"I've gotta take a piss." The man a few pens down said, struggling to get the soldier's attention. "I've been holdin' this in for almost three hours, can you let me go to the bathroom?"

"Sir, there is a bucket in the corner-" The soldier started.

"It's a bucket!" The man shouted, pointing at the said bucket.

My chin was resting on my knees, watching the exchange happen. There was five other people in this chain linked pen I was in, and they all were trying not to come in contact with each other. It was pretty easy to follow their lead and just sit with my back against the chain linked fence. I had no idea why we were all here at the community college, and none of the soldiers guarding us were answering any of our questions.

One of the men in my pen was a tall black man wearing a suit who was pacing the length of the pen slowly, looking around at the other pens and the soldiers moving between those pens. He hadn't spoken yet, and he was keeping his hands tucked into his pockets, as he observed the large room filled with dozens of these tall chained link fences. At some point he caught me watching him and he had held my gaze evenly until I looked back down to the toes of my shoes.

"You can't keep treating us like animals!" A woman yelled from a few pens down. I looked up at the sound of her voice and blinked at her, where she was pressing herself against the chain linked fence, screaming at the two soldiers standing nearby.

"Yelling and screaming won't help any of our situations." The man in the suit said from somewhere nearby. I looked up and nearly jumped out of my skin to see him standing beside me, leaning against the fence there. "You seem like the quiet type. But being still and quiet also isn't the way to getting out of here."

"What d'you want?" I asked. The man arched his brow at me and a small smile crept across his face.

"What do any of us want?" He asked instead of answering. He crouched down, putting his weight on his heels. "Look around and take a good long look at the people around us, sweetie. What are you seeing?"

I couldn't tell if this was some sort of trick or not. But I looked around at the four others in the pen with us. I nodded to an older woman weeping in the corner. "She's crying her eyes out. That guy tried to climb the fence about an hour ago." I nodded over to the man in his early thirties who as freshly bruised from being poked down by the soldiers. "The other two haven't done a lot."

The man snorted. "That's where you're wrong, sweetie. That man in the nearby corner, he's been crying over a photo of his wife and children for a long while now. And the other man, see his lips moving? He's been mouthing prayers and psalms to himself ever since I got in here. You read people, you see glimpses of who they are in a time of crisis. We are officially living in a time of crisis, so it's time to figure out who's useful or not. So far, none of these people have proved very useful."

I turned my face to fully look at him. "These people are scared." I pointed out.

"We're all scared." He retorted. "But it seems to me, that when people are scared that's when they prove whether or not they can be useful. They can freeze or start crying or start praying to whatever God they believe in. Those who keep a level head when they're scared, they're the ones you need to keep close to you in these trying times."

He stuck one hand out for me to shake. I blinked before actually grabbing his hand and shaking it once. The man nodded once to me. "Victor Strand."

"Joanna." I replied, letting go of his hand. I frowned at him. "Does this mean I'm useful?"

"I'm still deciding on that, Joanna." Strand said evenly. "Right now you've proven to have a level head and you're exceptionally observant. You can still be proven useful."

"Gee, thanks," I muttered, causing Strand to smirk before standing back up and walking back to the fence, resuming his pacing.

There was a rather large clock on the wall, and I spent a good long time watching the hands of the clock inch slowly across its white face. Strand continued to move around to every person in the pen and talk quietly to them, but whatever they said back apparently wasn't that interesting because he kept walking away from them. At some point I must've dozed off, because suddenly I was jerked awake by the sudden sounds of struggling.

I looked outside of my pen and I leapt to my feet when I saw two soldiers hauling Nick between them.

"Nick!" I shouted, rushing to the chained link fence. Nick jolted when he heard my voice and he craned himself around until his dark eyes met mine.

"Jo!" Nick shouted right back. He tried wrestling against the two soldiers but they were holding him too tightly for him to try and fight back.

Strand was at my shoulder in an instant. "You know that boy?" He asked in that rapid way of his.

"He's my friend." I said, watching helplessly as the soldiers started dragging Nick towards another pen farther away from me and Strand.

"Is he useful in the way we discussed?" Strand asked.

I nodded feverishly. "Yeah!"

Strand looked away from Nick and to the commanding officer who was watching the scene. Strand whistled once, sharply, and the commanding officer glared at him before coming over. "I think it'd be in that boy's best interest if he was in this particular enclosed area."

"Why the hell would I do that?" The officer asked. I was barely paying attention to their conversation; the two soldiers were struggling to unlock the pen farthest from ours.

Strand pulled a heavy looking rung off his right ring finger and held it out for the officer to take. "I repeat, I think it's in that boy's best interest if he's in this particular enclosed area. Being close with friends helps boost morale, does it not?"

The officer seemed to hesitate before taking the ring from Strand's fingers. He marched away, barking, "Don't put him there! Bring him this way."

Strand looked down at me. "Your friend had better be useful, Joanna. That was a eight hundred dollar ring." He paused and then shrugged. "Not that that matters much anymore. That officer believes it still matters."

I finally took notice of the way the officer carried himself; back completely straight and his pockets looked heavy with something. Just by judging the way his uniform was finely pressed and the way he had taken Strand's ring with barely any conflict, he seemed to believe that money was still a thing. Strand didn't seem to believe that, seeing how willingly he gave away that eight hundred dollar ring.

The two soldiers brought Nick back and Strand lightly grabbed onto my shoulder and we took several steps back away from the pen's door. The officer unlocked the door for them and they promptly tossed Nick into the pen.

Nick stumbled, barely stopping himself from landing hard on his face. Once he got himself steady on his feet, he looked over at me and quickly closed the gap between us and brought me into an extremely tight hug. I embraced him back, my nose being pressed into his grandpa clothes. Underneath the distinct smell of body odor and sweat, there was no mistaking the scent of peppermint and cigar smoke.

The soldiers shook their heads and locked the gate behind Nick, who was hugging me as tight as he could. When he finally stopped hugging me, he grabbed onto my shoulders and shook them slightly.

"What the hell happened to you?" He asked. "You didn't come back from your walk and none of those shoulders were telling us what happened. I was-we were worried sick and freaking out."

I quickly explained everything that had happened, and by the time I was finished, Nick was staring at me with one eyebrow raised high. "You're so freaking stupid." He said. He hugged me again. "Thank God you're okay, though." I hugged him back again, smiling into his shoulder.