The many-quiet-voices theory is proven correct when Bellamy opens the door. A guard stands right inside the door, and the room is fairly crowded. Two guys who look a bit younger than I am go into a smaller room with sofas and what looks like a pool table in the back. A half dozen or so people are clustered around it.
What surprises me is the age of the people in both the cafeteria and the room beyond. I’d say twenty of the forty or fifty people eating at the tables are between five and twelve. The kids are seated in groups of four or five, monitored by an adult in a uniform like Bellamy’s. Another dozen or so look like they’re in their teens or early twenties, but the vast majority are female. The younger group seems pretty evenly split between boys and girls. The remaining people in the cafeteria are older, and most of them seem to be employees.
I take my time picking out food, surreptitiously scanning the faces on this side of the room. And I get the sense that a number of them are checking me out, too. Not the employees, but the others. They don’t all turn and stare, nothing obvious like that, but their eyes dart away quickly when I look in their direction. Twice I feel a mental tap, similar to the feeling when Dacia scanned me, and I struggle to keep my walls in place.
But I don’t see Deo.
He’s not here.
I jump and turn to Bellamy. “Did you say something?”
Even before she shakes her head, even as I’m asking the question, I already know better. That voice was inside my head. Not a voice I know, either—it’s a young girl.
And my walls are up.
Try Room 67. Tell him Pavla says he has nice zadek. So do you.
That’s followed by laughter and another girl saying, “Oh, you are so bad, Maria!” But that voice is fainter and not in my head. I spin around and see two girls in their early teens. When one of them realizes that I’m watching the two of them, she collapses into giggles again. The third girl at the table seems to be off in her own world.
I put a yogurt on my tray and go over to the salad bar, watching the nearby tables out of the corner of my eye as I pile toppings onto my lettuce at random. One of the few adults not in a uniform is sitting by himself at a table next to me. At first, I think he’s really old, because his hair is long, gray, and matted. A thick layer of salt . . . or maybe it’s sugar? . . . is scattered before him on the table.
As I step closer, he whips his head up and I realize he’s not as old as I’d thought. Maybe midforties? His pale eyes briefly lock onto mine. Then he looks back down at the table and uses his finger to write something in the pile of white granules in front of him.
NOT DEO
I take a step toward him, to ask what he knows about Deo, but he erases the two words and writes
HURRY UP BITCH
“Hurry up,” Bellamy says. She doesn’t actually say the word bitch, but it’s definitely implied by her tone. “I’d like to have time for lunch, too.”
The man stares at someone sitting one table over for a second, then runs his hands through the pile of white and begins writing something about tomatoes.
He doesn’t know anything about Deo. He’s simply pulling stray thoughts from people’s minds. From my mind, too, which has me worried about the structural integrity of my walls. It also makes me wonder briefly if he’s the phantom graffiti artist from my bathroom mirror, but I can’t imagine him drawing a curvy little heart at the end of a word.
“I’m nearly done,” I say to Bellamy. “Just let me grab a sandwich.” I’ve got more food on the tray already than I’ll ever eat, but the case that holds the wrapped sandwiches will get me closer to the three tables on the other side of the room, and one of them includes a group of teens.
I grab a sandwich without even looking, my eyes fixed on that table. There’s one guy with dark hair, but he’s too heavy to be Deo.
One of the men at the next table over catches my eye, however. His back is to me, but something about him is familiar. He’s tall, muscular, with light hair, and dressed in the same khaki-and-brown uniform as Bellamy.
“I said it’s time to go.” Bellamy is behind me now.
I’d really like to stay and get a closer look, but Bellamy’s moving her hand to the holstered taser. Damn, she must be really hungry, if she’s willing to tase me for cutting a few extra seconds into her lunch hour.
“I’m coming, okay?” As I say the words, the guy turns slightly toward me. I can still only see part of his face, but it’s enough that the resemblance clicks into place.
He looks like Daniel.