“Amy doesn’t need to be here,” I said, as I finished removing the stuff in my pockets and started removing ornamentation, like the decoration at my hood and shoulders.

She looked at my mom, as if for confirmation, then said, “I kind of do but—”

“Think,” I said. “Find two rational thoughts, put them together, and think about it, please.”

“I am. I’m aware this is awkward. But they want this. They want us to watch you and I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go.”

I could have choked on the anger I felt.

“Come keep an eye on me,” Tristan said. “Give Victoria her space.”

Amy was just short enough that only the top of her head, still covered by her hood, was visible over the top of the divider.

I pulled off the outer layers of my costume, my mom and two guards looking, a third guard looking over my red letter—my paperwork from the portal. They checked me over, one guard examining me, another going over my clothes inch by inch, while I stood on the clammy floor, still with beads of moisture and droplets from when prisoners had used the space.

They let me change back into the tank top and costume leggings I’d been wearing, and they gave me simple shoes and socks to wear. I kept the socks in my pocket, slipping wet feet into the shoes. Wet socks would be worse and would get the shoes wet anyway.

I wanted more. The protection of the heavy coat, a barrier between me and everything else.

After they finished Sveta, I settled into position, still in the stall, my arms resting on the divide between Sveta’s stall and my own, my chin resting on my arms. My position let me keep an eye on the others while keeping Amy in my peripheral vision.

“You have scars,” Amy cut into my thoughts.

From a vantage point on the boy’s side—she’d moved to higher ground to be able to see faces above the shoulder-high divider—she could see my head and the arm that rested on top. I dropped my arm and covered the topmost scar with my hand. Notches where the acid centipedes had raked me.

I pulled the hand away, anger and hate and bitter feelings boiling up. I could have used my aura or power, if it wouldn’t have been so costly. Fuck me.

“Don’t follow through with that thought,” Vista said, so I didn’t have to.

I saw Amy look momentarily frustrated and lost. She looked to my mom, who didn’t respond. She looked to my dad.

“Hostility doesn’t help any of us,” my dad said.

“Technically speaking,” Chris said.

“Oh my god, please shut up, Chris,” Vista said.

The guard barked a word at her in a foreign tongue. He was checking her hair.

“I think he said to be quiet,” Marquis said.