“Don’t!” I cried out. I could not bear to hear her name.
He hung his head. “I’ve messed everything up. From the beginning. I’ve done nothing right by you. By your mother. She loved you so much, Ember.”
“She’s dead because of you!”
And what was worse was that she was dead because of me, too. Because if I’d never told Chase to leave, he wouldn’t have gone into the military. They never would have targeted him. They never would have used us to break him. Through some twist of fate, I had killed my own mother. The shame was so thick I could not speak it.
He rocked back onto his heels and then stood. I knew I had wounded him. I had done so deliberately. I wanted to injure him. To make him hurt as deeply as I did. But how could he?
“Yes,” he said simply. “She’s dead because of me.”
“Get out. Get away from me.”
Minutes passed. But he did leave. I heard the door close softly behind him.
I SOBBED for hours huddled in a clenched ball. I cried until the tears dried up. And when they did, my body cried without them.
Every image that entered my mind pained me. Every thought led me to the same conclusion.
I was alone. Absolutely alone.
When I could breathe again, I forced myself up and stumbled toward the window. I could hear other people in the hallway asking Chase what had happened. He didn’t answer. It didn’t matter.
My arms were heavy. My head felt heavy. Bloated.
Air.
I slid over the ledge and out onto the fire escape, needing the cold to stop the fever. The balcony was too small. I could climb down the ladder. I could get to the street. It looked like a black hole from up here. Maybe I could disappear inside it.
The rain was soothing. The first soothing feeling I’d felt in what seemed like an eternity. It soaked through my clothing, my hair. It washed away the salt on my face. It entered my eyes by way of my matted lashes and cleansed them.
I walked. And walked. Unable to focus on anything. Remembering nothing.
The lights didn’t surprise me. They barely roused my curiosity. But soon the car had stopped alongside the sidewalk where I stood. Men got out. They spoke to me in harsh tones I didn’t understand. They grabbed my arms. They dragged me into the backseat, where the rain no longer reached me.
A CLANG on the metal door. My eyes blinked open, unfocused. A fluorescent light directly above my head buzzed and flickered. The ceiling was pocked with dried peels of white paint. Mildew and body odor soiled the mattress I laid upon. I had no pillow. No blankets.
Where was I? How long had I been here? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
“She won’t eat.” Someone’s voice came muffled through the door.
“I don’t give a damn.” Another male.
“Me neither,” the first scoffed, “but she’ll be dead before her trial if she keeps this up.”
“Then she’ll be dead. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
I closed my ears to their callous disregard. I closed my mind to all consciousness.
A HAND was shaking my shoulder. Then a hard pinch to the sensitive skin on the underside of my arm. The pain snapped my eyes open. Apparently I could still feel some things.
“You need to get up. Get up!” A woman’s voice now, warped with annoyance. I moaned and rolled away. My face pressed against the cool, cement wall.
“If you don’t knock this off,
“Leave me alone,” I managed weakly.
“You’ve had three days of that already. Now you’ve got to get moving.”
She shook my shoulder again. When I rolled onto my back, she grabbed my arms and pulled me into a seated position. My head went very fuzzy and dim.
“Hey.” She slapped my cheek lightly. “Are you going to throw up?”
“No,” I said feebly.
“Hmph. You’ve got nothing to throw up anyway.”
She shoved a plastic bowl onto my lap. It was filled with something that resembled soupy oatmeal. I stared at it blankly.
“Unbelievable,” the woman said. She picked up a spoonful and shoved it into my mouth.
I sputtered and choked. But the tasteless, lukewarm mush slid down my throat and entered my starved stomach. Soon my mouth was watering for more.
I ate, focusing for the first time on the woman. She had gnarled, arthritic bumps on her hands and deeply etched creases beside her mouth. Her face held a look of concern it seemed would never fully dissipate, and her eyes were almost translucently blue. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she were blind, but her movements dictated otherwise.
Her hair was gray and wavy, and she wore a navy pleated skirt and button-up blouse. The uniform covered her sagging body the way a burlap sack covers potatoes.
It was like I’d never left the reformatory.
In the tiny cell, the narrow bed reached out from the wall and nearly collided with a metal toilet at its foot. There was barely enough room for the woman to remain standing in front of me without our knees touching.
“Where am I?” I asked her. My voice cracked. It had not been used in some time.
“Knoxville Detention Facility.”
So I had been captured after all.
“Finish up, Miller.” She slapped the side of my bowl, and some sloshed onto a paper gown, like the kind people wear in hospitals. Somewhere along the line someone had taken my clothes.
“You know my name.” My haircut hadn’t disguised me in the end. Oh well.
She huffed. “Put the dress on. You can’t stay in that.”
With no notions of modesty, I stripped down to my undergarments and slid into the oversized Sisters of Salvation uniform, forgoing the handkerchief. My appearance now matched the clear-eyed woman.
“Now what?” I asked.
“You wait until someone comes and gets you.” She knocked twice on the door. It opened from the outside, and she slid out of view.
I stared at the wall across from me, my mind blank.
SOMETIME later I heard keys jangle against the door, then a metallic squeal, and the barricade was removed, revealing a lean soldier with a broad chest. He had a slight face. Piercing green eyes. Golden hair slicked to one side. One large hand held a clipboard and a pen. His other arm was casted from the elbow down.
He had a gun holstered beside the nightstick on his hip. I wondered if he was here to shoot me, the way Chase’s commanding officer had shot my mother. I was surprised that I didn’t much care. At least this nightmare would be over.
There was a dreamlike quality about him. I felt like I recognized him from somewhere. Pieces began to pull together, one at a time.
“Your knuckles look like hell. What have you been doing, cage fighting?”
I glanced down, thinking that my hands actually looked pretty good. The scabs had peeled, leaving behind thin, white scars. Most of the darker bruising had faded. I wiggled my fingers. Just a dull ache.
“You have no idea who I am,” he said, stealing a look back toward the door.
