“Is she okay?” the woman asks.
Niklaus ignores her. “It has to be bad for our health to travel this much.”
I’m delirious, shaking my head, and reaching back to pat him on the shoulder. The muscles under my fingers tense and coil tightly together.
“She’s in shock,” the man two cages down says.
You are damn right, I am.
“The sentinels didn’t put them in uniforms.”
“White material? Could they be from—”
“No.”
“But they wouldn’t have just thrown these two in a cage without inspection and—wait, they don’t have collars?” The man stands to get a better look at us.
I rest my head against the bars and close my eyes.
“It was a last-minute imprisonment,” I sigh.
The cage doors open and the ground rumbles with hurried footsteps.
“Follow us!” the woman is already in the hallway, careful not to get in the way of the inmates jogging past us. The man stands behind her, watching us suspiciously.
I look back at Niklaus, and we exit our cages and follow our neighbors down the long hallway. Men and women aren’t dressed how we read in our books. Niklaus notices it too.
The women are barely covered in dark red rags, patches and strings that only cover their private areas. The men only wearing black and red pin striped pants.
“I thought they wore red one pieces like bathing suits, and the men wore black pants?” I whisper to Niklaus.
The man peers back at me with a subtle scowl. “There have never been uniforms like that here.”
At a closer look, the man isn’t really a man at all. He’s a teenager. Younger than me. Short, shiny black hair, and lime green eyes. The woman looks close to his age. Maybe seventeen? Long, chocolate brown hair, tan skin, and gentle sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks and slender shoulders.
“She’s thinking of someplace else,” Niklaus replies.
And we come to a complete stop. My bare feet tap at the murky water spreading past the entrance of the community showers. There are multiple jagged pipes gaping from the ceiling, hosing gray water onto a compact grouping of naked inmates.
Some howl at the cold water pounding down on their backs torn to ribbons of loose flesh and open meat glistening with blood and other fluids. The beastly results of recent whippings. Others shiver and keep their heads down until sentinels nod and release them from their shower time.
“Laughter gone?” Niklaus asks, unamused.
“Laughter gone.”
I don’t look his way as I slip out of my white patient gown, eyes lowered, arms clasped around my chest. As my hands grip my sides, I wince at the rib bones so easily defined to my touch. I can’t believe how much weight I’ve lost. I don’t feel like myself anymore at all.
“Walk in front of me,” Niklaus orders.
“So you can gawk at my backside? No, thank you.”
Niklaus keeps his head angled away from me but stays at my side.
“So I don’t have to worry about anyone grabbing you while my back is turned,” he responds with tired aggravation.
I take another look around, weighing my options. So many male prisoners staring at me already. Well, not just me. The teenage woman is the target of a lot of attention, but as she enters the showers, she stays locked arms with the young man with bright green eyes.
“Okay.”
