Imagine Me. Tahereh Mafi
offended before he turns abruptly away, his ears bright red.
An uncomfortable silence descends.
I wonder, for the first time, if it’s really possible that Brendan has no idea how Winston feels about him. He seems oblivious, but who knows. It’s definitely not a secret to the rest of us.
“Well.” Castle takes a sharp breath, claps his hands together. “We were about to go back inside the room to have a proper discussion. So if you gentlemen”—he nods at Winston and Brendan—“wouldn’t mind turning back the way you came? We’re getting a bit cramped in the hall.”
“Right.” Brendan glances quickly behind him. “But, um, do you think we might wait another minute or so? Haider was crying, you see, and I think he’d appreciate the privacy.”
“Oh, for the love of God,” I groan.
“What happened?” Nazeera asks, concern creasing her forehead. “Should I go in there?”
Brendan shrugs, his extremely white face glowing almost neon in this dark corridor. “He said something to Warner in Arabic, I believe. And I don’t know exactly what Warner said back to him, but I’m pretty sure he told Haider to sod off, in one way or another.”
“Asshole,” Winston mutters.
“It’s true, unfortunately.” Brendan frowns.
I shake my head. “All right, okay, I know he’s being a dick, but I think we can cut Warner a little slack, right? He’s devastated. Let’s not forget the hell he went through this morning.”
“Pass.” Winston crosses his arms, anger seeming to lift him out of embarrassment. “Haider is crying. Haider Ibrahim. Son of the supreme commander of Asia. He’s sitting in a hospital chair crying because Warner hurt his feelings. I don’t know how you can defend that.”
“To be fair,” Stephan interjects, “Haider’s always been a bit delicate.”
“Listen, I’m not defending Warner, I’m just—”
“Enough.” Castle’s voice is loud. Sharp. “That is quite enough.” Something tugs gently at my neck, startling me, and I notice Castle’s hands are up in the air. Like he just physically turned our heads to face him. He points back down the hall, toward J’s recovery room. I feel a slight push at my back.
“Back inside. All of you. Now.”
Haider doesn’t seem any different when we step back inside the room. No evidence of tears. He’s standing in a corner, alone, staring into the middle distance. Warner is in exactly the same position we left him in, sitting stiffly beside J.
Staring at her.
Staring at her like he might be able to will her back into consciousness.
Nazeera claps her hands together, hard. “All right,” she says, “no more interruptions. We need to talk about strategy before we do anything else.”
Sam frowns. “Strategy for what? Right now, we need to discuss Emmaline. We need to understand the events of the morning before we can even think about discussing the next steps forward.”
“We are going to talk about Emmaline, and the events of the morning,” Nazeera says. “But in order to discuss the Emmaline situation, we’ll need to talk about the Ella situation, which will necessitate a conversation about a larger, overarching strategy—one that will dovetail neatly with a plan to get the supreme kids back.”
Castle stares at her, looking just as confused as Sam. “You want to discuss the supreme kids right now? Isn’t it better if we star—”
“Idiots,” Haider mutters under his breath.
We ignore him.
Well, most of us. Nazeera is shaking her head, giving the room at large that same look she gives me so often—the one that expresses her general exhaustion at being surrounded by idiots.
“How are you so unable to see how these things connect? The Reestablishment is looking for us. More specifically, they’re looking for Ella. We were supposed to be in hiding, remember? But Emmaline’s egregious display this morning just blew the cover on our location. We all saw the news— you all read the emergency reports. The Reestablishment did serious damage control to subdue the citizens. That means they know what happened here.”
Again, more blank stares.
“Emmaline just led them directly to Ella,” she says. She says this last sentence really slowly, like she fears for our collective intelligence. “Whether on purpose or by accident, The Reestablishment now has an approximate idea of our location.”
Nouria looks stricken.
“Which means,” Haider says, drawing the words out with his own irritating condescension, “they’re much closer to finding us now than they were a few hours ago.”
Everyone sits up straighter in their chairs. The air is suddenly different, intense in a new way. Nouria and Sam exchange worried glances.
It’s Nouria who says, “You really think they know where we are?”
“I knew this would happen,” Sam says, shaking her head.
Castle stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sam bristles, but her words are calm when she says: “We took an enormous risk letting your team stay here. We risked our livelihood and the safety of our own men and women to allow you to take shelter among us. You’re here for three days and already you’ve managed to disclose our location to the world.”
“We haven’t disclosed anything— And what happened today was no one’s fault—”
Nouria lifts a hand. “Stop,” she says, shooting a look at Sam, a look so brief I almost miss it. “We’re losing our focus again. Nazeera was right when she said we were all in this together. In fact, we came together for the express purpose of defeating The Reestablishment. It’s what we’ve always been working toward. We were never meant to live forever in self-made cages and communities.”
“I understand that,” Sam says, her steady voice belying the anger in her eyes. “But if they really know which sector to search, we could be discovered in a matter of days. The Reestablishment will be increasing their military presence within the hour, if they haven’t done so already.”
“They have done,” Stephan says, looking just as exasperated as Nazeera. “Of course they have.”
“So naive, these people,” Haider says, shooting a dark look at his sister.
Nazeera sighs.
Winston swears.
Sam shakes her head.
“So what do you propose?” Winston says, but he’s not looking at Nouria or Sam or Castle. He’s looking at Nazeera.
Nazeera doesn’t hesitate.
“We wait. We wait for Ella to wake up,” she says. “We need to know as much as we can about what happened to her, and we need to prioritize her security above all else. There’s a reason why Anderson wants her so desperately, and we need to find out what that reason is before we take any next steps.”
“But what about a plan for getting the other kids back?” Winston asks. “If we wait for Ella to wake up before making a move to save them, we could be too late.”
Nazeera shakes her head. “The plan for the other kids has to be tied up in the plan to save Ella,” she says. “I’m certain that Anderson is using the kidnapping of the supreme kids as bait. A bullshit lure designed to draw us out into the open. Plus, he designed that scheme before he had any idea we’d accidentally out ourselves, which only further supports my theory that this was a bullshit lure. He was only hoping we’d step outside of our protections just long enough to give away our approximate location.”
“Which