I Died When the Sky Fell, Now I Wake Up Holding Lightning novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Collared
They carried me into Shelter Four by the arms and the knees.
The gym inside was bright with battery lamps and smelled of floor wax.
Two hundred cots stood in rows on the basketball court.
Staff sat on them with their bags, and none of them looked at me.
The deputies took me past the court, down a corridor and into the manager's office, and dropped me in a chair.
The door shut.
Lorraine came in a minute later, alone, and sat on the edge of the desk.
She had a small black remote in her hand.
"Greta," she said, in her kind voice. "You've made this so hard."
"You sold the seats," I said.
"I did."
She said it easily, without looking away.
That frightened me more than a lie would have.
"I did the arithmetic," she said. "The county has seven shelters and fourteen hundred seats. It has eight hundred thousand people. Nobody could save everyone. I'm not a monster, hon. I saved the ones who could say thank you."
"You saved the ones who paid."
"They're the same people."
"The woman by the gate was holding a baby."
"There's a waitlist."
I stared at her.
"You sat in the next chair to me for four years," I said. "You brought me coffee every morning."
"I liked you."
"You crossed my name out."
"You were never going to sign," said Lorraine. "I knew it the first time you looked at the sheet. You're the sort of person who has to be seen being good. It's very tiresome, and it gets people killed."
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