THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

the dusty boxes with wheels and iron mesh windows. This one already jammed full of snarling, angry prisoners. All who looked my age or younger.
    Wary glares taut with anger and fear sized me up, judging me.  
    I stiffened at the thought of being caged and helpless. And no telling when that beast would attack again. Could it get inside these boxes? My instincts warned me this wasn’t a good idea, but those same instincts didn’t offer help on how to get out of this situation.
    Stalling, I asked, “Where’re we going?” 
    “Why we’re taking you to the Hilton Albuquerque.” The man snickered.
    A Hilton Albuquerque? Could the beast get to me there? I shoved a quick look up and over my shoulder again, searching. A shadow moved down the rocks, closer. “Where?”
    “Don’t be a fool, girl.” The man thrust a meaty hand on the top of my head and shoved me inside toward the only remaining single seat. The taint of fear and sweat filled my nose. Heads hung down, shoulders hunched. I had the sense that the others knew where we were going and that knowledge had them trembling.
    I tried once more. “Where are you taking me?”
    “Where do ya think we take juvenile delinquents who steal twelve-thousand dollars worth of valuables and destroy a business just for fun?”
    Stealing? Destruction? I wrenched at the tight bond around my wrists.
    I wasn’t a criminal.
    Was I?

CHAPTER 3
     
    What had I done to end up here ?
    I held myself erect in the stiff seating. Must show a strong front. Hide the terror vibrating inside me.
    But the weird thing? Everything I’d seen since waking up in the desert hit me as both strange and familiar. I knew what materials like glass, metal and wood were, but I couldn’t recall any memory of being inside a building like this one with glass windows, some sort of metallic vents and wooden doors.
    Artificially cooled air washed across my skin, a welcome break from the heat outside. But the air in this room smelled stale and claustrophobic.
    Why did those people in blue uniforms, officers, bring me here when they’d left the other kids at that first place they took us? A jail. For delinquents. I understood the language and terms, but couldn’t grasp the clear meaning. The words sounded strange, as if filtered through multiple layers. Just like what they called this place. School.
    Sure, I knew the definition of a school, or to be schooled on a topic. But the mental path I ran along chasing down those thoughts disappeared before I could find the end.
    I rubbed my wrists, glad to be uncuffed. 
    One of the two doors to the room opened and three people entered. Elders. Two men and a woman. The woman and one of the men appeared to be around thirty years old. The other man had aged maybe twenty more years based on the gray in his hair and deep grooves on his face.
    Correction. They weren’t elders .
    I’d heard them called adults. Sounded so out of place.
    “I’m Dr. Maxwell,” the oldest man said as he folded his flabby body into a seat behind a large table.
    I sat opposite him in a rigid chair, perfectly still and silent.
    His age made him look the least threatening, but not his eyes. Stone-cold eyes that assessed and weighed everything. Dr. Maxwell pointed at the other two. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Brown, the benefactors of The Byzantine Institute of Excellence.”
    Institute, another word for school, but just as odd sounding as the term adults . I kept tucking away every little piece of new information, sick of feeling so out of place.
    I looked from one face to the next. The two men had much lighter skin color, especially the doctor, with thinning hair and skin so pale and dotted with age spots. But the woman’s skin looked familiar...like my own.
    I considered not speaking until I had to, but I was tired of being pushed here and there. Tired of being confused. “Why am I here?”
    Dr. Maxwell sat back, eyeing me with a flat gaze. “The Albuquerque PD said your fingerprints didn’t match those found at the Piedra Lisa Park breakin, but neither did your prints pop up right away in their initial run through the database. Since you were captured with the gang suspected of these crimes, you’d normally be held in detention while they decide what to do with you.”
    I’d heard the other kids whispering about detention and something called juvie. Scared them. I held my silence and let this Dr. Maxwell finish explaining.
    “The police deal with a number of Native American kids