Free Middle Ground by Katie Kacvinsky Page B

so tight I flinched and forced myself to nod. If there were two words together that made my skin crawl, they were
young lady.
Only adults used that expression and it was just to be condescending.
    “Let’s try this again,” Damon said.
    I glared at Joe before they hauled me out the front door. I wondered if it was a curse in our family to let one another down. I could feel tears brimming behind my eyes but I refused to let these men see me buckle.
    I concentrated on one image. One face. I held that picture in my mind and it reminded me who was on my side. It gave me the courage to hold my head high as they dragged me down the empty hall to the elevator.

Chapter Eight
    I looked out the tinted car window and watched the scenery pass but I couldn’t make out a single detail in the landscape. It was too hard to focus when my thoughts were spinning. The confined space in the car made it an effort to breathe. Panic always had this effect on me.
    Just when I thought my life was falling into place, it was all pulled out from under me, like somebody yanking a tablecloth from beneath perfectly set dishes, toppling everything and leaving a disarray of chipped plates and broken glass.
    The sound of voices raging in my head was the worst. Regret screamed at me for screwing up.
Why is it my destiny to be a perpetual screwup? Why can’t I be a nice, easy, simple, obedient teenager who is content to wake up and go to school every day? Why can’t I be satisfied with good grades and a clean bedroom and my own flipscreen and wall screen and social dates and movie nights and online friends? Why can’t I be content with a structured, predictable life? Why do I have to take the risks? Why do I have to mess everything up that is neat and easy and laid out for me? There are so many clean paths trimmed and paved and I always have to run through the middle, where there is no path; there are vines and brambles and rocks and holes and I fall down and scrape the hell out of my life. For what? Kicks?
    I watched my world narrow in on all sides until it became so small I was trapped. I knew no one was coming for me this time. My arrest wouldn’t be in the police listings for Scott to hack into.
    I closed my eyes and imagined Justin waiting for me downtown. He had an even sharper intuition than I did. Maybe he would sense something was wrong. But by the time he figured it out, it would be too late. And I knew one thing: no one had ever escaped from a DC. No one had ever broken in. My future was officially carved in stone. That was the most unsettling idea of all.
    Skyscrapers gave way to a warehouse district, and the car slowed down in front of an old abandoned shipping yard. A railroad track used to run through the area, but it was bent and uprooted in the Big Quake. Pieces of iron twisted and poked out of the ground like a giant fossilized reptile. Damon pulled the car up to the entrance of the detention center. He opened the back door and grabbed my arm to lift me out. I looked up and down the sidewalk, searching the area for anywhere I could run, just as Damon attached a second handcuff to connect his wrist to mine.
    “Don’t even think about it,” he said.
    I stared around at my new existence. A white sign read LADC in black letters and evoked all the warmth of a snarl. A tall electric fence encircled the deserted lot, and a low hum emitted from the charged lines. Behind the fence stood two buildings at opposite ends of an open, dusty lot. The one in the far corner was a small, single-story office building. Looming across from it was a modest sky-rise, about ten stories high. There were no windows, and I assumed, judging from the grainy, beige exterior, that it was made out of suber, like all of the modern skyscrapers built after the Big Quake.
    Paul waited in the car while Damon pulled me toward a kiosk. We were greeted by a bored-looking security guard. He wore a black vest that said LADC across the chest pocket, and silver-coated