I swallowed back a cry of pain. The taste of blood was in my mouth again, bitter and metallic, like a bullet casing. I tried to force my eyes open despite the gritty crust on them, but I couldn’t get my left one open more than a crack. It pulsated with each small movement. Static-laced voices drifted by me.
“Code ten—”
“—suspect is on foot—”
The seat back I’d been leaning against suddenly moved. A zip tie dug into my wrists as I tried to bring my hands forward to shove whatever—whoever—it was away.
Roman.
He stared at me, his eyes hooded, as he made a soft hushing sound. Next to him, Priyanka kept her gaze on the window, on the landscape racing back. Their hands were also secured behind their backs, forcing them to awkwardly lean to the side to find a comfortable position. I cleared my throat, my skull ringing with a pain that radiated out from my cheekbone.
The grate separating us from the front of the police car rattled as one of the officers knocked against it with a familiar yellow device.
“What did I say about being quiet and still?” she asked. “You want me to use this on you again? I’m all for reminding folks the meaning of cooperation.”
Priyanka opened her mouth, the corners of it tilting up into a smirk, but Roman knocked his shoulder into her.
The officer shook her head. “Sorry to say this, Sleeping Beauty, but you’re going to wish you were still unconscious in about five minutes. See those distant lights?” We were on a dirt road surrounded by desert on all sides. The only thing to see was the smear of lights on the lone mountain ahead. “Enjoy the view while it lasts.”
I sincerely worried that Priyanka was going to explode if she didn’t snap something back at him. Instead, she took several steadying breaths, then slid her eyes over to me. She must have seen my question reflected there, because she swallowed hard, then nodded.
A cloud of dust appeared, heading toward us from the opposite direction. Another police car, leaving as we were coming. Both officers waved as we passed them.
“Looks like you won’t be their only drop-off tonight,” the driver said. “It’s like y’all are coming out of the goddamn woodwork all of a sudden.”
A tremor of rage worked through me, and I had to bite my lip to keep from saying anything. Everything I had done in the government had been with the goal of bringing us out of the shadows, letting us bloom in what sunlight society was willing to give us. I’d thought—I’d hoped—that we could slowly change their minds. But the truth was that they didn’t want to think about us at all.
The road became rougher the closer we got to the structure; the faint nausea that had crept up on me over the last few minutes became more pronounced with each hard bump and jolt. I realized then we weren’t looking at a mountain. We were looking at high concrete walls lined with floodlights and barbed wire.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but all I found there was another fence, more barbed wire. My skin was too hot one moment, too cold the next, trapped between summer heat and the distant memory of snow. Feeling drained from the tips of my fingers, from my feet inside my too-big black boots. Saliva flooded my mouth.
Stop, I told myself. Stop it. You’re not there. You’re here.
I was here now. I was here with the others. Roman’s shoulder pressed against mine as he shifted, straining his arms so his fingers could find mine behind our backs. I hooked my thumb and index finger on his, and it was only then that some of the numbness eased up.
As we came upon the ornate sign, I understood why Wheeler, Texas, had sounded familiar.
PERSONALIZED INDEPENDENT TRAINING FACILITY
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT
Priyanka inhaled sharply, but I couldn’t breathe at all.
No….
Photos and video of the completed facility had indicated it would be half the size of this structure, lavishly landscaped, and painted soft, welcoming colors. Like a school. What the hell had Joseph Moore’s team sent footage of when he’d won the bid to build his training facility?
The building’s cement walls had to be at least sixty feet high, and they sloped inward like cupped hands. Electricity radiated from the place like a molten star. Power lines connected to it from all four directions, thumping and moaning as they worked furiously.
He made another camp.
Congress…Cruz…they had to have no idea. They never would have approved this.
The road curved and came to an abrupt stop at one end of the massive structure, this one standing straight up into the sky, with too many floors and windows to count. It had been built for function and intimidation only—there had been no time wasted or dollars spent on design embellishments that might have lessened its bleak look.
I leaned forward, trying to see through the front windshield. There was a passage, almost like a tunnel, that ran through the building at the ground level.
The car sped toward a security booth; it sat a good hundred yards from the actual structure, and served as a point of connection between the building and the webbing of security fencing that came into sharp focus as we neared. Not just one chain-link fence, but layers and layers of them. Between each was a series of connecting chambers for a vehicle to pass through. A ripple of pure, undiluted dread slipped down my spine.
If one gate failed, there would always be another, and another, to stand in the prisoner’s way.
I licked the sweat off my top lip, tasting salt and whatever chemical was in the hair gel. The police cruiser finally slowed as we approached a soldier. No—it wasn’t a soldier, at least not US military or part of the UN’s forces. He wasn’t in any kind of uniform, beyond a camo shirt and a heavy black Kevlar vest.
The man stood in the middle of the road, waving until the officer slowed down. He came to the driver’s side, his face like thunder.
“Oh, this should be good,” the officer driving muttered. “Hi there. Good evening to you. We’ve got three Psi in the back. These idiots were picked up trying to rob—”
“You can’t keep dumping kids here like they’re your garbage,” the man snapped, interrupting him. “The boss wants us to crack down. We’ve got a new system now. Did you even scan them before dragging them all the way out here?”
“You think the government gives us that kind of equipment?” the female officer asked, leaning over her partner to get a better look at the guard. “You know how this bureaucratic shit works. Look…I’ll pass the word on to the department if you’ll take these last three.”
The man guarding the entrance let out a noise of disgust, pulling back into the security booth. Another one stepped out, shining a flashlight into the backseat. All three of us turned our faces away.
“Fine,” the first one growled. “Next time call ahead and flag it in PTS.”
“You’ve got it,” the male police officer said. He rolled up his window, adding, “Asshole.”
Up ahead, the first of the gates buzzed and dragged itself open. As we rolled forward through the first section, then the next, my fingers tightened around Roman’s. At the third gate, the female officer turned to watch us through the grate. “Enjoy being someone else’s problem.”
The gates slammed shut behind us, the chain-link rattling with the force of it. Each layer of fence was electrified, singing out its cautions, its warnings.
We came to a stop at the base of the fortresslike building. As the last gate closed behind us, the lights posted on the low ceiling of the tunnel went off, flashing red in time with the alarm.
There were black metal doors on either side of the police car. Both opened, and six heavily armed men poured out. All of them were wearing different shirts, some long, others sleeveless, beneath the same black vests.
They’re not an organized military force, I realized. Roman was fixated on them as well, clearly drawing his own conclusions. This group was a hired force, most likely mercenaries.
The officer behind the wheel unlocked the back doors. He quickly stepped away, an
d before I could even take in another breath, an armed man had reached in and clamped down on my shoulders and arms.
Don’t make a sound, don’t give them that—
The thought was knocked out of me as I fell to the ground, hitting my head against the door.
“Hey!” I heard Roman snarl, but I couldn’t see him, not with the splotches of black floating in my vision. My muscles locked up as the armed men hauled me back onto my feet, shoving me through the door to my left and into a pitch-dark hallway.
PANIC TURNED MY THOUGHTS TO ash. There was no way to see past the soldiers congregating in the hall, but I tried, pulling hard against the grip one of them had on my arm. I couldn’t see the others—I couldn’t tell if they were still behind me, and the thought made me feel like my chest was collapsing into itself.
The soldier on my right reached up with his rifle and smashed the hilt down into the tender spot where my shoulder met my neck. I gasped more from shock than pain, staggering forward. The man let me fall onto my knees, then used his free hand to grip my hair and wrench me back up.
“Hit her again and I’ll kick your ass so hard you’ll be eating my foot!”
Priyanka.
I turned just in time to see a female soldier slam her elbow into her stomach. She gagged on the pain, but managed to stay vertical, even as her knees buckled.
Where is Roman?
The empty hall was bookended with shadow. Cold air blew hard from the overhead vents, hissing and spitting moisture down at us like a crowd of spectators.
The tile, I thought, watching the gray stone pass underfoot. It’s the same.
Memory swept over me like a dark wave.
“What the hell is the matter with her?” one of the men asked.
“She finally realizes they’re in a deep pile of shit,” the one hauling me forward said. “Did you radio into processing we have more coming?”
I felt the walkie-talkies. The charge from their batteries buzzed inside their plastic shells. I felt the White Noise machines hanging from their belts. I felt everything and nothing at all. The only voice in my head was the one telling me to seize that charge, to hurt them the way they’d hurt us.
I swallowed the knot in my throat, chanting the word inside my head: Can’t. Can’t. Can’t.
We were here for a reason. I couldn’t attack, couldn’t give them a reason to hurt or accidentally kill us.
I remembered this. I remembered how this worked.
Another soldier opened the elevator door for us. As we stepped inside, I was finally able to get a look at Priyanka, the barely leashed rage on her face. There were fresh scratches on her cheek and swelling on the right side of her jaw. But she was here. She was with me.
And Roman wasn’t.
The elevator car shook to life, knocking me back against the wall. We didn’t go up into the building, like I’d expected. Down. Down and down, the machinery creaking, its power wrapping around me in sputtering ribbons of electricity.
You are not a little girl anymore.
I could protect myself and Priyanka. I knew that. Rationally, I knew that. But it was like I could feel myself disconnecting the farther we descended, leaving some part of me behind. Dizziness crashed over my head in waves.
You’re fine. You have to be fine.
My vision was going in and out in bursts. A gloved hand gripped my chin, forcibly turning my head. The soldier was a blur of black. His face came into focus as he leaned down to peer into mine. His hazel eyes narrowed.
He sees it. He knows who I am.
With whatever last grip I had on self-control, I remembered what Roman had told me about seeing someone out of context. So I did the only thing I knew that government-trained Suzume would never do.
I spat in his face.
He shoved me away, into the female soldier holding Priyanka in place. Wiping his face against his arm, he reached for his baton again.
The elevator door opened with a cheerful ding. Three more armed figures stood there, waiting.
“Waterson,” one woman said in a flat Midwestern accent, moving aside so the five of us could step out. She was older than all the other soldiers present, her hair turned silver with age. The wrinkles at her eyes and forehead were pronounced, made more so by her humorless smile. Her camo was darker than the others’, and she wore it head-to-toe like someone in the service would.
I recoiled at the sight of her. My pulse stamped out a new panic, one that twisted through me too hot and fast to understand.
Why?
“Ma’am?” the man said.
“Are you having difficulty securing this inmate?” she asked.
Inmate. My stomach roiled. At least they were honest about what we were here. No pretenses now.
“No, ma’am,” he said, straightening as he stepped back into the elevator. “Just assisting with the transfer to processing.” The woman nodded curtly and took position on my right.
This hallway was exactly like the one we had left aboveground, only shorter—and not empty.
Two girls, caked with dust and what looked like soot, tugged at where they’d been handcuffed to the metal bench. One was visibly older than the other by a number of years, and by the matching shade of their dirty blond hair, and the set of their jaws, I guessed they were sisters. That suspicion was only heightened when the smaller girl cowered back at our approach and the other leaned forward as if to shield her.
What little control I’d wrangled in the last few seconds disappeared.
Where is Roman?
“You can’t keep us here,” the older girl snarled. “We didn’t do anything wrong! It was an accident!” She lashed out a foot at the soldier who had knelt to remove the restraints at their ankles and wrists.
“Actions matter,” the woman said. “And your actions have brought you here for your reeducation. Line up.”
I glanced back at Priyanka. She’d lowered her head, glaring out from under the loose curls that had fallen from her bun. One eyebrow rose in question. I shook my head.
The smaller girl swallowed, a fat tear rolling down her cheek, silently taking her place in front of me. Doing as she was told. Listening, like school, her parents, and society had taught her to.
Like I had done nine years ago, when they’d lined us up outside the bus that had driven us to Caledonia, confused and scared, begging to know when we could go home again. I hadn’t been any bigger than this twig of a kid, with scraped knees and a handful of baby teeth still left. Neither was the girl who had been standing in front of me in that line. Nor the girl standing behind me.
It’s happening again.
Nothing had changed. In all the years we worked to reclaim our place in the world, we’d only scraped at the surface of the problem. The old system had slid back in, like a recurring nightmare.
Or it had never truly changed at all.
The older girl lunged at the soldier. Priyanka gasped as one of the other uniformed women reached for the Taser at her side and calmly fired at the girl. She fell to the tile, writhing in pain. The weapon’s charge seared through the spiral of my thoughts, leaving only one word behind: Stop.
“No! She’s sorry! She’s sorry!” the little one cried.
I don’t know who actually killed the Taser, me or Priyanka. Its power snapped and died, but, by then, it was already too late. The girl lay motionless, facedown on the gray tile.
“Turn her over so that I can scan her,” the older woman said. One of the soldiers did as she asked, struggling with the moaning girl’s dead weight. She blinked up at the woman, her eyes so white in the darkness of the hall, as a tablet-like device was unhooked from its perch on the wall and handed to the commanding officer.
She lined up the girl’s face in the software and snapped a picture. “Ah, this is easier. Government’s good for something after all.”
Every inch of my spine straightened. That wasn’t possible. Cruz had refused to send supplies to Moore’s training facility until he accepted inspectors on the
property. Either someone had seen this place and checked all the appropriate boxes or…they’d just stopped caring.
Standing behind her, I could just see the screen—the flurry of faces the government Psi tracking program flipped through before finally bringing up an image of a scowling, clean-faced girl.
“Isabella Jenner,” the woman read aloud, scrolling down through the data listed beneath it. “Of Black Rock camp. Blue. All you had to do was be good and you wouldn’t find yourself back in a place like this.” She clicked her tongue three times.
That small sound—one, two, three, with not even a breath between. That sound.
Now I remembered her.
This woman—this woman had been at Caledonia. She’d worked in the control tower, then did night rounds past each of the rooms, knocking against the doors at all hours of the night to startle us awake. Just because.
One, two, three clicks of the tongue. Shut your stupid little mouths. One, two, three clicks of the tongue. What? Are you going to cry now? One, two, three. It doesn’t matter who you tell, because you don’t matter.
What was her name? All I could think of was the nickname the kids had given her: Knocker.
Static growled in my ears, growing louder as she said, “And not cured, just like I suspected.”
The Knocker clicked her tongue again, once, to get the attention of the woman holding on to me. “Take her to surgery. I’ll send the little one after her.”
The girl still had some fight left in her. As the younger girl screamed, one of the armed women seized Isabella by the collar and hauled her down the hallway, disappearing through a set of double doors.
I whipped my head around. Priyanka’s gaze met mine, eyes as wide as I’d ever seen them as the realization struck her, too.
They didn’t just imprison Psi here against their will. No, that only came after they were stripped of every bit of power they had. Which meant…we’d come all this way to ask for help from a Psi who no longer had his ability.