I imagine what he looks like, sitting there, his lanky body folded into a crouch. His dusty, dark hair framing a scarred, brown face, and his eyes sparkling. In the year and a half since I got here, he’s become my best friend. The only one who makes this place remotely habitable, his wild ideas an escape I never knew I needed.

I shake my head. “You’re—without question—the weirdest person I know,” I say. “But I’m okay. Thanks for checking.”

“I’ll be waiting for you when you get out,” he promises. “I saved you some food from lunch.”

I breathe a little easier at that, at the idea of an after. “Get out before anyone catches you, please.”

“See you, Star Kid.”

* * *

It’s late afternoon when Rock and Scissors come to free me from solitary and bring me to Warden Davis. Neither one of them acknowledges the time or the fact that my stomach is rumbling and my head is pounding. They’re both pale and distracted. Usually they’re two of the good ones. The guards we can count on to joke around, who don’t treat us as criminals but as humans—not like the two who took me out of the cafeteria this morning.

But Rock lets me out of the room without a jab or a smart comment. Scissors flanks me quietly as we walk. The cell used for solitary confinement isn’t part of the four residential wings of Hope or close to the communal areas. Instead, it’s near the various offices. While these hallways look cleaner than ours, they’re all but abandoned today. They’re quieter than I’ve ever seen them before.

I can’t stand the unnecessary silence for a moment longer.

I clear my throat. “What has you both so distracted?” I nearly laugh. “Did the aliens land?”

Scissors opens his mouth to respond, but Rock—who has fallen in on my other side—grunts. “Shut up, Grace. You don’t want to get into any more trouble than you’re already in. Not now.”

“I don’t want to get into trouble. I wanted to eat breakfast and lunch. I want to eat dinner, I guess, by now.” I fight to keep the accusation—and the hunger—from my voice.

“If you’d followed the rules, you wouldn’t have been in there waiting for the warden in the first place.”

“Right, so I should let you all misgender the new kid and not say anything?” I mean to think it and not say it, but that’s kind of always been my problem. Tone down one comment and the other slips out.

Rock grabs me by the arm and pushes me to the wall, forcefully, face first. For a brief moment, I’m convinced he’ll zip-tie me up and march me back to solitary, and pure terror courses through me. Good in here doesn’t mean the same as it does in the outside world. It simply means it takes longer for the guards to snap.

He leans in close. His breath is hot on my cheek, and it smells of stale coffee and gum. It reminds me of too much. I force myself not to flinch. Not to think. Not to struggle.