Light Through the Window

by Cassandra Morphy

  "That's... impossible," Rebecca Anne said.

  "See?" Ellie asked, once she got over her own shock. "I told you I didn't break into her room."

  "What? No, I... I saw her. She was standing right there. Then she jumped out of the window. I... I had to chase after her. She was holding my envelope."

  "Again, with the envelope," Ellie said. "Like I'd be interested in your mail."

  "No. It wasn't mail. It was..."

  "It was what?" the guard asked, curious. "If it's so important, what's in it?"

  "It's... It's none of your business."

  "Is it here, by any chance?

  "I... I don't..."

  "Miss, I know it can be a little stressful, starting over at a new school. People have mental breaks all the time, even so early as September. It is perfectly understandable. But--"

  "No, I wasn't having a mental break. It really happened. She really broke into my room."

  "Yes, yes, and then she jumped out the window. We're five stories up. How exactly did she jump out of the window and survive?"

  "There was a rope?"

  "Oh, so she bungee jumped out the window?"

  "Not a bungy, a rope. It was hanging out the window. She jumped, grabbed the rope, and slid down to the ground."

  "Did she now? That is impressive. Only one problem."

  "What... what's that?" Rebecca Anne asked.

  "Well, if she jumped out of the window and slid down the rope, how did you get outside fast enough to chase after her?"

  Ellie looked towards Rebecca Anne, curious about the answer herself. Knowing that everything she was saying was the truth made it that much more of a curiosity to her. How was it that Rebecca Anne had been there so quickly? She had thought for certain that she could have gotten away from the building. The only thing that had delayed her was that Becky was still hanging there outside the window. Without her roommate to slow her down, she still would have had to deal with Rebecca Anne, simply because she had gotten outside the building, down from the fifth floor, almost as quickly as she had.

  "I... uh... I took the stairs," she said, simply.

  "Or, you thought you saw someone standing here, holding something. Then, when the light from outside changed, maybe a car driving past or something, whatever you saw was gone. You only thought they had jumped out the window. I mean, what else could it have been? So, you come running out the building and see this young woman here and simply thought that was who you had seen. Then, you chase her, startling her in the process. It only made sense for her to run from you, wouldn't it?"

  "I... Well, I guess so," Rebecca Anne reluctantly allowed. She stared over at Ellie, clearly wishing she could refute his words. But there was something, something that she didn't want to say, something she couldn't say, that would come to light if she did.

  "Well, now that that case is settled, would you still like to make a statement? Or, would you rather get some sleep. I'm sure being tired didn't help things."

  "No. It's fine. Just... Just get her out of here. I don't want to ever look at her again."

  "Oh, but Rebecca Anne, what about survivor's group?" Ellie asked. She knew she shouldn't tease the poor girl, but she just couldn't help it.

  "Get out of my room," she shouted at her, pointing her finger towards the hallway, despite the fact that Ellie never came inside.

  "Okay," the guard said. "Let's leave her to her rest. If you change your mind about making a statement, you can come down to the security station tomorrow."

  "Just, go," Rebecca Anne said. She no longer sounded angry, just defeated. It was like she knew that Ellie had managed to get one over on her. Ellie worried it would be the only time she would ever go against that group and come out with a win.

  The guard came out of the room, closing the door tightly behind him. He stood there, leaning against the door for a moment, as he looked Ellie once over. Ellie rolled her eyes at him, no longer worried about trying to hide the action, before heading down the hall to the elevator. The elevator was still on the floor, so it opened immediately to Ellie's button pushing. They rode down in silence, though Ellie could feel the guard's eyes looking all over her. If she hadn't known that his eyes were normal, she would have almost thought he was one of them.

  They passed through the lobby quickly, Ellie just wanting to get out of that building before some evidence came to light that she really had been in that room. She barely even noticed that the guy from earlier wasn't waiting in the lobby anymore, though the girl at the desk was still staring out into space, half asleep.

  "Hey," the guard said, pulling Ellie to a stop just outside the building. "Now that that's out of the way, I know it's a bit late, but... Any chance you'd maybe like to grab a cup of coffee or something?"

  "What?" Ellie asked, staring at the guard in complete shock.

  "You know what, you're right. It's late, I'm still on shift, and you just got chased halfway across campus. You're probably exhausted. Would you like me to escort you back to your dorm? What with recent events, you might not want to be out here alone at night." The guard offered her his arm, but Ellie just continued to stare at him. "I'll take that as a no. I'm Vern, by the way." He pulled a card out of his belt, presenting it to Ellie as if it were some kind of prize that she won by not being arrested. "Call me sometime, will you?" He tipped his hat towards Ellie before heading back to his little cart and driving off.

  "Hmm, isn't he barking up the wrong tree," Becky muttered. Ellie jumped at the sudden appearance of her roommate. She looked all around, trying to discern just where the girl had come from. "What?"

  "Where?" Ellie started to ask, though she didn't get much further. She was starting to think she was going to have a heart attack if people didn't stop jumping out at her.

  "I was hiding in the bushes. You didn't see me? I was waving at you when you went in."

  "I was trying not to look in that direction. What the hell happened?"

  "Well, when you drew Rebecca Anne away from the building, I climbed back up into the room. I spent a couple minutes straightening everything out before slipping out the door. It's much easier to get out that way."

  "What about the rope?"

  "Oh, that? I went up to the roof to get it." She pulled it out of the hole in the bushes she must have been hiding in. "I figured, waste not want not. Then I came down and was about to head off to the dorm, figuring you'd just circle back around to there. When I saw the guard, I just, well, I hid. Sorry."

  "No, you... You were amazing. A perfect Robin. Now, if only you had managed to find where I dropped the envelope, this night would have been perfectly recovered."

  "Wait, you lost the envelope?" she asked.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Collateral Consequences

  "I'm pretty sure I know where it is," Ellie said. She turned down the sidewalk, retracing her steps from earlier. As they left the front of the dorm, Ellie looked up at the window they had only just broken into. While Rebecca Anne had said that she wanted to go to bed, probably did want to go to bed, something told Ellie that she wasn't sleeping. She expected to see the strange girl watching them from that window, her abyssal eyes staring down at her from above. Instead, the window was empty, the lights off inside. Obviously, the girl was either sleeping or out looking for the envelope. She only hoped that they would find it first.

  "Why don't we wait for morning?" Becky suggested, as she fell into step next to her. "We're not going to be able to find it in the dark."

  "It was light enough. The envelope, I mean. We'll be able to find it. I just... I don't want them finding it first. It's the only lead we have."

  "Well, I..." Becky broke off in mid-sentence. She pointed off into the distance, at a girl that was walking their way. "Who's that?" she asked. "Is she one of them?"

  Ellie barely glanced at the girl as she continued to walk down the sidewalk. The path had intermittent lighting and the girl would be in darkness as often as in light. It took Ellie a few moments to get a good enough lo
ok at her eyes to be certain that the girl was as human as they were. Once she was certain, though, she smiled broadly as she looked over at her roommate.

  "I think you're getting more paranoid than I am," she said. She kept her voice low, though, worried that someone was listening in on their conversation. "She's just some girl coming home from a party. She probably lives in this dorm. Don't worry about it."

  "I am worried. We don't know who these people are. They could be anyone, and anyone could be one of them. Plus, I mean, what if they find out about me? I can't defend myself against them like you can. I'm just a sidekick. Your sidekick. Maybe that's the real reason why they're always hanging around. I'm going to have to stick with you from now on. You seem to be able to tell which is which. It's like you have a superpower. It's like... Ooh, you really are Batgirl."

  "Okay, first off, Batgirl, like Batman, does not have any superpowers. She's just a kickass girl in a tight suit who... well... kicks ass. Second, please don't take this the wrong way, but you cannot just follow me around. I do like having some personal space."

  "But, I'm your sidekick," she said.

  Ellie shushed her as the girl got close enough to hear them. In the silence that followed, Ellie could hear the girl let out two sniffles. As they passed on the sidewalk, the girl seemed to shy away from them, though that might have had more to do with the narrowness of the path. Becky had insisted on walking next to Ellie, rather than behind, even as the girl went past them.

  "What was that about?" Ellie asked. Suddenly, her previous fear of the girl was replaced with concern for her. "Maybe she needs help."

  "If she needs help, she can find it," Ellie said. "It's none of our business. If we don't get to that envelope before they do--"

  "What if that was you back there?" Becky asked. "Would you want us to just walk on by?"

  "Maybe. It depends on what it was about. Maybe she has allergies. Nothing we can do about that."

  "Or maybe she was just attacked."

  Ellie let out a deep sigh as she stopped on the path. She turned around towards the girl, watching as she walked away from them into the night. At first, she was just humoring Becky, figuring that whatever the girl was up to, or had been through, was none of their business. Still, Ellie fell back into her training, looking the girl over for evidence of distress. There was a lot more evidence of that on the back of her than there had been on her front.

  The back of her sweatshirt was covered in dirt and grass stains. There was a tear in her jeans running down the left leg that reached up to where her sweatshirt fell over it. The girl was hunched in on herself, obviously a defensive stance. And she took small, slow steps, favoring her left leg. Despite Ellie reservations about the distraction, she could obviously tell that the girl had been attacked.

  "Damn it," she mumbled.

  "See?" Becky said. "I told you. We need to help her."

  "Okay, this whole superhero thing, it is so not happening," Ellie said. "We're not going to be chasing after bad guys or fighting crime."

  "But, isn't that what we're doing with Rebecca Anne and them? I mean, if they're bad guys, we are kind of chasing them."

  "No, we're trying to find evidence that they're bad so we can raise it to the proper authorities. This is not something we're going to be doing."

  "But..."

  "But, yes, it looks like she was attacked." As she watched the girl get further and further away from them, Ellie couldn't help feel a little guilty about having distracted the security guard. Maybe if he had actually been doing his job, he would have been in the right position to stop... whatever had happened.

  Or, maybe not.

  "I'm going to go talk to her," Becky said. "See if there's anything we can do to help."

  "Fine," Ellie said, reluctantly. "But if she tells you to fuck off, I reserve the right to tell you 'I told you so'. And, then, we go right back to looking for that envelope."

  "Sure, sure, sure," Becky said, waving off Ellie's reluctance.

  Ellie followed behind as Becky headed down the sidewalk, chasing after the girl. Her slow pace made it easy for the two of them to catch up with her. As they approached her from behind, the girl shied away from them again, even stepping onto the grass when they got too close.

  "Hi," Becky said. "Are... Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," the girl said, in a low voice that Ellie could barely hear. "Just leave me alone."

  "See?" Ellie said. "I told--"

  "Can we do anything to help you?" Becky asked, ignoring Ellie's comments.

  "Get away from me," the girl said. She backed further away from Becky, threatening to fall into the bushes that ran along the wall of the dorm.

  "Wait," Becky said, reaching her hands out to the girl.

  The girl tripped and started to fall backwards into the bushes. Ellie rushed forward, covering the three steps between them fast enough to catch the girl before she fell far. They were under one of the lights in the area, so as Ellie held her aloft there for a few seconds, she got a great look at her deep, brown, normal looking eyes. After that brief moment, Ellie pulled the girl back up onto her feet. However, that seemed way too long for the girl.

  "Get off of me," she shouted, pushing Ellie's arms away from her. "I don't need your help. Just leave me alone." The girl thrusted her hands towards Ellie, as if to push her further away than she already was, before rushing off down the sidewalk towards the dorm entrance.

  "See?" Ellie said, again. "I told you so. Now, can we go back to looking for that envelope? I really want to get it before they do."

  "I just... I wonder what that was about," Becky said, staring after the fleeing girl. "I mean, we were just trying to help her."

  "She didn't want our help," Ellie said, no longer thinking that the girl didn't need it. "I don't blame her, really. She was clearly attacked. If I were her, I'd just want to run back to my room and hide from the world."

  "Well, yea, but that's because you're you. Ninjas don't like to admit that they're vulnerable."

  "No, I've been like that far longer than I've had ninja training."

  "Actually, now that I think of it, I wonder if that has to do with the rapist that's been rumored to be going around," Becky said.

  "Wait, what rapist?" Ellie asked.

  "Really? Damn, you definitely need to get out more. They've been talking about it all over campus."

  "Well, maybe if we figure out what these people are and what they want with me, I can go back to avoiding the world like normal, instead of more so."

  "Yea, yea, yea," Becky said. "Envelope first, fighting more crime later."

  Ellie just rolled her eyes before heading down the sidewalk towards where she had lost the envelope.

  Chapter Twenty

  Safe in the Bushes

  "Are you sure it was around here?" Becky asked. And not for the first time. She was hidden behind one of the bushes on the south side of the path, while Ellie was looking towards the north. They were focusing their attention close to the intersection, as Ellie had clearly remembered losing the envelope in the turn around the pole.

  "Yes," Ellie said. Although her words got more definitive as they continued their search, she became less sure. The sun rising in the distance didn't help things. They both knew that, if they didn't find it soon, they would have to abandon it. The people with the abyssal eyes were soon to come looking for it themselves, and they greatly outnumbered the two of them.

  "Why couldn't you have just looked inside the envelope? Then we'd at least have some idea on what it was."

  "When? Everything moved so quickly. I found it, she came back. I jumped out the window, she came out the front door."

  "Yea, how did that happen? It was like there were two of them or something."

  "Was there one of her still in the room at the time?"

  "What? No, of course not," Becky snapped at her. "If there had been, I would have said there were two, not that it was like there were two."

  "Alright, alright. I know. We're
both grumpy. We both want to go to bed and sleep for the rest of the weekend. I just don't think we have that kind of time right now. It was the one clue, the only clue we found in that room."

  "We could break into one of the other rooms. There are plenty of people to choose from, if what you're saying is correct."

  Ellie popped her head above the bushes, looking around at the empty sidewalks to make sure they were still empty, before returning to her search. "Say that a little louder next time, won't you. No, I don't think that's a good idea. I barely got away with it the first time. If I get caught again it would just lend credibility to Rebecca Anne's own story. Especially if it was the same guy or just one that actually wants to do their job."

  "Well, don't get caught next time," Becky suggested, as if it was an innovative idea. Ellie rolled her eyes, but the bushes hid it from her roommate. "Seriously, though. How the hell did she get downstairs so quickly."

  "She said she used the stairs, but I don't think that's possible. Not even if she jumped down each flight of stairs. I mean, I jumped out the window and went straight down. The only way that she could have caught up with me would be if..."

  "If she ninjaed her way down the stairwell?" Becky suggested.

  "Ninjaed? Is ninja a verb?"

  "Hey, there ain't no noun that can't be verbed. But, yea, you know, like jumping over the railing and doing a controlled fall or... whatever it's called. Like you did with the rope, only with using the stairwell."

  It wasn't exactly what Ellie had been thinking. She had been thinking something a lot more out there. But it did make a bit of sense. "Except I had training on doing that sort of thing, in a gym, over actual mats and nets. You don't just decide to do it."

  "Well, maybe that's what they are," Becky said. She perked up as an idea came to mind. "Maybe they are trained. Maybe they're a secret league of ninjas. Maybe they just know that you're a ninja too and they're trying to recruit you."

  "Except, if that were true, they could have just said that. No, it's almost like they think I already know what's going on."