My Cardboard Balcony

Seven Scarves For Julie by Belinda Roddie Julie wore the black scarf for the weekdays, wrapped against her neck and tucked under her chin, her smile still beaming in the frost. She changed it up a bit on weekends, switching from red to green to gold to blue to white. She had six colorful scarves, a bundle of rainbow mirth. But usually, she wore the black scarf. When her boyfriend dragged her out of bed one night to see the stars above the gray canvas circus tents erected for the summer, Julie wore the black scarf out of habit, but once they had perched themselves on the balcony rail, he offered her a seventh scarf - a tie-dyed one that, he claimed, he colored himself. And when Julie commented on how long it was, her boyfriend replied, "In that case, we'll wear it at the same time, so we can both be warm, together, even in the frost."

Bishop and Troy appeared to be on the same wavelength when it came to strategy, but in the end, it was Nichole who had the most solid tactics laid out on the table, literally and figuratively. All three of them knew, despite the obliviousness of their comrades bunched in the corners of the room, that there was no way they could infiltrate the facility in any other way besides brute force. "Security breach mechanisms are everywhere in that stronghold," said Bishop, "and trying to disguise as anything would be like making people believe you're a ghost by putting a sheet over your head."