It was one of the hardest things that I had to do in my whole life to see Jaun crying on the ground, and still leave.

  When we got to Time Out, I spent a long time trying to figure out how to escape, but in the end, Jose and I came to the same conclusion. The only way for us to get out was to be taken by the Guards.

  We did not know how to get taken, but we kept paying attention. We identified two or three trends. The first was that if a kid stopped being called into the Visiting Room, they were only kept in Time Out for a couple of months before they were taken. It was pretty obvious that we were being kept here to force our mothers or sisters to do what they had to in order to keep us alive and safe.

  It seemed like the second reason that a kid was removed from Time Out was if they got too old. The only guess I could make about the age limit was that some kids, like Boss, had just grown big enough to start posing a risk to the guards. This was especially true if our assumption that there were only 2 guards at a time was correct. If 30 6-year-olds ganged up on 2 guards, there is little risk to them; but if 30 13-year-olds did, the guards would be overrun.

  There was one other guess we came up with: aggression. It seemed like the more aggressive kids in Time Out were taken sooner after the visits ended and at younger ages. This was mostly speculation Jose and I worked it out over time. We were always watching, and it felt more like a hint than any of our other ideas.

  We did not know what it meant to be taken earlier or later, but it seemed like the sooner that we could get out of Time Out, the better. We both started getting mean, we would start more fights and make them end with more injuries. Fights were happening all the time anyway, so it was not hard to be part of them more often.

  It was a blow when Jose was taken before me. I did not even know that it had happened until I did not see him at the next meal. They must have grabbed him when I was showering. We had already worked out what we would do if one of us was taken before the other. We created a method of sending signals through the food. They had a set of meals they would rotate each week. If dinner was tacos 2 nights in a row, then we were right about our postulations about aggression, but if breakfast had sausage 2 mornings in a row, we were wrong about something.

  We did not know how hard it would be to send a message from outside. Little Mateo was taken a few months after Jose, with no signal being sent. I did not know what that meant. The outside world was a mystery.

  It was not until months and months later that there were 2 breakfasts with sausage in a row. I did not know what had taken so long. It seemed like I needed to rethink my whole approach. Maybe it was better to be less aggressive, and being taken sooner was a bad thing. I was still thinking about what I might need to do to become meek like Jaun. It was not a transition that would be easy, considering I had already made a name for myself in fighting.

  The next day, there were tacos. The day after that, there were tacos, and even the day following that. I was struggling to understand what Jose meant. How could we be wrong and yet right? What did 3 times in a row mean?

  I was sad that we had not made a better messaging system, so I could understand what he meant. I did the best I could with what he had told me. We had been wrong about something, but aggression was even more right than we thought. Maybe I was being too tame with my aggression, and they would pull me out if I were even angrier.

  I thought about what else it might mean for a long time, but I came up with no ideas. So I started acting it out. I acted angrier and started fights every day. I was already one of the best fighters in the whole of Time Out. I just got better and better the more I did it. As I saw what was being done to Jaun, my anger became real. I did not have to act anymore. I wanted to hurt everything and everyone around me.

  With Boss having been taken, I was the undisputed best fighter. Then Domingo came and ripped off my hand. I was so caught up in my own pain that I did not even realize that Jaun was punished by losing his eye until much later. It felt like everything was pointless. I realized that I was wrong; aggression alone was not all that was needed. They needed admiration. I started talking about all the Falcons I admired for their strength and intelligence. I needed to get out of Time Out; nothing I was doing was getting me out of here any faster.

  I lost myself in the anger that was always there now. It seemed like violence took over my brain for a time, and I started to enjoy it. I did not know what happened to me, but I started hating my mother for her weakness. She lost herself to Domingo and could not even think straight during our last few visitations.

  Jaun was just as bad; he was so weak he had to escape into his own head for hours. He almost never seemed like he was actually looking out of his eyes. It was just a husk most of the time. I did not need someone so weak hanging off me as I got stronger.

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  It was not until I was finally being taken out of Time Out that I realized something had gone wrong. It was all supposed to be an act. I was supposed to be pretending to be aggressive and angry all the time, so they would take me sooner. I had a moment of clarity as I saw Jaun struggle against the guard to stop me from being taken. He was the reason that I was able to fight through so much. I had to save him, so that meant that all of my struggles were worth it because it would mean he was safe.

  I almost broke right then when I saw him on the ground. Still so little, and still needing his big brother. I knew that I had to stay in character if I wanted any hope of rescuing him; they could not know how much I still loved him. I walked away so I could come back.

  Once the door closed behind me and we were no longer in Time Out anymore, the Guard who was leading the way started talking to me.

  “I am excited to be the first person to interact with you. It seems like you, Time Out kids, are always the hardest-core badasses. I mean, one of you is the first in your generation to be going to Infinity. Fuck I wish I could get the Infinity System. They went through the exact same training camp that I am taking you to next. That was only 3 years ago, and now they are assistants to Domingo himself.“

  I had always been a quiet child. You seemed to learn so much more if you just listened and let the people around you talk. “Who was that?”

  The guard was all smiles when he turned around to answer. “Now, you did not hear this from me, but I did a bit of sleuthing when I heard he refused to tell anyone his actual name. It makes sense. I would not want to tell people my name if it were Diddle. I mean, who names their kid Diddle? Are you trying to get them molested? Hahaha. I can understand why he made everyone call him Boss when he was in Time Out.”

  I felt like the constant chatter of Fedric, as I learned his name was, flowed over me. It was a bit meaningless most of the time. I had been starved of information for so long, living in Time Out, that I soaked everything up.

  I did ask when my brother would be joining me, but Fedric did not have much to say to that. “Oh, yeah, they are probably not going to go to the same Training Camp. I don’t really get much opportunity to interact with the kids from Time Out, so I don’t know exactly what the plan is for most of them. I am sure you will figure it out once you finish the Training Camp.” I was not at all satisfied with that response, but Fedric kept talking, completely changing the subject, and fired more stuff at me in his rapid-fire way. I did not expect to get more information from him about my brother’s fate.

  It just felt like a lot of gossip about specific higher-ups. I had no idea whether this kind of information would have value in the future, but I did not forget any of the names Fedric said as he drove me out of the city toward what seemed like an army base. We drive through a few gates. The first was a gate that closed automatically behind us. It was attached to a 20-foot-tall chain-link fence with razor wire at the top. The second was a fence from which I could hear a high-pitched humming. There were yellow signs on the fence that had some sort of writing on them. Fedric, drive me up to a big, long building with a curved roof.

  “This is where I have to leave you. Good luck, and don’t forget about your new buddy Fedric.”

  At no point was there a question about what I wanted to do or if I had any ideas for my future. It seemed like my dream of rescuing my brother from Time Out would have to wait until I finished whatever this Training camp had in store for me.

  It was already dark, so I just got out of the car and headed straight into the building. There were two others minding their own business in the barracks, which looked as if it were meant for 40. Finding my own bed, I struggled to sleep without the ambient noise of 30 scared kids around me. I did not speak with the other two people, and they did not speak with me. We each chose a bed far enough away from each other to have some privacy, so it seemed like we all had our own thoughts to work through.

  The next morning marked the end of our quiet time. Apparently, the three of us were just early arrivals, because as the day progressed, the barracks filled up until every single bed was taken. There was still no authority figure, no one to ask for instructions. We all just naturally picked our spot. I had been pretty tired the night before, so I did not go out to explore the camp. As other people arrived, I tried to figure out where we were and whether there were any ways for us to leave.

  As I explored, it seemed more and more like an outdoor prison. There were two fences that completely surrounded us. There was an impressive yard, mostly covered in dirt. If I had to guess at its size, I would say that it was a km on each side. There was what looked like an impossible obstacle course in one corner of the yard, which looked kind of fun until I tried it out and fell off 3 meters to the ground off the first obstacle. I blamed my missing hand.

  Limping back to the barracks was not fun, at least it started feeling better by the time I got there. I had checked all the other buildings in the yard on the way. They had been locked and were quiet inside. I had no idea what would be in store for us over the next 3 months. It all seemed empty.

  I went to bed that night wondering if I was just going to be living in a different prison with different older kids.

  The music that started blaring from everywhere in the middle of the night proved me wrong.

  “Wake up, you sorry sacks of shit. This is your one warning: if you don’t get to your feet within 20 seconds of your alarm from now on, you are not going to have meals all day.”

  The man standing at the entrance to the building was shouting at the top of his lungs over the music. This man was going to be our God for the whole time we were at this camp.

  Time Out might have been over, but a new type of torture had just begun. I knew that no matter what it was, I would live through it and come out better on the other end.

  Wait for me, Jaun.