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"Begin," he said

It was easy enough to float the command to Dr Freeo, and could choreograph the small movement the exact way the doctor had done before The White Noise trickled out again, running along my skin like an electric current I let my eyes flick around, but it was harder to mime fear now A swell of cool, careful control settled my mind

O’Ryan looked back over his shoulder "Turn it on"

It is on, I thought

"It is on," Dr Freelance toward O’Ryan for his reaction

The ca one of the testing machines back fro machines and scanners out already?

I forced the words into the doctor’s mouth That could take weeks

"That could take weeks," Dr Freemont said

This is foolproof

"This is foolproof"

O’Ryan’s gaze was searing as it moved between the oldthe camp controller’s , streams of children in uniforms, but it took a forceful shove to break past theirl is Green She wasout of both of their e classification was an error" O’Ryan turned to one of the PSFs "Get one of the Green uniforht-five"

"What size, sir?"

"Does it matter?" O’Ryan barked "Go"

The doctor blinked "Will she not stay here, then? I iht bedisruptive to the other children if they saw her"

"One night is enough" He turned to look at me as he added, "I want them all to understand, no matter how far they run, they’ll always be found They’ll always be brought back"

A whole night Jesus--the drugs they’d given h to lose a full day The inia--they wouldn’t have risked ground transportation Meaningthat would make itthe twenty-fifth of February Shit Three days to figure this out

The doctor didn’t uncuffthe thin, cotton uniform and laceless white slip-on sneakers on the exa them onto my chest "Move"

The smell of black per my sore jaw back and forth If it was a ive the as I stood up and , aware of their eyes ontheht one back to pluck the black flash drive out of it My hands felt swollen and clu to adjust the cloth tongue They were two sizes too big, at least, but it didn’tme My face burned with hatred as I faced the wall and stripped out ofskin like the dull side of a blade When I was finished, I turned back and kept et the uniforripped my arm

"Cabin twenty-seven," O’Ryan said, the corner of hissain I’nal with his hand and I was hauled, literally pulled, out of the door and into the hall Laybrook wrenched ain as we turned into the nearest stairwell God, I could al up the other direction, not knoas waiting for them I saw myself in my pajamas, Sam in her coat

The pace was i ontoLaybrook’s expression darkened with irritation as he gripped the back ofto be, I thought, with all of theot out and beat their system--And nohat? They had to prove to ain? That I was just as small and powerless at seventeen as I was at ten? They wanted me to stay in that shadowy corner I’d let myself be backed into, fold myself up small, cutaway again, strip lanced back up the steps we’d coaze toward the next set, until it finally landed on the black caht, turning the corner to start down the next flight of stairs, I bent my arm, threw lared up through the inches that separated his stunned face froainst the wall, the strap sliding from his shoulder The man had decades on me, and at least a hundred pounds, but in the end it didn’tat ht about one thing, at least--I did remember the way back to Cabin 27 My fear reht to keepas the camp spread open in front of me