Savage Drift

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO} JOSIE

We stay in the room until dinner.

Lori won’t let anyone leave.

“Look,” she says. “We go straight to Plaza 900. We eat. We come right back.”

“Why?” Aidan wants to know. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“When’s Mario coming back?” Heather adds. “He should be back by now. He should be here.”

“You heard what Josie said, the doctors are doing their best and we can go back and visit him tomorrow.”

I lay on our bed and look at the wire frame and the stained mattress on the bunk above us.

It was bad, what I had done.

I can see that.

The part of my mind that is still reasonable and well oiled murmurs and tuts inside my head:—Am I suicidal? Is that why I had beaten those boys?

I am done for.

Or am I just a dumb animal now, going on instinct, defending Lori because she is my tribe?

My actions mean she is in for it, too.

In trying to defend her, I have probably doomed her.

And then the darkest, secret voice whispers that we’re all doomed anyway and it’s not my fault.

And that feels good to hear, even if it feels a little dirty to think it. It is true, after all.

The dinner tone comes over the PA system.

One chime—time for the first group to head to Plaza 900. That is us.

There is no talking, no whispering from the kids.

They are simply scared to go to dinner without Mario. They have no idea of the danger I have put us in.

We all hold hands. Aidan’s hand like ice in my right. Heather’s like ice in my left.

Entering the cafeteria it seems to me that a hush falls over the room.

There is no sign of Carlo or the other Union Men.

We walk to the line.

Lori says we should all stay together at all times.

Maybe she thinks the presence of the little kids will keep the Union Men off us.

We go to the line and get trays.

People shush as we approach.

It is eerie.

A man gives me a little salute and a woman with him pushes his arm down and hurries him away from us.

We get our food.

“Where’s your fella?” the cafeteria lady asks me.

“He’s in the clinic,” I tell her.

“Aw,” she clucks. Then she leans forward to whisper. “Look, he asked me to do something. I don’t know. Can you tell him I’m still thinking it over?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, looking away.

She presses an extra dinner roll into my hand. “You tell him it’s from Cheryl.”

“I will,” I say.

Cheryl gives all the kids extra spaghetti and, what’s more, an extra meatball each.

A little boy named Jonas runs over to Aidan.

“You guys are in some kinda trouble!” he says cheerfully. “My daddy said the Union Men is out for you all!”

“No!” Aidan retorts. “That’s dumb. We gave them oatmeal just yesterday and ALL our sugar! They’re on our side now!”

If only.

We go ensemble to a table. People go back to their eating and talking, but we get a lot of glances.

The food tastes like tomato-covered wood pulp, to me, though I see the little boys eat up their large helpings with gusto.

So the word is out that the Union Men were going to come for us. It explains the death pall we’d brought over the cafeteria.

“I’m not going back with you,” I say quietly to Lori. “You take the kids and you get back to the room and lock the door.”

Lori looks at me, her eyes red, her thin brown hair limp around her pale face.

“And you’ll do what? Hide somewhere?”

There is sarcasm in her voice and for the first time, I actually see the girl.

She isn’t as pasty as I thought. She has some spirit.

Maybe she will make it.

“I’m going to fight them,” I say.

She shakes her head, her mouth set in a grim, determined line.

I slide my hand into hers so she’ll really look at me.

“The thing is, I’ve been ready to die for a long time, Lori,” I say quietly and my throat gets a little constricted, eyes a bit watery, maybe.

But it is the truth.

“No,” she says. “We can make it to the room. We can make it one more night.”

“And then what?”

She squeezs my hand hard.

“You are going to make it through the night so you can see Mario in the morning and then you’re talking to the reporters and getting out of here, Josie Miller.”

I look at her for a beat.

Maybe she really will make it.

The kids are done eating now, and starting to fidget.

“My tummy hurts,” Heather says.

It was likely the extra meatball.

“Let’s go,” Lori says.

We rise and then a skinny mother, a woman from our hall, stands up at the table opposite us. She elbows her kid—a teenage girl I’ve seen shuffling around. The two of them, and three more people from the table behind them, get up.

“Are you headed back to the dorm?” the lady asks us.

Her voice is narrow and shaking.

These are the first words she has ever said to us, and she lives right on our hall.

“Because we’re headed back, too.”

And as we start to walk toward the door, people cram the last plastic forkfuls of pasta into their mouths and chug their milk.

Soon we have an escort of fifty or sixty people, herding us toward the dorm. I recognize one of the men—he is the guy who had fought to get me free, when I was trapped in the Men’s hall. Patko.

As we walk, whispers come to us.

“We’ll help you any way we can.”

And, “Don’t be scared, kids. It’ll be all right.”

The skinny mother grabs my hand and squeezes.

“We’re praying for you,” she says.