by Ella James
“Nick,” I called out. A few steps into some shadows along one of the walls revealed a small bathroom, utilitarian and empty except for two towels and three rolls of pre-wrapped toilet paper. I saw a vent on the floor beside the toilet and noticed how tiny it was. The ones in the bedroom were the same: too small even for my hand.
I sucked a breath in, and my lungs burned—like the air was too thin.
Since Dad’s death, I’d had a thing about confinement. I thought it had something to do with picking out his casket. Mom had been so upset that day, I’d offered to go with her to the funeral home. Afterward I’d dreamed, for months, about the tiny cedar boxes, framed with impressionistic chrome. Wooden boxes, all dolled up—but boxes just the same. I remembered when Dad’s casket had shut. Knowing it would never open again.
I turned toward the door, a buzzing bee in a bell jar.
I turned toward the door, and it swung open.
There was a glorious moment where I thought that I’d been saved. Then I recognized the woman: Ursula. I’d seen her only once, in the doorway of my house with the man named Sid, but I remembered her spiky, blonde pixie cut. She wore no makeup, but her hazel eyes were framed by long, long lashes—so long that I’d have thought they were fake, except that Halah had taught me to spot fakes.
As soon as her gaze hit mine, she smiled—a wide, lipstick’d smile that belonged on a commercial for all-day gloss.
“Ursula,” she said, in an accent that sounded faintly Canadian. She stretched out her dainty hand, and I shook it, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do.
I could tell right away that she wanted something from me. She treated me in a way that was reminiscent of an elementary school teacher on the first day of the year: with a slight firmness she covered with a welcoming air.
“Why don’t you sit?” She pointed toward the blue chair armchair.
I looked at it, then at the door, which had slammed shut behind her. I looked down at my socked feet. “Um… where exactly am I?”
She glanced back at the door, and I could see her mouth twist slightly. “A hospital!” she said, a notch too loudly.
I frowned. I didn’t see anything hospital-ish about my room. “Which one?” I asked.
“It’s private.”
I looked her over—thin black t-shirt, butt-hugging black slacks, lace-up boots straight out of Deliah’s Magazine.
“And you’re a nurse?” I asked.
“I’m Ursula—” she smiled again, thinly, “and I work for the FBI. We were called in when you were kidnapped by—”
“I was kidnapped?” I swallowed, realizing I had no idea what game to play with her. I screwed my face into confusion. “Who told you I was kidnapped?”
Her thin, dark eyebrows pinched. “Are you saying that you weren’t?”
My stomach rolled. “I’m saying, who told you that?”
“Let’s see…” She held out her left hand, ticking off points on her fingers. “Your mother has issued an Amber Alert. She claims that you were kidnapped. Your friends say you’ve been out of touch. And you were seen with Gabe DeWitt. We found you in your friend Sara Kate Mackris’ cabin.”
I nodded dumbly.
Ursula plopped down in the chair, sticking out her short, curvy legs and stretching her arms behind her neck. “We haven’t found Mr. DeWitt yet, so I was hoping you could tell us what you know.”
At that news, I felt a thick flip-flop in the back of my throat, like a frog rolling over, curling up. “You haven’t seen Gabe?”
Did that mean he’d gotten away, or had he— Oh, crap. Had he possibly…gone home?
I tried to think of a game-plan, but whatever they’d shot me with hadn’t let up. I had no idea what would make the best story, so I folded my arms and looked down at my feet.
Ursula took it from there. She got up and grabbed the yellow notepad and started jotting notes in it, occasionally glancing up to ask me a question.
How did I know Gabe? (Band camp). Which year? (I didn’t remember). What did he play? (Oboe). What did I play? (Piano).
“So you’re good at piano?” she asked, chipper. “Would you say you’re exceptional?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not really.”
“And Sara Kate Mackris? She’s your best friend?”
“Sara Kate has nothing to do with this,” I said. “She didn’t even know we were going to her cabin. I didn’t either, actually.” I rubbed my head, deciding to pull a Nick. “I don’t remember how we got there. Did you give me some kind of drug?” I held my hands out, widened my eyes like I was getting upset. “I don’t remember anything!” I lied. My eyes teared, because I did remember, and I was beginning to feel the weight of terror. “I just want to see my mom.”
Ursula got up, tucking the pad into the pocket of her pants like a waitress at Outback.
“I’ll be back in just a little while, and we’ll arrange for your release. Until then, if you need anything…” She handed me a small cell phone. “One will get you me.”
I spent the next half-hour trying not to hyperventilate. Once I got a handle on myself, I tried to assess the situation. It seemed pretty straight-cut, in a weird, fantastical sort of way. I understood now why they wanted Nick. Assuming this whole thing wasn’t some bizarre reality TV show—which it couldn’t be, I reasoned, because the story of Gabe DeWitt had been all over the real news—the government was after Nick because he was an—big gulp—an alien.
Extraterrestrial. That sounded a little nicer.
So Nick was an extraterrestrial, and I was guilty by association.
I remembered what Ursula had asked me, about whether I was exceptional on piano. I decided the odds that Nick had gotten away from them were slim (I’d seen him crumple in the grass), so I figured that they had him, and were questioning us both to see if our answers matched. That’s what they usually did on TV.
I walked over to the door and tried the knob, and told myself I shouldn’t be surprised when I couldn’t get it open.
Just breathe, Milo.
Of course they wouldn’t let me out—not yet. They weren’t finished with me.
The challenge was making them think I knew absolutely nothing, and I was prepared to lie my pants off to accomplish that. I turned on the TV, settling on Planet Earth: Seasonal Foresets, and thought some more.
They had Nick, I figured, and I felt sure that they would never let him go. They’d probably lock him up and study him forever, so it would be smart for Ursula to tell me that he’d disappeared.
I promised myself that I’d never tell them anything about him. If I could feign ignorance, make them think that “Gabe” had wiped my memory with his superpowers, I could get out of here, and if I got out of here, I could maybe find Nick and free him, too.
I tried not to think about what that might mean for me. A life of running from the cops? Not just cops. Government cops. I realized I could even get killed. Of course I could.
I thought about Nick, I thought about aliens, and I felt a stab of panic. I’d always been scared of things like that, worried by the things I didn’t know.
What I did know: Nick—Gabe, whoever— He liked me.
I stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and I tried to remember what he’d said.
There’s something about you that’s very appealing to me… Whichever form I’m in, I like you, Milo.
30
If Sid was a TV character, I would have said he was terribly cliché. With his charcoal t-shirt and cargo-style black pants, topped with black boots, and the whole outfit covering a way worked-out body, he was sort of a Power Ranger type. It didn’t help that he had a crisp, accentless voice and a celebrity-style smile. Not that he smiled at me.
He strode into my room maybe four or five hours after Ursula left and told me I’d need to give a formal statement before they let me go, and come with him. I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t really have a choice. Besides, anything was better than being locked in the fake “hospital
” room.
The hallway Sid led me into looked like a hospital corridor—wide cement bricks under a coat of off-white paint, a low grayish ceiling and shiny tile floor—but that was only if you’d never been inside a government building. I had. Four years ago, when I was in seventh grade, I’d gone with Dad to the Department of Energy headquarters, in Washington D.C., for a meeting about a new part he’d invented for the turbines. That place had looked a lot like this one, right down to the crescent-shaped marks in the ceiling tiles.
I followed Sid as the hallway turned a few times, leading us past a bunch of big steel doors. Like in my room, the ceiling in the hall was low, and the air felt thick and cold and humid. I kept looking for windows, and after five minutes without seeing one, I got the creepy-crawly sensation that maybe we were underground.
I was still feeling a little sick at this thought when Sid pressed his palm into a glowing red pad by one of the doors. The lock clicked open, and I followed him into a tiny room, where I found a metal table and five chairs.
“Sit,” Sid ordered. I complied.
He pulled out a chair across from mine and laid his arms out on the table. He glanced into a corner over my head, and I noticed a tiny wall-mounted camera in the corner behind him.
“Let me get right to the point, Miss Mitchell.” His dark brown eyes bared down on mine, and he pressed his palms into the table as he spoke. “We’ve checked out your story, and we know that Gabe DeWitt never went to band camp. In fact, he doesn’t play an instrument at all, according to his grandmother.”
“His grandmother?” I echoed. Crap! Why had I ever told that lie? I straightened in my chair and tried to wear my best innocent look. “How well does his grandmother know him?”
Sid’s stare was like a laser. “Gabe has a number of friends, and we’ve spoken with his schoolteachers.” Sid’s mouth pinched, and he inclined his head slightly more toward me, like we were co-conspirators or confidants. “Why did Gabriel visit you at your home, Miss Mitchell?”
Which time? I inhaled, trying to remember what Sid knew. Oh, right. I had absolutely no idea.
I shrugged. “He came by yesterday because we’re friends. And,” I added, on a whim, hoping to make myself seem more forthcoming: “he was scared.”
“Afraid?” Sid said, one eyebrow arched. “Of what?”
I shrugged again, trying for the casual teenager vibe. “He said some weird stuff had been happening, and he was scared. That was all he said.”
And that was the only card I was showing.
“Why did you leave with him?” Sid asked.
I stared down at my lap, then looked him in the eye and shrugged. “I really don’t remember. I don’t remember much except for being at my friend’s cabin.”
“You know what I think?” Sid asked, sharp as knives. “You’re lying.” He pushed himself up and stood over me, frowning. “I think you didn’t know Gabe DeWitt until a week ago, when the two of you made contact after an astronomical anomaly that crippled the Denver metro power grid. I think there’s a reason that you’re lying for him.”
I blinked, stunned to silence.
Sid stuck his hand into his pocket. He held out Nick’s whistle.
“What is this?”
I could feel the blood draining from my face. If Sid had the whistle, that meant Nick was somewhere here. I tried my best to rebound. Shifted position, folded my hands in my lap. Rolled my eyes. “It’s a whistle,” I said. “Obviously.”
Sid closed the whistle in his fist and crossed his arms. “You need to re-think your story, Miss Mitchell. When you decide to be honest with us, you’ll be free to go.”
*
I couldn’t be honest with them. This left me stranded in my “hospital” room, which was at times called a hotel room, and one other time referred to as a holding cell.
I probably would have freaked, would have felt like a prisoner with no hope of escape, but Sid had left me in the care of the world’s most ridiculous guards. Privately, I thought of them as the Reject Squad.
There was Ursula, whose shirts were indeed from the GAP, and who apparently owned stock in the company. When she sat in my room with me, she wore a hot pink MP3 player and sometimes hummed along with The Ramones. Then there was Diego, the blond-haired guy who’d originally shown up at my house with Sid, poking around in search of Nick—though at the time they’d claimed to be investigating the power outage.
Diego was, I quickly learned, popular with the ladies here at casa de gobierno. He had a shiny black new iPhone, and when he sat in the blue chair, he kicked his feet up and spent his babysitting time texting—usually Ariel, I thought.
Ariel had to be about my age. No more than a few years older—I was certain. Like Ursula, she was short and curvy; she had tiny, rubber-band-bound dreadlocks that stuck up from her scalp like broccoli florets. She, too, wore all black, but her shirts were slightly spandex, and her pants were entirely pocketless, so the outline of her booty was flawless. And all the better for wiggling in Diego’s face.
On my second day there (I think it was the second day), Ariel took the early morning shift, and it was she who revealed to me the origin of everybody’s names. She didn’t have to do any explaining. She just commandeered the remote and settled on Ice Age: The Meltdown, and when we reached a scene that featured both the goofy-looking sloth (Sid) and the saber-toothed tiger (Diego), she giggled and muttered, “They should’ve been switched.”
Sid and Diego. Ariel and Ursula: The Little Mermaid.
Doyyyy.
So this was the Department of Defense? A bunch of attractive new college grads with cheesy cartoon aliases?
Sometime in the afternoon, that first full day in prison, Diego arrived to switch shifts with Ariel. After the two of them made goo-goo eyes at each other, and I was pretty sure Diego made a swipe at Ariel’s butt, Diego cocked his head back toward the door and said, “We’re going on a field trip.”
Great.
The field trip turned out to be an elevator journey to—get this—somewhere eight floors down, to a hallway that was thinner than the one I was living off of, in a wing where every area was partitioned off with walls that popped up out of the cement floors like spikes. Diego had to press his palm to touch-screens sometimes, and he had to swipe a barcode ID tag at others.
“Snazzy,” I said drolly, and he winked. “I know. I’m a rock star.”
He gave me his goofy grin, and I knew he was making fun of himself. I liked him a little more for it.
We passed through three of the big steel doors and one of the creepy, pop-out-of-the-floor partitions, and Diego led me into what actually did look like a hospital room. He gave a little wave, and dipped out as a long-haired nurse in light blue scrubs walked in. She looked about 30, but it was hard to say.
“Mary,” she said, her elbow-length black pony tail bouncing as she nodded my way. She blew a bubble—I smelled Bubble Yum—and, in the thickest Boston accent I’d ever heard, she said, “Why don’t you sit down on the table and I’ll get your stats.”
My stats?
I frowned, and she said, “Really. Hop up there, kid. I don’t got all day.”
I did as she asked and wiggled onto the table. My heart hammered as she took my blood pressure—“Heart rate’s high. You scared a somethin’?”—and took my temp and got my weight and height.
“Why do you need all this?” I asked her, as she scribbled on her clipboard.
She shrugged. “I don’t ask the questions around here. I’m just a tech.”
“What kind of tech?”
Her brow scrunched. “What kind do ya think?” She gestured to her scrubs and waved me toward another metal door. I stopped.
“Where are we going? Where did Diego go?”
“I don’t know about Diego. Back there’s the MRI machine.”
I was feeling a little shaky now, a little shaky and a whole lot trapped. I looked up at the ceiling and wondered how far down I was. How far under the earth. And where? I had no id
ea where I was.
“Listen,” Mary said, pointing up. “It’s better not to think of that. You do your MRI without a fuss, you’ll be back in your kiddie cabana in an hour.”
I took a deep breath and followed Mary through the next door.
In case you’ve never had an MRI: it’s scary. The machine looks like a thick white tube, with a plastic cot attached to the front. Mary told me that the cot—or table, rather—would slide inside once I got on. I knew as soon as I saw it that I didn’t want to. My legs shook as I ducked behind a curtain and peeled off my clothes, then donned a green and white striped gown. When I emerged, feeling weird and violated, Mary held out her palm, and I found a small white pill inside.