Eleanor

I don't go back the next night.

I tell myself it's because the timing isn't right. The guards might be watching more closely. Someone might have noticed the door was accessed. The window for getting in undetected is too narrow to risk twice in a row.

All of that is true. None of it is the reason.

The reason is that I'm afraid of what I'll find if I go back. Afraid she'll tell me something I can't ignore. Afraid she won't be there at all, moved somewhere else, or worse.

So I go to work. I split wood. I carry supplies. I eat in the great hall and watch people and count exits and try to pretend I'm just another resident finding his place.

It doesn't work.

Catherine. The man from the kitchens. Handed over like cargo.

The words circle in my head like vultures over carrion. I can't stop picking at them. Turning them over. Looking for the lie.

Because there has to be a lie. Doesn't there? Hugh runs a community. Three hundred people. He takes in refugees, heals the sick, feeds the hungry. He doesn't hand people over to raiders. That's not how this works.

Unless it is.

Three days pass. I sleep badly. Eat worse. Tom notices.

"You're looking rough," he says over the woodpile one morning. "Worse than when you arrived."

"Just not sleeping well."

"Again?" He shakes his head. "You should talk to someone. Dr. Fraser, maybe. She's good."

"I'm fine."

He gives me a look that says he doesn't believe me. Then he picks up his axe and goes back to work. Not his problem.

On the fourth night, I go back.

---

The route is easier the second time. I know which corridors are empty after midnight. Which stairs creak and which don't. How long the window is between guard rotations.

The door to the east wing is unguarded this time. Not good. Either they've changed the rotation, or they don't think anyone found it the first time.

I slip through. Down the stairs. Past the sleeping guard at the bottom. Into the shadows near Eleanor's cell.

She's awake. Sitting on her cot in the dim light, watching the corridor like she expected me.

"You came back." Not a question.

"Three days. I thought you might be gone."

"Gone where?" A thin smile. "This is my new home. Unless you're here to let me out."

"I can't do that."

"Didn't think so." She shifts, drawing her knees up. The cell is small. Bare. A cot, a bucket, a thin blanket. No window. "So what brings you back? Curiosity, or conviction?"

"I need to know more. About what you saw."

She studies me. The same measuring look she gave me the first time. Deciding how much to trust me.

"Sit down," she says. "This is going to take a while."

I lower myself to the floor, back against the cold stone wall. It's uncomfortable. I don't care.

"Catherine," she says. "You asked about her."

"Tell me everything."

She closes her eyes for a moment. Thinking. Or remembering.

"Catherine Boyd. Mid-forties. Worked in the laundry. Quiet. Kept to herself, mostly. We shared a room when I first arrived. She was one of the first people I talked to here. Had this way of making you feel like things would be okay, even when they clearly weren't."

"Go on."

"A few weeks before the exchange, she started asking questions. About food stores. About why certain people got extra rations and others didn't. About where the supply runs went and who decided which routes were safe."

"That's what got her locked up?"

"That's what got her noticed." Eleanor opens her eyes. "Marcus came to talk to her. Friendly at first. Just a chat, he said. Wanted to understand her concerns. She told him she thought the distribution was unfair. That some people were getting preferential treatment."

"Was she right?"

"I don't know. Maybe. It doesn't matter." She leans forward, voice dropping. "What matters is that after she kept asking, she disappeared. The official story was that she chose to leave. Wanted to try her luck elsewhere. We all accepted it because why wouldn't we? People leave settlements all the time. It's dangerous out there."

"But you don't believe she left."

"I know she didn't. Because I saw her. Two weeks after she 'left,' I saw her in the middle of the night, being walked across the courtyard by two of Marcus's men. Hands bound. Head covered. Just like I told you before."

The cold from the wall seeps through my jacket. Or maybe it's something else.

"The man from the kitchen. Did he ask questions too?"

"His name was Derek. Young. Early twenties. He challenged Hugh openly at a community meeting. Stood up in front of everyone and accused Hugh of hoarding medical supplies. Demanded transparency." She shakes her head. "Brave. Stupid. Same thing, sometimes."

"What happened to him?"

"Same as Catherine. 'Left' a few days later. Never seen again."

I sit with this for a moment. Two people. Both caused problems. Both disappeared. Both handed over to raiders in the middle of the night.

"Could there be another explanation?" I ask. "A prisoner exchange, maybe? We took some of theirs, they took some of ours. A swap."

Eleanor's expression doesn't change. "I considered that. The timing could fit. We'd lost people to a raid a few weeks before. It's possible."

"But you don't think that's what it was."

"I think that if it were a legitimate prisoner exchange, it would happen in daylight. With witnesses. With records." Her voice is steady. "Instead, it happened in the middle of the night, in secret, and the people involved were subsequently reported as having 'left the community voluntarily.' That's not an exchange. That's a transaction."

Transaction. The word sits in the air like smoke.

She's telling the truth. Or she's telling a very convincing lie.

"How do I know you're not making this up?" I ask. "You're in a cell. You have every reason to manipulate me."

"I do." She doesn't flinch. "Ask around about Catherine. About Derek. See if anyone remembers them. See if anyone can tell you why they left, or where they went. If I'm lying, the answers will be clear. If I'm not..."

She lets the sentence hang.

I stand. My legs are stiff from the cold floor.

"I have to go. Guard rotation."

"Of course." She leans back against the wall. "I'll be here. Same as always. Same as every day since they locked me up for seeing something I shouldn't have seen."

I pause at the edge of the shadows. "What was your name? Before. What did people call you?"

"Eleanor. Eleanor Marsh." A flicker of something in her face. Hope, maybe. Or just the memory of being a person instead of a problem. "I was a teacher. Before all this. Primary school. Taught children to read."

A teacher. Not a thief, not a fighter. A woman who taught children to read, locked in a stone cell because she saw something in the dark.

If she's telling the truth, then I'm living in a place that locks up teachers.

I slip back through the shadows. Up the stairs. Through the door. Through the corridors. Back to the room where Zoe sleeps peacefully, trusting everything around her.

I don't sleep at all.

---

Over the next week, I ask questions.

Not directly. Never directly. I've learned enough about surveillance to know that questions draw attention. So I ask sideways. Casual. The kind of thing a new arrival might wonder about.

"Has anyone left recently?" I ask Tom over the woodpile. "Seems like a lot of people for this place. Wonder if anyone ever decides to try it alone."

"A few. Not many." He shrugs. "It's rough out there. Most people who leave come back within a week. Or don't come back at all."

"Anyone recently?"

He thinks. "There was a woman. Catherine. Left maybe two months ago. And a young guy, Derek, around the same time. Both decided to move on. Why?"

"Just curious. Trying to understand how things work here."

"Same as anywhere. People come, people go. Hugh tries to keep everyone safe, but he can't force people to stay."

The official story. Matches what Eleanor said they'd say.

But does it match because it's true, or because it's rehearsed?

I ask Sarah at breakfast. She's been here since February. She knows everyone.

"Catherine?" She tilts her head. "Quiet one. Worked in the laundry. She left a while back. Didn't say much, just packed her things one morning and walked out the gate."

"Did she seem unhappy? Before she left?"

Sarah considers. "Not particularly. She was private. Kept to herself. Some people are like that. The cold does things to you, makes you want to be alone." She pauses. "Why are you asking?"

"No reason. Just trying to learn the names, the faces. Figure out who's who."

She smiles. "You'll learn. Everyone does."

No one can tell me where Catherine went. No one can tell me why Derek left. No one seems to think it's unusual. People leave settlements. It happens.

But no one saw them leave, either. No one walked them to the gate. No one remembers them saying goodbye.

Convenient. Everyone leaves, nobody sees them go.

I watch Hugh more carefully now. Not openly. Never openly. From the woodpile, from the edges of rooms, from the corner of my eye when he crosses the courtyard.

He's always doing something. Always moving. Checking on the kitchens, talking to the guards, meeting with his council. He spends time with people. Listens to them. Remembers their names, their children's names. The kind of leader who makes you feel like he's got time for you, even when he's got three hundred people to think about.

The best ones do. Make you forget they're holding the reins.

He catches me watching once. Across the courtyard. Holds my gaze for a moment, nods. I nod back. Nothing in his expression. Warmth, maybe. Or assessment.

I can't tell the difference anymore.

---

On the eighth night, I go back to Eleanor.

"You look tired," she says.

"I am tired."

"Maybe stop coming to visit prisoners in the middle of the night, then."

It's the closest to a joke she's made. I don't laugh.

"I asked around. Catherine and Derek."

"And?"

"Everyone says the same thing. They left. Voluntarily. No one saw them go, no one knows where they went."

Eleanor nods slowly. "That's what I expected."

"It could be true. People leave settlements all the time."

"It could be." She leans forward. "But here's what I want you to think about. Catherine was careful. She didn't cause trouble for the sake of it. She asked questions because she genuinely wanted to understand how things worked. And Derek was young. Idealistic. He thought he could change things by speaking up."

"So you're saying they were problems. And Hugh solved his problems."

"I'm saying they were the kind of people who notice things. Who ask things. Who make leaders uncomfortable." She meets my eyes. "And now they're gone."

The cell is quiet. The guard shifts on his chair down the corridor. A distant sound of footsteps somewhere above.

"There's something else," I say. "You mentioned the exchange was Hugh and Marcus. Meeting raiders in the forest. Do you know what they got in return?"

"I don't. I couldn't hear what they said. I only saw what they did." She pauses. "But I can tell you this. About a week after that night, a supply convoy came back with more than they should have. Medicine. Tools. Things we'd been running low on. Hugh announced it at dinner like it was a lucky find."

"You think the supplies were payment."

"I think it's worth asking the question."

I sit with that. A transaction. People traded for supplies. Problems solved on both ends.

Or a prisoner exchange. You traded captured raiders for your own people back. That's different. That's leadership.

But if it were just an exchange, why the secrecy? Why lock up the woman who saw it?

"Can you think of any reason," I ask, "why Hugh would do something like this and keep it secret? A good reason?"

Eleanor is quiet for a long time. The torchlight flickers across her face.

"Maybe," she says finally. "If telling people the truth would cause panic. If admitting that you sometimes have to make deals with dangerous people would undermine trust. If the survival of three hundred people depends on them believing their leader is protecting them, even when he can't always do that cleanly."

"That's what you think this is?"

"That's what I hope this is." Her voice is barely above a whisper. "But hope is all I have down here."

I stand. My legs ache. The cold has settled into my bones.

"One more thing," I say. "If I could get you out. Would you want to leave?"

She looks at me like I've said something funny. Or sad.

"Where would I go? This is the safest place for miles. The only place with walls and food and people who might remember I exist." She shakes her head. "I don't want out. I want the truth. And I want people to know what their leader is capable of."

The truth. That's all I want too.

The question is whether I'd recognise it.

---

The next morning, I'm back at the woodpile. Back to splitting logs. Back to the routine that's supposed to make me feel normal.

It doesn't work. Nothing works.

The facts sit in my head like stones. Two people who asked questions. Two people who disappeared. A midnight meeting with raiders. Supplies that appeared shortly after. A woman locked in a cell for seeing it happen.

And on the other side: Hugh. Warm, patient, fair Hugh. Who took us in when we had nothing. Who gave Zoe medical care. Who gave me a job and a room and a place to sleep.

Who took my rifle and won't give it back. Who keeps a locked door with armed guards. Who locks up teachers.

Zoe finds me at lunch. She's been doing that more often. Coming to find me, trying to pull me into the life of this place.

"You missed breakfast again."

"I wasn't hungry."

"You're never hungry." She sits across from me. Her face is better. The bruises have faded to a sickly yellow. The cut on her neck is almost closed. "Jamie, talk to me. You're getting worse, not better."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You're barely sleeping. You're barely eating. You spend all day chopping wood and all night doing something I can't ask about because you won't tell me."

I look at her. The concern on her face is genuine. She sees me deteriorating and it scares her.

She talked to Hugh. Told him I'm struggling. Made me vulnerable.

"I'm adjusting," I say. "It takes time."

"Time." She repeats it like it's a word she doesn't trust. "How much time? Because from where I'm sitting, you're getting more distant every day. Not less."

I don't have an answer for her. The distance between us isn't something I can fix with a conversation. It's not even about her anymore. It's about what I know and what I'm choosing to do with it.

"I have to get back to work," I say.

She watches me stand. Watches me walk away. I don't look back.

She deserves better than this. But I can't tell her what I know. Not yet. Not until I'm sure.

The problem is, the more I learn, the more sure I become. And the more sure I become, the less I can share with anyone.

That night, I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and think about Catherine and Derek and Eleanor. About Hugh and Marcus and the locked door. About a community that looks perfect from the outside and hides a detention block in its basement.

What if she's wrong? What if there's an explanation I haven't found?

But what if she's right?

The two questions chase each other in circles until dawn.