Locked In: No Way Out Series - Book One

by Ryan, Shari J.

  "I won't hurt you," I say softly.

  "You already have," her mother responds.

  23

  Chapter Eleven

  REESE

  My arms are around my mother's neck. My mother's neck. The warmth, her scent, the softness of her skin—I never thought I'd experience any of this ever again. I had forgotten all of my senses. It's like when Dad died. I took his pillow and I slept on it night after night, inhaling his scent, inhaling all that was left of him until it was gone. The memories always fade just enough to make it impossible to remember exactly what everything felt like or smelled like.

  Tears are rushing down my cheeks and my heart is beating tersely against my chest. I can feel it all. I want to smother myself with the sensory overload. I want to drown in it and erase all of what is behind me.

  Except what is behind me is Sin, who is staring at the two of us with a confused look on his face. Mom seems scared of him, which leaves me questioning what she knows about him. She must blame him, just like Snatcher blamed me for Sin's outcome. It's not fair for either of us.

  "Mom, he's okay. He saved me."

  Her head shakes quickly, sureness written across her face. "No. No. No," is all she says. Her voice. I had forgotten the sweetness, the passionate tone in which she enunciates all of her words.

  Sin places his hands up in defense and takes a couple steps back. "It's okay. I'll wait outside," he says.

  "No, Sin. No. Sit down at the table," I point across the room to the small, oak table we shared so many family dinners at. Standing up, I pull Mom with me as I pull out a chair out for her and for Sin. I sit down on the other side, running my fingers over the worn wood, remembering each scratch and where it had come from. This was one of the only pieces of furniture Mom and I took with us when we moved from Seattle. We couldn't get rid of our family dinner table. The memories, the laughter, the stories, and jokes—too much had happened at this table to throw away such a keepsake. And now here I am, freed from captivity, sitting across from Mom and Sin, who are both staring at me with concern. Both for different reasons, of course.

  "Reese," Mom says quietly, reaching across the table and placing her hand over mine. "This is a hallucination. I am not really here. This house and this table, none of it is really here. But you kept me alive in your mind and that is why you can see me, talk to me, assume what I might say and do if I were to see you again. You know I miss you and you know I haven't given up on you. You also know who you should be wary of trusting, but I know your instincts will keep you safe."

  "This isn't a hallucination, Reese," Sin says to me, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from Mom. "This is real. What she's saying isn't true. I wouldn't be seeing all of this, too, if it weren't real."

  My chest aches. My stomach aches more. I look back over at Mom. "Did you tell him what our house looked like?" she asks.

  "Yes, I told Sin before we came inside," I reply, unsure of what that has to do with anything.

  "Sin. What a peculiar name," she says.

  "Because you know me as Sinon," he grunts.

  "Yes, I do," mom chuckles. "Reese, your mind is weak, as is Sinon's. You can feed into each other's hallucinations. Your mind will believe whatever it is told. It's a powerful weapon you must both be mindful of."

  "Sinon?" I question. "Is that really your name?"

  "Yes, that is my given name; however, I prefer to go by Sin, as I have for the past several years."

  "Wasn't Sinon a Greek god?" I ask. I only ask because I have never heard the name before, outside of my English class when we were learning about the Trojan War.

  "Yes," he says, breaking our stare and peering down at his fidgeting fingers. "The betrayer of Greek Gods. That's what I was named after."

  "Well, it's just a name. It doesn't mean you need to live up to it," I joke with quiet laughter. Becoming sidetracked from the truth that I don't want to consider, I continue to believe this is all real. I will pretend for as long as I can until I'm proven otherwise. "Mom, is there food? We're both very hungry."

  She closes her eyes for a brief second and slowly stands from the table, turning toward the refrigerator. She pulls out two large plates filled with food. She was expecting us…because this isn't real. She places one plate in the microwave and sets the timer. As she prepares the other plate, I look over at Sin, who is now sweating and pale. "Are you okay?"

  "No." He swallows hard and places his head down over his folded arms.

  "Goodness gracious," Mom cries out. "Your head, Sinon. What in the world happened?"

  "The food fight," I explain.

  "Oh dear. Oh that is not good."

  "Can you help him?" I ask her. "You're a nurse." She leans over the table and places her hand down over my shoulder. "Only you can help him, dear." Mom would never leave someone in pain or hurt. This isn't real. Mom takes the second plate from the microwave and places them down on the table. "The memory of taste will quench your hunger temporarily." I've lost my mind. Isn't that the last phase before there are no more phases? Sin keeps mentioning these damn phases. I can only assume this is it after this.

  I shovel in the warm chicken covered in thick brown gravy and fill my mouth with as many roasted potatoes as possible. I don't feel sick from eating too much or too fast as I did earlier with the hawk. I feel as though I could eat for days and never feel full. With much effort, Sin lifts his head and does his best to get some of the food into his mouth, too. His eyes look like they aren't focusing and his cheeks are sagging. I'm scared I'm losing him. "I wish you could help us," I tell Mom, knowing it's no more than words drifting through my own head.

  I take gulps of water from the glass Mom has given me. The coolness of the liquid spilling down my throat is soothing, or I guess only the thought of it is soothing. I close my eyes to relish in the comfort. I wish this were real. I wish I were home. I wish this were a nightmare. But as I open my eyes, I remember that my wishes don't come true. Sin and I are lying in the center of an empty dirt area with nothing in view. No hawks chasing us, no house, no food, no Mom. Just us, sitting in the middle of nowhere, waiting to die. I curl my body into Sin's and wrap my arm around him, holding him closely.

  His arm wraps around me in return and he sighs into my ear. "I may not wake up, Reese."

  "I may not wake up either," I tell him. This is the part I was afraid of. The part when we both give up at the same time. The part where neither of us is strong enough to convince the other to keep pushing forward. I'm eighteen. My life was supposed to be ahead of me. I promised Dad I would go to college and get a good job. That was all he ever wanted. I guess I'm going to have to let you down, Dad.

  "Tell me something about your life before you came to Chipley with your mom," I ask him softly. "If you die first, I want to say the right things when I bury you."

  He groans a little before words percolate on his tongue. "I won the state division for my weight in wrestling. I had a full academic scholarship to Oklahoma State, but I decided to put it on hold for two years to stay with my mom in order to protect her from my dad."

  "You could have been Greek God turned Greek frat boy," I laugh quietly.

  "Well, as for me, I was going to be a nurse like my mom, but I still had three years of high school left. I hadn't really begun to make future plans, and now I'm glad I didn't. I guess I'd feel more sorry for myself than I already do."

  "Am I supposed to say that if I have to bury you first?" A small smile tugs at the corner of Sin's lips, even though his eyes are still closed.

  "No, you can say I was a fighter and a survivor until there was nothing left to survive for."

  "Well if I'm the one saying this, that means I wasn't enough for you to survive for."

  "You're right," I tell him. "Let's just plan to stay alive."

  "Plans don't always work out," he says, his words slurring into a long breath.

  I listen to his even breaths float along the slight breezes. The white noises of the quiet surroundings ease me into a sleep
I've needed for days. I do my best to block out the thought of people trying to eat me, killer birds, and a dream of a life I left behind.

  A dreamless/nightmareless night brings in the morning dew, covering my exposed skin with droplets of water. A chill travels up my spine and my eyes struggle against the heaviness of my lids.

  The chill and the dew immediately disappear when I am able to focus on my surroundings. I'm in my bed at home under a warm blanket with Sin lying beside me. Our naked bodies are meshed together in a tight embrace and a warm flush fills my cheeks. "Sin," I whisper. The whisper seems to echo between the walls, but doesn't have much of an effect over Sin since he doesn't budge. I press the heel of my palm into his side and nudge his heavy body.

  His eyes finally peel open as the sunlight pours into my room, shining directly into his eyes, highlighting the blues and green hues that make up the abstract canvas of beautiful colors within his irises. "Guess we're still alive," he says, inspecting me with a gentle smile.

  "Do you see the bedroom we're in? And the bed we're lying in? Do you see the cream colored walls and the blue teal comforter covering our bare bodies?" I ask.

  "Keep talking," he says.

  "Do you feel the warmth from the sun pouring into the white, trim-framed windows? Do you feel my skin against yours?"

  Sin moves so that he is hovering over me, staring down into my eyes, making me believe this is real. His hands travel aimlessly over my body, warming every inch of me, forcing a sensation of need to travel through every one of my nerve endings. Maybe death would feel like this. His lips press against my neck and down my center, his tongue tracing circles along the way. Would my breaths be so calm if this were happening? Would the swelling ache between my legs keep me begging for more? After he covers every part of me with his tongue, Sin pulls himself back up to where our lips can reconnect. With ease, he slips inside of me, thrusting and grinding his body against mine, bringing about a pleasure that makes me want to cry tears of happiness. The grip he has around my waist isn't tight enough; firm enough, strong enough, and I want more. "I want more." Harder and heavier, his body pounds against mine, my insides swelling with warmth and a mind numbing pleasurable ache. Moans sing from my throat and my body moves on its own accord, keeping in rhythm with his steady movements.

  "I want to feel your body tighten around mine. I want to make you feel everything you've dreamed of feeling," he utters into my ear. But my dreams were never eccentric enough to imagine this. The pain of a first time leads to the pleasure of the second. There is no pain here, wherever here may be. There's flowers blooming, waves of an ocean crashing, and a warm sun melting into my cold skin. There's warm butter melting over a warm dish of food and that is what I feel inside. "I want to make you scream louder. Scream my name."

  As if I have lost all control, I shout his name over and over until my body jerks against his with uncontrolled reflexes. Warmth fills me and makes me feel as though I'm melting into this bed. I let out a long breath and allow the smile to stretch my lips into an arch across my cheeks. One by one, blades of grass tickle my back and the dew droplets I had forgotten about reappear along with the cool breeze. And when I open my eyes, I see Sin, naked…lying over me…smiling a smile I believe is only for me. "The thought of a bed in a warm room was nice, but as long as I'm experiencing you, I don't care where I am," he says.

  He slides over to the side of me and wraps his t-shirt around me. "My head and stomach are actually feeling better this morning." It's a relief I've needed to hear. "No more raw birds."

  "What's happening to me? The hallucinations. Why?"

  "It's both of us. We've been starving for too long and our neurological capabilities are weak. We need to find a steady income of food. We're running out of time."

  24

  Chapter Twelve

  Sin

  THREE DAYS LATER

  Her limp body feels heavy in my arms, regardless of knowing she weighs no more than ninety pounds. Explaining that we're almost there means nothing when she can't hear me. But I tell her anyway. "We're so close, Reese. We're so close." I don't know how I'm running. I don't know how I'm breathing or standing. Surviving the odds doesn't explain my luck. I knew she would be the first to drop. She is skin and bones and her body has nothing to feed off of.

  I don't know how many of them had been following us since we left, or why they had chosen to leave us alone until yesterday, but I've had to outrun them three times now. They must be the ones who win the food battles every week because they have far more energy than I have ever had while living here. Although, that doesn't explain their insatiable hunger for their own species—nothing can explain that.

  "There it is. The rumor was true," I tell her. A condemned stone house with no windows or doors, covered in overgrown ferns and weeds. I run in through the opening, circling around for a minute before setting Reese down in the corner. I press my fingers against the artery on her neck, double-checking to make sure she's still alive.

  Barely. "Hang in there, babe."

  I start tearing up floorboards, looking for this entrance. This urban legend spread as a rumor across the camp of sheds. They—whoever they are—made this place far enough away that most of the starved inmates would never have the means to make it here. Yet, we did. Barely. I get most of the floor torn up before I find a metal door with a latch and a lock.

  "Reese, I found it." I crawl over to her, removing her right boot where she has kept the key I gave her. The key Mom left me for a just in case. She left me a just-in-case form of survival but didn't tell me where it would work or how I could escape. This key has been the only form of hope I've had since the day Mom left.

  As I retrieve the key, Reese stirs slightly, her eyelids fluttering. "I found a door." I don't know if she can hear me or understand me, but in case she can, I want to give her the hope she's needed for so long. I promised her I'd get us out of here. Alive.

  Crawling back over to the door, my heart pounds against my chest and sweat beads over my forehead. My stomach churns into knots as I slip the key into the lock, and I'm shocked to see that it fits smoothly inside. I twist to the right, hearing a click. Confirmation that the key works. Dear God, this is it. The lever is rusted, making me work to release the door from its hinges, but after a short moment, it opens up into a dark hole. A dark hole I will blindly jump into without fear of what is on the other end because it sure as hell can't be worse than what is on this side. I run and grab Reese, seeing more of those assholes out the window. They're walking toward the house and I know I led them here, but they don't have the key. I’ve got to get her down there before they come in. As I'm lifting Reese from the ground, I see one of the guys outside, the larger and stronger of the bunch, now running up the path.

  I slide down into the hole with Reese held tightly under my arm. There's a ladder I'm clinging to as I pull the door down over my head, twisting the latch to lock in place. The banging on the door echoes around us, vibrating the walls closely surrounding our heads. I descend the ladder, wishing I had a free hand to grab my flashlight. Claustrophobia sets in after several minutes of descending into what feels like a bottomless pit. I can't see the end or the beginning now. I just know I'm stuck and it feels like the walls are caving in around me and the air is becoming thick and hard to breathe through. What if I'm just imagining this? That thought has entered my head too many times in the past couple of days.

  My feet finally reach solid ground and there is no more light surrounding me than there was when I was climbing down here. I feel around, my hand finding walls on both sides, telling me I'm in some kind of hall. Walking blindly, sounds begin to grow in volume—whispers. "Who's there?" I shout. Quiet laughter echoes between the walls and I swallow hard, trying my best to ignore the fear running through me.

  "Sinon, go back," I hear. Sinon. Mom?

  "Mom?" I shout. "Where are you?"

  "Sinon, don't come any further. Please, listen to me. You don't understand." Screw that. I'm not going ba
ck there to die. If I die finding my way out of this hell, I'll die with some pride at least. I continue forward until I hit a wall. A metal wall. I feel around from top to bottom and side to side until my hand sweeps over another latch handle. Expecting it to be locked, I'm shocked when the latch unhinges the door. I slide it open, finding light beaming from a stark white room.

  As my eyes adjust to the brightness, I see a wall lined with computers. Lots of them. And there are people sitting at each computer. All of them are now staring at me holding Reese.

  Mom is one of them.

  She jumps from her seat, throwing her arms around me. Pressing away slightly, she grips her hands around my face, looking into my eyes as tears fall from hers. "They're going to kill you," she whispers through a silent cry. "They want you dead, Sinon."

  "I was going to die out there," I grunt.

  "I know," she responds. "I should have known better. This is all my fault. You have to know I had no control over any of this or over the fact that I left you there. That was not what I wanted. You know this, right?"

  "I have hated you for a long time," I tell her honestly. "But I believe you."

  "This poor girl," she says. "Someone help me with her."

  "Uh, they'll kill us too," one of the men says from his seat at a computer.

  "We're going to die down here anyway. For God's sake, Peter. Help me." The man stands up from his chair and runs to Mom's side, taking Reese from my hands.