Ma

Time in that place doesn’t move right. There are no clocks. No windows. Just the lights—always on, always buzzing like they’re feeding on your nerves. Minutes stretch into something thick and suffocating. Hours slide past without permission. I count breaths instead. I count ceiling tiles. I count the way the guards’ footsteps pass the door—how often, how fast, how angry they sound. No one has come for me yet. That alone feels wrong.

The women around me shift, settle, whisper. Hunger starts to creep in like a dull ache behind the eyes. Someone cries quietly in the corner, face pressed into her knees. The baby finally sleeps, tiny chest fluttering like a bird trapped in a cage.

I sit with my back straight, wrists burning where the plastic cuffs bite. I don’t lean against the wall. I don’t curl in on myself. I refuse to look small.

The woman who warned me earlier—they break the loud ones first—keeps glancing at the door. Every time footsteps approach, her shoulders tense like she’s bracing for impact.

So do mine. Then it happens.

Boots. Fast. Heavy. Not the bored patrol pace. Purposeful.

The door slams open. Two agents shove someone inside so hard she stumbles and nearly falls. Her feet barely catch her weight before she collapses to her knees. It takes my brain a second to register the shape of her.

Small frame. Familiar robe. Hair half-loose. Blood.

“Ma.” The word rips out of me before I can stop it.

She looks up. Her face is swollen—cheek already darkening, lip split, blood smeared along her chin. One eye is starting to close. Her hands shake as she tries to push herself upright.

“Alec…” she whispers.

I’m on my feet in an instant, cuffs clanking uselessly as I drop to my knees beside her. The guards laugh behind us.

“Family reunion,” one of them says.

My vision tunnels. “What did you do to her?” I demand.

“She didn’t listen,” the other replies casually. “Same problem you got.”

Ma grabs my sleeve with trembling fingers and starts speaking fast in Khmer, the words tumbling over each other—broken, desperate. I don’t understand the language. But I understand her. Her eyes are wide with fear, darting to the door, to the camera, to the guards still watching us like entertainment. She keeps saying the same phrase again and again, voice cracking.

I shake my head helplessly. “Ma, slow—please—I don’t—”

She cups my face suddenly, blood staining my cheek, and looks at me like she needs me to see something. “Hour… Ba…” she chokes, switching to broken English. “They come back. House again.”

My chest tightens painfully. “What do you mean again?”

She swallows hard. Her voice drops to a whisper. “They take me. They push Ba. Ba try help Hour. Ba—” She makes a choking sound. Her hand curls into my shirt. “Ba die.”

The room goes quiet.

Not silent—there’s still buzzing lights, distant cries—but something drops. Like gravity increases all at once. I stare at her, unblinking. “No,” I say automatically. “No, Ma. No. He was fine this morning.”

She shakes her head, tears spilling freely now. “They hit. He fall. He not get up.”

My ears ring. I feel like the floor has tilted, like the world is trying to slide out from under me. “What about Hour?” I force out.

She nods frantically. “Alive. Hurt. Try help Ba. They hit him too.”

“And Haku?” My voice is barely a sound. “Where is Haku?”

Ma’s face crumples. “They take him.” Everything inside me goes very, very still. “They say…” She swallows, ashamed, terrified. “They say mixed blood.”

A sound escapes me. Not a scream. Something lower. Something that vibrates through my chest and into the concrete floor beneath us. The guards shift uncomfortably.

One of the women in the cell gasps softly.

I press my forehead to Ma’s, breathing through my nose, grounding myself because if I let go—if I break right now—I don’t know what I’ll do. “I’m here,” I tell her fiercely. “I’ve got you. You’re not alone.”

She sobs into my shoulder, small body shaking violently. I rock her gently, even though the cuffs cut deeper into my wrists with every movement.

Around us, the women watch. Not with fear. With something else. Recognition. Understanding. This isn’t just my family anymore. This is a pattern they all know too well.

A guard clears his throat loudly. “Enough. Sit down.”

I don’t look at him. I don’t move. Ma clings to me like I’m the only solid thing left in the world.

“If you touch her again,” I say calmly, without lifting my head, “every woman in this room will remember your face.”

The guard scoffs. “You threatening a federal officer?”

I finally look up. “No, that would imply you're important.” I say. “I’m promising memory.”

He stares at me for a long moment, then mutters something under his breath and steps back out. The door slams shut again. The lock clicks.

Ma’s breathing is ragged, but she’s alive. She’s warm. She’s real. Ba is gone. Haku is missing. Caelan might still be at the house. Hour is somewhere.

And I am in a cage full of women who now understand exactly why I will not shut up. I cradle Ma carefully, pressing my cheek against her hair, and stare at the camera in the corner. They think this is how they break us. They don’t understand.

This is how they make witnesses. Ma grips my sleeve and whispers in Khmer—slow this time, deliberate—

and even though I don’t know the words, I understand the meaning perfectly: They will come back for you next.