* * *
Holland stood there staring at me. Her face was twisted. There were mixed emotions she was running through, but I couldn’t tell what was going on in her head. Gabe grabbed her by the hips and whispered in her ear. She smiled at him and kissed him once on the lips before leaving.
Whens she was gone, he stared at me with those red eyes before taking a deep breath. “Holland knew the plan.” He sighed, and it felt like one of our normal conversations except this time I was chained up and he was my enemy.
“She knew that when you were at your weakest point, that she could rejoin me.” He hesitated. He was rambling, something he did when he was unsure. “She did inject those humans with the disease.” He stopped again and I rolled my eyes in response.
“Yeah. She just said that, Gabe.” I say his name as if it were vinegar in my mouth.
He looked menacingly at me. “She did inject those people,” he repeated, “Holland is a nurse. She loves helping people. I told her to go to the hospital to catch up with you. When she got there, there were nurses there. They told her to help everyone by injecting them with the cure to the disease. She believed it intensified their immune systems. She didn’t know what she was injecting people with.” What? “Hell, she didn’t know what she was doing. I did though.” Holland didn’t know what she was truly doing?
“I tricked her. It’s so easy to trick her.” He smiled at me without humor. “She is so good, no, she was so good. She wanted to help those monsters, those useless humans. She didn’t want to hurt anyone.” He stopped but kept my gaze. “Truthfully, she wanted you in on the schemes when she found out what was truly going on. She begged all the time. When you reached the safe house, she was angry with me. She was done. She wanted to leave. She caused so many problems. She killed innocents. But you see she didn’t leave my side. She loves me.”
“It began differently. Holland thought she was injecting people with cures for diseases, those immune system boosters. She didn’t know she was injecting people with the disease. When she finally discovered the truth, she was angry at first, but as always I could convince her to change her mind. Then she told me that she wanted to rid the world of bad people. The disease was given to criminals, I told her.” He laughed bitterly and I cringed away from the sound.
“She is so naïve. The truth is, I didn’t want her in this. I wanted her to not have any part. I wanted her safe but there is nowhere that is safe anymore. You’re either on the side were the abuse is, or you’re the abuser.”
“So she didn’t betray me.” I whispered to myself. He looked at me like I was a pathetic man, which I probably looked pathetic at this moment, being chained up and all.
“She did betray you. Back to my story, before your rudely interrupted me.” He scoffed before continuing. A scoff on him looked silly as ever with the creepy red eyes. Looked scary, but still the same weak man. “All along, she has said that she loved me and she was coming back for me. She understands what we are doing and trying to preserve. And now, she has joined my side finally, once and for all.”
My heart was pounding. What was she doing, really? This was the plan right? It had to be. She was fooling him. I had to believe that was what was going on here.
He stared at me for another moment and scowled when I didn’t say another word. He leaned back in his chair, throwing his hands behind his head and smiled. On the desk were about a dozen knives on a golden tray.
“Our next act is world domination. I think you will want to be alive to see it.” I didn’t answer as I had done all night, and he growled with anger. “Going to ignore me. Try to ignore this then.” He picked the knife up from the desk.
He twirled it once menacingly, before chucking the blade right towards my heart.
Chapter Seven: Mirror, Mirror
Lena
BLOOD WAS POURING from my eyes as I stared at them through the glass. Why was I bleeding? Was this some sort of dream? The mirror. All I could think about was the dream I had where I chased a mirror. Could it have been this very mirror? Was it back to haunt me? I couldn’t chase the mirror this time though. I stared at the haunting image of myself without blinking. I couldn’t look away as the blood poured down my face, staining it red.
It was as if I were crying tears of salty blood, instead of salty water. Was it blood or was it just my eye tint now? Those red eyes glared back at me. I looked terrifying. I looked like a vampire crying. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move. I was trapped in my own body, in my own mind.
“Help.” I wanted to shout, but there would be no sound. It would only come out in my mind. No one was here to help me anyways; not even me. I was a ghost beneath the control. Someone controlled everything about me. I was looking into that mirror with fierceness I didn’t know I possessed. The image of myself was scaring me but I couldn’t turn away. My body was stuck here.
There was an uncomfortable weight on me. It felt as if my lungs were collapsing, and my body would be immobile forever. I knew there was no one here pushing me down to the floor, I knew I was alone but I wasn’t alone on the inside. Gabe was controlling me, and he was controlling me from a distance. He didn’t have to be next to me. He didn’t even have to look at me directly.
I could hear him. He was always in my thoughts, near me in my mind, taunting me. He was screaming to me, in my head. He shouted, “Stay put until I say differently. I want you to stare ahead. Stare at that mirror.” And so I did, because nothing mattered but staring into that mirror. I stared into the emptiness. I stared into the void. It was hopeless. I was lost. My body was rigid, and I wasn’t moving an inch because I wasn’t myself any longer. I wasn’t Lena. I was a number on his control range.
I felt like I had two minds inside my body. One mind was the Lena I love, the one talking right now. The second mind was this mindless being, which made me stay put. This was the mind that Gabe had complete control over. She was completely content with listening to a scared boy who used his intelligence to control her.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to rip open my body and shove her right on out, but I couldn’t and she knew it, and if she could smile, she would smile because she knew there was no escape. There was no way out.
I was going insane, wasn’t I? Where was Jared, and why couldn’t he save me? I saw him being beaten, and taken. I felt myself coming through, but then Gabe grabbed control of me again. A part of me wished that Jared had given up, and left me here to live his life somewhere where they couldn’t touch him.
What life?
The world was over. Even if Jared had given up on me, he would have to face a world alone. A broken, corrupt, vile world, where robots roam and evil geniuses rule. What kind of world is that?
If he got out of this alive, he would never be the same. The world had broken him with betrayal. He had no one left. No one left who cared for him. No one who could show the love they felt for him. My love was trapped deep inside me, where the Lena he loved lived.
Jared was the love of my life, and I was his, but no one wanted to see something pure and good. No one wanted to see anything worthy of redemption. Instead, Gabe and Dr. Ravana wanted to destroy what was good in the world. They wrecked everything in their wake. They destroyed all that was decent in the world.
“Lena.” Something whispered to me. I felt my skin crawling. What was that? I couldn’t move myself, I couldn’t move my eyes but before me in the mirror, I could see light around me, particularly around my neck.
What was happening? I panicked inside. I was swarming in a vast wonderland on the inside, but on the outside, my body wasn’t moving at all. “Lena.” It said again, and I was afraid, but it didn’t matter. Someone could come up beside me and cut my throat, and I wouldn’t be able to defend myself.
“This is the only hope. You are the only hope. Remember that?” I couldn’t speak back but I knew that voice from miles away. I wasn’t a voice that scared me. It was a voice I welcomed in my mind. It was my dad. He was calling to me, but from where?
The glowing was blinding, but I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to. The sight enraptured me. It almost looked as if the light was coming from within me.
I wanted to touch it, to capture its very essence. Then, all of the sudden, the glowing stopped. My throat constricted. I felt empty without that glow, and I couldn’t fathom why.
Before I had time to mourn the light disappearing, it sparked once more. I watched as the lights dimmed around my chest. Around the shocks of sparks, I saw my necklace. It lay on top of my breast. The necklace was more than just a key shaped necklace with diamonds. That key was the very spirit of me. My father, my mother, my family, my truth, my soul, all within a single necklace.
My father’s voice once more filled my mind. “Listen to me carefully.” And then he was talking at an inhuman speed, but I could keep up. Chills ran down my spine. He told me secrets. He told me he loved me. He told me exactly what to do. Just as soon as he was there, he was gone. As soon as his whispering stopped, the intense light went to a small glow, showing me that it was still working.
I felt my body in that moment. The trapped Lena was free. I was free. The ability to move seemed to return to me after he stopped talking. I could wiggle my fingers if I so choose to, but I knew I couldn’t. I wanted to move, I urged myself to, but I still couldn’t. I had to stay put.
Gabe must have felt the fight in me, because pressure was weighting down on my body once more. I felt Gabe there, but I felt myself over everything else. Gabe would never control me. He never truly could before, but now that power was gone from him forever as long as my necklace was around my neck. My father was here beyond the grave inside my necklace. He was here to wreck havoc on his partner’s plans through me.
I had everything now. My secret weapon was with me the entire time.
Chapter Eight: The Secret
THE DOOR OPENED, and I forced my eyes forward to face that mirror once more. I couldn’t move, and risk revealing my newfound power. “Lena?” Whoever it was spoke softly, and I squinted ever so slightly in the mirror to see who was behind me.
Clementine.
She scurried around, blocking the mirror and dropped on her knees with a thud in front of me, while gripping my face. “Oh shit. I am too late.” She took a long look at my necklace. She always wanted it. I knew she would try to take it from me. I couldn’t defend myself without giving myself away, so if she attempted to take my necklace, I would have two options. Let her, or kill her to hide the fact that I was no longer under control.
“It’s glowing, that is good news.” She was touching my necklace, a little too possessive for my liking. Then she tried. She tried to take it. As soon as her hand gripped the necklace, a breeze from an unseen force whipped my hair forward. The wind sped to a powerful force, and before I knew it, she was being propelled into the air. Without warning, she slammed into the wall the opposite side of me. She didn’t move when she smacked head first into the floor.
Oh no.
“Shit.” She cursed under her breath, and I felt like sighing in relief because she was okay. She picked herself up finally. She slowly paced back to me, before kneeling before me once more.
“Okay. I guess taking it isn’t a good idea then.” She laughed, but that laugh quickly silenced as she frowned. “This is extremely creepy. God, it’s like I am talking to myself. Anyone in there?” She waved her hands in front of me but I knew I was staring at her blank, and red eyed.
“I didn’t want to result to this, but I think this is the only way, isn’t it?” I didn’t answer. She knew I wouldn’t. I didn’t know why she was even talking out loud at this point.
She looked deep in thought, and she kept looking into my eyes. I faced forward, unseeing into her eyes, and didn’t blink at all.
“Lena, this might hurt.” On a normal day, I would have winced or throat punched her for whatever I thought was coming next. Instead, I waited for pain, but there was nothing. She stared at me for a good two minutes, and I wanted to laugh at how uncomfortable I was in this situation. I didn’t feel a thing except a weird sensation running through my body. I felt like my body was being invaded in some type of way but I stayed still.
Finally, she broke eye contact with me. I wanted to exhale a big breath. I felt as if I were made of stone from the long encounter.
Her once black hair was brown. Her eyes were red before me and I felt fear that she had just revealed that she was evil too.
She stood suddenly and I wanted to gasp at the sight. Before me stood a woman with wavy brown locks, and red eyes. She was beautiful. Her stance was predatory, yet poised. She was me. Down to her red high heels. I couldn’t breathe from the sight. Did she just clone me?
Then she spoke quickly. “Lena, I can now become you at any moment. You’re probably afraid but don’t be. If it comes down to it, they won’t know who the real Lena is.” She smiled at the thought, but all I could do was feel butterflies of nerves in the pit of my belly.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “God, just like a wall.” She shook her head as if to get the situation out of her head, and looked back down at me. “Lena, I am trying to help. You probably don’t trust me or even like me, but I am a friend.”
“I was a friend of Dr. Alona’s. Truly I was. Please trust me.” I felt my heart racing. She transformed back into herself in a blink of an eye. In that moment, I realized how much older Clementine was than me. It took watching her become me and then back to herself to see that simple fact.
“You have friends here. Don’t forget who you are, Lena.” She turned from me, and when she reached the door, she looked back at me with a smile. “I hope this isn’t goodbye. But if it is, tell your family hello in heaven because that’s where they will be, and that’s where you will go. Tell your father I did everything I promised I would. Tell Jared how much he means to me too. Would you?”
She was gone in an instant, and all I could think about was what did she promise, and why did Jared matter to Clementine at all?
Chapter Nine: Straight to the Heart
Jared
THE KNIFE PLUNGED deep inside the mahogany wall, just an inch beside my head. I took a huge gulp of air. He missed me by an inch. Only an inch.
He stared at me with those red, angry eyes and he didn’t look away. The silence was eerie as hell. I broke it quickly. “Why not just hit me with the knife?”
“That would be too easy, Jared. Don’t you know that by now? We have had countless opportunities to kill you, and we let you walk away, alive, so many times.”
“Why? What is the point of any of this?”
“You know the answer to that, Jared.” Gabe rolled his eyes. I didn’t, but I didn’t ask anything else. He picked up another knife from the desk. “Let’s play a game, shall we?” He teased me. I stared on uneasy.
“You tell me what I want to know, and each time you answer wrong, a knife will be thrown in your direction, how about that?” he smirked. He didn’t give me time to answer before he asked something. “What did Dr. Alona leave for you in Lena’s house?”
A note to keep Lena safe. That was my very first failure.
“No answer?” he screamed but I wouldn’t budge. “Is that your final answer, Jared?” He raised his hand quickly, and before I knew it the blade was coming straight for me. The knife plunged into my forearm and I cried out in pain.
“That’s just the first cut of the night. The easiest of the questions.” He smiled at me and I wanted to knock it off his face.
He picked up the next knife, and twirled it around. “What is the antidote? Is it real? Does Lena have it?” The questions came out faster than I could comprehend. He didn’t hesitate before throwing the knife at full speed towards my neck.
It punctured the wall. I could feel the cold knife against my neck, although it didn’t knick me.
“I bet you’re wondering why I am such a good thrower of knives, when I have never thrown a knife in my life.” He rambled on. “Ask me why.” He shouted.
When I
didn’t, he approached me fast and jerked my hair so I had to look at him. “I said, ask me why.” He said through clenched teeth. He took the knife he had in his hand, and placed the cool blade on my forehead. I didn’t speak. He pressed it into my forehead, until I felt the sting.
“Ask me.”
“Why, Gabe?” I finally said as a small trail of blood ran down my face.
“It’s funny you should ask.” He said as he turned to walk back to the desk with knives. “I have all the powers of the robots now, but I am not a robot. To control them, you have to understand them. You have to know what they’re thinking, at all times.” He hesitated and stared at me for a long time.
“Here is the thing. I observe people. I have watched them for years, trying to understand why people were so rotten inside. I hated people. I loathed mankind for as long as I could remember. I wanted to destroy the way humanity was for so long. I wanted to change the hate, but I couldn’t because I felt the anger. I felt the bitterness, and I couldn’t change the world for good when I was so angry inside. I could only change the world for the worst. And now, here I stand.”
“Your father hates humanity as much as I do. He taught me everything. Everything I feel, he felt first. That is why the two of us made such a good team. Lena’s father created the disease for the good of mankind. He wanted to see the good in the world, but there is no good in the world. You’re staring right at the pit of the world. I control it. You’re staring at what hate and anger can do. Evil triumphs good every single time.” I wanted to believe the contrary to that, but he was right. Evil was staring me right in the face, and I was the good one, tied up and unable to fight evil.
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