21

The teen narrator sits in Ada’s car processing Ada’s news: Melanie and Neil have been killed by a bomb outside The Clothes Hound. When the narrator proposes returning to school, Ada warns that Social Services would place her in foster care and that those behind the bombing might already be searching.

Ada pulls into a driveway, smashes her phone with a wrench, and has the narrator dispose of the pieces, explaining that caution is essential. The narrator, in shock, suggests telling the police; Ada dismisses that as useless. Ada drives to a Quaker Meeting House, indicating a grey van as their next ride.

Inside, Ada greets Elijah and leads the narrator through to a SanctuCare area for Gilead refugees. While Ada makes arrangements, staff offer the narrator tea, a cookie, and a blanket. The narrator observes exhausted women arriving with fragments of traumatic stories and learns why tears come only after reaching safety.

Returning, Ada urges urgency and takes the narrator to a donation room. To disguise the narrator, Ada has her change from a school uniform into black skull-print clothes, add sunglasses and lipstick, and let down her hair. Ada also changes her own jacket and pins up her hair.

As the narrator worries about abduction and the truth of Ada’s claims, she recognizes she has nowhere safe to go and complies. Disguised, she understands that her identity must vanish for now—“our secret”—as Ada prepares the next step of moving her.