I kick at some fallen leaves. “Do you think the others will leave Hope too?” Tonight, tomorrow, whenever. If for some reason the guards don’t come back.

Leah glances at the buildings slowly disappearing behind us and shrugs. “Dunno. I imagine they will once they realize the guards are gone.”

“The other teens?” Emerson says from my other side. They still have their arms wrapped around their chest. “I can’t imagine anyone choosing to stay at Hope. That is, unless the guards show up again in the morning. I don’t know what’ll happen if they do. I don’t know what’ll happen to us.”

I raise my eyebrows, and Emerson colors. They glance back between the two of us. “I figured you were talking about everyone who’s left,” they say.

I nod, but I can feel Leah tense next to me.

“We were having a private conversation,” she snaps.

Emerson colors deeper. It makes them look almost purple in the little light we have, and I elbow Leah.

“It’s okay. Do you think that’ll happen? Do you think the guards will come back?”

Emerson watches my signs carefully and then turns to Leah. I have to elbow her again before she begrudgingly translates.

“I don’t know,” Emerson says. “They seemed distracted all day, so maybe something is wrong? If we’re lucky, we’ll never find out.” They furrow their brow. “I saw one of you sneak out with paper, right? That’s not something you can usually do.”

I nod. They’re right about that, but the guards were distracted.

Leah’s eyes widen. “Did you?”

“Nia was running out,” I explain. It only makes me wonder if she’ll escape too. And if it’s easier for us to try than it would be for her.

“You can’t get caught with those.” Leah sighs. “And she can’t either. It will only make life harder for her.”

“But I was trying to help.”

Leah closes her eyes and sighs. “I know, but it doesn’t work like that. We’re not treated equally.”

Nia is at Hope for larceny and resisting arrest, because someone thought she tried to shoplift—even though she never really stole anything. Meanwhile, Leah and I have been caught with stolen food or pads more than once, but we never got anything more than a stern talking to, as Leah put it. Even at Hope, the guards pay more attention to Nia than they do to us. It doesn’t sound like justice to me.

Something of my outrage must have been visible on my face, because Emerson nods. “It isn’t fair.”

“It isn’t.” Leah turns to the road ahead. “It’ll be better out there.”

“Will it?”

“It has to be.”

If nothing else, under the countless stars, it’s certainly brighter. We make it a mile or so away from Hope when the dirt road takes a sharp turn toward the mountains.

From here, a narrow mountain road leads toward the nearest town. Sam’s Throne, a small town right at the edge of the Ozarks. It was where Leah and I were transferred from the court’s jurisdiction to the care of a local guard. We waited for nearly two hours, and the court clerk refused to let us go to the bathroom. It made the drive uncomfortable, but at least there were no roadblocks.