Internment(75)

I know he has his orders, but I’m sad he hasn’t come back. Doesn’t he at least want to check on me?

My jaw throbs. My entire body hurts. “If you see him, could you tell him—tell him I—” I have no idea what I want to tell him. Maybe that I feel broken and lost and helpless. “Tell him I tried to stay strong.”

Fred nods. “He’ll go wild when he finds out what the Director did. Things are getting out of control. That’s why High Command is here. With all this media attention, the protestors, they can’t afford any more mistakes. The public was fine with all this in the abstract, but it’s becoming real for them, and it’s starting to make people squirm.”

“How long will the Director hold me in the brig? Can I see my parents? Are they okay?”

“I don’t know how long he plans on keeping you here. He’s forbidden any visitors.”

Tears sting my eyes. I’m so tired. I wish I could sleep. I wish so badly that I could see my parents. But I’m still aware enough to realize that both Fred and Jake ignored my questions about my parents. I hope they’re okay.

“I’ll wrangle you up something to eat.” Fred begins walking back to the door.

“Fred? Aren’t you scared? I mean, the cameras in here?”

“The IT guy on the security feed right now is with us. Any footage that could cause trouble will meet with a technical glitch. It might not seem like it, but there are a lot of people who are fighting this.”

I offer a weak smile. Fred walks out. And I’m alone again.

I clench my fists. I want to punch this stupid wall, but I can barely lift my arm. I fall over onto the cot, my body convulsing in soul-shattering sobs.





They yank me from my sleep before I can cry out. Before I can even remember where I am.

I wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands. This is real. This prison room. These two men from the Director’s security team. This pain in my jaw. And the horrible sinking feeling that I am being taken away. Forever.

I yearn for a minute of a gentle, just-stirring stupor, but I can’t afford to be groggy. Not here. Not now. My muscles tense. My throat feels raw, like I was breathing through my mouth all night, and my heart whirs like an overwound motor on a toy car.

Neither of the Director’s men says anything. One takes my arm and pulls me to standing and cuffs my hands behind my back. I strain against him, against the handcuffs, but he is twice as big as me and has a gun.

“Keep your mouth shut,” the other one says. He’s taller and has bushy light-brown eyebrows that look like caterpillars. He rips a piece of duct tape from a large roll.

I whip my head away.

“You can make this easy or hard. It makes no difference to me,” he says in a dull monotone. My palms sweat. My heart races. I start to gag. I’m panicking. When I panic, my mind starts to go on walkabout, but I need to be here. I have to keep pulling myself back to the present moment.

“I won’t scream. You don’t need to do that,” I say, my voice fading like a wisp of smoke.

“Orders.”

I purse my lips as he tapes them shut. The one who handcuffed me pushes me forward.

These guys are the Director’s private security. Where are the Exclusion Guards? I don’t see Fred anywhere. And does Jake even know what’s happening? As I step through the door, I see another one of the Director’s henchmen waiting in the hallway. He throws a brown cloth bag over my head, tightening it around my neck like a noose. I squirm. I try to push against it, but the more I fight, the less I can breathe. I wonder if this is what suffocating feels like. Was this what it was like for the others? The ones he disappeared?

“Stop fighting it,” a throaty, unknown voice whispers in my ear. The third man. “It’s only a short walk.”

I try to slow down my breathing. And quiet my body. My instinct is to close my eyes, but I force myself to keep them open. It’s dark, but not completely. The rough fibers of the fabric allow light from the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling through. I’m guided down the hallway toward a door to the outside.

No. I can’t go outside. If they take me away from the camp, I could be gone forever. No one will find me. No one will know where I am. I drag my feet, but the men pull me forward against my will.

Adrenaline surges through me. I’m suddenly hyperaware of my breathing and the rapid thud of my heartbeat.

Scream.

Run.

Fight.

But there is nowhere to flee. And there is no fight I can win.

The security detail propels me forward. One of them opens the door to the outside. I can taste the dust in the air. I feel the tiny particles swirling about and coating me like a second skin. Even through the bag on my head, the dust fills my nostrils. There is a stillness, a quiet outside. It’s the middle of the night. The nights at Mobius have an eeriness about them, a soundless, otherworldly beauty, interrupted only by a chance howl or hoot in the distance.

Occasionally I’ve snuck out of my room and sat on the steps to my trailer, listening to the night, gazing up at the stars, dreaming. Night is refuge, a kind of mental sanctuary I can access. But being outside right now, under the cloak of darkness, offers the very opposite. My fears hurtle to the front of my mind. A black-ops site—some secret location away from Mobius. Where no one would be able to find me. The security detail said it was a short walk, but it could be a short walk to a van that might be taking me anywhere. And anywhere in handcuffs means those secret sites, hidden away, places where they can erase your existence. Jake warned me, but I didn’t believe it was really possible. I thought maybe my age, or the presence of the Red Cross, immunized me against the terrors I knew existed in the camp.