No one seemed to hear her. Instead, they skipped and collided like moths around a sudden light, following Nam out into the hall and pouring into the kitchen. Their excited whispers echoed in the damp space like small bubbles rising to the surface. Only the Chief stayed behind, facing Rose in the small room.

“I am the Chief here, young lady. And I say a drink is in order.” His voice was still friendly, but edged with authority.

They stared at each other for long seconds, neither one wavering. He smiled slow and wide and said, “Before he partakes of my medicine.” It was clear that this was not up for discussion.

Rose looked down at Derrick, tucked under a stained quilt with a design of autumn leaves and cross-stitched pumpkins, his forehead shiny in the wan light from the hall. The quicker she downed a drink, the quicker he’d get his meds. So she pushed past the Chief, refusing to make eye contact.

In the kitchen, the women were dancing, though there was no music. Nam, sweaty from helping Derrick, poured purple liquid from a mason jar into small glasses. And on every wall were drawings of dream catchers in crayon, marker, and what looked like jam, or perhaps even blood. Rose leaned against the laminate counter and sighed, watching the chaos and wondering just what in the hell kind of place they had stumbled upon. She started to think perhaps their better bet would have been sweating in the dark of the woods, under the moon, surrounded by flora and the kind of impending danger she could at least understand.

CHAPTER 17

PHASE TWO

French

SOMETIMES THE SIREN WENT ON FOR HOURS. OTHER times, it never went off at all. The threat of torture, after enough torture, becomes the torture itself. Even the mention of the Correction Room made me drop to my knees and beg. Even turning into that hallway made vomit burn in my throat. After the first ten days, they stopped locking my door. After eleven days, I stopped checking it. I knew when I was expected to be up and ready. I knew what they wanted me to say. There were only two things I wasn’t forthcoming about: Rose, and the nature of my capture. I held the truth of them so tight, I started to believe my own stories.

“I wanted out,” I told Agent Mellin as she moved her fingers over the keyboard. “I’d tried to leave earlier and was stopped. That’s why the bag you brought me in with was so well packed.” It was always best to use material from the truth when constructing a lie. I actually had been leaving, but with Rose, to start again on our own. But then the alarm had gone up that there were strangers nearby, and we had both joined the scouting party. Of course, in this version, the version I was sharing for the “official record,” there was no Rose. And I was bitter. And I had been leaving on my own, disillusioned by a long, hard life in the bush. I was a resentful old soul at the age of seventeen. I thought letting Agent Mellin know how much I loved my family would make them irresistible, so I held back.