It was Robin. Robin Wellfleet, my first friend in jail.
I’d seen her die. She had died.
But now she was here.
“Robin!” I couldn’t help exclaiming. I moved toward her, my arms open for a hug. I had to feel her, make sure she wasn’t a ghost or a hallucination.
“Get back in line!” Strepp shouted, and another guard rapped me in the small of my back. I turned around to snarl at him, and when I turned back, Robin was gone.
Strepp ordered, “Quiet!” Then she told the guards, “Take them inside!”
We were marched into a building. I felt Cassie looking at me with questions. She’d never known Robin. But I was flipping out. I’d seen her die.
Inside the building it was plain old prisonlike. This one, however, was in better shape than the crazy house—newer and cleaner.
Armed guards prodded us down hallways until we reached a processing station, where we were searched. Various people were in the halls, some in prisoner jumpsuits, some dressed like guards, some just in regular clothes. I caught sight of a slight, younger-looking kid who was loading books from a cardboard box onto a shelf.
It was Little Bit.
Little Bit, who was dead because I’d beaten her in a fight. I wanted to shriek her name, but knew I’d end up with a knot on my head if I did. Again Cassie looked at me, and again I shrugged, my head spinning.
We were given jumpsuits, this time a nauseating puke-green, and hustled into a long hallway.
Strepp strode up. “You two. Come with me,” she barked.
Here we go, I thought, and felt my stomach twist into a knot.
110
CASSIE
IT WAS UNUSUAL FOR US to see Strepp together. So maybe we were about to head to the ring to fight. This prison had a ring, right?
I reached out and touched Becca’s hand. As outwardly calm as I’d been since we’d been recaptured, as much as I felt better prepared to face whatever was coming, I still hated the idea of having to fight my sister. We’d have to make it a good show. Have to really hurt each other. Just the thought made me feel like crying.
But we weren’t led to the ring—at least, not yet. We were taken down another hall and stopped while a guard opened a door.
“Come in,” Ms. Strepp said, and the guard shut the door behind us.
“What now?” Becca said belligerently. “A test? A fight?” She’d been thinking along the same lines I was.
“Sit down,” Ms. Strepp said, gesturing to the two chairs in front of her desk. After giving each other a quizzical glance, Becca and I sat.
Ms. Strepp clasped her hands on her desk, not saying anything, as if thinking through what heinous exercise to make us undergo. Finally she looked at us, as if she had decided.
“Do you know the meaning of the word cell?” she asked, taking me by surprise.
When Becca didn’t say anything, I answered, “It’s a community. Like a town.”
Ms. Strepp shook her head. “No. That’s called a community, or a town. You came from a cell. Do you know why?” Not waiting for an answer this time, she went on, “The word cell used to mean hidden, or covered. Then it meant a small place for sleeping, like for hermits, or monks in a monastery. Its most recent meaning is as a jail cell.”
A jail cell?
“Not all that long ago, bad citizens were
put into jails, and the little rooms were called cells,” said Ms. Strepp. “Now everyone you know lives in cells. What do you think that means?”
I had no idea, no clue as to what she was getting at, and I shook my head.