s baton on my throat, and Brock’s whip on my hands, and wondered why I thought this soldier wouldn’t be capable of the very same or worse.
I fought the urge to run.
“She said the next guard will be through in a few minutes!” I shouted. “How are you going to explain why Rebecca was here if you shoot me?” I was shaking now. I hoped neither of them could see it in the darkness. He wouldn’t shoot me. Not for this. He couldn’t. There was too much risk.
Please don’t let him shoot me.
“Sean,” Rebecca said softly. He lowered his hand, but I still didn’t breathe.
“What do you want?” Sean asked. In exchange for my secrecy he was going to cut a deal.
“I need to get out of here. I need to find my mother,” I said, my voice getting hoarser the more I talked.
“We have to go!” Rebecca’s voice squeaked higher. She was looking over her shoulder, presumably for the next guard on rotation. Now that I said I’d tell Brock, she was afraid I would tell everyone.
Sean sucked in a sharp breath. “And if I help you, you swear you won’t tell the headmistress.” He wasn’t asking. He’d taken another step forward, placing himself between me and his girlfriend. I was surprised at how lean he looked now, with his face drawn in fear. How large his eyes seemed. The thin lines of his mouth.
“No. Sean, no!” Rebecca was pulling on his arm like a child. When he continued to stare at me, she pushed past him, standing inches away from me. “If he’s caught he’ll get in trouble. Serious trouble. You don’t—”
“Miller,” Sean prompted, ignoring her.
“Yes. I swear. You get me out, and I won’t tell Ms. Brock.” I felt a piece of me break inside, suddenly remembering the horror in my mother’s face when I’d told Roy to leave our home. I had been trying to do the right thing, but hurting someone else to accomplish that goal was almost unbearable. It was not so different now, even though I hardly knew these people.
“Okay,” said Sean. “I’ll… figure out something.” He kicked the log I had been hiding behind.
“How? When?” The blood was rushing back through my body at his assent.
“Not now. She’s right. The next guard will be rotating through soon. You have to let me think.”
I was disappointed, but I knew it was the best I would get tonight.
“Thank you… Sean,” I said. Saying his name made him feel infinitely more real, like a boy I could have known in school. His shoulder jerked. His face was full of contempt.
A moment later, Rebecca shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over to him. They looked at each other for one long moment. Even in the dark, I saw her face soften.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
One of his hands rested awkwardly at the base of his neck, as though his muscles were too tight. He shrugged into the jacket and disappeared into the darkness.
Rebecca’s face was hard again when she stomped back toward our room. Reluctantly, I followed, mad that I was tripping and stumbling while she walked nearly effortlessly. I reminded myself that she had made this trip more than once.
When we got to the window three from the left, Rebecca shoved open the frame—much harder than she would have if I had been asleep inside, I’m sure—and nimbly hopped up, her hip resting on the sill. Then she ducked back and rolled onto her bed. I followed suit a lot less smoothly.
Once inside, we were engulfed by awkward, strained silence.
“How could you?” she finally blurted. In the muted moonlight from the window I could see that her face was flushed from the cold and anger. “I should have let you run, just like that Rosa girl. I knew you wanted to. I would have, had I known you’d blackmail me! How could you?”
All of the anger and fear and shock broke through in one hard stroke.
“Me? You are such a hypocrite! I asked you for help and you ignored me! Spewing that crap about summer camp and loving it here, sucking up to Brock. It’s all lies! You’re ten times meaner than her; you just hide it better.”
“You’re absolutely right. So what?” She put her hands on her hips.
My eyes widened. “You need to be medicated. Seriously. And I’m not an idiot because I believed you. You’re just a damn good actress.”
“Yes,” she said. “I am.”
I sat on my bed, facing her. She sat on her bed, facing me. It was like we were children again, having a staring contest. It was Rebecca who finally broke the silence.
“You’re putting him in danger for no reason,” she said. “No one escapes. You either leave with your exit papers, or you leave in the back of an FBR van.”
“What do you mean?” I choked. My fingers drew to the bruise on my neck.
She made a small wincing noise. “The guards have orders to shoot anyone that makes it off the property.”
My sore hands grasped each other atop my skirt. That was why Sean had reached for his gun. He could have pretended I was escaping. No one would have questioned him when they saw my dead body so far from the dorms. I felt an instant surge of affection for Rebecca. Had she not been present, and had Sean wanted me dead, I’d be bleeding out in the West Virginia woods right now.
But then again, I wouldn’t have been out there in the first place if she hadn’t snuck out.
“Do you think they’d really do it?” I asked, without much question. I’d seen the cold, dead looks in the soldiers’ eyes. I could picture several I’d run across—Morris, Chase’s friend from the arrest, and Randolph, the guard here—killing a girl.
“I know they would. The last one they…” she hesitated, looking back toward the window, wondering, I knew, where Sean was. “She was Stephanie’s old roommate.”
Rosa was now Stephanie’s roommate, I realized with a pang.
Rebecca swallowed. “Her name was Katelyn. Katelyn Meadows.”