Tarah
Silence filled the cab as I waited for an explanation Hayden didn't seem to want to give.
I drummed my fingers on my thighs. He had to be joking. How could his parents really be that horrible? Sure, his parents had never been around when we were kids, leaving their boys in the care of a housekeeper while they went to charity and political events. But even busy parents still loved their kids. And no parent would ever knowingly let their kid stay in an internment camp. Right?
As the silence stretched on and on, I started to wonder. Maybe I knew even less about Hayden than I'd thought.
My parents would do anything—absolutely anything—to get me out of an internment camp as fast as they could. Even my mother, who never agreed with me on anything, would still fight tooth and nail to free me.
When the silence lasted longer than I could stand, I sighed and gave in to at least part of the source of my nagging guilt. “Thanks for getting me out of there back at the bookstore.”
One corner of his mouth lifted then relaxed in a half smile so brief if I'd blinked I would have missed it. “Old habits are hard to break.”
At first I was confused. Old habits?
Then I remembered a thousand and one playdays spent with Hayden and Damon in the woods behind our houses before my family moved closer to the university and Dad's lab: The boys dressed up in plastic armor with shields and helmets and swords left over from Halloween costumes. The feeling of dragging around that old red and gold embroidered comforter their housekeeper Hilda had given me for a robe, wearable only in the fall and winter because of the blanket's thick, hot weight. The way I'd pretended to knight the brothers with one end of a black iron curtain rod-turned-scepter, its one fleur de li-shaped finial adding to the royal illusion, and the lump I'd accidentally given Damon over his right ear from it. How many times had the boys pretended to save me from a nasty dragon or evil wizard so I could join them as a warrior queen and turn that scepter into a wand that wreaked havoc on weeds and imaginary wizards alike?
Then I realized the truth behind what he'd said. Old habits are hard to break. So he'd only saved me from some old childhood habit?
My throat tightened.
Blinking fast, I stared out the passenger window again. “So what were you doing at the protest? Helping out your buddy’s new club?”
He hesitated, then said, “Something like that.”
“What's it called again? Jerks Against Humanity?” I’d only meant to tease him, but my tone came out ruder than planned.
Before I could apologize, he frowned and said, “Not exactly.”
More silence while I waited for him to explain, until it became clear that he wasn't going to. Again. Talking to him was about as enlightening as talking to a fence post.
“So why did you join TAC anyways?” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest to keep from fidgeting.
“I had my reasons.”
“Peer pressure made you do it?”
He snorted. “You're one to talk about peer pressure. Rumor has it you’re doing weird rituals with that emo crowd of yours every weekend in the woods. Since when did you get into all that crap?”
“Crap? It’s not crap! And speaking of doing weird stuff in the woods, rumor has it you’re the expert in that area.”
He froze, even his chest no longer moving with his breathing. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“That night in the woods last summer? With Damon and all those other people? Y'all were doing magic, weren't you?” I didn't bother to give him an opening to lie again. “Gary's older brother was a friend of Damon's. He was there. He died. Gary heard the doctors tell their parents that everyone who died there looked like they'd been hit by a bomb blast or something, but they couldn't tell what the bomb materials were made out of.”
“That doesn't prove anything.”
“Gary talks about it all the time, you know. Most people believe the only way you could have survived that night is if your spells were more powerful than everyone else's there. But there is one detail Gary and the others at school are still divided on.”
“Yeah? What's that?” he said between barely moving lips.
I wasn’t sure why I kept pushing the issue. To distract myself from the fear that was trying to crush my lungs every time I looked at that truck ahead of us with my dad trapped in the back? To hurt Hayden? To finally get the truth out of him about Damon’s death?
Whatever the reason, something made me push on. “Well, some of them have this theory that the normals who died that night showed up in order to attack the ones who were doing a ritual or magic training, and both sides took each other out in some kind of massive blaze of glory or something. Their theory says you were the lone survivor because you were able to use a spell to protect yourself while everyone around you fell. Those are the people who believe you'll use your power to follow in Damon’s footsteps someday.”
"What people...Clann people? Outcasts?"
"Maybe. At least, they think they are."
Silence for several long heartbeats before he muttered, “And the others? What's their theory?”
“The others, Gary included, think you...” But the words didn't want to come out of my mouth. As irritated as I was with his insisting on lying to me, Hayden had once been my best friend. I didn't really want to hurt him. I just wanted the truth.
“Go on,” he muttered.
I took a deep breath. I'd started this. I might as well finish it. “They think you were the only survivor because...because you killed everyone else in the woods that night.”
More silence, in which I could both feel and hear my heartbeat racing in my chest and ears. And that's when I realized just how much learning the truth about that night mattered to me. This wasn’t just some distraction. I wanted to know, needed to know the truth. And yet I was scared to hear the answer.
Most of me said there was no way Hayden could ever hurt, much less kill, seventeen people. At least, not on purpose. And especially not his brother, not for any reason.
But there was this tiny part of me that just wouldn't shut up about how long it had been since I'd ended our friendship. How little I knew about Hayden now. How much a person could change over time, especially once they realized the heady and sometimes addivtive power their abilities gave them. And how accidents could happen when a novice first tried to learn how to use and control their magic.
He glanced sideways at me, his eyebrows pinched together, his eyes completely unreadable. “Which side do you believe?”
I chose my words carefully. “I'd like to believe a former friend of mine could never kill a bunch of people. And especially not his brother. At least, not without one heck of a good reason to.”
“Like?”
“Like maybe self defense. Or it was an accident.”
As I braced for his answer, an awkward silence filled the cab. And this time, Hayden was the only one who could fix it. But his next words weren't what I'd dreaded or hoped to hear.
Hayden
“They're turning off.” I had to work to keep the relief out of my voice. How the heck had we ended up talking about the one subject I'd sworn never to discuss with anyone ever again?
“Should we get closer?” she asked, those probing eyes of hers now thankfully locked on the military truck again.
“Not yet. It's pretty open out here.” We'd driven far enough west that the rolling hills had flattened out and turned dusty with few buildings and more scrub than actual trees or bushes. We could hang back quite a ways and still not lose sight of them.
Then the truck turned off the state road into what looked like a field. I slowed our truck to a crawl and had an idea. “Hey, would you mind looking in the backseat for a set of binoculars? They'll be inside a hard case.”
Tarah unbuckled her seatbelt then leaned over the seat back to dig through the piles of stuff. I tried not to get distracted by how the denim of her jeans hugged all those curves she never had when we were kids.
“You mean these?” She held up a camouflaged plastic case. I nodded, and she flipped its catches open. “These are some serious binoculars. Stalk people much?”
I fought the urge to smile and almost won. “They're for deer hunting. Dad and I plan to go this year.” If he could manage to tear himself away from all those mysterious committee meetings he'd had to attend lately.
“Sure they are.” She removed the binoculars, made a face as she tested their weight in one hand, then resorted to using both hands to look through them. “I see the truck. It's stopping at some kind of building.”
I pulled over to the side of the road and squinted. The truck was half the size of my thumbnail at this distance. “Is it the camp?”
“I don't think so. Too small. More like a guard shack or something.”
“Okay. Let's find a parallel road to follow them on.”
We were lucky we were out in West Texas now with its flat, treeless desert-like geography. If we'd still been in East Texas, the rolling hills and dense pine trees would have blocked our view.
I found a long dirt road to turn onto that ran the same direction as the one the military truck had taken. Our path was probably someone's driveway running through a field half a mile away from the internment camp. If anyone showed up and asked us what we were doing on their property, we'd say we were lost.
“I see two buildings, big ones,” Tarah called out a few minutes later. “They're pulling up to them. I think it's the camp. There's a smaller tent-type building too, and a huge fence around the whole place with barbed wire on top.”
The problem with how open it was out here was that the visibility went both ways. Which meant if we could see the camp, then they could see us with binoculars too. We needed more cover.
I pulled over in the ditch on our right, hoping the slope of the dirt would at least partially hide our vehicle if anyone looked our way from the camp. “Come on, let's take a walk.”
We crossed the road then walked hunched over in the ditch closest to the camp, our shoes fighting the sandy dirt for a few minutes, till we found a mesquite tree. The tree wasn't much, its low, zigzagging branches bare for the winter and hazardous to get under with their thousand and one thorns. But at least we wouldn't be the tallest objects out here. I checked for snakes and cacti. Then we hunkered down near the twisted tree trunk, hiding as much of ourselves from view as we could.
“They've got a lot of guards,” she said, frowning as she passed me the binoculars.
I scoped out the camp. She wasn't kidding. In addition to the barbed wire-topped fence that must have been at least twenty feet high and surrounded the entire compound, they had two lookout stands at the double gate entrance, each with a guard posted, two more guards on the ground at the inner gate, and seven more spaced out along the fence. They were armed too, every guard holding a rifle in addition to side arms strapped to their outer thighs.
Strangely, though, none of the guards were facing in towards the prisoners. It was almost as if they only worried about an outside attack on the camp and not the prisoners themselves.
And then I realized why.
CHAPTER 5
I'd expected them to keep everyone locked up inside one of the buildings. Instead, the camp looked more like an old fashioned asylum for the insane, with zombie-like “patients” shambling around or seated on the ground.
The military truck pulled into the center of the camp yard and parked. The soldiers exited first, dragging out prisoners between them. But none of the prisoners from the truck seemed able to stand, their feet dragging behind them, so it took two soldiers to unload each prisoner. They set the prisoners half upright on their knees in the dirt in two long lines as more soldiers came out of the tent building to help, followed by someone in a white coat like a doctor might wear. I zoomed in more and noticed each new prisoner now had what looked like a nicotine patch on the side of their neck. Some kind of short term tranquilizer patch for the ride over to the camp? That must be how they kept the outcasts from using their abilities to get free before reaching the camp.
They were holding each new prisoner still on the ground while the guy in the lab coat gave the prisoner an injection of something in his or her upper left shoulder.
“Tarah, I think I found your dad.” Dr. Williams was on his knees on the ground and clearly struggling to talk to one of the soldiers. After a minute, the soldier pressed a black band around his neck, and another soldier came out of the tent to join them. The new guy spoke to Dr. Williams, reached into his coat, pulled out what looked like a wallet and studied something inside it.
“What’s happening? Is he okay?” Tarah asked.
“Yeah, I think so. They’re talking to him.” I froze. “Wait, they’re standing him up.”
Were they about to execute her father?
I held my breath as they steadied Dr. Williams on his feet.
Then they cut his zip ties, releasing his wrists, and led him over to one of the long metal buildings, where all three disappeared inside.
I told her what I saw. Her eyes widened with renewed terror.
“Relax,” I muttered, hoping I wasn’t about to lie to her. “If they’d wanted to hurt him, they wouldn’t have bothered to take him away first.”
Still, I kept my ears trained for any gunshots in the distance. Other than the occassional howling of the wind, it was so quiet out here I was pretty sure we’d hear if a gun was fired.
I checked the gated entrance more closely. “Looks like only one way in and out, through a front double gate system.” The place looked impenetrable. Even if someone managed to tunnel in through the sandy soil, guards would spot them in no time.
The last of the new prisoners had now been unloaded from the truck and dosed. Other guards checked the new prisoners' eyes after they were dosed then cut the zip ties at their wrists and let them shamble off. Whatever drug they were using must be pretty darn potent to work that quickly. Even the biggest guys lurched and stumbled or sat on the ground in a daze.
No telling how many of these camps had been set up all across the country. The tent, rounded top buildings and fencing system could have been erected in a matter of days and just as easily moved again if needed. Now I undestood how they kept their camps' locations a mystery.
Knowing I couldn't help the prisoners, I tried not to focus on them but failed. Seeing the adults wander around lost and confused was bad enough. But the kids... There was something so wrong about them, like the scene of a car wreck I couldn't look away from. Little kids should be running around, making noise, laughing. These weren't. They simply sat on the ground, some in pairs, some alone, a few near adults. I zoomed in on them, hoping to see at least a few digging in the dirt or talking to each other.
No movement from any of them. All of them sat staring at nothing, their mouths hanging open, drool shiny on their chins.
I froze, barely breathing, trying to hold myself as still as possible while I checked for some signs of life in them.
Then I caught a blink. And another. They blinked so slowly, it was hard to actually see the movement. If I squinted just right, though, I could also barely make out the movements of their chests and stomachs as they breathed.
I started counting. Twenty. Twenty-five. Twenty-seven. No, make that twenty-nine. One sat on the ground leaning against a seated woman's leg. And in the woman’s arms rested…
“What’s happening now?” Beside me, Tarah sat with her hands clasped together in a fist she pressed to her lips as if in prayer. Probably praying for some miraculous way to get her father released.
“There’s a baby.” The baby kicked its bare arms and legs in the air, knocking loose a thin blanket that fluttered in the wind and was held only where it was caught between the baby and its mother’s arm. Beside them sat a little girl with curly, tangled blonde hair.
Tarah leaned in beside me, nudging me with her shoulder till I shifted the binoculars so we could both look through them.
The sun began
to set behind us, dropping the temperature a few degrees at a time, aided by a wind that blew over us again from the camp’s direction. I shivered inside my hoodie.
That baby didn't have on anything except a diaper.
Tarah drew in a sharp breath. “Where are its clothes? It'll freeze out here.”
The mother's button-up shirt flapped loosely in the breeze. The now loose blanket and her body heat must have kept her baby alive.
The baby opened its mouth, and seconds later the wind carried its cries over to us. No response from its mother even as the baby rooted its face around against her until it managed to nurse through her shirt.
I watched the baby's feet, kicking in the air at first, then slowing down. Was it falling asleep?
It seemed to, its tiny head rolling away from its mother after only a minute of nursing. Its eyes were closed, its arms and legs relaxing spread eagled, one hand almost touching the little girl's hair beside them.
The baby's tummy expanded and contracted with each breath. But the longer I watched, the slower those movements became. Then there was no movement at all.
I held my breath, thinking I was moving too much to see it at this distance.
As I watched, the pale pink tint slowly left the baby's skin, replaced by a mottled, bluish white color.
The binoculars slipped. Tarah grabbed them to steady them. I let her take them completely.
“Hayden, the baby…something’s wrong with it,” she muttered.
She rose up onto her knees, pressing the binoculars harder against her face. I should have stopped her, but I was numb with shock and hopeful that I was wrong.
She frowned. “It’s not moving. Is it…” She froze. “I can’t see it breathing.”
I wasn't imagining it.
“Why aren’t the guards coming over to help it?” she muttered. “It’s like they don’t even care!”
Because they didn’t. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that, though. So I sat there, leaning against the tree, grinding my skull against its rough bark while a sick feeling grew in my stomach.
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