Nightmare Born by Jenny Trout

Author:Jenny Trout [Trout, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abigail Barnette

20

A Missing Link

We sit in a circle, in the vast space lit only by the Darklight from the Nether outside the walls, each of us cross-legged on the ends of our sleeping bags. None of us want to be the first to talk.

Since I’m the one with the most obvious answer, I pull the Band-Aid off fast and go first. “You guys know why I can’t chance getting kicked out. I’ll go to jail for murder and…for blowing up a jail.”

Why had Abbadon done that to me? The murder part was bad enough. Escaping from jail by way of explosion had to add a whole extra life sentence or something. Couldn’t he have been more discreet about it?

“Blowing up a jail?” Rhiannon’s jaw drops.

“You didn’t hear that part?” Mandy asks, gripping her ankles and leaning forward. “Two police officers died.”

My stomach hits the floor. “What?”

Mandy nods. “Wall fell on them. You haven’t been keeping up?”

“No.” My tongue is as dry as sandpaper. “I guess I haven’t been eagerly consuming the details of the murder I committed.”

“Where are you even hearing this stuff, anyway?” Rhiannon asks in disgust. “It’s not like you’re reading Twitter on your phone in here.”

Mandy raises her hands and dramatically looks all around. “Gosh, I don’t know where I would have heard anything about the outside world?”

“You know all of my business,” I snap, not wanting a side argument to knock us off track. “What about yours? Why can’t you leave?”

“Jail. Same as you,” Mandy says with a shrug. Then she tilts her head and adds, “Well, not the same. I didn’t rip anybody’s heart out. I just stole a car.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Rhiannon mutters under her breath.

“So, you stole a car. Miss Perkins knows about this?” I don’t want to assume. I want straight answers.

“She doesn’t just know. She’s the one who got me out of there.” Mandy sounds almost proud of that. “She pretended to be a social worker. Waltzed right in to the juvenile detention center, said she was taking me to a facility for evaluation and brought me here.”

“She pretended to be a social worker when she came for me, too,” Rhiannon says, sitting up a little taller.

I look between Rhiannon and Mandy. “Does she personally pick up all the girls?”

Mandy shakes her head. “No. Just the ones whose Sentinels go AWOL.”

Abbadon. Understanding dawns on me. “The people who were supposed to be looking out for us.”

“Not people, but yes,” Rhiannon confirms. “Mine must have vanished.”

“Why do you say ‘must have’?” Mandy asks. “I know where mine went.”

“Because I have no idea who my Sentinel was.” Something about Rhiannon’s answer feels overly cautious. Mandy and I just stare at her until she goes on. “Look, I didn’t grow up the way you guys did, okay?”

“Not okay. You don’t have any idea how I grew up,” Mandy says, and I sense that it’s the wind up to a long screed about white privilege that Rhiannon and I won’t want to hear.

But Rhiannon sticks to her guns.

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