“KATELYN Meadows,” I repeated, dazed. She isn’t on the Missing Persons boards. Her family moved away after the trial.
She wasn’t on the Missing Persons board because she wasn’t a Missing Person. She was dead. I was glad the bed was behind me, because my knees promptly gave way.
“She was a nice girl,” Rebecca said. “I try not to like anybody here—they always get weird. But she was all right.”
“I know,” I said quietly. I remembered her picture clearly from the posters around school, and before that, from her smiling face in my junior history class.
“Did you know her?” Rebecca asked.
I nodded. “Not well, but yes. We went to school together.”
“Oh.” She bit her thumbnail, lost for words.
“When did it happen?”
“I guess about six months ago. She was just about to age out when Brock asked her to stay on as a teacher. And when Brock asks you to stay on, she’s not really asking.”
I am the law here, Ms. Brock had said when she’d whipped my hands. No, I didn’t imagine her invitation to become a teacher had sounded anything like a request.
Six months ago I’d been just starting my senior year at Western. It should have been Katelyn’s senior year, too. I wasn’t sure if the knowledge of her death made me sad; I didn’t know her well enough to grieve. But I did fear what this meant for me and my chances at escape. I felt selfish, scared, and sick all at the same time.
I rubbed my hands over my eyes. They stung from the dried tears in my lashes.
“Did Sean…”
“No. No, it was someone else.” She smiled weakly. “Sean’s never killed anybody. He told me so. The FBR makes them practice on these human-shaped targets in training, and he could barely do that. That’s why they sent him to a girls’ rehab and kept him out of the cities.”
I pictured the soldiers lining up at the shooting ranges, and shivered. Chase hadn’t been detailed to a girls’ rehab, which could only mean he was a better shot than the guards here. I wondered if he’d killed anyone, but the thought made me so uncomfortable, I locked it from my mind.
“Apparently not everyone has the same conscience as Sean,” I said bitterly.
“Right,” she agreed. “Obviously you’ve met Randolph.”
I clutched my knees involuntarily. My knuckles hurt. “He’s the one? Who did… that to Katelyn?”
It was dark, but I could still see her nod. “So you see, there’s really no point in trying to escape.”
“I have to try,” I said. “If they’re doing this kind of thing to us, what do you think they’re doing to my mother?”
She hesitated. “Probably the same.”
I stood up so quickly my head spun. “What has Sean told you? You have to tell me!” The weight of our deal hung in the air between us. There was no point in lying now that I knew her secret.
“He doesn’t hear much,” she said defensively.
The guards at the school were isolated; the rest of the soldiers had direct contact with their command, but a particular unit, the ones who had failed some aspect of their training like Sean, had been transferred under the authority of the Sisters of Salvation.
“Who are these Sisters, anyway?” I asked. “Is Ms. Brock in charge of all of them?”
“She wishes,” said Rebecca. “Brock was appointed by the Board of Education during the Reformation Act. She’s like, I don’t know, the school superintendent of this region. There are other Brocks, in other regions, running other reformatories with the same iron bra.” She giggled. “That’s what Sean calls it—an ‘iron bra.’ Instead of an iron fist, you know?”
“I get it,” I said flatly. More evil headmistresses. More reformatories. It was enough to make me weak all over again. Rebecca’s brief smile faded.
“Brock says that the Sisters are taking over,” she said. “Running charities and food lines and stuff. Of course, who knows if that’s true.”
My mom volunteered at our local soup kitchen. I could hardly picture her wearing a blue skirt and a stupid handkerchief around her neck.
“So Brock reports to the MM, but the soldiers here report to her?” I asked. Rebecca gave me a blank look, and I realized she’d never heard the nickname for the FBR. Having been here since she was fourteen, she was a little out of touch with mainstream culture.
“Moral Militia,” Rebecca said wistfully, after I explained. “That’s funny.”
Apparently, tending to the miscreants of society didn’t require the highest level of skill. The FBR was still technically in charge of the soldiers here, but Ms. Brock supervised their daily activities. Unfortunately, that meant that Sean had very little contact with the rest of the military.
“But there’s a courier,” Rebecca continued. “He comes weekly to deliver messages to Ms. Brock from the outside. Mandates from the head of education. Revisions to the Statutes. Things like that. Sean hears rumors sometimes. He knew that they were going to stop the trials for Article violators a while ago, and he was right. It’s been over a month since a soldier came out here to pick up a witness.”
“Stop the trials? What does that mean?” I asked, my voice rising.
“Shh!” She motioned for me to sit back down on the bed. “I don’t know what it means. Maybe they’re just letting your mom go. Or maybe they’re sending her to rehab. Sean did say they need to ‘complete’ something in place of a trial. It’s a new protocol, I guess. He gets training on it next month.”
In my mind I pictured my mother in my place. Her small, manicured hands on the table while Brock slammed the whip down upon them, like in my dream. I could see the obstinacy melt into fear. Her folding into the floor, just as she’d done with Roy.
I couldn’t let that happen. The thought of her suffering made me ill.
“My mom can’t do this. I have to find her. There’s got to be a way out somewhere. What was Katelyn doing? How did she get caught?” I asked.
“Sean said they got her out by the southern fence. She was trying to climb over.”
Katelyn was lanky but by no means athletic. I couldn’t picture her scaling a fence. But then again, people did all kinds of crazy things when they were desperate. I should know.
“There’s no other way? No holes in the fence? No other exits?”
She shrugged helplessly. “The guards walk the perimeter every hour. The only way out is through the front gates. And there’s a watch station there, and guards that search the vehicles.”
“No one has ever escaped?” I asked in disbelief.
Rebecca curled in over her midsection. When she spoke again, her voice sounded small, as if she were years younger.
“One girl did, right after I got here. She made it over the fence and into the woods, but it was snowing so badly she died of hypothermia. Brock made the soldiers bring her body into the cafeteria to show us what would happen if we tried to run away. She was all black and blue and…” Rebecca shook her head as if to clear the memory. “That was when Brock okayed the orders for the guards to shoot anyone who got too close to the fence.”
I flinched, thinking of how crushing it would feel to gain freedom only to lose it.
“Only three people have made a decent run for it since then, and they’ve all been killed. No one tries for a long time after something like that happens. If you’re crazy enough, you’ll be the first since Katelyn.”
The realities of my intentions were rooting deep in my gut. If I ran, I had to face the possibility that I might not survive, and if I died, it would most likely be violently. But if I stayed, I wouldn’t know if my mother was being beaten or thrown in prison or shot.
Entrapment. I had two choices. And both were bad.
“You know, if you age out, they don’t legally have to look for you,” she told me.
I couldn’t wait until I turned eighteen, but something in her voice told me she wasn’t talking about me.
“Is that why you and Sean haven’t run?”
She nodded. “I’ll be safe in three months. But if he ever decides to leave, the FBR could kill him.”
So she was staying of her own choice. To protect a soldier.
I shook my head skeptically. “They wouldn’t kill one of their own.”
“You’re wrong. The Board would give him a trial. If he goes AWOL and they catch him, they’ll execute him. That’s the way things are now. If you don’t think they’d do it, remember why you’re here.”
As the air stilled between us, my thoughts branched into a dangerous place. If Sean could be executed, could my mother? It seemed improbable, but not impossible.
I needed to get out. Soon.
TWO nights passed before Sean figured out a plan.
We were in class, reading a handout entitled “A Lady’s Dress Code” when he caught my eye. A slight nod of his head, and without hesitation I raised my hand to request an escort to the restroom. Before the Sister could ask Randolph take me, Sean had stepped forward and was holding the door open to usher me down the hall.
Once we were away from the others, he quickly told me that the headmistress had given him orders to cover for another soldier preparing to take leave, which meant a double shift of his normal perimeter sweep. When this happened, he would lead me to the fence and look the other way as I climbed over.
It sounded simple but was far from problem-free. First, it was still eight days away. Second, I was on my own after I got past the fence, which meant roughly four hours and fifteen miles of walking through the Appalachian wilderness alone. And third, once I got to the nearest gas station, I would have to hitch a ride home, which meant I’d have to find a willing civilian with a car who didn’t care about gas money.
“You’d better book it,” Sean advised. “Once they figure out you’re gone, they’ll come looking. I won’t be able to do anything then.”
I nodded, and though the swelling in my throat had gone down, I felt a new lump emerge. It was a terrible plan, but it was all I had. He looked at me for a long while, as though surprised that I was really considering this. I couldn’t tell whether he thought I was brave or stupid. Probably the latter.
“It’ll be better for everyone if you just wait until you age out, Miller.”
“I can’t wait,” I told him firmly. “Not knowing she could be in a place like this.”
His expression was bleak. I asked if he knew anything more about my mother, and he denied it. I wondered if there was more to this than he was letting on, but as we were already on a fine line, I let it go. I didn’t have enough dirt on him to risk what he’d already offered. And ultimately, the guy with the gun calls the shots.
So I waited.
ROSA returned the following afternoon. She sat beside me in silence during Brock’s session on social etiquette. There were no snide jokes, no cocky, gap-between-her-two-front-teeth grins. Her eyes, resting atop half-moon bruises from Randolph’s fist, were no longer rebellious, but bland. Vacant. She was as empty as the girl we’d seen after we’d first arrived.
There was no question in my mind now that the scream I’d heard when I’d been in the clinic had been Rosa in the shack. When I asked Rebecca about it, she remained vague. Spooky, she called it. That’s all. But I was frightened.
In the days that followed, I did what I could to be inconspicuous. I was polite when forced into awkward social interactions with the staff and the girls, and I followed the rules. I didn’t show my frustration or pain when my clumsy, distended hands dropped things, or when I couldn’t close my fist to hold a pencil. I didn’t attract any attention, and in that way, I let Brock think that she’d won.
But right under her nose I gathered things, like I had when my mother and I were at our worst during the War. A cup from the cafeteria when no one saw. A washcloth from the bathroom. I began hoarding nonperishable food beneath my mattress in preparation for my departure.
And I found myself relying on Rebecca. Though she played the rehab queen whenever we were around others, she had obviously found a way to survive. Her deception recharged my hope.
At night, we talked, and she became surprisingly open. Almost as if I were a confidante rather than someone who could cause her a great deal of trouble by exposing her secret. Through her lens, I began to see Sean in a new light. I began to notice the way he diverted Randolph’s attention from the girls and purposefully nodded his agreement when Brock lectured on something absurdly ridiculous, like appropriate ways for a Sister to talk to men.
To my shock, I opened up some, too. I told her some of the things I missed about my mother. The popcorn and old, pre-War magazine nights. The songs we used to sing together. How we’d never really been apart. Rebecca liked those stories. I think it helped her understand my drive to escape.
On the fifth night, I even told her about Chase.
I don’t know why. Maybe because she loved a soldier, or maybe because I felt the need to reciprocate some private piece of my life to her. Maybe because not an hour passed without me asking myself why he did what he did. Whatever the reason, it slipped out of me. Not the details, not the depth of what I’d felt for him, but the basics of what had happened between us.
“They’re not supposed to date. Not unless they’re officers,” she informed me when I said he hadn’t written. “They have to dedicate their life to the cause or something. It’s a form they sign when they enlist.”
“Sean doesn’t seem to care.” I couldn’t hide the pettiness in my voice.
She grinned, and it struck me how pretty she was. “Can you blame him?”
We both laughed then. It was the first and only time we would.
ELEVEN days had passed at the reformatory with no word from my mother or Beth.
On the eleventh night, I prepared to leave.
“I’ll go out with you,” Rebecca said for the tenth time. She was pacing around the room. It was after midnight, but she was still wearing her full uniform.
“No.” We had already talked about this. “Sean wants you here.”
“I don’t care what he wants!” Her voice went impossibly higher. She was wringing her blouse between her fists. “I can’t do nothing while he’s risking his life for you!”
The tension between us had been building steadily over the last few days. The reality of the plan was finally sinking in. Unconsciously, I traced the still-swollen welts over the backs of my hands and made a tender fist. The wounds had finally closed but were now painted with purple and yellow blossoms. They ached terribly, especially on cold nights like this one.
“He’s just going to point me toward the perimeter fence and then pretend like he doesn’t see me,” I assured her—again. “He won’t be in danger.”
Neither of us believed it.
The minutes ticked by. One. After another. After another.
I hadn’t been able to eat dinner. I’d been too nervous. But I’d hidden a cold baked potato with the rest of my supplies in Rebecca’s sweater, tied to my waist.
“Okay, I’m going,” I finally said at twelve-thirty on the dot.
She nodded, her face pale.
“I guess… it was nice knowing you,” she said weakly. “Thanks for not telling Brock about me and Sean. And… don’t get shot.”
I attempted a smile, but it didn’t work. I almost said that I hoped to see her again, or something similar, but I knew it wouldn’t happen in a million years. When she aged out, she and Sean were going to have to hide from the MM, and so were my mother and I. Instead I grabbed her shoulders, gave her a quick, awkward hug, and slid out the window.
It was snowing outside, just like the night the girl had died of hypothermia, but I was prepared, layered in all the clothing they’d issued me: two skirts, a camisole, three long-sleeved T-shirts, and my gray sweater. And I had some food for fuel, close to my body.
The ground was solid as a rock, and the cold leaked through my flats to the soles of my feet. The brick dorm building was covered with a thin layer of white. Long icicles hung from the rain gutters like jagged teeth.
I glanced both ways across the lane before darting into the woods toward the generators. Sean would be there, ready to get this over with. I was ready, too.
By the time I heard the steady drone of the machines, my muscles were warm and limber and my heart was pounding steadily. My stomach didn’t even hurt anymore; there was too much adrenaline building in my body to be bogged down by anxiety. I was glad. I needed whatever edge I could get.
My hearing was sharper than normal, and my head snapped toward the sound of crackling twigs nearby. I froze automatically, fingernails digging into my palms. It took every ounce of effort to push Katelyn Meadows from my mind.
Sean materialized from behind a wide tree made black by the night shadows. His winter FBR coat made him appear thicker through the chest; he was more intimidating than before. The scars on the backs of my hands from Brock’s punishment burned.
He didn’t say a word but turned past the enormous metal blocks emitting their low buzz and stalked deeper into the woods.
I led with my hands, swiping away the brambles and low branches that impeded our journey. The fence had to be close. How long had we been heading this way? Ten minutes? It was one mile from the dorm building. We should have been getting close.
“How tall is it? The fence,” I whispered.
“Fifteen feet,” he answered without turning around. I forced a deep breath.
“Sean, if I forget later—” I tripped over a branch, caught myself. “Thank you.”
He didn’t speak for a minute, maybe more.
“Hope you make it,” he said finally.
I wasn’t sure if he meant he hoped I found my mother, hoped I could climb the fence, or hoped I didn’t get shot in the process, but his words were a small comfort.
“Hold it, Banks!”
I felt like a piece of wood at the moment the ax strikes. My whole body tried to tear in two different directions. One side tried to sprint toward the fence, the other back toward the dorms. The screaming fear was the only thing that locked me in place.
“Do not run,” Sean ordered under his breath. In a flash, he’d swept the sweater holding my supplies into a bush and fisted a hand in my hair, knotting it all up. My eyes watered. I didn’t struggle for long before he released me.
Footsteps were approaching. Someone was close. How had I not heard them? I’d been thinking too much about the fence, and saying thank you, and what I was going to do once I got outside. Stupid!
Did Sean know about this? Was this a trap? Of course he hadn’t wanted Rebecca to come! He was planning the whole time on turning me in!
Pulse slamming through my veins, I wrapped my arms around my midsection, as though this shield could stop a bullet. The frenetic trail of a flashlight preceded the two soldiers who stepped through the night.
Randolph. And another lanky guard with thick eyebrows lifted in judgment.
Their light blinded me momentarily. I heard the rustle of leather and fabric. And then a metallic click.
“She running?” the lanky guard asked. The flashlight tore away, revealing both he and Randolph’s raised guns, pointed directly at my chest.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Looks like she’s running to me,” commented Randolph.
Sean grinned—a grin I’d never seen, not even with Rebecca—and my fears were validated. Then, to my shock, he lifted his hand, calmly now, and fixed my hair. I jerked away.
“Well,” he said. “This is embarrassing.”
Randolph snorted. Sean’s hand trailed down to my lower back, and then shoved me almost playfully away. I stumbled before catching myself, and all three of them laughed.
“Go on back to your room now, sweetheart,” Sean said. “And keep your mouth shut about this, just like we talked about.”
It took me a minute to catch up.
“I wasn’t expecting the next rotation for an hour or so,” Sean continued casually, fixing his pants as though we’d been doing exactly what he did out here most nights with Rebecca.
Girls were executed for running, not for messing around with the guards. He was giving me a window. A chance to live. As much as I wanted to escape, I could not leave this place in a wooden box.
I tried to sprint back toward the dorms, but Randolph lurched in front of me. A second later his hands were pinching my hips and his knee was shoved intrusively between my legs. His sour breath clouded around my mouth.
“Stay a little while longer,” he whispered, and at his words terror shot straight to my core. I struggled against him and was tossed back into Sean’s arms.
“Trash,” spat Randolph. “Reform-school trash.” They were laughing again, laughing, and though it was against everything I believed, I was ashamed. I couldn’t help it.
Sean’s grin was not nearly as bold as before. I gripped onto him hard, not knowing where else to turn.
“You got sloppy, Banks,” the skinny guard said. “The headmistress wanted us to watch you. But we thought it’d be the blonde, not this one.”
“I said it was this one,” said Randolph. “He’s been staring at her.”
Staring at me because he was afraid I’d tell Brock his secret, I realized.
It became clear what was happening. They had set up this trap for Sean, not for me. They suspected him because he had changed since I’d blackmailed him.
Do not run, Sean had whispered. Everything inside of me said to do the opposite. I could feel my heels already shifting inside of my shoes, ready to bolt at any second. But if I ran, they would most certainly shoot me.
Randolph laughed. “I could make it go away, Banks.” He raised the weapon an inch higher. He wanted to shoot me.
I was going to die.
I didn’t think of my mother, or if I’d been a good person or led a good life—any of those things you’re supposed to think about when you die. I saw one face in my mind, and just for an instant. The one person who couldn’t possibly give me any comfort.
Chase. Black shaggy hair, copper skin softened by the light rain. His dark eyes, peering straight into my soul. And that mouth, turned up at the corners in curiosity.
“Shut up, Randolph,” groaned the other guard. “We’re in a no-fire zone; perimeter’s too far out. Besides, the headmistress already figured this is what we’d find.”
My mouth dropped open. Time seemed to pause. Was I still alive? I felt the pressure of arms wrapped around my body. I was so numb, I barely noticed.
“Tell Becca I’m sorry,” Sean whispered in my ear. A moment later, there was a shuffle and a sickening crack as Randolph hit him hard in the back of the head with his baton. I felt the reverberation through my body as though I’d been the one struck, and stared in horror at the ground where Sean lay.
Run, my feet said.
Run and they’ll shoot you, my brain answered.
I didn’t have a chance. The next moment, I had a gun to my back, and we were returning to the dorms.
I PACED the length of the common room for hours awaiting the headmistress’s judgment. I thought about screaming for Rebecca, but I refused to put her in danger.
My good intentions didn’t matter. As soon as curfew broke, I heard the slapping of feet against the hallway floor. This was part of the plan. She was to report me missing when she woke up.
Her hair was flattened, her cheeks pale, and there were dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. She’d been crying. Either out of fear for Sean or me. I found myself both touched at the prospect of her true friendship and torn by the betrayal I’d dealt her.
She caught my eyes, and a change came over her face.
“Don’t,” I mouthed to her. I was too late.
“Where is he, Ember?” she said shakily, approaching the lanky guard. He lifted his radio. With a lightning fast paw, she slapped it down to the floor, then kicked it aside. He laid a hand on his baton.
“Where is Banks?” The desperation was heavy in her voice.
“Rebecca!” I said sharply. She was going to ruin everything. Sean had already protected her—and me—by pretending he and I were together. If he’d agreed I was escaping, I’d be dead.
Other girls, seventeens and some of the sixteens that shared our hall, had come out of their rooms. Another guard was pushing them back as he passed.
I heard the light clicking of heels on the wooden floor and knew Brock had arrived. She entered the foyer wearing her traditional skirt and a navy sweater. There was an attendant with her, a short, plump woman who had fear strewn across her face.
“What did you do with him? Sean! Where is he?” Rebecca spouted before the headmistress could speak.
Another guard had reached us. There were three now, one beside me, two on either side of Brock. The breath was raking hard up my throat.
“She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” I tried.
“Silence, Ms. Miller,” Brock snapped. “I will deal with you in a moment. Genero, call for assistance.” Her voice never faltered.
“Where. Is. Sean?” Rebecca demanded one final time. Her shoulders were heaving.
“He’s gone,” spat Brock. “And so are you.”
“You—”
“Rebecca, no!” I shouted, just as she launched herself onto the old woman.
The next events happened very fast.
With the force of a cannonball, Rebecca took Brock to the floor. I saw a nightstick rise high and land with a dull thud on my tiny roommate’s back. The bones cracked, a sickening sound, and her scream halted prematurely.
I had been frozen up until then, but when Rebecca was hit, pure adrenaline scored through me. In a flash I saw my mother. I saw the blue uniforms pulling her toward the van. Taking her away.
My vision compressed behind narrow slits. With all my strength, I attacked the guard who had hit Rebecca. I kicked him, hit him, bit him. I felt skin gather and rip under my fingernails. Everything within me acted on instinct, as though my very survival depended on it. I saw fuzzy images, mostly blue, some gray, as Rebecca was thrown in front of me. Someone yelled. A girl screamed.
Steel arms clamped around my waist. I thrashed.
“Rebecca!” My eyes searched frantically for her. The snow was falling heavily from the thick, black sky. We were outside. One of the guards holding me slipped. I felt us plunge toward the cement steps before he righted himself. He swore loudly over the ringing in my ears. Then we were descending the steps backward, and my stomach was lurching as if I were diving into a bottomless pool. Warm blood filled my mouth. I’d bitten the inside of my cheek again.
“Let me go!” I hollered.
“Shut up!” barked one of the guards.
My shoulders hurt from where they pulled my arms. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cafeteria pass on my left. More stairs. It took me some time to orient myself to lower campus, down by the infirmary. A metal door was pushed open. To my right I saw the fire hydrant in the gleam of the spotlights, defiantly red against the snow.
I was in the shack.
They dropped me unceremoniously on the dank cement floor. All my trembling extremities retracted into my chest. A soldier pointed his club in my face and I tucked my chin hard against my chest so that he couldn’t hit my throat as Randolph had done.
“Keep your scrawny butt down,” he commanded.
The room was small. A single overhead bulb hung from the center of the ceiling. There was a brightly lit space to my right, like a large shower, and to the left a dark closet with cement walls, but no racks or hangers. A confinement cell.
The fear was petrifying. I scooted into a corner, back to the wall, and waited.
LONG seconds stretched into torturous minutes. I saw their faces. Sean’s as the soldiers found us. Rebecca’s, torn with worry. What had I done to them? And worse, what hadn’t I done? I should have been on the outside now, running back toward home and my mother. What had this cost her?
The door creaked open finally, and a woman slid inside. My gut twisted.
Brock.
She had changed into a fresh Sisters of Salvation uniform. There was a bandage on her right cheek. The single yellow bulb overhead made her skin appear jaundiced, but it couldn’t hide the flush of rage still blanketing her severe features.
“Ms. Miller, I am very disappointed in you.”
“What have you done to Rebecca?” I stood, my legs trembling with fear or anticipation, I didn’t know. Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them back, refusing to let her see me cry.
“You are a very bad girl. The worst kind. The wolf in sheep’s clothing. We shall need to shed that cover and remold your interior. I see that now.”
“What—” Even though I didn’t know what she meant, I was terrified.
“Guard, take Ms. Miller to the clean room.”
The clean room. The one that looked like a shower. One of the soldiers was already preparing the fire hose inside. Beside him, a pair of leather cuffs were chained to the floor beside his baton. He intended to strap me down and beat me, maybe even spray me with the hose. For a fraction of a second I saw Rosa, laid out across the floor, watching her blood twist down the drain while the force of the water pummeled her body.
My arms locked protectively over my body, fisting in my shirt.
“No,” I whispered.
Two guards moved forward. Dead eyes. Reaching hands.
“NO!” I shouted at them.
I spun to the wall, trying to hide my body from them. I could not go into that room. I could not let them touch me. They gripped my shoulders. My thighs. I screamed.
Just then there was a knock at the door.
The guards waited for Brock’s order. She flipped her head to the side, annoyed.
Randolph stuck his head in.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
“Sorry ma’am. I thought you’d want to know there’s a Dispatch who just arrived from Illinois. He’s come to collect her for trial.”
Several beats passed before I realized he was talking about me.
Brock and I must have thought the same thing at the same time. There weren’t trials for Article violations anymore. It’s been over a month since a soldier came out here to pick up a witness, Rebecca had said. Could Sean have misheard?
My blood turned to ice. It seemed impossibly cruel for life to offer such an illusion. But if it was true there would only be one trial I’d be called to attend. My mother’s. I tried to sort through the mixed emotions—joy that I might see her, fear, because this meant that she was still imprisoned, pure relief at the interruption.
“I thought they were doing away with those,” said Brock, annoyed.
“They still do trials in certain cases, ma’am,” said a low, familiar voice from outside. My mouth fell open. My heart thumped in my chest.
A moment later Chase Jennings entered the room.