Sliding along the road under a fingernail moon, the Recruiters synchronized their watches and loaded their weapons. Soon, things would be back the way they should be, with every Indian accounted for.

CHAPTER 35

BLOOM

French

THE MOON NEVER LOOKED LIKE ANYTHING OTHER than itself, even when it changed, chasing itself from sliver to full to sliver. But it had this ability to remind you of exactly the thing that haunted you.

It was night. I knew that because the curtain on our one window was open about three inches. The sky was navy, but in layers, and the moon was low and slight. Tonight, that moon was a gentle curve of creamy white. Tonight, the moon was the rib sawed from the scaffold of Miig’s chest and ripped out. Tonight, it wasn’t something in the sky; it was a spot taken out of it. It was a hole. It was loss, a rib-shaped absence.

The room was full of the smell of pennies and salt. The concrete walls and floor and that one high, locked window had kept the space cool. But now a new, dark humidity muddied the air. It was easy to be quiet in this new atmosphere. It was like a church after the incense has been swung down the aisle.

Wab held the thin cage bars with both hands, each finger red at the tip and pale white at the bend. She strained and shimmied in the cramped rectangle. I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t look away.

“Breathe. Don’t forget to breathe.” Rania kept her voice even, calling over her shoulder while she tried to clean Miig’s stitches with the small bottle of hand sanitizer and the hem of her T-shirt. She’d done the best she could with what she’d been given, but the stitches were starting to look puffy. I could see the worry in the way she scrunched up her eyebrows, like they were acting out while she herself tried to remain calm.

The real electricity in the room came from Chi Boy, who strained against his cuffs, every muscle in his chest flexed, his neck a terrain of cords and pulse. He’d been like that for six hours, since Wab’s water had left her and started trickling down the drain in the center of the room. A slow drip of blood beaded off each thumb from the metal slicing its way through his skin and into the meat of his hands. He hadn’t even noticed. I wasn’t sure he was even breathing regularly.

Wab was on her back, her head tipped back against the cage, her hair tangled with sweat.

“It doesn’t even make sense. It’s unfair.” Her words came out with pauses, like exhales.

“What is, Wab?” I leaned as close as the rope would allow so she could hear me.

“Pain. It’s like being pushed under a freezing wave before you can cough out the last one and take a full breath.” Her head lolled to the side and rested on her shoulder. “There’s no way to say what it is, you know?”