I leaned over and watched the recording on her phone’s screen.
A big guy, built like a bear ready for winter, had apparently not been given enough drugs for his large size. He was scrabbling at the fence gate, trying to claw his way up.
The two guards posted on stands at either side of the gate looked down at him. The two guards on the ground near the fence also turned towards the man. I figured they would move in and physically drag him away like they had with Tarah’s dad.
Instead, all four guards raised their rifles.
“They're gonna tranquilize him again,” Tarah muttered.
One of the soldiers who had taken Tarah’s father into a building stepped out. He stood outside the building’s door, watching the scene at the gate, his hands on his hips. The guards' leading officer probably.
It was like watching that video of Aimee's arrest again. I couldn't do anything to stop it, and at the same time couldn't look away. Any second now, the darts would appear in the man's neck and…
The officer in charge touched the black band at his neck, his lips moving as he apparently told his guards something.
Shots cracked through the air.
The prisoner fell from the fence. Red spots bloomed on his back then quickly puddled on the cement around him.
Live rounds. The guards were using real ammo now instead of tranq darts.
Tarah
I stopped the recording then played the video again on my phone’s screen, holding it close to my face so I could see it better. “They...they shot him. They actually shot him!”
The guards had just murdered a prisoner. But how could they? Weren’t we still in America, where there were rules about how prisoners must be treated? Just because he was a Clann descendant or outcast trying to escape…
“Come on. We've got to get out of here.” Hayden spoke low and fast, taking my phone from my hands that had suddenly gone numb.
I tried but couldn’t move. My body didn’t seem to want to work anymore.
“Tarah, we've got to go. Now!”
Dimly I heard him, but his words were like an alien language. They didn’t make any sense.
They shot that man. And that baby, dying in its mother’s arms…
Something heavy wrapped around my shoulders, lifting me up onto my feet and pressing me against Hayden’s rock hard body. It was like being trapped against a warm wall, only to find the wall was guiding me up out of a ditch and down into another to his truck. I couldn’t find the will to resist, though I knew there was some important reason why I needed to stay.
At the passenger door, we stopped, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. My mind didn’t want to work anymore, either. Strong hands took hold of my hips then lifted me, and I found myself on the truck seat and my legs tucked into the passenger side floorboard before the door swung shut.
The world tilted as Hayden drove us away. He cursed under his breath, fighting the wheel as we nearly rolled in the sandy, steep ditch before he got us turned around and headed down the road again.
My father was a prisoner there too. How would I get Dad out of that place?
“Tarah, are you okay? Talk to me.”
Talking took too much effort. I bent my knees up against my chest, tucking my arms in between my knees and chest to try and stop my hands from shaking.
Should I call someone for help? A lawyer maybe?
Would Dad be okay there?
How could he be? They’d killed a prisoner and let another die right in front of them! Nobody who wasn’t a guard could ever be safe in a place like that.
“Tarah?”
But how to get him out?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an arm reach out towards the dashboard and turn a knob. Air rushed out of the vents, a dull roar in the cab’s silence.
It seemed only seconds later that a low buzzing sounded from somewhere at my left. After a long moment, Hayden picked up my phone and read the screen.
“It’s a text from your mom. Do you want to reply to her, let her know you’re okay?”
And then what? What could Mom possibly do to free Dad? Mom was a psychiatrist, not a Navy Seal. What would she do, talk them to death? Get the guards to tell her their feelings?
Maybe she could torture them all with the same psych tests she’d tortured me with. If she did, they might let Dad go free just to get rid of her.
I had to fight the insane urge to giggle at that thought.
Even if we found a way to get Dad out somehow, what about the rest of the prisoners? How would we get them out of there?
A warm hand gently touched my wrist, making me jump. Then its warmth began to seep into my skin. I stared at those long tanned fingers, fingers that were so often seen spinning basketballs on their tips for hours in the halls at school between classes like some character from a High School Musical movie. Shouldn’t Hayden be at practice right now? Or a game?
What time was it anyway? It was getting darker, the sun setting behind us, taking all the light with it so we were forced to drive into the growing darkness.
It would be getting dark at the internment camp. And cold. And no one had any blankets there. Would Dad be warm enough?
My fault he was there. If I’d never opened my big mouth about the strange abilities I'd seen others do, he never would have insisted on going to that protest today to try and find willing outcasts who would let him use his biofeedback equipment to try and help them learn to control their abilities.
A low curse rumbled in the air to my left as the truck slowed and eased over to the side of the freeway then stopped completely. A loud click then a bang made me jump as a door was opened and slammed shut, then my door fell away from my side. It took me a few seconds to realize it was because Hayden had gotten out, come around to my side of the truck, and opened the door.
“Tarah, look at me,” Hayden growled from the open doorway.
Something in his tone made me look at him standing there, his breaths puffing in the cold evening air, his eyes intense but unreadable beneath that mop of hair over his forehead.
Maybe he could tell me how to save my dad. “They shot that prisoner," I whispered. "And that baby…”
“I know.” He rubbed my arms then the outside of my legs through my jeans for some reason, and though it was a strange gesture for him to make, the friction from the brisk contact was also comforting in a way, creating warmth that slowly spread across my skin and also seemed to thaw my mind around the edges.
“Why? Why did they do that?” I searched his eyes but didn’t find any answers.