Capsule

by Mel Torrefranca

  “We need Jackie.” Kat stepped away from the car, breathing into her sweaty palms. “Don’t we?”

  06:24:09

  THE RAGE BURNED.

  Jackie ripped Jay’s flannel from her shoulders and tied it around her waist. She’d been standing near Grovestown High’s gym parking lot waiting for another memory to pop into her mind, but it hadn’t come yet, and now all she could think about was the fact that Peter and Kat had left her here alone. The chilly air running along the gauze intensified the sharp pain of her wound.

  What a joy.

  Jackie peeked around the corner of the gym building, gripping her arm with clenched teeth. Running along the back of the gym was Clay River—a common flooding hazard that often left Grovestown students being sent home early for a few days of every year, but that didn’t mean the scenery wasn’t nice. Although Pelle Cove in Ravensburg had a pretty beach, and the drive from Brookwood was more convenient, Jackie had always enjoyed the calmness of Clay River. She walked along the side of the gym, hoping some time by the water would help calm her rage.

  The back of the gym had no lights against the wall, so it was hard to make out her surroundings with nothing to illuminate her path but the moonlight’s reflection on the river. With deep breaths she watched the light ripple across the water, but the serenity did nothing but make her feel even more alone.

  Jackie took a few steps to her right and discovered a line of exterior lockers along the back of the brick wall. Most of the doors were still open, signaling that the students of Grovestown High likely didn’t use them anymore. Jackie didn’t have to wonder why for long. The first rusty locker she opened contained a rotting sandwich bag and more cobwebs than she could count. She slammed the door shut to block the wretched stench, her fingers pressing tightly against the chipping maroon-painted metal. The frustration was comforting. Inviting.

  Jackie pulled her hand back, rolling her fingers into a fist. She struck the door to the locker a second time, the cold metal burning her skin, but she didn’t care. She forced the air from her lungs in a throat-straining huff, clouds escaping her mouth and billowing in the freezing air. This whole time she’d been misreading the situation.

  I should’ve known they never saw me as a friend.

  Peter and Kat had only stuck by her because they needed her to beat the game. Even back when she’d fallen at Quasso Drive, they only used the power-up for a free ride to Sunshine Auto. Now that all of the challenges had been tackled, they could dispose of her however they pleased. It was her fault for assuming they actually cared in the first place. Of course they hadn’t. This wasn’t her story. Peter and Kat were the real victims here. Ultimately, this was their game to complete, not hers.

  Man, I should’ve realized it sooner. Jackie’s hand relaxed, her soft fist falling to her side, unraveling. Why was I so stupid? She leaned her forehead against one of the oily locker doors, the sour stench filling her lungs, but she didn’t care.

  “If I were you I’d try to save your one good arm.”

  Jackie pried her heavy head from the metal as though her brain were magnetized to it and searched for the source of the voice. One of the lower locker doors slapped itself closed, revealing a boy sitting on the concrete walkway. He’d been tucked behind it, hidden from her sight.

  “What happened?” The boy pointed in Jackie’s vague direction, but he locked his eyes on Clay River.

  Jackie figured he was referring to the gauze wrapped around her forearm and the blood on her blue shirt. “Just a bad fall.” She took a step away from the lockers. “What are you doing back here?”

  The boy was nothing more than a silhouette in the night, his features hard to recognize. The only information she could gather was that he had curly hair and wore a tie with his collared shirt. He was definitely dressed well—better than most of the other guys in the gym. Unlike Jackie, he had planned to be here, but she assumed he hadn’t come to sit alone by a wall of rotting lockers.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” He gestured to the river. “I’m being a loner.”

  Jackie rubbed her left hand against her shirt. Now that her anger was starting to dull, the pain of her knuckles against the metal kicked in. She approached the stranger, lowered herself onto the ground, and leaned her back against the locker next to him.

  The boy’s heavy gaze fell onto her. “What are you doing?”

  “Bro, what does it look like I’m doing?” Jackie rested her two throbbing arms on her lap and mimicked his focus on Clay River. “Being a loner.”

  As the two sat in silence—the flowing water soothing their minds—Jackie thought back to the pockets of fun memories from today. Laughing with Peter after running out of Cherry Ice. Getting ice cream in Ravensburg before the car chase incident. And the moment they’d shared at Grove Aid deciding that they deserved a break from the game. Were those all a part of their fake acts?

  “Friend drama?” the boy asked.

  “I’m not sure if I’d call them my friends.”

  Jackie had been looking at this all wrong. This wasn’t her journey. Her only responsibility was to help them win, and she’d already done her part—more than enough. This was their game. Their life. Not hers. And if they wanted her out, why should that bother her?

  “Fair.” The boy nodded. “You’re not from Grovestown, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t seem like it.”

  Is that supposed to be an insult?

  “So what’s your story tonight?” he asked.

  “Let’s just say I’ve sacrificed a lot to help two people, and they went off and ditched me.”

  “Damn. That really sucks.”

  Jackie stared into his eyes for the first time—two gloomy black holes.

  “If it makes you feel better, I don’t even have any friends. Thought I’d come to the dance and try to socialize, which was stupid. People come with friends, not to make them. Obviously.” He rubbed the wrinkles between his brows away. “I’m so done with people.”

  Jackie wanted to agree, but something stopped her. Was that really what she wanted to decide for herself? Was it naive to think she could find someone like Eugene in person? Someone who actually cared?

  Jackie had been sitting with this stranger for far longer than she’d expected to. What if the fifth level is different? She thought that by now Peter and Kat would have opened the capsule, but she tried to suppress her worries. After all, they’d said it themselves—this was their problem, not hers. Yet as much as she’d tried to disconnect herself from the game—to hand the controller over to Peter and Kat—she couldn’t stop thinking about their smiles throughout the day. At the time they’d felt so genuine, so contagious.

  “Jackie!” Footsteps slammed against the concrete slab, coming to a halt at the lockers. “What are you doing back here?”

  Jackie squinted at the blinding phone flashlight in her face. The light flew aside to reveal Jay, wiped completely out of breath. He narrowed his eyes as he glanced between Jackie and the stranger. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why aren’t you with them?”

  Jackie stood and dusted the dirt from her sweatpants. “Something wrong?”

  Jay opened his mouth to speak, but his neck stiffened, the words refusing to leave him. As his breathing slowed back to normal, his throat relaxed and allowed the dangerous sentence to pass. “Peter called me from your phone.”

  Jackie bit her lip.

  “They need our help. And I have a plan.” In only a blink, Jay’s back was turned toward her. He didn’t realize Jackie hadn’t followed him until he reached the corner of the building, when he turned around and said, “Jackie?”

  As much as her body wanted to rush after Jay, she couldn’t stop the anger from pulsing through her veins. It paralyzed her. Glued her shoes to the concrete. Left her eyes dry and arms stiff. Peter had called Jay through her own p
hone to ask for help.

  How convenient.

  Peter and Kat only wanted her around when they desperately needed her. Like she was nothing more than an emergency button in the game for them to press when they pleased.

  “Hey.”

  Jackie turned around to find the stranger standing now. He was a lot taller than she’d imagined, and with the help of Jay’s flashlight pointed in their direction, she could make out more of his features. His locks cast swirly shadows over his forehead, the darkness in his eyes now brightening to reveal hidden specks of gold.

  That same sadness cloaked the boy, but it no longer held him down. As he grinned, his posture strengthened. “Your friends are lucky to have you.”

  Jackie believed him. Not because during their short chat together she’d learned enough about him to take his word as truth, but because she wanted to. She wanted to believe she was lucky. Lucky that Peter and Kat trusted her. Lucky that they were her friends.

  The boy waved as Jackie ran from the lockers. Back to the game.

  Jackie and Jay turned around the corner and slowed at the front of the gym. Jay grabbed a random bike leaned against the brick wall and stepped off the concrete slab onto the parking lot. He dragged the bike by its handles, not stopping to wait for Jackie.

  Jackie scanned the other two bikes resting nearby and chose the one that looked more suitable for her height. She rolled the bike off the curb and chased after Jay. Together they guided the bikes through the packed parking lot before eventually reaching the side of the busy road dividing Grovestown High from the Grove Aid strip mall.

  Jay was about to get onto his stolen bike, but Jackie’s voice stopped him. “Kuya?”

  It didn’t feel strange to call him older brother anymore.

  He froze. “Yeah?”

  “Why are you helping them?”

  A speedy car passed by, creating a wind that ruined Jay’s perfectly-formed hair, the strands falling over his forehead in clumps. She couldn’t deny that her older brother got along well with people—that he was kind. It was hard for people not to like him, but how was he like that in the first place?

  “Because I’m your sister?” Jackie added. “And I happen to be a part of their game?”

  Jay’s stiff face broke into laughter, his grin sparkling as though the answer were obvious. “Because they’re people, Jackie.” He hopped onto his bike. “I can’t just leave them hanging.”

  As Jackie biked behind her older brother that night, trying to ignore the sharp pain in her arm with every turn, she thought back to why she’d started the countdown in the first place.

  “I bet that if someone were hanging off the edge of a cliff, you would not even bother offering them a hand, huh?” Mrs. Mendoza had said that day.

  Jay looked over his shoulder and shouted, “You okay if we go faster?”

  “Even if you don’t get along with someone, that does not make it right to ignore them.”

  Jackie nodded. The air pulled her hair behind her, forming a natural cape as she pedaled at lightning speed.

  “True kindness is unconditional.”

  DEAR STRANGER

  Sometimes I gaze into the mirror

  And I see your face

  I see your eyes

  In my own

  Like I peeled your skin and glued it to mine

  Like a lonely thief

  A life in place of a knife

  Sometimes I forget my own face

  I gaze into the mirror

  I see your life

  Your eyes

  I feel what you felt when you left

  That day

  And I wave goodbye

  06:10:11

  PETER SWIPED AT the capsule again, but his hand sliced right through it. He dropped his heavy head with a sigh. “We really messed up.”

  “No kidding.”

  Something about the expression on Kat’s face hinted that she wasn’t talking about leaving Jackie behind. The raised brows, the tight line her lips formed into—was she referring to the kiss? Peter didn’t know what to think about it either, but his mind was occupied with greater concerns—the first being that nasty signal. “You are trespassing…” It’d been running for at least twenty minutes now, so he had his doubts about whether the security system actually did notify the police. Perhaps it acted as a bluff to reduce crime, a form of cosmetic security, as Kat would call it—but whether or not the threat was real, it was only a matter of time before the ruckus attracted attention. He scanned the main building of Sunshine Auto for the signal’s source, hoping he’d have a chance at shutting it off.

  Peter’s eyes narrowed on the open font door to the building. It swayed in the wind, the hinges weak.

  Was it like that before?

  Footsteps crunched against the dirt like a monster’s bite shattering bones.

  Peter and Kat ducked. Staring between the tires, Peter spotted two approaching leather boots. His heart pounded as he pulled Jackie’s phone out of his pocket and navigated to Capsule’s countdown page.

  06 HOURS : 9 MINUTES : 51 SECONDS

  They were so close with so much time left, but if the police arrived before Jackie and Jay did, he and Kat would be done for. He swiped to the right, where the emergency button stood. Unlike the power-ups they had already used, it still wasn’t greyed out, which implied they could use it, but what would it do this time?

  “Activate it,” Kat whispered.

  Peter raised his chin, processing her statement. “Are you crazy?”

  Kat brought her index finger to her lips. “Do you want to get caught?”

  Peter gulped as the crunching from the other side of the car grew louder. He understood that they were running out of options, but the emergency button didn’t sound like a solid escape plan. The last time they’d pressed it, Capsule had taken them directly to their next location at Quasso Drive, so what if at this location it did nothing at all? Or worse, what if it brought them back to book club, hours away? Now wasn’t the time to take risks.

  “Hello?”

  A man’s voice. Peter pressed his shoulder against the car, trying to hold himself as still as possible.

  “Is someone there?” The man’s boots neared the opposite side of the Toyota, his voice bolder this time.

  Kat stole the phone from Peter’s grip. Instinctively he reached for it, but she pulled her arm away in a violent jolt, slamming the back of her hand against the car door. The smack left her grimacing in silence, rubbing her knuckles as the man’s steps came to a stop.

  Giving up on Jackie’s phone, Peter slowly raised his head until his eyes peeked through the bashed window of the Toyota. On the other side of the glowing capsule stood a heavy-set man with his fingers wrapped around a pistol, arms waving as he searched for the source of Kat’s strike. Before Peter could duck, the man’s eyes locked on him through the glass. He pointed the gun in his direction. “Hey!”

  Peter straightened his knees, standing completely. “Excuse me, I—”

  “The police are on the way.” The man readjusted the gun in his grip, eyes trailing to the broken glass surrounding the nearby cars. “Stay right where you are.”

  The man’s eyebrows were two caterpillars on his head, his eyes dry marbles. Judging by the plaid pajama pants dragging against the dirt, the man had just crawled out of bed. Really, it took you this long to get up after hearing the signal? Peter gulped, uncomfortable with the vulnerable situation he’d placed himself in, but at the same time, he couldn’t stop his eyes from narrowing at the guy. How lazy.

  Fearing that the man might pull the trigger at any slight movement, Peter held himself completely still as he glanced down at Kat. She was still crouched on the dirt with Jackie’s phone gripped loosely in her hands. She looked up at Peter with a smile that read, Trust me, and this time, he did.

  P
eter shut his eyes, preparing for Kat to press the emergency button, but nothing happened. The ambient noise of crickets and owls never changed. He didn’t find his sneakers resting on a different surface or his back placed against the ground. When Peter opened his eyes, the man standing on the other side of the Toyota stared at the gun in his hands. His grip loosened as he took a step away from the car.

  Peter turned to find Kat standing next to him with tears rolling down her face. “Please don’t hurt us.”

  He knew Kat’s tears were fake—that it was all an act—but he still felt sorry for her. Perhaps he felt sorry because the tears were fake.

  Peter frowned at the man. “What’s wrong with you?” Peter implanted as much shakiness into his voice as possible, probably overdoing it because Kat’s eyes landed on him with a watery glare.

  Kat was a genius—he couldn’t deny it. With the cost of two hours from the countdown, the fourth power-up could erase the last hour of someone’s memories, which Kat had used on the owner of Sunshine Auto. Rather than activating the defensive emergency button—which would cost three hours with unknown results—she’d found a counterattack instead. Now all they had to do was act the part of two threatened teenagers.

  “I didn’t, I—well—what’s going on?” The man looked back and forth between them, his eyes reflecting the blue glow of the capsule he failed to see. He dropped the gun onto the ground, stepping back as the emergency signal blared through the night sky. “Remove yourself from the property or the police will be…” He raised his hands into the air. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, I wasn’t…”

  Kat dove from Peter’s side, scrambling over the hood of the car and snatching the gun from the ground. She slipped Jackie’s phone into her back pocket as she stood and raised the gun toward the stranger’s face. “Don’t move.”

  For a moment Peter almost felt bad for the guy. Sure, he’d been pointing a gun at Peter only seconds ago, but it wasn’t like his self-defense hadn’t been justified. As the panic dampened the man’s eyes, all Peter could see was an innocent car dealership owner in Grovestown. A man who bought and sold used cars to put food on his table. Yet here they were, threatening him with his own gun. This game was changing them.