The PSFs bolted the locks from the outside before they blazed off—I guess so we couldn’t wander away? They—the Camp Controllers—smoked us out of the building, set fire to the one room that would have kept things running after they abandoned it. Why? To leave us out here to slowly freeze to death?
To…let us go?
Kids toss out theories, volleying them back and forth between chattering teeth. And all I can think is, this feels like a prologue for another story.
One that might have an even worse ending.
Forbidden words buzz around us in a swarm of hope. Mom. Dad. Family. Leave. Home.
There is no more home.
There is no Mom and Dad.
And Lucas…
“Bull,” Elise says as the bus engines shut off. “They’re just moving us to another camp.”
And when the soldiers come into view, I realize she’s right.
Different uniforms. Different soldiers. Same story.
I watch them watching us, their careful—ginger—approach, like we’re animals who have escaped our cages at the zoo and need to be guided back to them. Their rifles are up and pointing at us like long black snouts, sweeping us back as their boots squelch against the soggy ground.
We don’t come when they call. None of us step onto their buses, not even when a man gets on the megaphone and starts trying to redefine the word safe.
“We’re taking you to your families,” he says, the machine in his hand crackling and popping, clipping his voice. “The camp program is over. We are here to help you and escort you away from Black Rock.”
Black Rock. They keep using those two words like they mean something, and I can see on the faces of the girls around me, the boys who’ve kept to their side of our makeshift pen, that they’ve come to the same conclusion I have: Black Rock is the name of our facility. It has a name and in addition to being a burnt-out husk of its former self, it will never be repaired, never reopened.
We will never have to go back inside.
The words burst inside me, exploding into a shower of white-hot hope. I think I am wearing it all on my face, that the color is drawn on my cheeks in wide strokes, the way I used to apply Mom’s makeup. Elise tells me I’m an idiot and if I go along with them, then I deserve whatever I get. I know she’s scared and she doesn’t mean it, not really—her nails are biting into my wrists, holding me, and I can see the desperation in her face like it’s sweat coating her skin.
But…these soldiers don’t shoot at us when we disobey them. They don’t use Calm Control. They give us water bottles and ask to see our burns, they give some of the kids oxygen masks to use. I wonder what they see when they look at us—if we look as haunted as we all must feel. It feels like standing on top of a fence post, waiting for the moment they decide to knock us off it.
They don’t.
They want to know where the PSFs and Camp Controllers are, and one of the older Yellow girls explains exactly what happened. She is tall and brave, like a queen. We let her speak for us.
“They set fires to all of the buildings, unlocked the doors, and left.”
Fled, I think. They didn’t leave. They fled.
When Colonel Megaphone sees the charred remains of the control room, he swears so viciously that the kids around him recoil from the heat. All six feet of him stalks back to the soldiers who are hanging back by the gate, their light camo fatigues darkened by a drizzle of rain and the wet snow.
“They did it again!” he snarls. “They shouldn’t have gone public with the first camp. It’s all scorched earth—the cowards! It’s going to be a fucking nightmare to prove accountability!”
That’s when I believe him, all of them. That’s when the arc of the story clicks, aligning all these little clues in my hands.
The camp is closed. Over.
The PSFs burnt their records, digital and print. They knew to feel ashamed. They knew what they did to us was wrong.
And then they ran, knowing these soldiers were coming—that they’d have to answer questions with uncomfortable answers.
I feel the burn of tears starting at the back of my throat. If this has happened before, it means other camps are closing, too. Which means…
“Lucas,” I whisper, my hands twisting the mud-splattered fabric of my pants. It feels like my chest is too full,