Internment(51)

“The hunger strike is tomorrow,” I whisper.

“I’m scared for you.”

“I am, too. I’m scared for all of us, but Jake is keeping an eye out.”

David breaks from our embrace. “I know he’s helped us, but are you sure you can trust him? That this isn’t all a ruse?”

“I trust him. I know why you feel that way. I can’t say more. I mean, I don’t even know more. He could’ve already given me up, like, a hundred times to the Director, but he hasn’t. He’s on our side.”

David shakes his head. “I can’t trust someone who has a gun on you, and you shouldn’t, either.”

I take a deep breath. “He won’t hurt anyone, and he definitely won’t hurt me. I promise.”

David raises an eyebrow. “Is there something else I should know? What are you not saying?” That space I’m imagining between us widens, ever so slightly.

“No. It’s not like that. Please, believe me. I love you. Plus, jealousy doesn’t suit you.” My heart is in a vise. Maybe David feels a little of that distance between us, too.

The door slams, startling both of us.

“Come out now. I know you’re in here,” Jake’s voice bellows through the Mess, and we hear him stomp into the kitchen. I reach for the doorknob, but David touches my hand and shakes his head no.

But it doesn’t matter, because Jake pulls open the pantry door. His jaw is clenched. His face is grave and official. Angry. He’s every inch the corporal right now. “This was stupid,” he whispers, but his voice seethes. “He knows.” Then he turns to me. “Do you have another story on you?”

I open my mouth, hesitate.

“There’s no time. He’s going to be here any minute. You need to give it to me.”

I reach into David’s pocket and pull out the piece of paper with my handwriting on it. I hand it to Jake, and he quickly tucks it into his boot. David looks at me, his mouth open in shock.

The main door to the Mess bursts open. All the lights are flipped on. The Director marches into the kitchen with two of his private security detail. They aren’t military; they aren’t Exclusion Guards. They’re the two who dragged Noor away. Private security doesn’t need to uphold an oath to the Constitution. They are loyal to the Director, and only to him.

“Good work, Corporal Reynolds. Restrain Miss Amin.” Spit flies out of the Director’s mouth as he speaks. His face reddens to a deep crimson, the veins on his neck taut like wires pulled too tight. All my muscles tense. My breath goes raspy, like there’s not enough air to breathe in the room. Every single time I’m frightened in here, I think that I’ve never been so scared; but always, always, I keep finding there’s another level of fear I had no concept of.

Jake is standing in front of us; he turns and looks at me, softening his eyes for the briefest of seconds. He takes me by the arm. I look wildly from the Director to his security detail to Jake and then to David. I jerk myself away from Jake and wrap my arms around David’s neck and whisper, “Your phone. Instagram. Now.” Jake pulls me back, a look of shock in his eyes.

“It was me. It was all me. David didn’t do anything.” I say this knowing that none of it matters.

The Director rubs his hands together like he’s washing them. “Thank you for that admission, Miss Amin, but I believe there is enough blame to go around. There certainly will be consequences for everyone involved.” The Director’s face is almost gleeful. It doesn’t cause a shiver of fright. I’m long past simple fear. I feel like ants are running all over my skin, like I know I’m in a nightmare and I’m clawing to get the ants off me, but all I’m doing is hurting myself.

I manage a few words. “David’s not an internee. He has civil rights. The rule of law exists.” Jake, who is still holding on to my elbow, gently tugs at my arm, a warning that I’m digging a deeper hole for myself. But I have to say something. David is only here because of me. Because I asked him to come. Because I needed him. And now he’s going to get hurt because I’m a selfish asshole.

“I am the law,” the Director rages, then motions to his private security detail. One of them grabs me from Jake.

“No!” I scream as the man shoves me against the fridge. It happens so fast. My cheek slams against the hard, cold metal before I can grasp what is going on, and the voices and bodies blur around me. I hear Jake yell something about my being a minor.

David steps out in front of the Director. From the corner of my eye, I see him shaking. “I’m sure the world is interested in how you’re the law now and how you’re hurting kids in here. Kids.” He’s holding his camera in front of him, filming. “I’m live streaming on Instagram Live. That’s Layla Amin. Californian. American citizen.”

I catch David’s eye as he steps closer to me and the man who is still holding me against the fridge.

The Director pulls at his collar, his face beet red. He’s breathing so loudly through his nostrils that I expect him to exhale fire.

Jake steps forward and moves the security detail away from me, gently pulling me back from the fridge and placing his hand at the small of my back. David keeps filming. Jake speaks in a calm, deliberate voice. “Sorry about that”—Jake pauses slightly and looks at the Director—“accident, Miss Amin. I’m sure the Director would want you to get checked out at the infirmary. The Exclusion Authority has clear regulations on the treatment of minors at Mobius.”