Internment

by Samira Ahmed

  “Recordings?” I ask.

  “The cameras,” Jake says. “He’ll be charged. High Command can’t protect him. Won’t protect him.”

  Dr. Han stands up. “Let’s get Layla back to her quarters. Specialist Adams, I’m escorting you off-site with that. You’re not to say a word to any other Command on-site. For now we’re keeping this quiet, until we can get charges pressed. Corporal Reynolds, I’m stationing you outside Layla’s unit. This supersedes all other orders. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jake moves to stand and salute her, but she motions at him to stay by my side.

  “At ease.” She hands me a white envelope with six blue pills in it. “One pill every twelve hours with food, okay? It will lessen the pain and help you sleep tonight. You tell Corporal Reynolds if you need anything. We are here for you. We should’ve been here for you sooner. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m so sorry for everything that we’ve become,” Dr. Han says before she and Fred leave Jake and me alone in the room.

  “I’d like to go back now.” I try to stand up, but I’m wobbly.

  “Put your arms around my neck.” Jake speaks in the softest whisper. Like he’s afraid his voice will break me. I do as he suggests. He lifts me into his arms, and I rest my head against his chest and close my eyes. He carries me out of the room and through the back exit of the brig.

  It’s early—before roll call—but the sun is bright and cresting over the lower peaks of the mountains, casting its rose-tipped glow across the sleeping camp. It seems impossible, doesn’t it? That beauty can exist amid all this cruelty. Maybe that’s why it has to be here. Maybe the sun has to rise to remind us of what truth is.

  My body sinks deeper into Jake’s arms. I’m drained, like I’ve been exsanguinated and all that’s left is flesh and the memory of bone. I could sleep for days. But images flash against my closed eyes—the Director’s leering red face, a drop of my blood falling to the floor, David’s smile, the Mess, the crackle of the fence as Soheil clutches it, Jake. My parents. My parents. I can’t imagine what they’ve been going through.

  As we approach my block, I raise my head and look at Jake. “I think I can walk from here.” I try for a smile, and he gradually lets me down. “My parents would freak even more if they saw you carrying me in. My mom is probably going to faint when she sees my face, and my dad, he’ll—” I head toward my trailer.

  “Layla. Stop. Please.” I turn around and look at Jake. Whatever he may be about to tell me, I can’t hear it. I can’t. There can’t be one more thing. “Layla, I have to tell you something. I didn’t want to tell you earlier, before, in your cell. About the Director and what else he’s done. I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—”

  “What is it? My parents? Oh my God.” I run to my trailer, throw open the door, and rush in. “Mom? Dad?” I walk into the bedrooms. The trailer is empty. I turn back toward the door and to Jake, who came in behind me. I glance at our small kitchen table, where a mug has been knocked to the ground, tea spilled on the chair and floor amid the broken shards. “No. No. No. Please, no.” I sink to the floor.

  “I’m so sorry, Layla.” Jake kneels by my side. “The Director had them seized and taken away.”

  I double over, clutch my knees, and rest my head against the floor, sobbing, choking. Jake rubs my back. “I didn’t know until it had already happened. It was his private security detail. I’m so, so sorry. I couldn’t stop it. I wish I could have done something. Anything. But I was too late.”

  I rise to my knees, then stand, steadying myself against the kitchen counter. “But they’re alive? Right? They’ll be okay? You can get them out?”

  Jake moves closer to me without saying a word.

  “Tell me, Jake. Just say it.”

  “I don’t know, Layla. I don’t know where they are.”

  I nod. I rub my forehead. My chest tightens and begins to cave. My breath is ragged. “Okay, okay. Well, I have to figure out where they are and how to get them out and how and if… if I can and when… who…” I move away from the counter. My legs feel weak, and the room spins. My knees buckle.

  “Layla.” I hear Jake’s voice like an echo before everything goes black.

  My body jerks from sleep. Adjusting my eyes to the tomblike dark and quiet, I shift around, shivering under the thin blanket. I’m back in my room in our trailer. It’s not home, but it’s not that holding cell, either. I rub my index finger across my infinity necklace, and the silver cools my skin. My brain feels blank to everything, like a mound of clay, smooth, uninterrupted, and shapeless—without scars or memory. I reach for the fleece dangling off the back of my chair and pull it over my head before curling back into a ball and pulling the blanket up to my ears. In the stillness of the room, I listen. Hoping to hear something, anything, that would mean my parents are back—the whistle of the electric teakettle, the clatter of teacups, the dull rubbery thud of the fridge closing, my dad humming, my mom clinking her spoon as she stirs sugar into her tea. But there is only the sound of my breathing and what I’m sure is the stretching of my heart’s sinewy muscle as it reaches its breaking point. The roar of truth reverberates through me. The Director wants to bury me. He wants me to break. And he’s succeeding. Because I’ve never felt more broken. And I’m so tired. And being tired is a luxury that I can’t afford.

  A knock.

  “Layla, are you okay?” Jake’s voice filters through the door.

  I rub my eyes with my fists and go to open the door to meet Jake’s furrowed brow and bloodshot eyes. “Had a nightmare. Where I’m put in a prison camp and the Director assaults me and my parents are taken away and people die. And it’s all my fault.”

  Jake steps toward me and gently wraps his hands around my upper arms. “Nothing is your fault, do you understand? Not one single thing.”

  I look at the floor and nod. That’s what everyone keeps saying. Maybe someday I’ll believe it.

  “Please hear me. You are not to blame for anything. Not for this camp, for your parents, for Soheil. If anyone is to blame, it’s me. So much of this is my fault. Please tell me you get that. You went to battle against a monster. That’s courage.”

  I fold myself into Jake’s arms. “Thank you for being here for me.”

  “Always.”

  I try not to think about what it means that Jake is the one comforting me, because I need it right now. I need my mom and dad and David. But Jake is the one who is here. There is a kind of alchemy to it, when one human touches another and makes the aloneness less terrifying.

  I walk into the kitchen and take a seat at the little table. Jake’s cleaned up the spilled tea. He hands me a glass of water and a banana and sits next to me.

  “Ouch.” I flinch biting into the banana, the scab on my upper lip painful even against the soft fruit.

  “That’s probably going to hurt for a while. The bruises, too.”

  “Great. Never thought I could rock a battle-scarred face, but I guess I have no choice now.” I try a halfhearted smile, but that hurts, too. My mind feels thick, and last night’s conversation and what Jake just said to me finally make a little sense. “What do you mean, it’s your fault?”

  Jake looks down at the floor, avoiding eye contact. He sighs and rubs his forehead. “I had orders to let things play out.”

  “Play out?”

  “When the Director took you, I reported it to my superior. I mean, High Command is here. I was told to not interfere. I was ordered to let him interrogate you. They needed incriminating evidence—something unimpeachable—to take down the Director, maybe this whole place.”

  My mouth drops open. Tears well in my eyes. I’ve been punched all over again. I was bait for a trap set without my knowledge.

  “Layla, I’m so sorry. I was following orders. Trying to see the big picture. Letting my reason outweigh my feelings. I could have—should have—stopped it. I know what I did was unforgivable, but I swear, I’m not going to let the Director or anyone else hurt you ever again.”

/>   I hear Jake’s words but can’t process them through any filter that makes them less painful. Orders. Bringing down Mobius. That’s what matters. But how do I go on from this? “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jake,” I whisper.

  He looks at me. “My word is my bond. He won’t touch you again.”

  I cast my eyes away, not able to sit with this, to talk about it anymore, to face him. Jake was doing what was necessary, but there is this chasm now between us. People make sacrifices to change the world. In the big picture, maybe my being offered as bait will make a difference. But it doesn’t take away the horror of being dangled on a hook to catch a big fish. One day, I’ll have to deal with it, but I can’t now. For now, I have to push the feeling away, lock it in a place so it can’t hurt me anymore.

  “What time is it anyway?” I change the subject. “I mean, how long have I been asleep?”

  Jake looks at his watch. “It’s one a.m. You took the painkillers around eight a.m. yesterday.”

  “What? I’ve been asleep for, like, a whole day? That can’t be right.”

  “You woke up once, but you fell back asleep. Dr. Han said the painkillers would knock you out, so I guess they did the job.”

  “I still feel so tired, though.”

  Jake cups his hand over mine. “You’ve been through hell. I want—” I pull my hand away.

  A knock on the door interrupts him. Jake puts his finger to his lips and motions for me to move to my bedroom. He takes his handgun from the top of the fridge and releases the safety. He walks to the door and stands next to it. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Fred. I’m alone.”

  Hearing Fred’s voice, I step back into the common area from the threshold of my bedroom. Jake holsters his gun and opens the door for his friend and quickly shuts it behind him.

  “What’s up?”

  “I came to tell you—” Fred glances at me. His jaw drops; clearly, my bruising and swelling look worse than yesterday. “Layla. Are you okay?”

  I run my tongue over the scab on my lip. “I’m still here. Thanks.”

  “I can’t believe what that asshole did to you.”

  “Fred, what did you come here to tell me?” Jake slips into his crisp military voice.

  “The shit has hit the fan. Dr. Han circumvented chain of command and took the video straight to the head of the National Guard and the attorney general. Then she leaked it.”

  “What? No!” I yell. The whole world is going to see it. And I’ll have to watch myself get hit over and over. The thought alone makes me sick to my stomach. A tear runs down my face.

  “Layla.” Fred softens his voice. “I’m so sorry. Your face is blurred out in the video. You’re a minor, so they can’t share your face or name. But there wasn’t any other way. Dr. Han was afraid the AG would bury it, and she wanted to force his hand.”

  Jake looks at me with a sad half smile and mouths, I’m sorry.

  I wipe away my tears. Almost every choice has been taken from me in this place; what can I do but add this to the list of indignities? “If it will help us get out of Mobius. If it will help me find my parents—”

  “Look, there’s a hell of a mess in DC. The secretary of war has been the president’s henchman all along, but the president will probably throw him under the bus. The president hates bad ratings, and there’s no way to cover this up and make it look good. Not after that protestor died.”

  “Soheil,” I say. “His name was Soheil.”

  Fred nods at me.

  “So what happens now?” I ask. “How soon can we leave Mobius?” I say the words, not really believing anything will change. I’m scared to hope. But I need to get out of here. I need to find my parents.

  Fred breathes. “Not this minute, but probably soon. This story is on fire—it’s wall-to-wall coverage on every channel and news site. People are in the streets. They’ll have to move fast. For now Mobius is on lockdown.”

  “What about the Director?” I ask quietly.

  “He’s holed up in his office right now with his security detail.”

  “Coward,” Jake mutters under his breath. “He thinks he’s going to shelter in place? That he’ll get away with hurting Layla? No goddamn way. I won’t let him.”

  “Ease up, cowboy,” Fred says to Jake. “What do you think you’re going to do? Storm into his office, guns blazing? His security detail will shoot you in a second.”

  I look at Jake, my mouth agape. “Don’t do that. I can’t stand someone else getting hurt.”

  “She’s right, Jake,” Fred says. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  Jake stares at his friend, clenching his jaw. “Fine. I’ll stay with Layla. Report back with any news. And watch yourself.”

  Fred nods. “Always do.”

  Jake walks Fred to the door and pats him on the back as he steps out into the night. Then Jake turns to face me. I walk back into my room without another word and quietly close the door.

  In the morning, the trailer is empty. I’m alone.

  As I peel off the clothes I’ve been wearing for the past few days, I’m painfully aware of every bruise on my body, even while I try not to think about the deeper hurts that I can’t put words to. The shower only lets out a stream of cool water. I stand in it for the full five-minute allotment. When it clicks off, I’m shivering, but the numbness suits me.

  My heartbeat echoes through the room as I get dressed. An only child should be used to the quiet, right? No siblings to fill the silence. For the most part, quiet doesn’t bother me. But this quiet has a weight, heavy with the absence of the people who are missing.

  Jake left a note for me on the kitchen table:

  WENT TO GRAB A CHANGE OF CLOTHES. DON’T GO ANYWHERE. THE OTHER GUARDS ARE GETTING BRIEFED AT THE HUB. THE MINDERS WILL ANNOUNCE LOCKDOWN AT ROLL CALL.

  His handwriting is neat, solid, upright. It stands at attention and does its duty. It is exactly Jake.

  I sip the tea I made for myself, blowing over the top to cool it and watching as the ripples on the surface move away from me. I touch my bruised cheek and the rough scab on my lip. The painkillers helped, but they can’t fix the persistent dull ache in my chest.

  No, it’s not an ache; it’s a hole. I’m not sure if anything will ever fill it. My eyes sting from crying. “How does anyone recover from this?” I say to the empty trailer.

  There’s a pounding at my door.

  “Layla!” Ayesha rushes into the trailer when I open the door. Her hair is twisted into a messy bun, and dark circles paint the skin under her bloodshot eyes. She halts abruptly when she sees my face. “What happened?”

  I haven’t seen her since the night I was taken. The night Soheil died, when the Director and everyone who created this camp killed him. I wonder if she’s slept at all. “Ayesha,” I whisper. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  We hug each other. Neither of us cries. Our pain lies too deep for tears.

  “Did you see them seize my parents?” I ask as we sit at the table.

  Ayesha nods. “There were, like, a dozen guards. I didn’t actually see them take your parents out. After Khadijah auntie told them to go to hell, they forced all of us back into our Mercury Homes. I couldn’t do anything.”

  “If you’d tried, you’d have ended up being hurt, too.”

  “Do you know what’s going on? There was no alarm this morning.”

  “Jake says they’re putting us on lockdown. Apparently, there’s some military situation going on, and the government is in chaos—I dunno.”

  Ayesha nods. “Finally reached the tipping point, huh? Too bad they couldn’t have stopped this whole fucking mess before Soheil—” She sucks in her breath and presses her hand to her chest like she’s trying to soothe her own heart.

  “I know. I know,” I say.

  Ayesha bites her lip. “Let’s hope things get better, not worse.”

  “Can I make you some tea?” I get up to fill the kettle, but a brash alarm rings across the camp, vibrating through the trailer.
We push ourselves out the door.

  The wind swirls and dust freckles the air. There are no guards—they’re probably all at the Hub. But the minders are out, getting people in line, scanning everyone’s barcodes. I can’t hide the bruises on my face or the cut on my lip, and I don’t want to. I want people to see what the Director did. I expected the stares and whispers. What I didn’t expect? Khadijah auntie walking up to me, leaning on her cane, drawing me into a one-armed hug. And then the family in trailer 23, and the two sisters from 27. One by one people offer prayers and kind words for my parents. The minders struggle to get everyone back in order, but after a few fruitless attempts, they stand to the side, waiting, until everyone files back into a row.

  I squeeze Ayesha’s hand as I join the line behind her and her family. The earth spins around me. Like it could give way, crack, and swallow me whole if I let it. I close my eyes and see my parents cooking dinner in the kitchen. Laughing as they chop onions and caramelize them with garam masala and turmeric and ginger and garlic, trying to replicate my nanni’s kheema. Their efforts always fell a little short, but not for lack of enthusiasm or love. For a single, illusory moment of bliss, I’m there in that kitchen, my kitchen, in my home, with my parents. Safe and happy.

  Someone roughly grasps my hand. And I’m back here at Mobius. In the present.

  “I said, show me your wrist,” Saleem fumes.

  “Ow! You’re hurting me.”

  “And don’t you deserve it?”

  “Shut up!” Ayesha yells. “And let go of her. If anyone deserves to be hurt, it’s you and your wife. Minders? What a joke. Everyone knows what you are.”

  “Ayesha, be quiet,” her mother chastises, the fear transparent on her face.

  “No, Mom. I’m tired of being quiet. All of you should be. Layla’s been fighting for us. Literally. Look at her face. And what have any of you done? Nothing but cower in fear.”

  Before I can say or do anything, Saleem drops my hand and grabs Ayesha’s arm, yanking her out of the line and throwing her into the dirt. He raises his hand to hit her with the barcode scanner.