“It’s certainly not silly,” Anne assured her. “But I get it. Everyone here is so focused on gratitude and God’s wisdom, it almost makes you feel like a traitor for feeling afraid. Or unhappy.” Anne’s voice dropped a few decibels, as if she was ashamed of her next words: “I almost feel like a liar when I smile.”

“I don’t think the Lord wants us to be liars,” Sasha said. “But I think being happy, or trying to seem happy, is a sacrifice we make for the Kingdom. It helps keep everyone else around us strong.”

“Hmm,” Anne said, and then yawned. Her voice sounded heavy with sleep. There must have been something contagious in the sound, because Sasha felt her own eyelids start to droop. “That’s a nice way to look at it,” Anne said. “I like the way you think, Sasha.”

Helen woke all of them up the next morning. She was gentle with it—a hand on each girl’s shoulder and a word in each of their ears, but there was no mistaking that she meant Now. So Sasha got up. Her feet hit the floor just as Anne took her first steps forward, toward the dining room. They all filed in, silent and groggy.

The girls took their breakfasts in the form of a thick, tasteless protein shake and then they were loaded onto a heavy military-looking bus and driven off to a large red-brick office building. According to the bullet-pocked signs, it had once been an administrative building for the corporation that had run most of the Republic’s schools.

Sasha swept up bullet casings and shattered glass. She scrubbed ­toilets and wiped the blood off the walls and tried not to think too hard about how it had gotten there. Conversation wasn’t forbidden, but there was a lot of ground to cover and Mae was quick to scold anyone who dawdled. Sasha and Anne both kept moving, but they passed each other in the halls often. Each time, the other girl would favor Sasha with a supportive smile and Sasha would return it.

They broke for lunch a little after noon (stale cheese sandwiches and orange juice), but instead of getting back to work after their meal they were met again by the bus that had taken them there. They were told to file inside. Sasha wound up in between Anne and Susannah in the middle row of the bus. It was hot, the air circulation was bad, and the smell of sweat was thick on the bus. But the windows were down and, once the bus got going, the air that blew in felt like heaven.

“Lord God, I’ve been waiting for this all day,” said Susannah. “I’d stay on this thing all night if they’d let me.”

“Yeah,” Anne said, “this is actually a lot more comfortable than the bunkroom, even when the power’s working and the fans are on.”