I measured time in how many naps I could take on the thin mattress that second day. Yusuf came by twice, each time with a list of things, like one reason to see me wasn’t good enough. We’re working on getting you a flight out but we’re waiting on fuel. And do you need some air? Hours later, sometime around dinner, he stood in my doorway and dared to meet my eyes. I brought you some toothpaste in case you didn’t have any and are you hungry? The more he talked about getting me out of here, the low-brass of his voice speeding up just a tick, the more I suspected he actually wanted me to stick around.

After dinner he brought me to a small outdoor track in the shadow of the squat white Compound, saying how he thought I might want to stretch my legs.

I tipped my head to the cloudless blue sky and let the sun bake my pores. We walked the track, our feet kicking up clouds of red clay. Yusuf had ditched his white lab coat but still looked pretty weird outside in his button-down and black pants. I was wearing the T-shirt and paint-splotched shorts I flew here in, though I had at least managed to wash the pits of the shirt in the sink of my room.

“You should know everything,” Yusuf told me, after our first loop around the track. “You’re a part of this. Secrets are poison.”

I’ll remember that “secrets are poison” bit when we’re on the run. When Yusuf looks at me, his eyes begging, please just tell me what’s wrong, and I only smile and kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Alright. Is it safe to talk here?”

Yusuf shrugged. “Seems so. We’re beyond the Compound walls.”

“Should we at least pretend to run? We look suspicious as hell.”

“Alright.”

I set a slow pace, both of us looping this track to nowhere over and over, until the sweat dripped down our faces.