“He”: her mother’s friend—the help-promiser. “Are the goats and chickens in prison, or to be eaten by the prisoners?” She’d meant for it to be funny, but by the look on Mama’s face, she’d said the wrong thing again—the thing her dad would have said. Summer could taste the dust from outside coating her mouth.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, not wanting to ruin the mood. “Can I have a sip of that water?”

The plastic water bottle crackled when Summer took it from her mother’s hand. She was lifting the bottle to her lips when an odd shape rose out of the desert, on her right.

“Look, is that it?” She pointed out the window at the pale building that rose out of the dirt like a squat sandcastle. A single road led down to the building. To reach it, they would have to pass through a gate. The gate was an ugly, solid, metal thing; Summer resented that she couldn’t see through it, but now someone was stepping out of the little shack to their left and she switched her attention to the thickset woman wearing a guard’s uniform.

Her mama said a bad word, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel like she did when she was nervous. “Summer, sit back,” she said.

The woman was around her mom’s age, and she had crunchy-looking blond hair that zigzagged out from her head like electrified noodles.

Noodles took a step toward the car, scanning the road behind them like she was waiting for an ambush or something.

“Name?” This one word, spoken through her teeth, with no smile to accompany it.

“Lorraine,” her mama said to the woman. She said it in the nice voice she reserved for Summer’s teachers. The woman didn’t react to the name or her mama’s friendly tone. She didn’t check a list or smile; she stared straight at Mama—stuck her jaw out at her, even. And then, in a less friendly voice, she heard her mama add, “Taured is expecting us.”

Bending at the waist, like she hadn’t heard, Noodles scanned the interior of the car for...what? Summer scanned along with her, looking for a problem. There was none. They both seemed to come to this conclusion at the same time. “Pop the trunk.” The woman’s voice was deep and impatient.