When things were especially quiet, Mom held a finger to her lips, as if she’d just rocked the world to sleep. Listen, she’d say, even the bad guys nap.

Mr. Oklahoma doesn’t turn around. “We are, Jamal.”

He’d make an excellent play-by-play announcer for the end of humanity.

I bet his I love yous sound like a eulogy.

I stick my head into the front seat, but before I can are we there yet, we pull sharply off the road, and I fall back, my face smacking the door.

“You wanna use that brake next time,” I say, gravel popcorning beneath the car.

The driver taps a sequence onto the car’s center console touch screen.

Mr. Oklahoma speaks quietly into his phone.

And Ms. B, her eyes wild, scoots to the middle, leans forward to stare out the front windshield, as if she doesn’t believe what her own window’s showing her.

“Is this some sick joke?” Ms. B asks.

76

What had I expected?

A building of iridescent glass. A gleaming steel fortress.

A feat of engineering and design that auto-slackened your jaw, made you wish you’d sprung for the phone with the better camera.

An architectural beanstalk shooting from the earth.

But this?

“The GPS working out here? We miss our turn?” I ask, glancing out the rear window.

“We are where we are supposed to be,” Mr. Oklahoma says.

“Which is where?”

“The old milk factory,” Ms. B answers. “Why are we at the old milk factory?” She reaches for her door handle. Looks at me. And for the first time, she looks terrified. Maybe she’s realizing what I’m realizing. That we’re in a strange car, in the middle of night and nowhere, at some defunct dairy plant, and no one knows we’re here, or who we’re with. We don’t know where we are, who we’re with.

Maybe we’re coming out of the bring Q back at all costs spell.

Maybe it’s finally dawning on us that this promise isn’t real.

People don’t wake up from death.

And even if they could, it wouldn’t be in a room filled with milk crates.

I pull out my phone, but Mr. Oklahoma shakes his head. “There is no service here. My apologies.”

“I need to call my sister. She’s probably freaking out.”

He nods. “You can call her when we’re inside, Jamal. But we have already notified her. She is aware of the situation.”

“You call my son dying a situation?”

Mr. Oklahoma frowns. “Please forgive my poor choice of words, Ms. Barrantes. I assure you I do not take your son’s untimely death lightly. As for Whitney, Jamal, she has been fully apprised. Both her and the baby are fine.”

What the—did he just—

“How do you know my sister’s name? That she’s pregnant?”