The X Factor

by Bella Street

  He perched his hip on the edge of the desk. “I meant that I got a hold of a hot plate. So I can cook some things right here in my room.”

  “Why don't you give me the hot plate, since I'm the one who's banned from the cafeteria.”

  “You're very simple-minded, even for a blonde.”

  Seffy almost choked on a bite of eggs. “At the rate we're unable to get out of here, I won't be one for long.”

  He smiled and acknowledged her darker roots “Here's the thing, if I give you the hot plate, I lose all leverage.”

  “Leverage.”

  “I have a list of goals, and as I give you access to hot meals, you give me access.”

  “To what, pray tell?”

  “For one, I'd like to see you naked, but not crazy, experimented-on naked. Regular naked.”

  “Nice to know you have some standards.” Seffy finished the food, daintily wiped her mouth with the provided napkin, and rose from her chair. “This meal was the freebie, right? The hook?”

  He grinned. “That's how it works.

  “Well, from here on out I'll somehow learn to love cold cereal with warm milk.”

  “We'll see how long that lasts.” His smile faded. “Hey, what are you doing?”

  Seffy lowered her hand. “What?”

  “Why are you scratching your head like that?”

  “I guess because it itches.”

  He walked up and brushed back her hair from her face.

  Seffy raised her brows, trying not to flinch. It might be construed as rude, and well, he had fed her. “Is this part of the leverage thing?”

  “Seriously, Seffy, you've got a long red line on your forehead.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I just have dry skin.”

  “Any place else that's itchy?”

  “Wouldn't you like to know.”

  “I mean it.”

  Seffy sighed. “Well, now that you mention it, my stomach has been bugging me.”

  “Let's see it.”

  She raised her ugly blouse a few inches, revealing a vertical, irritated red line in the center of her stomach. “Ew. How did that get there?”

  “Why don't you lay down on the bed for a sec.”

  Lowering her shirt, she sent him a fake smile. “I think I'll pass.”

  Trent moved her over to the bed. “I'm concerned. Now lie down.”

  “You know what? Do what you gotta do. Everyone else has.”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “The compound medics.”

  “Ah.”

  She sprawled out on his bed, feeling a bit mellow from her breakfast.

  Trent lifted her shirt, and ended up going to just below the bottom of her bra. Then he tugged her jeans down to the top of her underwear.

  I cannot believe I'm submitting myself to this.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “What?” she asked, alarmed at the tone of his voice.

  “That hot plate is magic. We almost have naked here!”

  Seffy slapped Trent's hand away. “You are such a loser.”

  “I was just kidding. You actually do have scratch marks on your stomach.” He traced the line from the top of her ribs, side to side, then a line down the middle, and another line stretching from hip bone to hip bone. “It's like an uppercase I.”

  Seffy pulled her shirt down and sat up, resisting the impulse to rake her itchy belly with her fingernails. “You should wash your hands. It's probably some new contagion I'm trying to spread.”

  Trent leaned down and put his mouth near her ear. “Your skin feels like silk.”

  Scooting off the edge of the bed, she stood. “Thanks for breakfast, Trent. It was amazing. The conversation, however, was not.”

  He stuck his hands into his back pockets. “Why did you try to leave the compound, Seffy?”

  She glared at him. How did he know these things? “Why wouldn't I want to leave?”

  “So you'd abandon your friends? Just like that?”

  Seffy sighed. “It was an experiment.”

  “What did you think of the garden?”

  She shrugged. “Impressive, I guess.”

  Trent regarded her for several moments. “Next time you take a stroll, come and get me. I'll make sure you won't get caught.”

  Seffy frowned. “You've been outside of the compound?”

  “Even made it outside the fence.”

  “I don't believe you.”

  “So don't. It doesn't change the fact that I know this place better than you. Like I told you before, I'm not like your buddies, content to wait until someone else figures out how to get us out of here.”

  Seffy thought about his offer. She knew he did have ways of getting around undetected. “What's the point of leaving the grounds? There's no place to go.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Everyone.”

  “Well, maybe everyone's lying.”

  “Fenn wouldn't lie.”

  Trent's voice rose an octave. “Oh, Fenn would never lie because he is so in love with me!”

  “You're making that part up. I saw him after they dragged me back into the building. I think I would've noticed him making eyes at me. I was more like a problem he wanted to be rid of.”

  “Regardless, Fenn's lying because he has to.”

  “And you never lie.”

  “Think about it, Sef. When have I lied to you?”

  “You're always being nasty.”

  “Then maybe nasty is the truth.”

  Seffy stared at him, her mind filtering through past and present conversations. She shuddered.

  “This place is a mystery, Sef,” he said, going for a smoldering look—and failing. “The truth is out there—if you're willing to seek it.”

  “Not with you, Trent.”

  He straightened, clearly stung.

  Seffy lifted her chin. “I want to believe that you have my best interests at heart—at one point I did—but now, maybe this is just a new angle. And I don't have the energy to figure out every one of your new angles.”

  Trent's expression became shuttered. “Fine.”

  Seffy could see that she'd offended him. Oh well, it wouldn't be the first time, and certainly not the last. “Thanks for breakfast. It was great.” She stepped past him and let herself out the main door. Once she was back in her room, she saw something on the desk.

  A basket of fresh strawberries.

  Trent watched her go with mixed emotions. He must be losing his touch if he couldn't even get a girl to flirt with him. He scratched the inside of his arms, wondering if there was a better path to her affections.

  Because he needed the distraction.

  ***

  The sound of heartbeats woke Seffy. The wet, throbbing pulsation seemed to fill the dark room. She could almost hear the rush of blood through her arteries and veins. Who was in the room? The pounding presence grew until it threatened to suffocate her. She reached out to push back, but hit empty air.

  Though it was dark, she somehow saw a glistening substance on her fingers. She stared at it, wondering why the red color looked so familiar. After a tentative taste, she was surprised at the coppery flavor. I wasn't expecting that.

  Light, I need light. Seffy got up off the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. She groped along the wall and finally found the switch. Light flooded the room. She stared at the wall around the switch plate. It was smeared with blood. Something terrible crept at the edges of her memory, laying in wait to be remembered. Seffy looked down at her hand and saw her palm slick with blood. Her other hand too. Little red rivers of it ran down her arms. Feeling bile rise in her throat, she stepped across the cold, white tiles to look in the mirror.

  Foaming blood rimmed her mouth and dripped down her chin, soaking the velour front of her top. The colors clashed and Seffy frowned. Pink and red never go together. Never, never, NEVER.

  She began to scream.

  ***

  Trent started awake, his heart hammering in his chest. When his brea
thing slowed, he cocked his ear, wondering what had awakened him. The sudden sound of a scream sent him clambering from his bed.

  Seffy. He'd know that scream anywhere after listening to it for seven straight days. Trent burst through his closet door and raced down the passageway. When he got through the hanging clothes and pushed on Seffy's door, it was locked.

  She screamed again, a long blood-congealing wail that made the hair stand up on his arms. Trent stepped back and sent a brutal kick at the door, forcing his weight through the heel of his foot. The door clattered in its frame but held. One more time.

  The door flew open, wood splintering, smacking the wall behind it.

  “Seffy?”

  The room was black. While running his hand along the wall, looking for a switch, he heard her scream again. The darkness was too absorbing to see if someone else was in the room. His hand found a light switch. He flipped it and the room became illuminated by the feeble light from an overhead fixture.

  Seffy's bed was rumpled but empty. He called her again. The sound of a muffled sob brought him to the side of the bed. Seffy lay writhing on the floor. For a fraction of a second, Trent could only watch as she wrestled with some unseen monster, the veins in her neck distended as if she couldn't breathe. She spastically jerked her head to one side, gulped in some air, and screamed again. Trent reached down and shook her shoulder.

  “Seffy, wake up. You're dreaming!”

  She didn't respond, but continued to struggle.

  He lifted her up to a sitting position and gave her a hard shake. “Wake up!”

  Seffy's eyes flickered open and fixed on something past him. “Don't run! We are your friends!” Then she went limp, her head flopping back.

  Oh, God, not again. Trent lifted her onto the bed. Her face was sheet white, her skin, ice cold. He patted her cheeks, then remembered the inhalant Betty had used. He rushed into the bathroom, found a First Aid kit, and grabbed the little tube. Back at Seffy's side, he broke it open and held it open under her nose. She began to choke and cough.

  “C'mon, Sef, wake up.”

  She shoved away the tube and struggled to sit up. Trent eased her back into the blankets. She tilted her head, as if looking for someone behind her. He touched her chin. “Hey, I'm right here.”

  Slowly, Seffy twisted her head back until her gaze met his. She became very still. After a moment, he realized she wasn't looking at him, but through him. Her sudden calm sent a fresh round of chills skittering up his spine. Her eyes shifted to his shoulder, or possibly something past it. She lifted her hand and touched his skin. Her fingers were freezing.

  “You have a vein.”

  Trent glanced at the point she touched and saw a distended vein running from his pectoral muscle to the low part of his shoulder.

  Her troubled gaze met his. “But where's the blood?”

  “God, Seffy, you are completely freaking me out.” He pulled her to a sitting position. “You gotta snap out of this.”

  Instead of looking at him, she stared at her hand. “Where's the blood?”

  Trent dropped his hands and straightened, breathing hard. “Are you messing with me? Is this some kind of revenge trick?”

  Seffy ignored him. She got up and walked slowly into the bathroom. Trent watched her, not knowing what to think. The light flickered on. He followed her and found her staring at the switch plate. She looked up at him. “It's gone.”

  “What's gone?”

  She stepped over to the mirror and put her hands to her face as if she didn't recognize herself. The fluorescent light made her look gaunt and sallow. Dark circles smudged the skin under her eyes. This was too much like when he found her strapped to that table. Seffy studied her hands and saw something that made her look closer. She picked at something red from between her fingers, then put it up to her mouth.

  Trent grabbed her wrist. “What the hell are you doing. Dammit, Seffy, snap out of it!”

  His harsh tone got her attention. She stared up at him, her dark eyes wide. “I think...” She furrowed her brows, fighting some kind of confusion. “I think it was the strawberries.”

  Seffy glanced down at Trent's fist clasped around her wrist, her thoughts in a disoriented whirl. “Let go of me.”

  Trent dropped her hand and stared at her with consternation. “You want to tell me what's going on?”

  She headed out of the bathroom and approached the bed. Crouching down, she retrieved the strawberry basket, empty now except for the discarded leafy tops. She looked at Trent, who'd followed her. “I'm such a pig.”

  He released a gusty breath and collapsed onto the edge of the bed. “Okay, I don't have a clue what you're talking about.”

  Seffy studied the basket. The images in her mind wavered, then began to dissolve. Rubbing her head, she put the basket on the nightstand. “I think I had a nightmare.”

  “Either that or a demon possession.”

  She turned to Trent, curiosity mixed with anxiety. “What...was I doing?”

  His bleak expression frightened her. “I don't want to talk about it.”

  “That bad, huh?” She sank onto the bed next to him. “I just remember a lot of blood. It was everywhere.”

  Trent sent her a sidelong look. “You were wondering where the blood was.”

  She shivered. “Well, it's all but gone now. The nightmare, I mean.” She scratched her forehead. “I have a splitting headache.”

  “I would imagine.” Trent stood and stared down at her, his mouth set in a firm line.

  For the first time, she realized he was only wearing flannel pajama bottoms. My, but the man is ripped. She averted her eyes. Must be from all that skulking around he does.

  “Do you think you'll be okay now?”

  She stared at his belly button, then quickly directed her attention to his unhappy expression. “I'll be fine.”

  “I can stay with you for a while, if you need me to.”

  “No! I said I'll be fine.”

  He snorted. “You're back to normal all right.” He turned and stalked back through the closet door. When she heard him slam his door at the end of the passage, she got up and closed her side. Even though the door was too shattered to be effective, she slid the bolt home and leaned up against it. The remnant of her dream pulsated with color and fear, but no details.

  Kneading her aching head, she released a ragged sigh. Man, I gotta lay off the fruit.

  Chapter Twelve

  Seffy took a long shower after the Haz-Mat team left. She found herself scrubbing her body until it hurt. As she rinsed the soap away, she looked down at the redder skin on her stomach and wondered at the strange lines. Maybe what Trent discovered was an allergic reaction caused by laundry detergent in the elastic of her underwear. But that didn't explain the line up the center. If the Haz-Mat team noticed it, they didn't let on. She turned off the water and grabbed the towel.

  When she was in compound issue retro attire, she sat down at the desk and pulled open the drawer. Inside was a notepad, several pens and pencils, erasers, paper clips and a small stapler. Seffy pulled out the notepad and a pencil. She decided to start writing down the weird occurrences and dreams to see if she could make sense of them.

  She scribbled on the paper and looked at the result:

  infection

  experimentation

  attempted murder

  multiple injuries

  alienation

  nightmares

  strawberries

  Seffy scrunched up her face. Time travel seriously sucked.

  She heard a knock at the door. Glad for the distraction, she turned in the chair. “Come in!”

  Gareth strolled in, looking so heartbreakingly handsome that Seffy's heart twisted with familiar anguish. She looked down at her paper and quickly added romantic stupidity to her list of issues.

  “Morning, Seffy.”

  “Hey.” She waited to see what he wanted and hoped he didn't notice the closet door hanging by one hinge. How would she explain it
? Especially as it involved Trent who was already on Gareth's hit list.

  “What happened there? The bogeyman?”

  She smiled weakly. “Something like that.” She thought fast to come up with a reasonable explanation for the damage.

  “Weird.” He turned to her and put his hands together. “I came by to ask if you want to join the rest of us for movie night.”

  Seffy's eyes widened, wondering why Gareth wasn't more inquisitive about the door. “Uh, another movie night?”

  He nodded.

  “But don't you guys watch movies pretty much every night?” Seffy regretted the question. Hadn't she been wishing her friends were more available to her?

  “Yeah, but this time we're asking Trent's friends, and Malone will be there.”

  “Oh. What about Trent?”

  “What about him?”

  “Is he invited?”

  Gareth shrugged. “He wouldn't come anyway.”

  “Yeah, you're probably right.”

  “So, are you in?”

  Seffy bit her lip. It wouldn't do any good to ask about the title of the movie. She probably never heard of it anyway. Fighting a feeling of desperate suffocation, she nodded. “Sure. What time?”

  “Eight, at Lani's.”

  “Okay.”

  “Great. We'll see you then.”

  “Wait!”

  He paused, a polite expression on his face. Seffy wished he'd show the same interest in her as Trent had, sexual innuendo notwithstanding. “I...you haven't asked me about my infection...from the injection.”

  His brows rose. “Oh. How is it?”

  “Better.”

  He smiled and turned to leave.

  “But I have a new weird symptom—a rash shaped like the letter I on my torso. Crazy, huh?”

  Gareth frowned. “Have you had it looked at?”

  “Well, not specifically. The medics who check on me every morning might have seen it, I guess.”

  “It sounds like you're getting good medical care. I'm sure they're aware of it.”

  Seffy swallowed, disappointment blooming at his disinterest. “I'm also having bad nightmares.”

  “I'm not surprised considering what you went through.”

  She fixed him with a look. “What did I go through exactly?”