The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (The Tribe) Read Online Free Page B

control their abilities enough to pull this off. Third, even if you
did
have your imaginary army, I can still see a dozen problems that you haven’t thought of.”
    “So tell me what they are, and I’ll solve them.”
    She rubbed out the drawing with her foot, her expression a familiar mixture of affection and exasperation. “It wouldn’t matter if you did solve them, Ash. What do you think would happen to the Tribe if we attacked a detention center? The government would throw every enforcer it had at us. When will you understand? We can’t change the world with violence. Only with ideas.”
    I lifted my face up to the sun. “I can’t see how ideas are much use against armed enforcers. Tell you what, though: if Neville Rose ever gets ahold of me, I’ll talk your philosophy to him.”
    And Ember had laughed, the pleasant, silvery sound echoing down the hill and through the trees of our forest home.
    Neville’s voice brought me back to the present. “Take her through.” For a second, I couldn’t make sense of his words, until I realized he was speaking to Connor.
    I rose to my feet, looked down at the gray-haired man behind the desk, and said, “I’ll tell you, if you still want to know.”
    He glanced up, his pleasant expression firmly back in place. “Tell me what, Ashala?”
    “Why I chose the name Wolf.” I smiled a wide, joyful smile left over from that sunny day on the hillside. “It’s because I always travel in a pack.”
    I could feel his puzzled stare following me as Connor escorted me toward the door on the far wall. It was highly unlikely that I was ever going to leave Detention Center 3. So Ember would never know that I’d done what I’d told her I would. But the thought of her and the Tribe filled me with a sense of warmth and love and family that I knew Neville Rose could never understand or touch.
    I walk among my enemies. But I carry my friends with me.

I stepped through the door and found myself facing a long white chair, one that was fitted with restraints, which were clearly supposed to go around someone’s ankles, wrists, and neck. I took a shuddering breath and gazed around the rest of the room. There was a screen mounted on the wall behind the scary chair, and to my far right, a woman in red medical robes stood at a table, pushing buttons on a shiny black box. She had to be Miriam Grey, and like Neville, she didn’t look very intimidating. She was short and plump, with pretty green eyes and dark hair streaked with silver. Her entire attention seemed focused on the mysterious box, and I studied it nervously, puzzling over what it did. Two cords ran out of it, one leading to the screen on the wall, the other to an adjustable silver hoop that rested on the table. Everything suddenly came together, and I realized,
This is all the machine
. The chair was to confine me, the hoop went on my head, the box was its heart, and the screen was for . . . I didn’t know, but
something
bad.
    Miriam Grey stopped pushing buttons and peered at a display on her spooky box, studying a pattern of blinking lights. Then she gave the thing an approving pat, picked up a tiny metal case from the table, and hurried over to where Connor and I were waiting. She stood in front of me, shifting awkwardly on her feet, before finally deciding to smile. At least she curved her lips in a way that would have been a smile on anybody else. On her it seemed somehow wrong, as if she were copying something she’d seen other people do without understanding the reason for it. “Hello, Ashala. It’s good to meet you.”
    I almost winced at the grating sound of her shrill voice. Everything about her seemed slightly off. And her eyes — there was something missing from those moss-green eyes, or from the mind behind them. I watched as she opened the case and pulled out a vial of colorless liquid.
Be brave, Ash!
But when she held it out to me, I couldn’t keep myself from taking a step back, almost colliding with Connor. He