THUNK.

“Ow, Christ.” It took me a few seconds to remember where I was: in a box on a train speeding toward the United States of Freedom and not strapped to a wheelchair or hooked up to machines in a bed in some residential school, waiting to be drained. But then, why was I still so scared? My armpits stung with nerves and new sweat. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. I knew it before I heard the first yell.

“Get out! Nice and slow, that’s right. You too, missy. Hands up where we can see them.”

I lifted my palms and pushed against the lid of my box. Still screwed into place.

“Shit.”

Nothing to do but lie here and wait and try to be as small and quiet as possible. Luckily, I had learned that lesson well at the school. So instead of panicking, I listened, trapped inside what might turn out to be my coffin after all.

“What do we do with the driver and this one up here?” one called.

“Neither is the brand we’re looking for. Tie them up and leave them. They don’t deserve any better than that,” came the answer.

“There’s a woman here!”

“Indigenous?”

“Can’t tell.”

“Pack her up and bring her. Waste not, want not.”

“Search the cars!”

“You search the cars, they’re dirty.”

“Well, who told you to wear white on a mission?”

“Excuse me? How are you any kind of expert? I mean, how many cat sweaters does one person have to own before they are officially considered insane?”

“Ladies, ladies. You can both search the cars. Look for the signs: smells, sounds, dark corners, piles of material, and containers with breathing holes. And do not think for one minute that the cargo is tame. Remember the drill. We must remember that the hostile will act…”

“Hostile,” a chorus answered.

And then the doors starting sliding open, banging back against the walls so hard the insides of the train shook—my insides shook.

And then a whisper in the dark of the car:

“Here, piggy, piggy, piggy…”

I held my breath. And waited.

CHAPTER 32

MOTHERS, DEAREST

Three Days Before

MOMS DO WHAT IS BEST FOR THE CHILDREN. ALWAYS. It was rule number one in the handbook. There were twenty rules in total, each with bulleted points, but this one? This one was number one.

Adelaide McKenna had argued that it should be the organization’s motto instead of being grouped in with “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” with its twelve sub-points.

“It’s the central principle of MOMS. It should at least be in a bigger font.” Adelaide had issues with the formatting of the handbook in general. She’d brought it up every meeting since they’d been distributed. It started with the fact that the manual consisted of typed pages in an inch-and-a-half-thick binder labeled with hand-lettered stickers. “These holes aren’t even reinforced,” she’d remarked the first time she’d seen it, tearing out the first page to demonstrate.