Article 5

ground.

“No!” I shouted, struggling to reach her. A new guard blocked my way. The skin was tightly stretched across his face, and his insidious glare gave me chills.

Try it, he seemed to say, and you’ll be next.

Everyone watched as the jeering, pock-faced Randolph contained the flailing Rosa with a knee, harshly planted between her shoulder blades. After catching his breath, he hauled her body to a stand and locked her hands behind her back with a zip tie.

And then he hit her.

My belly filled with horror as blood spewed from Rosa’s nose and painted her dark skin. I would have screamed if I’d had the breath. I’d never in my life seen a man hit a woman. I knew Roy had hit my mom. I’d seen the aftereffects. But never the actual act. It was more violent than anything I could have imagined.

And then it hit me, like a punch to my face. If this was what could happen to us, to the girls in rehab, what were they doing to the people who actually committed the so-called crimes? What had Chase done to us? The urgency to flee grew even stronger. I was more afraid for my mother than ever before.

“She’s crazy,” I heard one of the seventeens say.

“She’s crazy?” I said in disbelief. “Did you not see that he just—”

The girls beside me parted silently as Ms. Brock pushed her way through. She stared at Rosa, then at me. My blood turned to ice.

“That he just what, dear?” she asked me, brows raised in either cold curiosity or challenge, I couldn’t tell.

“He… he hit her,” I said, immediately wishing I hadn’t spoken at all.

“And placated the beastly child, thank God,” she spouted with feigned relief. I felt my mouth go very dry.

She assessed Rosa down her pointy little nose for several seconds, clicking her tongue inside her mouth. “Banks, take Ms. Montoya to lower campus please.”

“Yes ma’am.” The sandy-haired guard shoved Rosa past me, leaving her attacker behind smirking with satisfaction. I tried to meet Rosa’s eyes, but she still appeared dazed. The ripe twinge of blood elicited a wave of bile up my throat.

And then Ms. Brock turned, humming, and walked away.

* * *

WE spent the next hours in silent meditation. Class, they called it. Where we sat on stiff-backed wooden chairs and read until our eyes crossed, while cow-eyed attendants occasionally interjected comments like “Heads down,” and “Don’t slouch.”

I was afraid for Rosa. They hadn’t brought her back. Whatever was happening to her was taking a long time.

The guard Banks had returned, and he and Scary Randolph patrolled the rows, deterring any notion of escape or misconduct. None of the other girls whispered now. They seemed shaken by the morning’s events and were on their best behavior.

Because no one, not even Rebecca, would pass me a sidelong glance to validate the craziness of the situation, I read. Nothing fictional like Shelley’s Frankenstein, or even the Shakespeare we’d been reading in English. Nothing that in some way might have transported me from this hell.

We read the Statutes. I’d read them only halfheartedly in school, but now, as my eyes tumbled over the words again and again, I knew they would be seared into my brain forever.

Article 1 denied individuals the right to practice or “display propaganda” associated with an alternative religion to Church of America. Apparently this included taking off school for Passover, like Katelyn Meadows had done.

Article 2 banned all immoral paraphernalia and 3 defined the “Whole Family” as one man, one woman, and children. Traditional male and female roles were outlined in Article 4. The importance of a woman’s subservience. The necessity for her to respect her male partner while he, in turn, supported the family as the provider and spiritual leader.

I thought again of my mom’s one-time boyfriend. Roy had been neither a provider nor a spiritual leader, and when I searched for some clause prohibiting domestic violence, I found no mention of it, not even in Article 6, which outlawed divorce, and gambling, and everything else from subversive speech to owning a firearm. How pathetically predictable.

Article 5 I memorized. Children are considered valid citizens when conceived by a married husband and wife. All other children are to be removed from the home and subjected to rehabilitation procedures.

All the Articles had one thing in common: Violation permitted full prosecution by the Federal Bureau of Reformation.

But what did that mean, prosecution? Rehab? I wondered if my mother was in a room like I was in right now, reading the Statutes, or if she was awaiting trial, possibly even in jail. I wondered if Chase had let her go, and if she was already waiting at home for me to call her and tell her where I was.

I raised my hand.

The Sister at the front of the room rose from her desk and walked toward me. Up close, I could see that she was younger than I had originally suspected. Maybe in her mid-thirties. But her gray peppered hair and drooping eyelids made her appear much older.

A sick shudder passed through me. The Sisters did to women what the MM did to men: tore away the soul and brainwashed what was left.

“Yes?” she said, not quite meeting my eyes.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” Rebecca, who was seated in front of me, flinched but did not look back.

“All right. Randolph, please escort Ms. Miller to the restroom.”

“I can find it on my own,” I said quickly, blushing. What am I, five years old?

“It’s procedure,” she said, and returned to her desk.

I stood, nervously biting my lower lip. I didn’t want to go anywhere with this soldier alone. Even if he hadn’t punched Rosa, he was too creepy.

Silently, he led me from the building, taking care not to stand directly in front of me, but at a slight angle so I was always in his peripheral vision. As we walked, an image of Chase filled my mind—Chase the soldier, in a uniform like Randolph’s, carrying the same baton, the same gun. What was he doing now? Was he with my mother? Was he willing to stand before Morris’s raised weapon for her, the way he’d done for me? Because no one here had blocked Randolph’s fists.

I shut him firmly from my mind.

We left the classroom and proceeded down a linoleum-floored hallway toward the main entrance. Sun filtered through the windows. It looked almost summery outside.

There was a women’s restroom just inside the front doors. I ducked in, waiting for a moment to make sure that Randolph wasn’t going to follow me in. When he didn’t, I darted over to the toilet and removed the porcelain lid to the tank.

There’s one thing I can say about living without a father: You learn to problem-solve a lot of home-repair jobs on your own. It only took a second for me to unhook the chain, allowing the water to refill the tank, and lightly replace the lid.

A moment later I was back in the hallway.

“The toilet’s broken,” I told him. As I expected, he pushed past me to check for himself.

Apparently Randolph had not grown up living month-to-month on government checks. His family probably could afford to call the plumber. Densely, he flicked the handle several times, and sure enough, the toilet did not flush. He didn’t even bother lifting the lid to check the chain.

“Isn’t there another one?” I whined.

He nodded, radioing in the problem as we headed outside. The fresh air prickling through the loosely woven sweater gave me a rush. We turned left outside of the building and followed the stone path back around toward where Rosa had run several hours ago.