Through the Glass (A Storybook Novel 1)

by Kira Moericke

  All emotion drains from his eyes and is replaced by hardness as he turns his head to look at me. They look like stone . . . or glass, and I’m afraid if he keeps looking at me like that, they’ll shatter.

  I look away, trembling nervously under his gaze. The cot digs painfully in my back but I feel like a deer caught in a pair of shining headlights.

  Maxwell looks away and runs another hand through his thick waves. I peek over and see that the muscles in his jaw are tight with tension as he stares at the TV.

  “Maxwell–”

  “No.” He turns his razor-sharp gaze at me, cutting the words off my tongue.

  I want to say sorry, but I know there is no need. If I had to apologize to anyone, it would be Caitlin.

  Standing up, I crawl back onto the cots and curl back up in my spot beside Lynne, my back towards Maxwell, with tears in my eyes. But I don’t want to cry. Pinching my eyes shut, I let a single tear slip from my eyelashes and roll down my cheek as I listen to the sound of the TV.

  “As you wish.”

  I can feel something small and sharp crawl along my body, but when I try to swat whatever it is away, I can’t. My hands are bound by hands. Strong hands. Hands that feel like they belong to a man. Fear stabs at me from a million different places all at once. My eyes shoot open, but I can’t see anything. I’m in the darkness with my arms bound above my head. I squirm on the bed, wanting to free myself. I can’t see Lynne or Maxwell, but I know they’re there.

  “Mmmm!” My voice doesn’t come out like I want it to. Something is stuffed into my mouth, and I can’t spit it out.

  “Mmmra!”

  “Mmmm?!” In the darkness, Maxwell groans, sounding just as panicked as I feel. I kick and I twist, trying to pull my hands out of the man’s grasp, but he is stronger than I am. His grip tightens around my bony wrists which sends pain spiraling up my arms.

  “Jonas, keep her still,” a voice, which I can’t detect is a man’s or woman’s from my panic state, grumbles. They sound tired, whoever it is. A bright light shines into my face, blinding me. I snap my eyes shut and twist my head to the side.

  I inhale deeply through my nose and suck in a heavy breath of lilac-scented air. It clogs my head, making me dizzy.

  “There. Done with the girl,” the raspy voice says. Whoever it is, backs away, and the sharp object that had trailed along my legs stops. “Put her out.”

  What!!! I scream at the term “Put her out,” even though it comes out muffled.

  “Sarwa?” Beside me, Lynne stirs in the dark.

  I look her way, wishing I could see in the dark. A poke of pain stabs at my arm. Warmth and heaviness starts to seep from that spot on my arm to the rest of me, numbing my body . . . and my brain. All my thoughts and fears that had jumbled together inside my head disappears as fog and darkness blend together until there is nothing but emptiness.

  Chapter 10

  Day Nine

  “Sarwa, what does this say?”

  I stir awake to find Lynne tracing a finger delicately over my leg that sticks out from under the blanket. Her finger tickles, but the letters she traces keeps me from smiling. I bolt upright and look at my leg. Fear slices through me when I see the word slut written largely in blue ink on my leg.

  “No, no, no, no!” I stretch forward, attacking my skin with my hand and chipped nails. I rub roughly against the blue inky letters, but they won’t rub off. Fear is replaced by panic. Who would do such a thing? The question wraps tightly around my mind as I give up on the horrible word.

  “Sara.” My name is mumbled from Maxwell as he stirs fitfully in his sleep. The blanket only covers him from the waist down, and when he turns, his shirt rides up, showing off his muscular torso that has ridges and a word in the same blue ink that makes up the word slut on my leg. Across his stomach, the word man-whore is scrawled.

  I gasp in a short intake of air. They had gotten him too.

  “Sarwa? What’s that?” Lynne looks up at me curiously

  “Nothing.” I grab the blanket and toss it over my leg. Reaching over my sister, I touch Maxwell’s arm. “Maxwell?”

  “No,” Maxwell groans, pinching his eyes tight as he stirs fitfully in his sleep.

  “Maxwell, wake up.” I reach over and shake his arm, pulling him out of sleep.

  “Hmm? Sara?” His eyes flutter open, and he turns his head to look at me. At the sight of me, his eyes widen, and he shoots up, making his shirt fall back over his torso. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” I tremble at the memory of the hands that held my wrist and the sweep of the flashlight that had blinded me. The scent of lilac still lingers in the room, irritating me.

  “Did they hurt you?” He looks at me with panic.

  “No . . . I’m fine.”

  Maxwell turns and stares shocked into space. His chest rises and falls with his heavy, silent breathing.

  “Maxwell?” My voice is slightly shaky with the fear from last night that still courses through me.

  “Yeah?” he says drowsily.

  “They wrote on us.”

  “What?” He turns to look at me, life returning back to his eyes.

  I swallow hard as I push away the blanket, revealing my leg with the word slut scrawled in the same twitchy handwriting as the word written on Maxwell’s torso.

  He stares at my leg, reading it over and over until it sinks in. His lips part slightly, as if he is about to say something, but then he closes it. A look of fear and sorrow mingles together on his face.

  “They wrote on your chest,” I point out.

  Slowly and silently, Maxwell looks down, grabs the bottom of the shirt, and pulls it up to reveal the words man-whore written on his chest. “What the–”

  “This is what they did to us last night,” I say looking back at my leg.

  “Why?” His voice is low and sounds almost like a growl, but I can detect disgust in that one word.

  “Because of what we did,” I whisper.

  “But we didn’t do anything.” He rips the blanket off himself and stands up. He pulls off his shirt and heads for the bathroom.

  “I don’t think it’s going to come off,” I call after him.

  “Why?” He turns to me with hard eyes.

  I turn to look at the ink on my skin. With a shaky finger, I trace each nasty letter. “It looks like ink.”

  “So?”

  “Blue ink is hard to get off.” A memory of a blue spot pops into my head. I remember my dad coming home from work one time, from the paper mill where he works, with a small blue dot on the back of his hand. Asking what it was, he had explained to me that some blue ink that he had been working with splashed onto his hand. He also explained that it was kind of like a tattoo and that it wouldn’t come off for a few months. “My dad . . . He told me.”

  “Well, I’m going to try.” He looks down at his bare stomach then turns and walks swiftly into the bathroom, shutting the door after him.

  “Sarwa,” Lynne moans beside me.

  “What?” I turn to look at her. Her eyes are pinched closed, and she has her hands pressed against her stomach. “Lynne? Are you okay?” Panic sears through me.

  “My tummy hurts,” she replies.

  “Your tummy hurts?” Questions ping-pong around inside my head.

  Did they get to her last night, too?

  Why would they want to hurt her?

  What did they write?

  “Lynne.” I reach towards her. “Can you show me your tummy?” I have to see if they got to her, too.

  She nods and pulls her shirt up, exposing her stomach.

  I let out a breath of relief when I see her stomach untouched. Suddenly, I know the reason why her stomach hurts.

  Three days without food. It runs through my head over and over like a broken record. Of course her stomach would be hurting. I can feel a pinch in my own stomach from the lack of food, so of course Lynne is going to be hungry.

  “Sarwa, when will the food come?” she asks in a small voice.r />
  “Lynne . . .” my voice trails off. I want to tell her that food is on its way but I can’t lie to her.

  “Damnit.” Maxwell comes out of the bathroom, wiping off his wet chest. “This stuff doesn’t come off.”

  When I look up at him, a bowl of emotion stirs within me. I can detect some of the emotions like desire, guilt, and want, but then there are others that I don’t quite know. Angry with myself, I look away and shove all those feelings away.

  “Sarwa.” Lynne’s voice comes out sounding pained.

  “I know.” I grab her hand and clutch it tightly, wishing I could take away her pain.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Maxwell asks as he picks up his shirt from the floor where he had dropped it and slips it back on.

  “She’s hungry.” I place a hand on her stomach that feels a little sunken in–whether it’s from the lack of food or from gravity. “She needs food.”

  “We all do.” Maxwell comes over to the cots. Without sitting down, he looks at Lynne with a blank expression.

  “But she needs it more than we do.” I look down at my sister who lays on the cot in pain. If she doesn’t get food soon, something bad will happen. I can feel it deep within me. Then, on a quick intake of air, I know what I have to do.

  I scramble around Lynne and Maxwell and hurry into the bathroom. I close the door behind me and lean against it, taking in a sigh. Casting my gaze down to my legs, disgust clogs my head. How can I be planning what I am planning to do? It was like making a deal with the devil.

  For Lynne, I remind myself. I’m doing this for Lynne.

  I slowly tilt my head up towards the mirrored-ceiling and stick a bony finger upwards. “You.” Hatred pours into my voice so thick that I surprise myself. I sound like a stranger. Within seventeen years, I’ve never heard so much hatred that it actually makes me cringe. “It’s your fault that Lynne’s in pain, that she’s lying there as small as a twig.” I give the mirror my most wickedest face, knowing that whoever is up there can see. “Because of you, we’re all starving.

  “Look, I don’t know what this whole thing is about, whether you’re keeping us down here for some sick, crazy science experiment like in The Maze Runner or if us being down here gives you some kind of thrill, but you can’t just let us die.” I look away from the mirrored-ceiling, wishing I could see the person who is watching me or at least know what they are thinking. I bite my lip, my teeth digging into the soft flesh. I know what I’m about to do is stupid, but I also know that I don’t have a choice. I have to do this.

  I look back up. “I promise if you help Lynne, I . . . I’ll do anything. Anything you want. You just . . . You just have to help her.”

  Silence. Of course. Why would there be any reply? What did I expect to happen; have some voice reply back to me from a hidden speaker confirming our deal? I sigh in defeat and slump against the door.

  “Sara?” A soft rapping sound comes from the other side of the door. “Are you talking to yourself?”

  “No!” I think my voice sounds strained and guilty. I turn and open the door to find Maxwell standing near with a blank expression. “I . . . I was just thinking.”

  “Out loud?”

  “No. Not out loud,” I reply grouchily as I push away the nervous jitters that make me feel guilty, and walk back over to Lynne, who is whimpering softly. Sitting down beside her, I reach towards her and stroke the hair off her warm forehead. “Does your stomach still hurt?”

  My sister nods with a soft moan. Her eyes are pinched shut as she struggles with the pain.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” I whisper, placing one of my cool hands against her warm cheek.

  “When is Mommy going to be here?” Lynne asks softly.

  “Soon.” I hope it isn’t a lie.

  “Why isn’t she here yet?” Her large brown eyes look up at me expectantly.

  Shit. “Because she’s far away, and it takes her a long time to drive all the way here.” It’s the best answer I can come up with.

  “How far away?” she squeaks.

  I press my lips nervously together. “I don’t know.”

  A small whimper comes from Lynne as she looks away from me and closes her eyes. I look over at her and notice how sick she looks. I know now that what I did in the bathroom was the right choice, whether they were listening or not.

  My gaze falls away from the sickly image of my sister to the word slut on my leg. The handwriting is a little twitchy with some swirl to it. It kind of reminds me of a woman’s handwriting.

  A flashback from school flies to the top of my head. A memory of the note Zachary Thomson had once handed out to everyone after school, pops into my head.

  Party at my house Saturday!!! Bring beer.

  I remember his handwriting being all sloppy and different sized. The writing on my leg is different; nicer. But not all girls have nice handwriting, do they? And were all guys’ handwriting sloppy?

  “Maxwell.” I raise my gaze to look at him as he heads to the boxes where he had said he had found the TV, and starts digging around in one of the small boxes.

  “What?” He doesn’t look at me as he straightens himself and looks at a VHS movie. I think he’s still mad at me from last night.

  “How do you write?”

  “Huh?” By my odd question, he pulls his eyes away from the VHS tape and looks at me.

  “Is your handwriting all scrunched up and sloppy or more fancy and wavy?”

  “I don’t know.” He frowns. “I guess it’s kind of sloppy and wavy.”

  “Like this kind of wavy?” I show him my leg.

  “Sara . . .”

  “Just answer the question,” I demand. I need to know if I’m starting to get somewhere or not on who our abductor is.

  “No?” he answers unsure.

  “Who does this handwriting look like it belongs to?” Frustration makes me start to lose my patience. I just need to know if this handwriting looks like a male or female wrote it.

  “What do you mean?” His eyebrows furrow deeper.

  “Does it look like a man’s handwriting or a woman’s?”

  Maxwell stares at my leg, and I catch a flicker of emotion pass over his eyes like the slides in the View Master I had when I was younger. “I don’t know. It looks kind of like a woman’s, I guess.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I slowly bring my leg closer to my body as realization dawns on me.

  “Are you saying that whoever kidnapped us is a woman?”

  I nod my head slowly.

  “Wait.” Maxwell’s face twists into confusion. “But last night there were two men . . .”

  “And one mystery person.” My heart is drumming wildly in my chest. We are finally getting somewhere! “There was a voice too raspy to identify, so it could have been a woman.”

  “Or a man,” Maxwell adds.

  “But didn’t you notice the smell?” I finally understand the scent of lilac. “I could smell lilac when we got those bags the other day, but didn’t see anything lilac-y.”

  “What about those perfumes you got?” he asks.

  “Those were peach.” Everything is becoming clear now. I look back at Maxwell, my eyes large with excitement. “And then last night, the scent of lilac had been so overpowering that I had gotten a headache.”

  “So?” That frown is still planted on his face.

  “Don’t you see?” I lean forward, excited. I finally have some of the missing pieces to the puzzle! “The lilac scent belongs to our abductor. That’s her perfume!”

  “Then who were the men?” Maxwell asks.

  “I don’t know.” My happiness deflates from inside me like a popped balloon. Fawoosh!

  “And if it is a woman, why would she want to abduct us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.” Maxwell runs a hand through his hair. “None of it does.”

  Disappointment drowns all my excitement. I thought I had such a trail dug up only to hav
e Maxwell make me doubt myself and add more questions to my List of Questions.

  Is our abductor a woman?

  If so, what does she want from us?

  Does she have some use for us being down here, or is this for her own psychological pleasure?

  Who were those two men last night?

  How are they involved?

  Does she have something against them that they have to help her, or are they choosing this of their own free will?

  How did our abductor–if they are a woman–get all three of us down here? Did she get help from the two guys?

  “I’m going to take a bath,” Maxwell announces as he places the movie back in the box. Without another word, he heads into the bathroom.

  I groan, burying my face in my hands as I lean forward. I have a million and one things to think about, but I can’t decide what to think about first. After a moment, I decide to think about how things switched from good to bad then back to good then flipped right back over to bad. From how Maxwell and I had been getting along so well then Bam! everything went bad. Then, just when I thought I was getting somewhere on our case, he had to pop my bubble. Pop!

  There is a soft scratch on wood that yanks my attention to the door that leads to the Red Hall. Squinting in the dimness of the room, I see a small piece of paper on the floor right in front of the door. Curiosity pricks inside me. Rising slowly from the cots, I carefully cross the room and kneel on the floor. The piece of paper is small, just a little rectangular shape that has a twirl to it, like someone had wrapped it around a pencil. Picking it up, I unravel it, and read what is written.

  When the boy gets out of the bathroom, go inside and shut the door.

  The abductor’s note rings in my head like a warning bell. When the boy gets out of the bathroom, go inside and shut the door. Fear courses through me. They’re instructions. Instructions to go into the bathroom and then what? Were they going to somehow talk to me? Were they going to help Lynne? I stare at the note for another moment before balling it in my hand. If this note helps Lynne, I’m going to do it.

  “Sarwa?” Lynne moans from the cots.