She started shaking the bars of her cage, as if she could make the walls fall down by force of will.
“Shut up,” the other girl croaked from her corner, not even stirring. “You’re only going to make it worse.”
“Worse? How could it get any worse?” Rorie challenged.
“Have you been taken out yet?” “What do you mean?”
The girl sighed. “If you don’t know what I mean, then you haven’t. What about your friend?”
There was a long pause. “I think so. Last night, at a truck stop.”
“Ah. So you do know what I mean. That’s what they do here. This town is full of men working the oil rigs, men hauling water and gravel, men working construction sites. What your friend did last night is what we’ll all be doing, every night. That’s what’s in store for me, and that’s what’s in store for both of you.”
“How do you know?” Rorie whispered.
“They kept talking about it on the reservation,” the girl answered. “The tribal council and the women. But we couldn’t do anything. It just kept getting worse. And now I’m here. Trapped.”
“We can get out,” Rorie whispered, her voice faltering with doubt. I smiled to myself, moving to the next crate, and began picking through the pile of stinky clothes that the last girl had left behind.
“You won’t. We’re behind locked door after locked door, with guards all over the place. Nobody here cares. All they care about is the money.”
There was a rattle, a jingling of chains and thump as Rorie sat back in her crate. Outside, the sounds of an angry fight crescendoed—men arguing over their winnings, accusing one another of cheating and who knows what else.
“What’s your name?”
The Native American girl rustled at the bottom of her cage. “Waheenee. But my English name is Wanda. You can call me that.”
I wiped down the crates, the noise from the dogfight dying down as the drunken men stumbled out, the betting done for the night. The only sound was the soft whimpering of Macey, crying herself to sleep.
“Wanda?” Rorie persisted.
“Yes?”
“What’s going to happen next?”
I looked over my shoulder, pretending to be busy folding the blankets. Wanda sat up in her crate and turned so that Rorie could see her. She was dressed in a filthy T-shirt. She pulled up the sleeve and pressed her arm against the bars. In the dim light, an oozing sore glistened on her shoulder. It was a red, angry welt, full of pus.
Rorie gasped.
“They’re going to brand you like a cow. Like this. So that none of the other pimps will steal you.”
Wanda touched the infected spot on her shoulder and winced. She peered through the web of steel that enclosed her, her eyes full of pity.
“Rorie. That’s your name, isn’t it?” Rorie nodded, for once too stunned to speak. “Don’t let them see you cry. Whatever you do, don’t let them see you cry.”
I felt a stab of pain, God striking me again for my audacity in challenging His will so directly. I leaned against the wall, my eyes rolling back as I battled my instinct to fight against it.
Outside, I heard the sudden whine of a dog. Angry now, pushed to the edge by excruciating pain, I threw open the door and stalked out.
The drunken handler was taunting one of the fighters—apparently the loser in the prior match, its ear torn, a trail of blood marking the place where it had wound its way around the concrete floor.
“Damn dog!” the man cried with slurred speech. “I lost two hundred bucks because of you!” He pulled his leg back and kicked the dog in the ribs.
In an instant, I had him by the throat, backing him up against the cold corrugated-aluminum wall.
“Don’t. You. Ever. Hurt. This. Animal. Again,” I commanded, squeezing my fingers so hard that I could feel his windpipe. His face was turning purple, his eyes bulging as he stared at me, terrified. “Do you understand me?”
He shook his head, his eyes beginning to glaze over as he ran out of air, blood vessels popping.
“Good,” I said, letting him go unceremoniously to fall into a gasping heap on the cold floor.
Humans.
I kept watch over the room with the cages into the night, assuming that eventually the girls would forget my presence. Once they did, maybe they would talk to one another. I hoped they would: I didn’t want to miss a moment of it, the things they said to soothe one another, to pretend that none of this was happening to them. To get the full sense of what I would slowly, piece by piece, be destroying.
Sure enough, I got what I hoped for.
“Wanda?” Rorie asked, into the darkness.
There was no response. Nothing but the quiet blowing of the primitive furnace that rattled on and off periodically.
“Wanda? Are you awake?”
There was a soft rustle of fabric and a rattle of the wire cage as Wanda rolled over.
“You should get your sleep while you can,” Wanda said in a weary whisper. “Once they decide you’re ready, you won’t be able to get enough of it.”
I could hear Rorie roll over; imagined the cold wire that must be poking into her spine.
“What makes them decide you’re ready?” she asked. “Is there any way to never be ready?”
Wanda sighed. “Don’t you ever shut up?”
“I’m sorry,” Rorie said sheepishly. “I don’t mean to bother you. You just seem to know what’s going on.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a whole two days’ jump on you, kid. How old are you, anyway?”
“Thirteen.”
“Your friend, too?”
“Yes, she is too.”
“She looks even younger than you. More vulnerable.”
Rorie was quiet for a while. “You’re right. She is more vulnerable. She’s had a tough life.”
Wanda snorted. “Tell me about it.”
When Rorie spoke again, she sounded embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to sound so—”
“So what? Naïve? Privileged?”
“Yes. Both.”
There was a slight pause. “It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize for having had a decent childhood. Just never figured I’d run into somebody like you in a place like this.”
“Somebody like me, how?”
“You know. Somebody who’s not already beaten down. Somebody who came from a family that loved her.”
“You can tell that about me?”
“Yeah. I can tell.”
“How?”
“I can just tell. You’re smart enough to be afraid, but you’re not defeated. Life hasn’t gotten to you. You don’t deserve to be in here.”
“Wanda, nobody deserves to be in here.”
She laughed, a low, throaty sound. “I guess you’re right, kid. So how is it that you did wind up in a dog cage in the middle of the frozen North Dakota prairie? You clearly aren’t from around here.”
I smiled, standing watch, while Rorie remembered the past few days I had put her through.
“I was just trying to help my friend when she was in trouble. I guess I thought I could handle it, for the both of us. I was wrong. How about you?”
Wanda sighed. “I was stupid.”
“What do you mean?” Rorie prompted.
“I got into an argument with my mom’s boyfriend. He’s such a jerk, always taking my mom’s money and using it to get drunk. He came home in a stupor and started yelling at my mom for running out of money. It wasn’t right—he doesn’t even have a job. He just sucks off of her.”
I could feel her sense of injustice, smoldering across the room.
“What did you do?” Rorie asked.
Wanda laughed. “I told him off. And then I threw the coffee pot at his head. It shattered all over the kitchen floor. It really pissed off my mom, but it caught his attention.”
“So what happened?”
“I told my mom it was him or me. That she had to choose.”
“And?”
“She chose him. So I left.”
Rorie was silent. I thought of Mona living alone for all those years; I suppose Rorie found it hard to imagine her mother with any man, let alone choosing one over her and Hope.
Wanda picked up her story:
“After a few days of trying to get a job, I realized nobody was going to hire an underage runaway from the rez. I was getting desperate, wondering if I should just swallow my pride and go home. Finally some guy approached me at a bus station. Real nice, bought me McDonald’s and everything. Said he felt sorry for me. Said he’d help me. I should have known better. I should have asked him how. Anyway, that’s how I ended up here. At least I’ve got a warm place to sleep.”
“Wanda.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Shit like this happens to reservation kids all the time. I shouldn’t have expected any better.”
She yawned. I heard the rattling of the cage, the tug of the blanket, as she settled herself back in to sleep.
“Good night, kid.”
After a while, rhythmic snoring emanated from Wanda’s cage.
And then, after a long time, I heard Rorie whisper: “Maybe you shouldn’t have expected it. But you deserved better.”
It surprised me, that she would think that. Surely she should be worrying more about her own situation. I would be, if I were her.
fifteen
HOPE
The scenery in Florence, Colorado, was deadening: all scrubby brush and dust-choked gravel, stifling any majesty that the mountains, which loomed in the distance, could have lent. Guard towers dotted the perimeter of the facility, the sidewalk funneling us toward one entry. Our journey to get here had seemed endless: a flight to Denver, connecting to Colorado Springs, followed by nearly an hour’s drive in our rented SUV. As we left the car and began to walk toward the razor-wire fences and twelve-foot walls, I felt just as uncertain as I had been when, as a fifteen-year-old girl, I’d gone walking into a casino, Michael at my side, playing a dangerous game of dress-up in Las Vegas.
Only this time we weren’t pretending to be high rollers: we were posing as Chen’s lawyers. And rather than a casino, we were about to infiltrate one of the toughest prisons anywhere in the world: ADX.
I threw my shoulders back, feigning confidence. I was swathed in my best navy suit, picking my way through the gravel in my highest heels. It was my uniform, the armor I put on before I headed to court, the costume that covered up any insecurity I might have. I felt a pang, knowing that this mental trick was one that my mother had taught me herself, right before my first job interview: good shoes and a chunky necklace for confidence. My head pounded, and I wasn’t sure which was worse: worrying about Chen’s reaction if he recognized me, or the hollow feeling I was carrying in the pit of my stomach, knowing Michael had betrayed me by choosing to stay with Gabrielle—a betrayal that had cost my mother her life.
I shook the thoughts away. I needed to focus, now more than ever. At least Michael had taken the guise of Chen’s real lawyer; I could pretend, if only for a moment, that it wasn’t him standing next to me.
I paused in front of the rubber pad before the door, unsure of what it was.
“Pressure pads,” Michael muttered. “They’ll be all over the place to detect footfalls in case anybody tries to escape.” We stood for a moment, unsure of what to do.
I noticed wall-mounted cameras, training on us, and a slight whirring overhead coming from other devices perched high on the walls.
“Lasers,” Michael noted. “Probably scanning the perimeter to be sure we weren’t followed.”
Without warning the doors slid open, admitting us through what I’d come to realize was just the first layer of security. Immediately inside, guard dogs on leashes patrolled the perimeter. The cement and brick walls of the main building loomed ahead of us, cold and institutional. I felt exposed, a sensation only worsened by the winter winds that tore down from the mountains, chilling me through.
I had to admit, though, that if I felt stripped bare, it was as much to do with the unfamiliarity of the situation I and the angels now found ourselves in. The easy banter of days past was gone. We’d spent the majority of our trip turned inward on our own thoughts, only occasionally making the effort to politely pick our way through the landmines of conversation by focusing on the mundane: directions, bathroom breaks, plans for our arrival. Only Enoch had dared to say more, seemingly oblivious to the chill that had settled around the rest of us, earning for himself everyone’s irritation.
Once, while we walked between terminals, Michael had tried to engage me in a discussion of his innocence, but I’d cut him off:
“I don’t want to hear it, Michael,” I’d insisted. “You knew—deep down you had to have known—that something was wrong. You admitted it in the trial. But you ignored your instincts, and now we’re here. The time for rehashing that is over. Just focus on our plan and make sure we get the information out of Chen that we need.”
He didn’t respond. I’d played the conversation over and over in my head since then, wondering if I was being too hard on him. But I couldn’t let go of my anger. Not yet, anyway. It burned inside of me, pure and sweet, helping me concentrate on what I needed to do to get my sister back.
Michael cleared his throat, interrupting my thoughts as we walked toward the prison.
“You look like a sexy librarian,” he joked.
I shot him an outraged look, daring him to say anything more. He flushed, ruffled by my response.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I just meant … I mean, I usually only see you in T-shirt and jeans.” He paused, turning an even deeper shade of red. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Hope.” Greeted by my stony silence, he sighed and then gestured ahead. “Very well, then. After you.” I nodded, pulling my suit jacket tighter around me and quickening my pace.
We checked in for visitation—a process that required the use of our newly minted fake IDs and extensive paperwork, including reading the twenty points of rules that covered attire, behavior, topics of conversation, length of visit, and the rights of the warden to keep all visitations under surveillance. The list of what I could bring in to our meeting was short. Luckily, I’d been forewarned and had left my purse in the car.
I noted that we were the only visitors on the premises this day— and I read, with a start, that Chen’s only visitor had been his lawyer. It had been six months since the lawyer had last visited. A small flicker of pity welled up inside me, but I shoved it down. This man, for all I knew, had ordered the murder of my father. He deserved to be here, I reminded myself.
The check-in guard at the front desk looked over our paperwork and our prior petition for visitation.
“You just got added to the approved visitation list,” she said, scanning a stack of forms. “New girl on the case, eh?” She looked me over with a hardened eye. “Here’s the drill. I’ll bring you into the booth first, the two of you. Guards will escort your client in after that. We’ll be watching the whole time, but we won’t listen in to your conversation. Any time you want out, you just push the button. Got that?”
I nodded.
“He’s been in Range 13 for the last two weeks, so he may be a little screwed up.”
Michael looked at me, confused. The guard continued. “Extra security measures. Locked down twenty-four hours a day. No contact with other prisoners, not even for exercise. Cameras on him 24/7.”
“What did my client do to get himself placed there?” Michael prompted.
She shrugged. “I don’t know what he did. Usually we place prisoners in the Range when they go on hunger strike, for medical monitoring and forced feeding. Real pain in the ass. Your guy doesn’t seem like the type to go on strike, though. The only reason he’s in the ADX at all is we caught him directing Triad operations out of prison—deemed him a national security threat. Maybe he’ll tell you himself what he did that was bad enough to put him in the Range.”
I snuck Michael a surreptitious look as the g
uard escorted us to another door. I hoped Chen would be in good enough condition to tell us what he knew.
The door slid open with a loud metallic thud. Two additional guards were waiting on the other side.
“One guard ahead of you, one behind. You’ll have up to seven hours, which should be plenty of time for whatever business you have with your client. But if you leave, you’re done for the day. Have fun,” the guard said, gesturing for us to walk through the gap.
We stepped through, and the guards closed ranks around us. Behind me, the door clanged shut. A long hallway, sterile and quiet, stretched before me, turning every now and then at hard angles. One wall was a glass panel. The other was row after row of cells completely cut off from the hallway, just solid wall and metal door. As we walked, I noted the incongruity of the soft pastel peaches and mint-green paint that accented the trim and the doors. It didn’t look like what I’d envisioned for a prison.
There were no noises. There were no people. None at all.
We approached another door. The guard punched in some numbers, and the solid metal door before us whisked open. The guard peered through a barred door, confirming that we were safe before opening that one, too, and passing through.
Nothing but hallway stretched before us.
We continued walking, the only sound our echoing footsteps and the reverberations of the door as it slammed shut behind us.
The eerie silence was unsettling. My palms were getting clammy from nerves. I itched to reach out and take Michael’s hand.
“You’ll be in this booth,” the guard noted, gesturing to the small unit made entirely of glass. We passed through another door and sat down on the institutional metal chairs. We faced a clear glass barrier that ran all the way to the ceiling, bisecting a table that took up the width of the booth. There was a small opening near the tabletop, just big enough to pass through papers or files. That and miniscule perforations in the glass, framed in polished steel, were the only accommodations to real communication.
We sat down to wait. The awkwardness between us was palpable. I stared straight ahead of me, crossing my hands on the table, and focused on preparing myself to see Chen after all these years.
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