CHAPTER 20

Youth immigration center

Out of spite—Santiago was sure of it—they kept him in the waiting room longer than anyone else. Even another new boy was brought in and called immediately.

That’s what he got for spending an hour screaming for Alegría after she was taken away. He stopped only when his throat became so raw, he could no longer make a sound. He even dared to look through the foreboding window but only saw a corridor. When he tested the door handle, it turned but didn’t open.

Finally, exhausted, he hugged his knees to his chest and rocked back and forth on the folding chair, wide eyes staring at the door that took people away but didn’t bring them back.

Another guard changed places with the awful, burly one. Except this one smelled of roasted meat and seasoned vegetables. Santiago’s stomach rumbled as he drank more water to stifle the hunger. Honestly, he didn’t know which guard he hated more.

It felt like days before Santiago finally heard his name called. He jumped to his feet and rushed to the door. Alegría must be so worried. But he’d be with her soon. He’d make sure she never had to worry again.

His escort couldn’t have been much older than himself, with a face full of pimples and a head of greasy, black hair. He led Santiago down the corridor and opened a door to a shower room.

“Take off all your clothes and make sure to wash every single part of your body—hair, armpits, privates, feet. There’s soap on the wall.” His Spanish sounded Mexican, and Santiago couldn’t help feeling betrayed: This guard was turning his back on his own people by working in this facility.

A curtain offered some privacy, but the guard’s looming presence behind it did nothing to reassure Santiago. Still, he did as he was told, the tepid water stinging his sunburned flesh. Dirt encrusted his scalp, and even with his very short hair, it took two scrubbing sessions for the water from his head to run clean. While he washed the rest of his body, the contrast between his arm and his stomach shocked him—almost black compared to the light brown it should be. He shut the water off quickly, not wanting to see more.

The guard handed him a towel and a pair of flip-flops. Santiago’s clothes and shoes had magically disappeared. A sinking feeling suggested he’d never see them again. The last link to María Dolores, gone.

Still dripping, he was directed into a room with an ominous-looking chair. Strange machines hummed and blinked as if communicating with the other occupant of the room: an older white man with white hair and a white mustache wearing a white coat. But with red eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in days.

The man spoke to him in English. When Santiago didn’t move, the man motioned him to remove the towel. Santiago trembled, not just from the cold temperature. Fear rattled his bones more than ever since arriving at the facility, such fear not felt since he’d last been at la malvada’s house. Every time the man approached him, he cowered; every time he was touched, he flinched. No one had ever examined him before.

But nothing bad really happened. The man placed cold instruments on his body or in his mouth for a few moments and then removed them. A slight prick in one arm withdrew blood, and a few different pricks in the other arm injected stuff into his body.

Finally the doctor handed him a salve and indicated that Santiago should rub it on his face, arms, and neck. Instant relief came to his sun-fried skin, and he liberally rubbed more on. The doctor motioned Santiago to wrap himself in the towel again and ushered him out the door.

“You get clean clothes three times a week,” said the pimply guard waiting for him with a fresh pile of clothes. The mound of cotton and polyester weighed down his arms. Would he stay long enough to need new ones? White underwear and socks, gray drawstring sweatpants, gray long-sleeve shirt, and gray sweatshirt. The flip-flops apparently were the only accepted footwear.

Once Santiago was dressed (the guard had to get him smaller underwear), they arrived at their final destination: a packed and partially lit room, where the temperature felt near freezing. The guard handed him a toothbrush wrapped in plastic and a large metallic thing that crinkled like aluminum foil. Judging by the shiny sleeping bodies clumped around the bare floor, the thing was apparently some kind of blanket. So strange that a sheet like that was expected to provide warmth. Instead, his eyes searched for two pigtails, or maybe just shoulder-length dark hair, now clean and splayed across the floor.

Except all of the ninety-some bodies were too big to be Alegría. Even in the low light, a second glance confirmed that not only were they all teenagers, they were also all boys.