peacekeeping forces on their patrols, implementing the new curfews, distributing meager foreign rations of imported food and water. Because, of course, even our crops have been watered with Agent Ambrosia.
Business as usual, the Washington types keep saying. We’ll get there soon.
Yeah. Right.
I count about a dozen kids left—not bad for a camp this big. The radio report said there were upwards of twelve hundred kids at Black Rock—a little less than half the size of Thurmond, but it’s like comparing a leopard to a lion; size is relative when a camp has you between its teeth.
They’ve been reporting on camp closures for the last three weeks. The peacekeeping force is clearly working its way down some secret list. Most of the shock and novelty of seeing the kids and the camps has worn off, but Black Rock sent a ripple back through the calming waters. It’s one of only two camps that took kids before they changed, whether their families volunteered them or not. To study them, or…I don’t know.
Mia would know. They grabbed her before her switch was flipped: death or freak? Lucas didn’t even know if she had survived the change after they were separated.
I squeeze my eyes shut, grateful to whatever stone is lodged at the base of my throat. It’s the only thing that keeps me from screaming.
Because…she’s here.
She’s still here.
I recognize Mia right away, sitting on the far side of the lobby. This place must have been expensive, a real jewel, before the economy sputtered to a stop. The furniture curves around the sitting area in a smooth arc, facing the large television screen. Someone’s started a fire in the hearth on the far wall, which makes the dark coils of her hair gleam. Wide, dark eyes like Lucas, rimmed with thick lashes. Small for fifteen—too thin, but I can fix that.
She’s still here. I press my hands to my face, trying to get control of my breathing again. I’ve become so used to the feeling of terror these past two weeks, I don’t even bother trying to stop it as it grips my lungs and shakes me until the world blurs.
Every small clatter or groan of a sound makes me jump. No matter where I go, it feels like someone is constantly two steps behind me, trailing after my shadow. I can’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes. Fear and I have long conversations in my head, and I tell it to stop being ridiculous, to leave me alone, but it never does. And when it hits me, I just have to wait for it to pass, hating myself the whole time, wondering what happened to the Sam who could look a PSF in the eye and risk getting a beating for it.
I think I left her behind at Thurmond.
The kids around Mia are fixated on the same news report about the progress they’re making to strip Agent Ambrosia out of the water supply. It’s the same story they’ve run a thousand times at this point.
Unlike the others, she has her standard-issue supply pack given to her by the government at her feet, all packed up and ready to go, ready to leave at any moment.
Like she hasn’t spent the last week sitting here, waiting, watching a thousand kids get escorted back to their former lives. Waiting, waiting, waiting…
The papers added her to the “unclaimed” column a few days ago. It’s the only reason I knew to come. If her grandparents were still alive, they would have been here days ago, no matter what. I tried to get here faster, I did. It’s just…things got really complicated.
And now the only one left to get her is me.
I need to get her attention somehow, lead her away from the others, or follow her up to her room when it’s time to call it a night—and I need to do it before the soldiers wrap up what they’re doing and actually start paying attention. One goes outside to light up a smoke, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from snarling at her. If I’ve heard the reports of snatchers after their next big pay day, abductors selling kids on something the news has taken to calling the “freak market,” then they have, too. They need to have eyes on these kids at all times.
I crawl forward, toward the roster of names posted on the wall next to the concierge desk, considering my options.
The sliding doors behind me glide open, sending me scuttling back