by Anna Jarzab
“The truth is, Juli,” he said. “The Monad isn’t sure you have anything to tell us.”
“Of course I do. I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I didn’t. And anyway,” she continued, trying to keep her voice steady, though she was visibly shaking, “I’m not the one with something to prove. You told me that if I gave the Monad all the information I had about the General’s plans, they’d help me get away for good. But all they’ve done is lock me up in this room. They won’t let me talk to anyone.”
“You’re talking to me,” he pointed out.
“Not by choice.”
“These things take time,” he told her. “You have to be patient. This isn’t a game.”
“Well, how much more time is it going to take?” she asked. Her voice quaked with desperation, and she hated herself for it. She didn’t want him to know that she was afraid. And she couldn’t help wondering what was happening outside these walls, what black fate was befalling her country in her absence. What would they do without their princess? But perhaps they were better off without her. She’d never been a very good princess anyway.
“Soon,” he said, his voice eerily soft, like he was trying to calm a frightened child. But all he’d succeeded in doing was agitating her further. “Soon. I promise.”
FIVE
In the beginning, all I knew was darkness. Darkness, and silence. There was no pain, and then, in an instant, I felt it, a deep, dull ache in every muscle and bone and joint. I couldn’t move, but if it was due to the pain or something else entirely I didn’t know. Panic coursed through my veins, but I couldn’t even open my eyes, and I feared beyond all reason that I was dead. But the dead don’t hurt, do they?
Gradually, I started to hear things. Just muffled voices at first, as if I was listening through a door, but the voices started getting clearer and I could make out words. “Is she dead?” someone asked. Clearly I wasn’t the only one wondering.
“She’s not dead,” Grant said. “Do you think we would’ve brought her all this way if we thought it would kill her?”
At first I was so happy to hear his voice—low, strong, familiar—that his words didn’t even register. Grant’s here, I thought with relief. I’m safe. But then what he’d said sank in, and questions started to form in my mind, wriggling through layers of semiconsciousness like worms. Who was he talking to? What had happened? Where was I? What did he mean by saying that “we” had brought me here? Who were “we”?
Who—what—where—why—frantic questions, bewildered questions, clanking together like glass bottles, slamming into each other like bumper cars, tangling like Christmas lights in my frozen, frightened mind. Grant, I thought, willing my lips to form his name, but they wouldn’t, they couldn’t.
Help me.
Grant spoke again. “It was her first time through the tandem. It knocks the hell out of you. We just have to keep her comfortable and warm until she comes around.”
Feeling was starting to return to my limbs. I tried to move, but I only managed to wiggle a finger, and even then just an inch. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything. A frustrated scream ripped through my head, but there was no forcing it out of my throat. The fear was so potent I could taste it, a dark, metallic tang on the back of my tongue.
“Your timing couldn’t be worse,” said someone other than Grant. It was a man, and something about his voice—scratchy and deep—told me he was older than Grant by years, possibly decades. “The Libertas rally is starting soon and the streets will be crawling with patrols. If they see her you can bet they won’t rest until they have you both in custody.”
“I know that,” Grant said. He didn’t even sound like the Grant I knew. It was him all right, but his tone was different, somehow. Harder. Sharper. It wasn’t the voice of the boy who’d looked out at Lake Michigan and said, Sometimes I forget how big everything is. But it was his voice, all the same.
“They won’t know what she is,” the man continued. “But they’ll see she’s trouble.”
Trouble? How could anyone possibly think that I of all people was trouble? This had to be some kind of awful mistake, it just had to be. That was the only explanation. But this was Grant. We’d gone to school together forever—he knew me, and if the events of the last couple of days were any indication, he cared about me. Why was he talking about me as if I was a stranger?
Unless … The thought struck me like a mallet to the chest. Unless I’d been wrong about Grant all along.
No. That was unthinkable. I was a good judge of character; there was no way I wouldn’t have seen deceit in his eyes. He’d been sincere. He’d carried my bag and danced with me and stood with his arm around me under a blanket of stars. Could it really all have been fake? Just a lie to get what he wanted?
And if so, what did he want?
“Everything’s proceeding according to plan,” Grant said. What plan? I wanted to shout. What do you want from me? I could do nothing but lie there like a corpse and wait. The waiting was excruciating; every second felt like a year, each pause between breaths like an eternity. But I was growing stronger. I could feel everything now, and I suspected that, if I tried, I might be able to open my eyes. But not yet. I needed the right moment. They didn’t know I could hear them; if they had known, they wouldn’t have been talking so freely. Maybe, if I stayed still a bit longer, I could learn something. Maybe then I would know what I was up against. Maybe then I could begin formulating my own plan.
“You should wait until nightfall.”
“No,” Grant said with authority. “I can’t spare the time. They’re not going to believe that story about the princess being up at St. Lawrence for much longer. It’s been almost two weeks. The queen is starting to ask questions, not to mention the media. She’s blown off three interviews with Eloise Dash. Gloria’s beside herself, and the General is getting impatient.”
What the hell was Grant talking about? It was dreamlike in its absurdity; I couldn’t make sense of any of it. My head began to pound; the pain made it harder to think, like the signal was being scrambled. How was I going to get out of there if I couldn’t even think?
“She can’t go out in the city dressed like that. We should change her clothes.”
The thought of being undressed by a stranger made my insides seize up, but Grant said, “She can change herself when she wakes up. I’ve got clothes for her to wear.” I relaxed a little—but only a little. Who knew what Grant and this other man were capable of?
“You’re the boss,” the man said, his voice tinged with bitter resignation. A rough hand grabbed my arm and I felt the pressure of a thumb on the inside of my wrist. “Pulse is up. She’s coming around.”
“Finally.” The bed dipped as Grant sat down next to me. I knew it was him; I could smell that same piney scent he’d been wearing the night of the prom. How long ago had that been? It seemed like a million years. “Sasha, can you hear me?”
I didn’t respond. I knew I could open my eyes now, speak, maybe even sit up, but I wasn’t going to do so on his command. “Sasha? Come on, you have to get up.”
There was the voice of the Grant I knew. Even now it stirred up a little whirlwind of yearning. What if I was wrong after all? The idea that Grant would ever do anything to hurt me was impossible to comprehend. But there was no denying that something had happened, and if it hadn’t been his doing, I couldn’t imagine whose it would be.
I couldn’t let this go on any longer. I pressed down on all those tender feelings, the echoes of what had once been. I imagined them calcifying inside of me, hardening in my chest like cement so that nothing he could say would ever affect me again. I was almost as enraged with myself for being tricked as I was with him for tricking me. And though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, somewhere deep down I was unlearning to trust my own heart.
“How about a shock?” the other man suggested, his threat accompanied by the sound of electricity crackling. A Taser. But I was so distracted by Grant’s closeness that I couldn
’t find it in me to be afraid of this man and his weapon. Grant was the true enemy. He was the one who’d lied to me, and, if I was reading the situation correctly, the one in charge.
“Don’t even think about it,” Grant commanded. He doesn’t want to hurt me, I realized. But I shoved the thought away. Yet, I told myself savagely. He doesn’t want to hurt me yet.
“Just get her up and out of here already if you’re so determined to go,” the man grumbled. “Maybe people will be so distracted by the rally they won’t look twice at her.”
“Sasha, I know you’re awake. Open your eyes.” Grant eased one of my eyelids open with his thumb. My mind went blank and I reacted on impulse, sitting straight up and slapping his hand away. He jerked back, his eyes wide, as if he was surprised to see me there. He lifted his hand as if to touch me, but I wasn’t about to let him get close enough.
“Don’t!” I cried. I glanced around for something to use as a weapon, but there was nothing within reach. The last place I remembered being was Oak Street Beach, but now I was in a large basement apartment. It was dim inside and practically empty but for the bed, a couple of chairs, and a large metal standing locker. There were two small rectangular windows at the opposite side of the room near the ceiling, but they had been blacked out; the only light in the room came from a few bare bulbs overhead.
An old man, hunched and bald, passed into view. He smirked at me; with his absurdly wide mouth and skin that hung off his skull in fleshy folds, he reminded me of a bullfrog. It would’ve struck me as comical if not for the Taser in his hand and the gun at his belt.
“What did you do to me?” I demanded.
“Take it easy,” Grant warned. “You need to calm down. You’ve been through a lot.”
“No shit!” I met his eyes with a furious glare. The coppery terror was sharp in my mouth. “What is this place?”
“It’s our Chicago safe house,” Grant said, glancing at the door. Though it looked heavy and industrial, he was eyeing it as if he expected someone to kick it open at any second. “But I’m not really sure how safe it is anymore, so we have to leave as soon as possible. Here.” He placed a blue corduroy backpack—my blue corduroy backpack, the old one I’d carried to school when I was a kid, long ago consigned to the back of my closet—on the bed. It looked small and foreign in his hands, like an artifact from someone else’s life. “There are some clothes inside, and a few toiletries. You can clean up and change in the bathroom before we leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him. “Except home.”
The sun was streaming in through the small gap at the bottom of the front door. It was broad daylight outside. Granddad was going to be out of his mind with worry, but if I was still in Chicago then I couldn’t be too far away. What time was it, anyway? How long had I been gone? There was no clock in the room, and Grant was unlikely to tell me.
Grant shook his head. “You can’t go home.”
“Watch me,” I said, dropping the backpack and making a break for the door. The old man came out of nowhere, agile as a jungle cat in spite of appearances, and blocked my path.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “Your home’s not out there.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“That’s going to require a little bit of explanation,” Grant said, rising from the bed and picking up the backpack. He shoved it at me. “Go get changed. Then we’ll talk.”
I stared at him in total disbelief. “What makes you think I’m going to do anything you say? You lied to me—you kidnapped me—and you think—” The words lodged in my throat. The expression on his face was inscrutable.
Grant gathered himself up to his full height; at six-two he was half a foot taller, and he towered over me. He was trying to intimidate me, and, what was worse, it was sort of working. When push came to shove, I was confident I could take the old man, but if Grant wanted to stop me he could. “You’re a smart girl, Sasha. You can probably tell you don’t have a lot of options right now, so you might as well just listen to me.”
Oh yeah? I thought. I might not have had Grant’s size, or the old man’s Taser, but I still had my voice. I took a deep breath and screamed as high and as loud as I possibly could.
Grant clapped his hand over my mouth. I clawed at his fingers, but he didn’t seem to feel it. He leaned in, and I caught that evergreen scent of his again; it made me gag.
“Be quiet,” he warned, his voice darkly serious. “You’re safe, Sasha, I promise. We’re not going to hurt you. Don’t be difficult.” I heard a note of pleading, but I didn’t care. He meant nothing to me. I didn’t even know him.
Slowly, he drew his hand away, though his body was still wrapped around mine and I could feel the tension that remained in his muscles. He was prepared to shut me up once more, if I chose to keep screaming, which meant it was useless to try. I wasn’t even sure I could; my previous attempt had made me light-headed. My arms hung loose at my sides, like snapped rubber bands, and I was starting to wonder if I would even be able to stand for much longer.
“Mayhew,” the old frog-faced man said in alarm.
“I know,” Grant replied. He released me, an uncertain expression on his face. “I need you to go get ready to leave, now.”
“Or else what?”
“I’ll explain everything,” Grant said. “But for now you have to follow directions.”
“And then you’ll take me home?” I asked, although I suspected the answer was no. He wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of bringing me here just to turn around and let me go.
His face betrayed nothing. “Get changed. Then we’ll talk.”
“First tell me why I’m here,” I insisted.
He turned sharply. “Let me explain how this works,” he said, in a voice so cold the temperature in the room seemed to dip ten degrees. “I give the orders, you follow them. I tell you what I want you to know, when I want you to know it. You want to go home? Then follow my instructions. Now: Go. Get. Changed.”
I stared into his eyes with as much bravado as I could muster, but he didn’t back down or look away. I hated to admit it, but it didn’t look like I had a choice. Anger—pure and unalloyed—had rushed in to replace the fear I’d felt before, burning it away. His word would not be the last. I was going to get away. It was only a matter of time before Grant slipped up and gave me an opportunity to escape, and when he did, I’d be ready. But for now I had to play the game his way. Realizing this made me calmer, my mind sharp and alert where it had previously been foggy and muddled.
I’m going home, I thought with sudden clarity and conviction. Nothing he can do or say is going to stop me.
SIX
Staying as far away from Grant and his crony as possible, I took the backpack into the bathroom. The door slid open without a touch, as if it was on some sort of sensor. The place looked as though it had once belonged in one of those sleek, modern hotel rooms I’d seen in the movies, but everything was old and run-down.
The door closed by itself and I slumped against it. I wanted to cry, but I struggled not to, knowing that if I started I might not stop. A few tears escaped anyway. I covered my face with my hands and breathed deeply. At least I was alone, a small relief.
How could I have thought, even for a second, that I was falling for Grant? How could I have forgotten how little I knew him? Even though I knew it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t help but hold myself partially responsible for my current situation. I’d let myself be seduced by his good looks and charm, soft words and romantic overtures. It was the stupidest thing I’d ever done.
When I’d gathered myself as best I could, I picked up the bag and began rummaging through it. My hands closed first around a stick of deodorant, half-used, from my own medicine cabinet. I applied some, feeling sticky, then tossed it back and took out a brush, which I pulled through my tangled hair. The curls Gina had so painstakingly created had fallen into limp waves. I bit my lip and kept
fixing myself up; the ritual of getting ready was a soothing and welcome distraction.
When I was finished, I ripped off the corsage Grant had given me, reveling in the feeling of flower petals crumpling between my fingers as I crushed it in my fist before dropping it unceremoniously in the wastebin. It felt good to take my anger out on something, however small.
I turned the bag upside down and shook it. A bundle of folded clothes fell to the floor—jeans, a T-shirt, my navy blue zip-up hoodie, and my favorite brown leather boots with a pair of thick socks. Everything in the bag belonged to me. The idea of Grant in my bedroom, going through my drawers and touching my belongings, made me shudder. I splashed some water on my face, put my hair up in a ponytail, and got dressed.
I took another long, ragged breath and let it out again. It’s going to be okay, I assured myself, staring at my reflection in the grimy mirror above the sink. It’s going to be okay.
There was a knock at the door. Grant called out from the other side. “Are you almost done? Hurry up, we need to leave.”
I emerged from the bathroom with my bag, now almost empty, over my shoulder and my prom dress slumped in my arms like a fallen comrade. When I’d taken it off, a stream of sand had cascaded out of the bodice. I’d been on that beach. Those memories, what I had left of them, were real.
I glanced down at my wrist to check if the bracelet he’d given me was still there and found that it was. A flare went off in my brain; I had to get free of it. I would never have imagined that it was possible to hate a thing as much as I hated that bracelet. Somehow I knew—beyond all reason—that it had something to do with why I was there in that basement instead of home in bed. I tugged and pulled and pressed every inch of the bracelet’s slim surface, desperate to remove it, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Good luck getting rid of that,” the old man muttered.
“Screw you,” I snapped.
“It won’t come off,” Grant said.