The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from Internment, a gut-punch of a read by Samira Ahmed, on the very timely topic of rounding up people of certain ethnicities and putting them in concentration camps. It is Young Adult fiction, but only just.

I feel like this quote needs a content warning, but I don’t know what to label it with besides EXTREMELY anxiety-inducing.

I inch back farther, closer to the door at the other end of the vestibule, which will take me to my car, where I’ll be safe. Safe? I catch myself. Because there is no safe for me. Suddenly I’m acutely aware of how small this space is and how loud the train wheels sound against the tracks, and I wonder if people will hear me if I scream.

The door behind the guard slides open again. A tall, broad-shouldered Exclusion Guard steps into the vestibule. God, now there are two of them and I have literally nowhere to run. My hands shake. I can’t call for any help because the people who are enforcing the law on this train are the ones I’m afraid of. Every fiber in my body wants to scream and cry, and I want to pound my fists into the metal walls.