I wasn’t surprised when Pam turned the television back on and my visage appeared. I was haggard and the scratches on my forehead gave me a rough appearance, but I was more shocked to see how calm my face appeared. How determined my eyes were when I knew I was on the edge of passing out from fear inside. Hell, I looked like a badass.

The news breezed over my speech and focused instead on how repairs to the Persim Towner security fence were already underway. Tower security claimed a protester tried to climb the fence and triggered the emergency alarm. It was all automated, no one had tried to intentionally hurt a protestor by activating the shield. A simple misunderstanding, obviously. But now that it was brought to their attention about how the barrier had nearly killed civilians, they were installing an extra measure that required a person to manually okay the use of deadly force. No mention of who that task would fall to.

I was shaking with fear, anger, and exhaustion in the chair next to Pam. I felt my muscles vibrating in me like taught rubber bands. For the second time that day, Pam turned the television off.

The Palace was uneventful for the rest of the evening. I was grateful for the calmness. I sat on the faded pink chair with a bag of ice on my chin, thinking about what to do next. I had been reckless, and now others were in danger because of me. Me, the first person to lead a protest in the country in years, and a protest during the most popular president in all of history.

The bleeding had stopped now, and my only jacket was soaking in the SCLRDS in a bath of soapy water trying to get the red droplets out of the canvas fabric. The only slightly interesting part was when Pam tried to kick Sam out, but Nathan talked her out of it. The excitement had gone like this.

Pam had set an old grocery bag down by the front door. Inside were the only things Sam had brought with him that wasn’t on his person, an extra pair of gloves and a white undershirt that I had washed with the bedding yesterday. She had even been so kind as to put the rolled up newspaper that he had been reading in the bag. Sam had come peering down the hall, clearly looking for his missing articles. When he saw them by the door he slunk defeated into the red chair next to me. He put his head in his hands and waited for Pam to come with the final shove out the door. I checked all of the remaining guests out as he sat there. Each family claimed their insurance would cover hotel stay in a nicer part of town while they waited for a new home. Since there were no televisions in the guest rooms, no one recognized me.

I was in the SCLRDS putting my jacket in the dryer when I heard Pam shouting from the top of the stairs, “Oh, you’re still here!” Her feet creaked down the steps as she continued, “So I guess that means when I look in the register you paid for tonight’s stay. Wonderful!” She clapped her hands together in mock glee when she reached the bottom of the steps. I moved to stand in the doorway of the SCLRDS. I saw Nathan already standing in his doorway, leaning on the wooden frame. Pam walked past my line of vision from the hall and heard the register slide open.

“No, no, no. I’ve the Johnston’s family receipt, the Browns’…”

I could just picture her wrinkled eyes giving Sam the death glare as he sat frozen in her red chair.

Nathan pushed himself from the doorway and walked to the lobby. Ava appeared in the doorway to take his place, taking the exact same stance as her grand daddy had.

“Now listen here,” Nathan’s voice was soft in comparison to Pam’s, “it’s winter. You can’t just kick this boy out.”

“Boy? Boy? What are you? 23?”

Sam did not reply.

“I ain’t makin’ no money. This is a business. My livelihood. It’s-”

“I didn’t pay you for tonight, and you ain’t made a move to throw us out in the cold.”

“You have Ava-”

“Look, your rooms are empty.”

I decided to help. I moved down the short hall and entered the lobby.

“He’s right. I checked everyone else out.” Pam’s eyes landed on my chin. She had a look of disgust for a moment before it was replaced with the same look a trapped animal has. She glanced back and forth between Nathan and myself.

“If he stays tonight you won’t make or lose any more money versus if he froze to death on the street,” Nathan said.

The dead man from under the overpass came to my mind as Nathan spoke the words. Only the eyes stared at me instead of the sky. I felt my throat tighten. I looked at Sam and imagined him cold through to the bone, with frost growing on his eyes like moss on a stone. I felt sick to my stomach.

“He had to be staying somewhere else before he came here.” She turned back to Sam. “Go back there. Stay with your hooligan friends.”

Sam opened his mouth but nothing came out. He looked only at the floor.

“Pam,” I said softly, “you’re a good woman.” I spoke the last two words slowly. Separating each one clearly to remind her of her humanity. The trapped look on her face melted, replaced with a defeated look. She shut the register and brushed past me on her way up the steps. Nathan turned around to go back down the hall. I sat down in the pink chair next to the silent Sam.

I let out a long exhale and Sam did the same. I laughed and he looked up from the floor and smiled at me. “Thanks,” he said.

“No problem,” I replied. “Pam can be difficult to get along with.”

He looked searchingly at my face, “But she’s right. I wouldn’t want me here either.”

“So you made a few mistakes. Who hasn’t?”

He let out another long breath in response. I turned the t.v. back on to fill the silence. We sat there listening to the news recap of the afternoon’s events. Persim had met with Egyptian leaders to discuss new trade policies. The Egyptian president had wholeheartedly agreed to lower all tariffs on U.S. goods. The same as every other leader the president seemed to meet with. No one would ever disagree with Persim. So the business leaders’ pockets became heavier and heavier. While the rest of the country, well while the rest was living like the East End.

“Cora, is that-is that you?” Sam questioned.

It had switched to the local news. There I stood on my box, in the midst of a small crowd. The clip was silent, nothing I said could be heard in this footage. The anchorman claimed I had been shouting obscenities by this point in the riot which then gathered a rabble before an unknown vigilanti shot me. The clip cut to when I fell from my box. Without the sound it could appear as though I had been shot and fell. The footage stopped there. No, the news would not broadcast the tower’s green forcefield coming towards innocent people to either scatter or burn them. That was old news. A simple error. It would also not show the police drones chasing the people through the streets.

Vines of fear sprouted at the base of my back and grew up my spine as I thought about the mass effects of today. Most of the people at the Tower would have been scanned into the facial recognition system. They would have an “unAmerican” activity tacked to their name. What would the government do to 400 or so people for a united act?

I did not answer Sam’s question right away. I was too dumbstruck by what I was seeing. I swallowed trying to stop the fear vines from taking over my whole body. The spread stopped, but I could sense pulsations of terror embedded in me.

Sam spoke again, “What happened to your chin?”

I rubbed the scrape before turning to him, “It’s really not what it looks like. I-the people there, they wanted me to speak.”

“Were you saying things against our president?” I couldn’t tell from his tone if he was about to jump up and defend our leader or listen to reason, but I went with the truth anyway.

“Yes, against her policies. They are hurting our country, and no one seems to be doing anything about it.”

He was quiet, knitting his eyebrows together for a moment before speaking, “Good for you. Stupid, but good for you anyway.” He smiled, but it looked more like concern.

I felt relief wash over me, but I couldn’t sit here any longer. I pushed myself out of the chair and walked to my bedroom.

Sleep came with difficulty, the hole in the green blanket let a stream of cold air in no matter what way it was turned. I listened in my room as Nathan sang Ava a lullaby down the hall. I watched the crescent moon rise higher and higher out my window in the cold, dark night. I heard Sam pacing up and down the hall. The old boards creaking under his weight was the last sound I remember before drifting off into a fitful slumber.