June was waiting at the gate like the Director promised, a small gray shape in the flatland dark, a canvas bag held against her chest with both arms. She didn't look surprised to see us. She didn't look surprised to see anything. Eleven years in a room with a window onto a wall will do that to a face.
"They said I'm going with you," she said. Her voice was rusted, but steadier than it had been in the corridor with the Director's hand on her shoulder. "Is it true?"
"It's true," Adrian said.
She looked up at him for a long moment, at the jaw and the eyes she'd heard described a thousand times by a woman who talked about her son every day, and then she nodded once and got into the car.
I rode in the back with her. Adrian drove. The compound shrank in the mirrors, low and humming, its wind
