I’d never been conventionally pretty: My eyes were big and brown and I had long black lashes, but my eyebrows didn’t arch right and my nose was slightly crooked. Now my complexion was ghoulish—not entirely unlike the girl the soldiers had escorted back into the building—and my cheekbones appeared too prominent, like the last hours had added ten hungry years to my life. The navy uniform was even worse than my school uniform, probably because I resented it a hundred times more.
I forced a deep breath. My hair smelled like the synthetic seat of a school bus. I quickly combed out the kinks with my fingers and tied it back into a ragged knot.
“Time for class,” Rebecca chimed, catching my attention.
My brain began flipping through my options. I needed to find a phone. I’d try home first, just in case the MM had released my mother. If not, I’d call Beth to see if she’d heard anything about where they’d taken the Article violators.
When I glanced down at Rebecca, I found her overly excited at the prospect of showing me around. She had a position of some power here as a Student Assistant and could potentially tell on me if I got out of line. She looked like the type.
I was going to have to be covert.
A few minutes later we were walking to the pavilion, just across from the cafeteria, where nearly a hundred girls milled about. It could have been high school—the whispered gossip that preceded all new kids was here, too—but the mood was too somber. Instead of being curious or petty, they were afraid of us. As though we might do something crazy. It was a strange reaction considering I was thinking the same of them.
When the bell tolled, all conversation ceased. Girls darted away to their classes, where they fell into cookie-cutter lines. Rebecca pulled my arm, and I complied like a rag doll, allowing her to set me in place. Silence reigned over the pavilion.
Within moments, soldiers appeared to lead, follow, and flank each line. A young man with pockmarked cheeks and the build of a weasel passed me on his way to the back. His uniform read RANDOLPH. Another, at the front of the line, had an almost glowing complexion by comparison. He had a neatly shaved jaw and sandy-colored hair and would have been handsome had his blue eyes not been so vacant.
What does the MM do to suck out a person’s soul like that? I banished the automatic conjuring of Chase from my mind.
“Ms. Lansing,” acknowledged the almost-handsome guard.
“Good morning, Mr. Banks,” she said sweetly. He gave her a quick, emotionless nod, as if to approve of her line formation. The whole interaction seemed awkward and forced.
“Hola, princesa,” whispered a girl behind me. I turned to see Rosa, noticing how she’d refused to tuck in her navy blouse. The redheaded girl behind her—the roommate, I guessed—had a look of disapproval on her face. Clearly, she wasn’t pleased with the new living arrangements.
Her red hair reminded me of how much I already missed Beth.
It was comforting having Rosa nearby. Even if she was rude, at least she was real, and when the bell tolled and the heads of the lines dispersed, we stayed close, bound by our mistrust of the others.
We followed Rebecca down the stairs, past the laundry facility, medical clinic, and a squat brick office with a fire hydrant out front. There, the seventeens separated from the other lines and marched over a plot of grass connecting to a path that led us between two tall stone buildings. I hungrily surveyed the grounds, trying to form a mental map in my mind. It appeared there was only one way in and out: the main gate.
When Rosa spoke again, it was barely above a breath.
“Watch and learn.”
I turned back, but she was already gone.
CHAPTER
3
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 B
roadbent.”
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?