“Not expertly,” I say.
“That’s fine. I don’t need anything fancy. Just something short.”
“How short?”
She puts her hands on her chin. “Like Elise’s, or like yours maybe.”
I touch my hair. It’s about three or four inches if I stretch it out, but it usually shrinks up so much that it only appears to be about half an inch tall.
“You don’t want hair this short,” I say. “You’ll look like a boy. Besides, I like your long hair. I can just trim it a little.”
“My parents never let me cut my hair. They said if I did, I’d be rejecting God’s gift to me. But God didn’t give me any gift.” She lets go of the game piece and runs her fingers through her hair. “And this stupid hair is heavy and gets in my face and gets dirty when I sit because it pools on the floor. I want it short. Really short and light. I don’t care what I look like.”
I sigh. “Fine. I can cut it like Elise’s. Is that okay?”
She nods. She gets up and takes her large pair of fabric scissors from her desk and hands them to me.
“Okay, let’s go in the bathroom so it’s easier to clean up,” I say.
We both go into the bathroom and stand in front of the mirror above the sink. Ana Maria stares at herself in the mirror solemnly as I stand behind her with the scissors.
“Are you sure about this?” I say.
She nods twice firmly.
I cut her hair, taking off just a couple inches at the bottom at first, trying to get used to the texture in my hands. Each strand is thick and bone straight, nothing at all like the fine and twisty strands I’m used to.
I keep cutting higher, slowly making my way up to her chin, expecting her to tell me to stop and that she’s changed her mind and she likes it at this longer length instead.
But she doesn’t say anything. She just looks at her reflection as the hair falls around her.
Chapter 21
By the time it’s evening, Ron is only a quarter through Normal-C’s posts on the Normal News forum. Ron isn’t much of a reader—that’s more Chrys’s area—so it takes her a long time to go through each one. Most are boring and irrelevant discussions of what seem to be Normal News articles about the gifted. The only post on technology so far is the one about the scanner.
The front door opens with a loud groan.
“I passed by the bar on the way over,” Giselle says from the door. “Carl and his buddies are in there. You ready to head out now?”
Ron closes the laptop and puts it on the table. “Sure. Let’s go.”
Giselle goes down the stairs, carrying a flashlight in her hand. Ron jogs down to catch up to her.
“Best if we walk,” Giselle says. “It’s not far anyway.”
The sky is a dark shade of reddish-orange as the sun sets.
Ron walks next to Giselle. “How does Carl get his motorcycle there anyway? I didn’t see a path or anything.”
“There’s a path to it but it basically goes around the town in the forest. It takes much longer to get there if you go that way. You probably didn’t see the path that goes to the cabin because it was dark.”
They go between the two houses and head up the diagonal road and then through the forest in silence.
Giselle walks quickly with a bored look on her face like she’s just doing this for Ron’s sake, to prove it’s nothing. Ron isn’t quite sure why Giselle would do this for her, someone she just met a couple days ago who made her hike through the forest for hours yesterday with nothing to show for it. Regardless, Ron is kind of glad Giselle is with her. She likes having a partner in crime.
They reach the clearing where the cabin is. Giselle tries the front door but it’s locked.
Ron taps her on the shoulder and points to the window. It’s wide open.
“Maybe you can fit in there,” Ron whispers, “and unlock the door from the inside for me. I don’t think I can fit.”
Giselle looks Ron up and down, as if noticing for the first time how big Ron is, and then nods. She wiggles through the window and after a moment, the door swings open.
Ron goes in and closes the door behind her. As soon as she does, a gross smell closes in around her, like cologne trying to cover up bad body odor.
Giselle puts her finger under her nose and breathes through her mouth. She must be smelling it too.
There’s a rectangular trap door flush with the floor next to the window Giselle crawled through. Ron unlatches it and heaves it open and then secures it to a hook on the wall so the door stays up. Shoddily built wooden steps lead down into darkness.
Giselle turns on the flashlight and shines it down. The staircase seems to be facing a wall because nothing else is visible from the top.
Giselle and Ron exchange nods. Ron goes down first with Giselle behind her holding the flashlight up over Ron’s shoulder.
They reach the bottom. There’s a bit of light coming in from the half-buried window, but not much because of the setting sun. Giselle shines the light all around. Instead of the staircase facing a wall, like Ron thought, it’s actually facing a floor to ceiling shelf. The mattress is still on the floor, and the man’s body is on it underneath the sheet.
Ron heads to it but Giselle grabs Ron’s shoulder. Ron turns back.
“What if that’s just one of his friends sleeping there?” Giselle whispers. “If we wake him up and he sees us, how will we explain ourselves?”
“I won’t wake him up,” Ron whispers back. “I’ll just pull down the sheet a bit so we can see who it is.”
Giselle sighs and lets go of Ron’s shoulder. She shines the light on the man, but stays by the stairwell.
Ron walks around the mattress across from Giselle so she doesn’t block the light. She passes the table with the laptop on it. The laptop is closed, but the thick cord is still connected to it and goes under the sheet. Ron kneels down where it looks like the man’s head is.
She holds the end of the sheet and pulls it over the man’s head, letting it drape across his neck. She stares at the man, brows furrowed.
Giselle walks forward and leans over him. “Carl?”
She says it loudly, not a shout but not a whisper either.
Ron’s heart races, expecting the man to wake up but he doesn’t stir. The man looks exactly like Carl except he has a thick stubble instead of being clean-shaven. A metal band fastened around his head holds his dirty blond hair down, the roots slick with oil. The thick cord connected to the laptop is attached to the side of the metal band.
“There’s no way this is Carl,” Giselle whispers shrilly. “I saw him in the bar like fifteen minutes ago.”
Ron stands up and goes to the laptop. She opens it.
The man who looks like Carl is on the screen standing in a bedroom with walls covered in posters of dinosaurs. He’s hovering over a light blond white boy sitting on his bed with hands over his ears and eyes closed, shaking. The man looks like he’s shouting something.
There’s a pair of headphones in front of the laptop. Ron puts them on.
“Help me!” the man shouts at the boy. “Please help me!”
The boy turns to him suddenly, moving his hands from his ears. “Shut up! Go away!”
“Help me!”
“Leave me alone!”
The boy raises a hand, palm outstretched, and the man goes flying through the wall. The screen goes black.
The man—the real one in front of Ron—groans.
Ron takes off the headphones and kneels by the man again. She grabs his shoulders and shakes him wildly.
“Ron, what the hell are you doing?” Giselle shouts. She’s been standing over the man, just watching him in disbelief this whole time.
Ron continues to shake him.
The man’s eyes open, a wild look in them. Ron lets him go.
“Wh
o are you?” the man says, panicked eyes looking everywhere. “Get me out of here!” He sits up, the short cord attached to the metal band pulled taut.
“Who are you?” Giselle says.
“I’m Noah.” He coughs. “My brother is crazy! You gotta get me out of here!”
“Your brother?” Giselle says.
Ron grabs the metal band and tries to tug it off.
“Ow!” Noah says, holding the band. “Stop that! The cord is in my head. Disconnect it from the laptop.”
Ron gets up and goes to the table. She inspects the cord.
“What do you mean your brother?” Giselle says.
“Carl! My brother Carl!” the man yells. “Haven’t you noticed I look exactly like him? We’re twins!”
“Carl never said anything about having a brother.”
It irks Ron that Giselle is just standing there holding the flashlight—not even making an effort to point it over here so Ron can see better—instead of trying to help him.
Ron leans close to the side of the laptop. The cord goes into the HDMI port. Besides the fact that it goes into Noah’s head, it looks like a normal HDMI cord. Ron pulls it out.
Noah falls down on the mattress, disturbingly still. Ron drops the cord and rushes to him. She puts a finger under his nose.
“Oh my god, he isn’t breathing,” Ron says, looking to Giselle, who’s still just standing there with wide eyes.
Ron gets up and plugs back in the cord. Noah’s chest starts rising and falling again.
“H-how is that possible?” Giselle says.
“I don’t know but maybe we can get him out of here if we unplug the laptop and take it with us,” Ron says. “We should probably take the power cord too, I guess, so the battery doesn’t run out later.”
The laptop’s power cord trails to the shelves, but she doesn’t see where it’s plug into from here. She follows the cord.
“Don’t bother with that,” Giselle says. “Let’s get out of here now.”
“We have to take him with us.”
“No! Carl is coming back soon. We should just put him back how we found him and get out of here.”
She searches the shelves but still doesn’t see an outlet. “I’m just going to unplug the cord and—”
“Ron, listen!” Giselle points to the window.
In the silence, she can hear the faint sound of a motorcycle.
“We have to go!” Giselle says.
Ron’s heart pounding, she rushes back to Noah. She lays Noah down as he was and puts the sheet back over his head while Giselle runs to the table and closes the laptop and rests the headphones back in front of it.
They run up the stairs, the motorcycle sound getting louder. Ron unhooks the latch door and shuts it.
“You go out the door,” Giselle says quickly. “I have to lock it from the inside.”
Ron nods and rushes out. Giselle closes the door. A bolt snaps in place.
Ron considers just running into the forest but she doesn’t. She waits by the window, bouncing nervously, as Giselle wiggles through.
When Giselle’s feet hit the ground, she looks at Ron, stunned, as if she can’t believe Ron is still here. “Come on, hurry!”
They run into the forest, back to the diagonal road.
Chapter 22
Chrys,
I wish I had more to tell you but I didn’t really get to find out if that guy is gifted or not. But he was DEFINITELY a hostage. Turns out one of the giftists is keeping his twin brother knocked out in his basement with a cord attached through his skull, plugged into a laptop.
The laptop also seems to be keeping him alive. I tried to free him, but he has to stay plugged in or it’s like… taking the batteries out of a robot or something. He just goes dead.
Anyway, that man has to be gifted. Why else would his brother keep him like that?
This giftist has technology. He claims he has a scanner that can detect who’s gifted or not. I don’t know if it really works, but after seeing the stuff in his basement, I’m inclined to think it does.
I know you like reading and researching and stuff so if you want to look into it, he has hundreds of posts under the name Normal-C in the normalnews.net forums (giftist newspaper website). His real name is Carl and his brother’s name is Noah. Middle-aged white dudes with dirty blond hair and green eyes. Beyond that, I don’t really know anything about them.
Link to his post about the scanner: normalnews.net/forums/t=154
I’m safe now but I’m gonna find a way to free that guy.
Please update soon.
Ron
Chapter 23
I open my eyes.
I’m laying on the rug in the cabin in front of the board game, Ana Maria curled up against me.
When I sit up, my body feels sore. I rub my neck and the side of the hip I was laying on.
Looking at my watch, I stand up slowly. I don’t remember falling back asleep but a couple hours have passed since coming back from Cabin 9. It’s still very early in the morning. Dim sunshine lights up the cabin.
I head to Remington’s bunk right near me and climb up the ladder a little bit. He’s not in his bed but from here, I can see Hunter laying on his back in his own bed, chest rising and falling slowly.
When I climb back down, Ana Maria stirs and then sits up. She stretches while yawning loudly.
I step around her and the board game to go to my wardrobe. I change into some sort of black band T-shirt and tight jeans shorts that end at my knees with the cuffs rolled up.
“Where are you going?” Ana Maria says, her voice soft from sleep.
“I’m going to check on Valeria,” I say.
She stands up, stumbling a bit. “I want to come.”
“Just go get some more sleep.”
“I’m coming.”
I sigh. “Fine, do what you want.”
She follows me to the door wearing her pink pajama shirt and shorts, which hang off of her frame, much too large. We put on our shoes and go outside.
The grass is damp from the rain, which has slowed to just a drizzle now.
As we start to walk across the field, Ana Maria says, “I don’t understand why she doesn’t want to be healed. I should just do it, right? She’ll thank me later when she’s not in pain anymore.”
“Ana Maria, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“But why not?”
“How do you think she was injured?”
“I don’t know… I figured it was an accident maybe.”
“Well it wasn’t. She did that on purpose, okay? So if you heal her, who’s to say she won’t just go and do it again? You can heal her physical wounds but you can’t heal…” I let my words trail off. For some reason, it just feels like something I shouldn’t say to her.
She doesn’t reply.
We reach the Main House and go inside. We walk down the hall to the door labeled “Infirmary” and enter. The infirmary is a small but long room fitted with three beds and two chairs facing each bed. In between each bed, is a small square table up against the wall. Everything in the room is white.
Valeria is in the bed in front of the door, her upper back and head propped up with pillows. She has thick white bandages around her eyes. Remington is in one of the chairs, upper body slumped onto Valeria’s bed, head face down in crossed arms.
We go to Valeria’s bed. On the table next to Remington is a sealed envelope, the flap side facing up.
“Valeria?” I say quietly.
“Chrys?” she says.
I sit down in the chair across from Remington. “Are you okay?”
“I’m on some pretty heavy painkillers so yeah.”
“I can heal you,” Ana Maria says, standing next to the chair I’m in.
But Valeria ignores her and asks, “What�
��s on my bed?”
“It’s Remington,” I say. “I think he’s asleep.”
Valeria purses her lips.
“Why don’t you want to be healed?” Ana Maria says.
“What’s your name again?” Valeria says.
“Ana Maria.”
“Can you leave the room, Ana Maria?”
Ana Maria grips the edge of the bed. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want you here.”
“I just want to help you feel better.”
“You just want to ease your conscience. I don’t need your help. I’ve told you that already. So why are you still asking?”
“Because—”
“You’ll feel guilty if you don’t, right? You’re just helping yourself.”
Ana Maria stares at Valeria with a frown.
Remington sits up slowly and massages his shoulder, blinking at us, confused.
“I’m not trying to help myself,” Ana Maria answers finally. “If I heal you, then I’d take on your wound and I’d be in pain. How is that helping me? Clearly, I’m trying to help you because I’m worried about you.”
Valeria chuckles dryly. “Oh, sure. Little Ana Maria the Saint, selflessly suffering to save others.”
“Valeria, please stop,” I say. “She’s just a kid.”
I look over at Ana Maria. Tears run down her cheeks silently, but she’s looking at Valeria steely-eyed.
Remington stands up. “What is going on here?”
“Remington,” I say. “Can you take Ana Maria to the lounge?”
He passes a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Fine, I guess.”
He starts to walk around the bed but then doubles back and takes the envelope from the table.
“Chrys, you’re still going into town today, right?” he says.
I nod.
He holds out the envelope over the bed. “Can you give this to my sister?”
I take the envelope and turn it over. On the front, the name “Giselle” is written in beautiful calligraphy.
“That’s her name,” he says. “But if you can’t manage it, that’s fine too. Just don’t give it to her in person.” He walks around the bed and hugs Ana Maria to his side with one arm. “If you could, like, put it in her mailbox or something, I’d appreciate that.”
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