“Thanks,” I told him. I was genuinely grateful, but then immediately angry with myself for feeling gratitude. I should be fighting him, pushing him, tripping him down the stairs; Wab would have, and Chi Boy probably would have snapped his neck already. But here I was, meekly being led without so much as shrugging off his grip, with a “thank you,” even. The shame of it made me timid.

Two flights, and then through another door, opened with the same card, into another area watched over by two security guards behind glass. I was sluggish, weaving a bit with every step. We took a left and walked down a hallway wide enough to have little sitting areas outside the rooms, one chair and a round table each. We stopped in front of a closed door with a small plaque on the front: meeting room 3.

My escort rapped on the door, and we waited. I started seeing spots and shifted my weight from foot to foot. I needed food or I was going to pass out.

“Come in,” a voice called out.

Even if I hadn’t been guided through the open door, even if I wasn’t under guard and too weak to make any sudden movements, I would have gone in. Something in that voice hooked itself under my ribs and pulled me toward it.

CHAPTER 4

THE PLAN

Rose

“WHY DID I EVEN COME BACK?” ROSE WAS EXHAUSTED, but her anxiety held her straight like scaffolding. She shouldn’t have let Derrick bring her back. She should have left on her own when she wanted to, gone way out, all the way to a school, if that’s what it took, instead of sticking around here for two days with the others only searching close to camp.

“Because heading out on your own is suicide,” Bullet sighed, like she was talking to a child instead of a grown-ass woman. She turned back to the table. “Father Carole, we’d like to thank you for coming out to help us once again. You continue to be a tremendous ally.”

Father Carole was the Council’s man on the inside. Officially, he sat on a board of directors for the school system. Unofficially, he carried information to the resistance. He was the reason they knew anything about the schools and the people taken inside. That’s how they’d found out when Minerva was being moved and why they’d been able to attempt a rescue, even if it had failed in the end.

He sat next to Frenchie’s dad now, across from Bullet, her counterpart Clarence, and Miigwans. Rose, Derrick, Wab, and Chi Boy had been invited to observe from a bench behind the main table. Bullet had made clear at the beginning, “Observing is not shouting out whatever the hell pops into your head whenever the hell you want.”

“I don’t know how much help I can be. It’s only been a few days. The weekly report hasn’t even come in.” Carole spoke slow and soft. He knew the missing boy was Jean’s and tried to maintain the calm in the camp that he knew was temporary, perhaps even pulled together for his visit.