BY THE TIME IT WAS MY TURN, BUZZ CUT HAD already come back for everyone else, and I was the last one left. Five hours and thirteen minutes had passed since she’d first come to take Simon away.
Now it was well past eleven in the morning, which meant it was already hot in the Utah desert, and even hotter inside the sweltering closed-up space where we’d been confined. The sun beat down against the one-and-only bolted-closed window, and no matter how much dirt was caked over the outside of it, there wasn’t enough to filter out the escalating heat.
Sometime after nine, when Natty was still with me, we’d tried to block the window using one of the thin blankets in the cell. But there’d been nothing to secure it with, and eventually we’d given up.
It was a relief when it was finally my turn, and suddenly the unknown was better than sweating it out—literally—in what had turned from jail cell to sweat lodge. So I was surprised when, instead of being led to some other stuffy room, like some sort of interrogation cell with two-way mirrors, I was led to an enormous shower area.
“Clean up,” Buzz Cut ordered, shoving a towel and stack of borrowed clothes at me.
Despite the layers of grime and the rust-colored sand that clung to me, I bristled at the command, and thought about telling her where she could shove it. I do not want that shower, I lied to myself.
But she cleared up any misgivings about whether it was an option or not when she said, “Do it or I’ll throw you back in the holding cell and you can sweat it out there the rest of the week.”
Problem solved. I was definitely showering.
And it was totally worth it. After the morning I’d had, the campground-style, communal showers were like stepping into a luxury spa—a serious indulgence.
I stayed beneath the stream of hot water for a lifetime, which was more than enough time to scrub away not only the dirt, but the residual blood that was dried along my hairline. I rolled my neck and stretched my shoulders, and when my fingers started to prune, I finally turned off the nozzle and toweled off.
Using my fingers, I combed out the tangles from my hair and slipped into the clean clothes she’d loaned me: a loose-fitting pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that was so threadbare it felt like air against my newly clean skin. I knotted the end of the shirt to keep from being swallowed up by it.
I spent way too long in front of the mirror, looking at the stranger with the russet-colored hair who could no longer pass as Bridget Hollingsworth—the girl on the fake ID Simon had given me. Bridget had looked too much like the old me.
I wondered what kind of name this stranger might have. She could be a different Bridget, I supposed, but she could just as easily be a Maddy or a Mikayla, or maybe even a Kaci with an i.
I pressed my hand to the mirror, wondering, too, where Simon and the others were right now. And if they’d been here, in this exact place, before me. Had we really come all this way only to be taken captive?
I jumped, hastily lowering my hand, when the door opened behind me. I expected to see Buzz Cut come marching in. Only this time, there was another girl coming inside, carrying a plate covered with a red-and-white-checked napkin. Buzz Cut was still there, standing vigilantly on the other side of the door, but she stayed where she was. The new girl gave a single nod to Buzz Cut, then pushed the door closed with her hip.
I watched expectantly. This new girl wasn’t like Buzz Cut, who looked like she wanted to be one of the boys. Her long hair was dark and shiny, and was pulled away from her bronzed skin, and her brown eyes held me captive as she watched me back. Her skintight jeans showed off her lean legs, and even with her combat boots, she managed to look as if she’d been peeled straight from the pages of Vogue.
She kept a considerate distance, as if to say I was calling the shots, rather than the other way around. When she pulled back the corner of the napkin, revealing a plate of neatly arranged apple slices, clusters of green and purple grapes, and wedges of yellow cheeses, she said, “You might not be hungry—we almost never are—but you should still eat.” Her smile was almost sad, and suddenly I felt like I wasn’t alone in the whole missing-food thing.
I couldn’t help questioning the offer of food . . . or the melancholy smile. If the gesture was calculated, it was a pretty good show—I had to give her that much. But it wasn’t like I was going anywhere, and she was right, it wouldn’t do me any good not to eat.
I eased down on the nearest wooden bench. There were rows of them, all with peeling paint, and all bolted to the tile floor. She set the plate down in front of me.
“Where are Simon and the others?” I asked when she straddled the bench, opposite the plate.
She just watched me for several long seconds.
Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by her. She was more than just pretty. There was something mesmerizing about her, about the purse of her lips and the way her dark eyes felt like they understood you—like she knew you—that made you want to just . . . look at her. I found myself searching for the right thing to say, and had to remind myself she wasn’t my friend.
“It’s safe here,” she said instead of answering my question. She glanced around the locker room, but I knew that wasn’t what she meant.
She was talking about this place, this camp, and I immediately thought of the way Simon had said that very same thing to me, right before he’d been taken away. That I was safe, and that he’d protect me, and that I had nothing to be afraid of.
So why wasn’t I convinced?
“You’re not what I was expecting.” There was no point pretending I trusted her. I reached for one of the polished green grapes and bit into it.
Food might not exactly be the same anymore, but fruit somehow tasted less cardboard-y than most other things. It might not be powdered-doughnut good or anything, but it was the closest to the taste I remembered from before.