The Prey by Tom Isbell

around me, girls in drab uniforms marched wearily from one side of camp to the other. But there was something I didn’t understand. How was it these girls—these prisoners —were so highly guarded, while the Less Thans of Camp Liberty could come and go? What had these girls done that made them such dangerous criminals?
    Also, there was something about how they moved—something about them —I found oddly disturbing. With downcast eyes and feet shuffling through the dust, they seemed almost . . . haunted. Like their physical bodies were present but their minds were a thousand miles away.
    Colonel Westbrook seemed to read my mind. “Soyou see, Book,” he said, swiveling in his seat, “there are places in this world worse than Camp Liberty.”
    He climbed out of the vehicle.
    â€œDon’t move,” Major Karsten added, fixing me with a skeletal stare.
    He and Westbrook disappeared into the headquarters building and I sat in the stifling backseat, trying to make sense of what they had said, of what I was seeing.
    Four guards escorted a handful of prisoners past the idling Humvee, marching them through a side gate to a barn on the other side of the fence. As I watched them, my eyes were drawn to one prisoner in particular. She was of medium height with light brown skin—skin the color of tea—and her hair was covered in a head scarf. There was something about her that caught my attention. It wasn’t just that she was good-looking, although there was no doubt about that. There was some undefinable quality that drew me to her. It was almost like we had something in common—like there was something about her I already knew. Even from the distance that separated us I could make out the expression on her face . . . and I knew that expression. Had seen it countless times staring back at me in the mirror.
    If anyone could help me understand what was going on, I knew it would be her.

12.
    H OPE STACKS HAY BALES in the barn’s loft. The work is hard and repetitive, but she doesn’t mind. The intoxicating scent of fresh hay reminds her of the home she left ten years earlier.
    A home with a mother and a father and life free of Brown Shirts.
    A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye steals her attention, but when she peers through the loft window, all she sees are trees and the jagged cliffs of Skeleton Ridge. Strange. She could have sworn she saw something. Some one .
    A moment later, it’s the sound of footsteps that causes her to stop midlift, muscles straining. A Brown Shirt races through the fields.
    When she turns around to stack the bale, she’s shocked to see someone standing directly in front of her. He’s about her age, with light brown skin and dark hair. The bale falls from her hands with a thud.
    â€œWho are you and what—”
    â€œShh,” he whispers. “I won’t hurt you.”
    She takes an involuntary step backward but there’s nowhere to go. The heels of her feet peek over the edge of the loft. “You shouldn’t be up here.” She eyes the pitchfork that lies a couple feet away. If she’s quick enough, she can dive for it, reaching it before this stranger.
    â€œI won’t hurt you,” he says again, palms raised.
    Her fists clench. “What do you want?” He doesn’t answer, so she asks again. “What do you want?”
    He opens his mouth to speak, but at just that moment the Brown Shirt comes stumbling into the barn, badly out of breath. The guy—the intruder —ducks behind the pyramid of hay bales, crouching in shadows.
    Down below, the soldier circles in place, then raises his eyes until they land on Hope. “Did you see him?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œAn LT—a boy. Came running through. Just a moment ago.”
    Hope is about to speak but stops herself. She has no reason to trust this intruder—no reason at all—but she has even less reason