Page 4

The thought of leaving my little bedroom, my parents, and my brother Ethan, opens a crack in my heart.

I imagine the barracks: cold, white and bare. Security Officers don’t indulge. When my mom is home she does all these little things, taking a warm bath, drinking a cup of tea, even cuddling under a thick blanket on the couch, and calls them her luxuries.

I think luxury would be having the latest e-car or living in one of the huge houses up on the hill.

Zeph walks in front of me, and it’s not his usual carefree stride. Each step is deliberate, and I see his eyes scan up and down the line.

We finally get to the end and begin the wait. Luckily the line is moving at a quick shuffle. I assume they’re scanning everyone’s SafeGuard. Maybe there are even metal detectors. I remember them from when I was a kid.

During the Integration, metal detectors were literally everywhere. There would even be checkpoints on the sidewalk with CSOs monitoring the foot traffic. They were catching each and every gun for the buyback, and enforcing the new, weak peace.

I’m excited to maybe walk through one. I don’t know what weapons anyone would dare bring to the courthouse.There are Officers stationed all over the place. I guess it could detect if you had a knife. I assume Zeph has thought of all that.

Our eyes meet but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. All these years, hanging out, watching our siblings, walking to school day in and day out, and I still wonder if Zeph is trying to smuggle a knife into the courthouse.

What would be the point anyway—you’d only get in trouble.

Inside the wide marble lobby, gray plastic boxes line up like doorways with teenagers waiting to walk through. On the other side, guards with handheld scanners scan each kid’s SafeGuard.

Zeph goes first, then I walk through the metal detector. Nothing happens. There’s a girl scanning a couple of kids in the uniform of a rival school. A different guard steps around her and comes over to us to bend over Zeph’s wrist.

This guard is a man, dressed like the other guards in white against his deep brown skin, his shoulders broad and wide, a head taller than the women scanning wrists around him.

It’s so curious to see a man working as a guard. He must have Clearance to be allowed to scan SafeGuards. Is he support staff? I gaze around the room and everyone is getting their wrists scanned, then moving down the hall in clusters.

No one is staring at this guard. No one except me. His hair is tight black curls, clipped close to his head. He’s still bending over Zeph’s wrist, getting the scanner to work. He must be older than me if he’s a courthouse guard but hedoesn’t seem very old. More like a bigger, stronger version of the boys I went to school with.

The guard’s gaze rises to meet mine and my stomach drops. I know those eyes, dark brown, nearly black. There’s no mistaking his starkly handsome, strong features with dark brows above a smooth, brown jawline.

He may not be in fourth grade anymore, but the tall, serious boy I used to see at my mother’s MAV meetings stares directly back, standing behind Zeph, as if he can feel my focus on him. He's the son of my mom’s friend Mikayla, but I never saw them again after the Integration.

The guard starts slightly. It’s almost imperceptible except that I’m obsessively staring at him, trying to remember his name. After a brief glance at my school uniform he bends back over Zeph’s wrist, but I think I see a shadow of a smile, and maybe confusion as well.

My eyes fall to his hands and narrow. What is taking so long? Is the scanner broken?

I catch an unexpected flicker of movement, the guard sending what looks like a SafeGuard up into the sleeve of his white uniform while Zeph flexes his wrist, wrapped in an identical SafeGuard. Did they just switch them? I don’t know how you could do that with a scanner. There’s a tool the doctor uses to fit a new one on me at my checkup.

My heart races as Zeph takes a few steps and Mikayla’s son looks up, meeting my eyes, waiting for me to step forward.