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want to do.
    Since that wasn’t working, I thought of Braxton and how this imprisonment had messed up his head and caused him to lose faith. I searched the dining hall for him until I found him across the room, staring into his plate like a lost soul. He’d given up on everything that defined his life and was battling depression and hopelessness. I refused to remember how I’d always been troubled by his fanatical beliefs and outrageous behavior, or how I’d always wished he’d tone it down and be more realistic with his faith.
    No. I made myself see that even D’Lo was talking about crazy things like aliens being real. He’d lost the nerve to fight, and was willing to sit and be drugged and treated like a slave.
    That was the key. I had to see how we were all losing our identities in this place, and the longer we were here, the more this captive mentality became the new normal for us.
    Dinner was over, and it was time for me to report for the evening milk shift, but I didn’t want to see Gallatin tonight. I needed a break from him. I went back to the dormitory instead of the barn and waited to see what would happen, whether a note would come or if one of the guards would come and get me.
    An hour rolled by and nothing happened. I got up from my cot and went to the screened windows facing the barn. The lights were on, and I could see the moving shadow of someone working. I was being allowed to skip. I knew he was letting me off, and guilt twisted painfully in my chest.
    As I slowly walked back to my cot, D’Lo stopped me. The partition wasn’t up yet, and we were being allowed to socialize. It was happening more and more.
    “Hey, Pren.” He sat on the bunk across from mine and leaned forward so his head didn’t hit the top frame. “Come sit with me.”
    I nodded and sat beside him on the bunk.
    “I’ve seen you spending a lot of time with that guy. What’ve you found out?”
    “Nothing,” I confessed, clasping my hands together and staring at my feet. “Nothing we can use.”
    What would D’Lo say if he knew how I’d really been spending my time, swimming in the creek, laughing, and relaxing in the sun, smiling and getting friendly. It was like I was having a holiday.
    “Tell me what you do know. Maybe it’s useful and you don’t realize it.”
    “He was in Arizona before they brought him here.” I was embarrassed by what I knew, and I wasn’t about tell him about the celibacy thing or about us napping side by side on a blanket beside a sparkling pond. Then I thought of something—how we got in and out. “There’s a break in the fence down behind the cabins.”
    “But you have to get past all of them down there.”
    “Right,” I said, nodding.
    “So it’s true, that’s not much.” I felt D’Lo’s eyes on me, and I could feel his disapproval without him saying a word. “I’ve seen how he keeps his eye on you all the time. He’s watching you.”
    Inwardly I squirmed. I knew what Dee was saying was true, but the way I knew it was true because I was always watching him.
    “Since the accident, we’ve gotten to be friends.”
    “That guy is not your friend.” His voice was sharp, and he put his hand on my arm to make me face him. “He’s one of them, and they’re not like us. They’re different.”
    I sighed. “You know I don’t believe that. I think that guard’s messing with your mind.”
    “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. These guys can do things. Bad things. Without even lifting a finger.”
    “Like what?”
    “I saw that one guy cut through ropes with nothing. No knife, not even standing close to them.”
    I frowned. “What?”
    The lights blinked, and the partition started to close. It was time for us to part, but D’Lo leaned toward me. “I know Jackson made mistakes, and he messed up. A lot. But I always had your back when it came to him. Don’t forget what’s real, Pren. Don’t go looking for a replacement in the wrong place.”
    “I don’t know what the