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At the h cell, just like the one in Hank’s No wallscreen, just a stack of primed cinderblocks She collapsed onto the bunk before he even had the gate locked, and lay there for what felt like hours, waiting for night to come and pass to dawn, for Peter’s new deputy to co of her journey

She checked her wrist often, but Hank had confiscated her watch He probably wouldn’t even knoind it The thing would eventually fall into disrepair and return to being a trinket, a useless thing worn upside down for its pretty band

This saddened herto know the time, when Marsh came back and told her she had a visitor

Juliette sat up on the cot and swung her legs around Who would come up to the mids from Mechanical?

When Lukas appeared on the other side of the bars, the dam that held back all her emotions nearly broke She felt her neck constrict, her jaws ache fro the sobs, the erabbed the bars and leaned his head against the the smooth steel, a sad snized hi him in the dark, had been in a hurry when they’d bu ht brown hair slicked back with sweat from what she assumed was a hurried walk down

"You didn’t need to co What really saddened her was so to realize she cared about The indignity was toothis," he said "Your friends are collecting signatures Don’t give up"

She shook her head "It won’t work," she told hiet your hopes up" She walked to the bars and wrapped her hands a few inches below his "You don’t even know me"

"I know this is ratshit--" He turned away, a tear streaking down his cheek "Another cleaning?" he croaked "Why?"

"It’s what they want," Juliette said "There’s no stopping them"

Lukas’s hands slid down the bars and wrapped around hers Juliette couldn’t free them to wipe at her cheeks She tried to dip her head to use her shoulder

"I was co up to see you that day--" Lukas shook his head and took a deep breath "I was co to ask you out--"

"Don’t," she said "Lukas Don’t do this"

"I told my mom about you"

"Oh, for God’s sakes, Lukas--"

"This can’t happen," he said He shook his head "It can’t You can’t go"

When he looked back up, Juliette saw that there was led one hand free and peeled his other one off She pushed theo," she said "I’m sorry Just find soht I had found someone," he said plaintively

Juliette turned to hide her face

"Go," she whispered

She stood still, feeling his presence on the other side of those bars, this boy who knew about stars but nothing about her And she waited, listening to him sob while she cried quietly to herself, until she finally heard his feet shuffle across the floor, his sad gait carrying hiht, she spent another evening on a cold cot, another evening of not being told what she’d been arrested for, an evening to count the hurts she had unwittingly caused The next day, there was a final cliers, the whispers of a double cleaning chasing after her, Juliette falling into another stunned trance, one legand then the other

At the end of her clis and her old desk Her escort collapsed into Deputy Marnes’s squeaking chair, co of exhaustion

Juliette could feel the shell that had for three days, that hard enamel of numbness and disbelief People didn’t talk more softly, they just sounded that way They didn’t stand further from her, they just seemed more distant

She sat on the lone cot and listened to Peter Billings charge her with conspiracy A data drive hung in a liobbled all its water and now lay dead Dug out of the incinerator, soes were blackened A scroll was unspooled, only partly pulped Details of her computer search were listed She knew most of what they found was Holston’s data, not hers She wasn’t sure what the point would be of telling thes

A judge stood beside Peter in his black coveralls while her sins were listed, as if anyone were really there to decide her fate Juliette knew the decision had already been made, and by someone else

Scottie’s name was mentioned, but she didn’t catch the context It could have been that the email on his account had been discovered It could be that they were going to pin his death on her, just in case Bones buried with bones, keeping the secrets held between them safe

She tuned them out and instead watched over her shoulder as a small tornado formed on the flats and spun toward the hills It eventually dissipated as it crashed into the gentle slope, dissolving like so many cleaners, thrown to the caustic breeze and left to waste away

Bernard never showed hi, Jules would never know She peered down at her hands, at the thin trace of grease deep under her nails, and knew that she was already dead It didn’t matter, somehow There was a line of bodies behind and before her She was just the shuffling present, the cog in theits ear wore down, until the slivers of her self broke loose and did e, until she needed to be pulled, cast off, and replaced with another

Paht her oatmeal and fried potatoes fro outside the bars Notes were ported up frolad none of her friends visited Their silent voices were , the rest of her too numb to shake or sob She read the sweet notes while tears dripped on her thighs Knox’s was a siined he would rather have --even if he were cast out for the atteret all his life Others sent spiritual es, promises to see her on the other side, quotes froave her an update on the generator and the new centrifuge for the refinery She told her all would reely because of her This elicited the faintest of sobs froers, transferring sohts to herself<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>