The Girl in the Box Series, Books 1-3: Alone, Untouched and Soulless

by Robert J. Crane

  Chapter 9

  “You should try the bacon-wrapped dates.” Zack wore a smile as he extended the plate toward me. I looked at it with hesitation born of my confusion at the word date (again) but I grabbed one of the little delicacies from the plate and tentatively put it in my mouth. I was rewarded with a lovely tang followed by a sweetness. I felt like it was a little symphony being played on my tongue, and I couldn’t have been happier about it, although I did have a brief vision of Zack wrapped in bacon that I shook out of my head to the sound of Wolfe’s laughter.

  We were in a restaurant at the mall; an Italian place with an Italian-sounding name, lots of warm wood finishes, smooth tableclothes, and the smell of the freshly baked bread lingered in the air, enticing me. I picked up a slice from the table and dipped it into the plate of olive oil and parmesan cheese our waitress had made before I took a bite. Heavenly.

  “I take it this isn’t how you ate at home?” Zack’s smile had morphed into a full-blown grin. Outside, the last light of day was shining in through the external windows of the restaurant. It was built into the side of the mall, which I hadn’t walked through yet. I felt a buzz of excitement to be able to explore when I finished eating. It was one of the best dinners I’d ever had and we weren’t yet past the appetizers and bread. Hell, I’d never even had a meal with an appetizer course before. Fancy.

  “Lots of ramen noodles, some TV dinners, occasionally hamburgers made in a skillet,” I said. “I think Mom attempted turkey once, with tragic consequences for the bird and us.”

  He made a face. “Sounds tiring, eating the same thing over and over.” He grabbed a bacon-wrapped date by the skewer and popped it into his mouth as I devoured another. “Pace yourself. You’ll want to leave room for dessert.”

  “I don’t know where I’ll find room for that.”

  But I did. After my steak, I had some of the chocolate cake. It was richer than any Mom had ever brought home (on the rare occasions she brought one home). When I was done, I felt fuller than maybe I ever had. “I think you’re glowing a little bit,” Zack said.

  I smiled back at him, a long, lazy one. “I’m surprised I don’t feel sick after all that food.” I paused for a beat. “And I’m not surprised I feel better.”

  “Yeah, Doc Zollers does wonders for people.” He looked around. “Want to go for a walk? You probably have a meta-strength metabolism to keep you thin but I promise you, my physique doesn’t come without a ridiculous amount of work.”

  I tried not to stare at his body because I already knew it was good. Instead I focused on his eyes. “A walk sounds like a good idea.”

  He paid for the meal and we left, walking outside until we reached the “official” entrance to the mall. A massive bookstore was to my left, and shops were clustered on my right down either side of a long hallway. We walked along, oddly silent, though I kept looking at him out of the corner of my eye. Every once in a while, I’d catch him looking back, and like a chicken, would pretend I was looking past him at something else.

  It wasn’t hard to pretend that, actually. The stores were a barrage of colors, lights, and products that I’d seen advertised on TV but had never laid eyes on in real life. I stopped at the first of the clothing boutiques; there was a plastic figure, life sized, with no features, wearing clothing in the window. I frowned at it. The dress it was wearing was black and sheer with a low cut neckline and a high hemline.

  “Nice dress.” Zack’s voice had a far-off quality to it.

  “I agree. But what’s that it’s on?” I studied the plastic creation, as though I could discern what it was just by staring.

  “Haven’t you ever seen a mannequin before?”

  “No. What is it?”

  “You know,” he said. “Fake people.”

  “Like Southern Californians?”

  He laughed and I gave up. I’d heard of mannequins before, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing one on TV. We walked past a store filled with mobile phones and I had to curb an impulse to run inside and snatch one up to fiddle with it. Sure, I’d seen people in the Directorate use them, but to me they were still something out of fantasy. We hadn’t even had a regular phone at home.

  We rode an escalator up to the second floor where the movie theater was. The box office had a short line in front of it, and movie posters were plastered into frames on the walls on either side of us. Behind us was an opening that looked down on the first level of the mall and across the wide space to the walkway opposite. Intriguing smells wafted over to me: popcorn from the movie theaters, and from the food court behind us the scent of burgers, Chinese food, and maybe hot dogs; I wasn’t sure.

  We’d decided in advance what to see, and I heard Zack buy two tickets as I continued to look around, mesmerized by the sights, sounds, and smells that were all around me.

  I was staring at an ice cream stand when a flash of dark hair across the gap caught my attention. A woman had been standing at the railing, and I hadn’t noticed her until she moved. Her hair was long, like mine, dark and stretching down around her shoulder blades, and for some reason it looked wild and unkempt to me. She was close to middle age, wore a red dress, shorter than the black one I’d seen before and cut lower at the neck. She turned and I saw her profile. My heart jackhammered at the sight of her, the realization.

  It was Mom.