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The door closed with a bang, and Jack waited for the others to start up their usual questions, but the corridor remained quiet.
Still standing, Nicole turned back to face Jack. The smile was gone from her face, but she still looked surprisingly pleasant. “What happens now?”
“Nothing,” Jack said, his voice tired and scratchy. “We wait. ”
Something about seeing Nicole was refreshing, even though they had never been friends. But even in this damp prison, with Nicole wearing the baggy, oversized clothes the military had given her to wear instead of her homecoming dress, Jack had trouble taking his eyes off her.
“It looks like they’re making some mistakes,” he said, rubbing his hand through his hair to wring the water out of it.
“Apparently,” she said softly.
Nicole wrapped her long, slender fingers around the bars and shook the door as though testing it.
Finally, Eddie spoke up.
“What’s your name?”
“Nicole,” she called back. “What’s yours?”
“Eddie Shaw,” he answered. His voice seemed to have lost all of its anger. He didn’t sound like himself.
“How long have you been here, Eddie?”
“Four days. ”
“What happens?” Nicole reached up and touched the sprinkler on the ceiling, and then pointed at the water on the floor. Jack nodded.
“We wait,” Eddie said. “They come and take us eventually. ”
“Take us where?”
“I don’t know. Testing, I guess. Hey—what can you do?”
Nicole looked around for a place to sit, but didn’t appear to like the idea of sitting on the wet, dirty concrete, or on the edge of the metal toilet at the back of her cell, so she leaned on the bars instead.
“Can everyone in here do things?” she asked.
“Everyone in here failed their test,” Josi answered.
“What’s your name?”
“Josi. ”
“What can you do, Josi?”
There was a pause, and then Josi’s voice sounded embarrassed. “It’s weird. Just a brain thing. I’m good at remembering stuff. ”
“How about you, Eddie?” Nicole asked.
“It’s . . . nothing,” he said.
Nicole pressed her face against the bars, trying to look down the corridor. “No, tell me. I’m sure it’s great. ”
Jack watched Nicole with awe, wondering how someone could be so gentle and sincere. Had she always been like that?
“It’s nothing amazing,” he said. “I mean, it’s amazing, but it’s not amazing, not like some of the others. ”
“What is it?”
“I have hot breath. ”
Josi, who had been pestering Eddie the entire time Jack had been in the prison, laughed. “That’s it? You have hot breath?”
“It’s more than just a little hot,” he said defensively. “It’s really hot. Like, I can blow into a cup of water and it’ll boil. ”
Josi laughed again, and Jack could hear the snorts and jeers of other prisoners. “You’re a human microwave?”
“You don’t get it,” Eddie said.
Nicole’s eyes met Jack’s, and she smiled warmly. She pointed, and then mouthed the words, “What can you do?”
Jack shook his head. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He should be with the Negatives, with Aubrey.
Or should he be here with Nicole? She seemed so fragile, so helpless. She needed his help here in prison more than Aubrey needed it with the Negatives, didn’t she? He could protect her.
“How about you?” Eddie asked. “What do you do, Nicole?”
“I’m here by mistake,” she said with confidence. “I think they have me mixed up with someone else. ”
“Well, good luck,” Josi said. “Half the people in here claim they’re Negatives, but the guards don’t listen. ”
Nicole stepped back from the bars and finally sat down on floor. “Maybe they’ll listen to me. ”
TWENTY-TWO
A BULLETIN BOARD HAD BEEN erected outside Tent 114, a place where some of the higher-ranking soldiers had offices, and Aubrey and Betsy stood in front, poring over the information for news about home. The first day it had been newspapers, the Salt Lake Tribune and the New York Times, the front pages stapled to the corkboard. But since then there had only been internet printouts, with short summaries of news.
Aubrey took it all to be a good sign—the army was trying to help. They weren’t blocking the Negatives from information about the outside world. On Aubrey’s second day in the tent they’d even been allowed to write letters home. Aubrey wrote one to her dad. She told him where she was, and what it was like, and how she’d never forgive him for trading her for beer. She’d signed her name, folded it neatly, and then crumpled it and threw it in the trash.
She wondered where she’d go if she ever got out of here.
“Hey Betsy,” Aubrey said, tapping a loose white paper that was thumbtacked in the corner of the corkboard. “From your place. ‘The Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation reports that all previously missing children have been accounted for. ’”
Betsy moved to the paper and read the short paragraph carefully.
“They’re accounted for,” she said with a frown. “That doesn’t mean they’re alive. ”
“It’s something,” Aubrey said. She stepped back from the board, getting a wide view. They’d come here three times a day for the last two days, and very little changed. There’d been no news out of Sanpete County other than a two-day-old mention of a skirmish at a roadblock near Manti. The article listed a few names, but they were no one Aubrey knew.
Betsy turned to face Aubrey. “Ready?”
Aubrey took a final glance at the board and then nodded.
“They’re in a good position, I guess,” Betsy said as they turned and started back toward Tent 209. “There’s not much on the reservation that would be a target for terrorists. ”
“Any idea where everyone went?” Aubrey asked.
“I think we had more time than most,” Betsy said, and then shared a wry smile. “This isn’t the first time the Utes have fought the government. And we know the backcountry inside and out. ”
“If everyone’s accounted for, they should be here. Right?” Aubrey had tried looking through the bunkers for people she knew, but it was hard. The army had strict rules about moving around the camp and you couldn’t go into any tent other than your own.
“Maybe. A lot went down to the South Reservation. Maybe they had better luck. Or got sent to a different camp. ” Betsy nodded and put her hands in the pockets of her jeans. It was the beginning of October now, and the winds were getting colder.
“Did you grow up in Roosevelt?”
“No,” Betsy said. “I’m from the middle of nowhere—Whiterocks. Ever heard of it?”
Aubrey shook her head.
“No one has,” Betsy said with a laugh. “When I was six, my father moved me up to Roosevelt to live with my aunt. Better schools. I used to worry so much about grades. Last year, I actually freaked out because I got a B in Trig. I mean, I thought my life was over. Now I wonder if any of that will ever matter. ”
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