TIME MARCHES AHEAD. I feel certain there is no way I will survive long in a place like this. And yet I keep on waking up. It’s not even the Youth Detention Facility that’s the problem. It’s the world. A world where these terrible things keep on being true about Cassie, my mom, my dad. Gideon.

I start to have panic attacks again. Worse than ever before, two or three a day sometimes. Once I black out in the TV room. The guard on duty threatens me with solitary if I do it again. I know I could demand to see a doctor. They can’t punish me for an anxiety disorder. But I don’t. Because I wonder if solitary would be such a bad thing.

I’ve gotten letters from Ramona and Becca. Rachel asked them to write, I’m sure. She thinks it will help if I have proof the other girls really had made it out all right. The letters were mechanical, polite. Basic. I noticed what they did not say: we know you are innocent.

Riel sends a letter, too. Or rather a letter arrives that I think is from Riel. Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. That’s all it says. Her name is nowhere on it.

One person I haven’t heard from is Jasper. The judge issued a “no contact” order. It is a condition of his probation on the trespassing charges. The point, Rachel has said, is to make my life more miserable so I am more likely to tell them what they want to hear. So that I will confess to a crime I did not commit.

But that is something I will not do no matter how much I miss Jasper. And I do miss him. It is as simple and as complicated as that.

BEFORE LUNCH ON the sixth day, we all head to watch TV as we do each day at that time. Or at least the TV is on, and it is in front of me as I sit on one of several long couches, each with space for six other girls. I stare at the screen, but I couldn’t tell you what’s ever on. Still, it seems better for me to be there with other people than alone in my room. More and more I have the overwhelming sense of something horrifying hurtling my way. And soon. I feel like there should be witnesses.

“Lang, you’ve got a visitor,” a guard shouts.

I stare at him blankly, wonder if I am imagining things.

“Come on,” he shouts, pointing me to the door. “Let’s go.”

Jasper? I feel a sudden wave of stupid hope. My racing heart sends blood rushing into my half-dead limbs. I jump to my feet. Please. Please. Please. Even though I know it can’t be him. That it shouldn’t be, for Jasper’s sake.