Internment: Chapters 29–36

I yearn for a minute of a gentle, just-stirring stupor, but I can’t afford to be groggy.

There is one other blue chair in the room, ominously empty.

Does he really think he’s in the right, like he’s some kind of saint, a messiah for the forlorn?

Does he really think he’s in the right, like he’s some kind of saint, a messiah for the forlorn?

“The Director still trusts Jake, and he’s trying to use that to his advantage. Following orders. Hang on a little longer. You have allies. He can’t take you offsite. Not with all those reporters and protestors right there, beyond the fence. And if an ambulance comes through those gates, it will be bedlam outside. You can feel the undercurrent; we’re sitting on a powder keg. It’s too dangerous for him to do anything really stupid. He knows that.”

“The Director still trusts Jake, and he’s trying to use that to his advantage. Following orders. Hang on a little longer. You have allies. He can’t take you offsite. Not with all those reporters and protestors right there, beyond the fence. And if an ambulance comes through those gates, it will be bedlam outside. You can feel the undercurrent; we’re sitting on a powder keg. It’s too dangerous for him to do anything really stupid. He knows that.”

“Thanks to you and your antics, I’m in a bit of a bind now.”

But in a way, you’ve gotten what you want, haven’t you—the masses bleating for your freedom.

Jake gingerly puts his arm around me and helps me back to the bed.

I’m confused, in a maelstrom. The world is spinning and I can’t see or understand anything.

Dr. Han stands up. “Let’s get Layla back to her quarters. Specialist Adams, I’m escorting you off-site with that. You’re not to say a word to any other Command on-site. For now we’re keeping this quiet, until we can get charges pressed. Corporal Reynolds, I’m stationing you outside Layla’s unit. This supersedes all other orders. Understood?”

But images flash against my closed eyes—the Director’s leering red face, a drop of my blood falling to the floor, David’s smile, the Mess, the crackle of the fence as Soheil clutches it, Jake.

But there is only the sound of my breathing and what I’m sure is the stretching of my heart’s sinewy muscle as it reaches its breaking point.

There is a kind of alchemy to it, when one human touches another and makes the aloneness less terrifying.

“When the Director took you, I reported it to my superior. I mean, High Command is here. I was told to not interfere. I was ordered to let him interrogate you. They needed incriminating evidence—something unimpeachable—to take down the Director, maybe this whole place.”

Dr. Han circumvented chain of command and took the video straight to the head of the National Guard and the attorney general.

I get up to fill the kettle, but a brash alarm rings across the camp, vibrating through the trailer.

“Besharam. You should be ashamed,” Khadijah auntie continues. Undeterred and apparently with a backbone like steel, she shakes her head at him, contempt in her voice.

We all stand there, looking at one another. Scared. At least that’s how I feel. But also exultant at a tiny, tiny victory.

There’s a smattering of claps and cheers as people rush off to grab their tools of protest.

It’s girls in hijab and girls with their hair whipping across their faces and girls with shaved heads. It’s parents and grandparents. It’s young men wearing colorful dashikis and white cotton kurtas and concert T-shirts.

A phalanx of the Director’s security detail stomps out and takes up position in front of the Hub doors.

“We know you’re hiding in there, Director. We know you’re scared of us.” I’m goading him.

I allow my eyelids to flutter closed for a flash, a tiny reprieve from the scorching sun.

He looks at me with a rage so palpable it fills the space between us with fire.

I know you think you failed me, but this...this shouldn’t be your penance, Jake.

I can feel his life ebbing away.

Is there something I can do? A covenant to make that will save him? But there is no bargaining with death.

I don’t remember much after the gates opened yesterday, after they took Jake away, first lifting him like a rag doll onto the gurney and then placing him into the back of that sterile, cold ambulance.

I see Soheil outside my little window playing soccer, motes of dust catching the late-afternoon light.