The screaming in my mind takes over, drowning out all reason and logic. Make her stop! Make her stop saying these things!
“Ahh!” I scream and propel my body forward, colliding with a thwack into my former boss.
We tumble to the carpeted floor and I roll on top of her. Her eyes go wide as I straddle her, and her mouth twists and contorts in fear. The screams blare in my head and I bring my fist back, thinking about nothing but wiping that smirk off her face. She doesn’t know me, doesn’t understand what I’m going through. Doesn’t see how powerful I am with the Vertix, or how powerless I am without it.
Beneath me she struggles to break free, but I hold her tight between my thighs, my sharp bones digging into her waist. Strangled cries fall from her lips and I realize that my other hand is wrapped around her throat. Her green eyes bulge in fear and for a moment, I hesitate, confused why I’m there. Then her expression changes as the chants intensify and the evil grin falls back into place, pulling apart her ruby red lips.
Kill her, punish her! Shut that pretty mouth! the voices rasp.
“Ahhh,” I cry out again, blinded by the red of her lips, reminding me of Andy’s blood all over the street. My hand surges forward and back again and again and I’m punching and screaming until hands drag me away and throw me.
The hard smack as I hit the floor doesn’t deter me. I don’t stop throwing my fists. In my blind rage all I can hope is that they hit something. The flight instinct takes over and I scramble to my feet. Someone grabs me from behind as someone else grabs hold of my flailing fists.
The room is blurring. I think Jeremy is standing in front of me. He’s holding my wrists. Ms. Robins is lying on the ground behind him. I can’t see if she’s breathing, but I hear the sound of someone gagging.
She deserves to die after what she said to you. The demons inside my mind laugh.
I try to remember the moment before I hit her, remember the words I heard whisper from her lips, but I can’t quite nail down the memory. I feel the vibration of Jeremy’s voice rock through me and follow his gaze as someone new approaches the office. A police officer. His walkie cackles with static as Jeremy steps away. A glint of silver sparkles under the florescent lights as the officer moves behind me and I feel the sting of cold metal bite into my skin as my arms are wrestled behind me and secured.
Do something, the voices urge.
“Wait, stop! Don’t! Arrest her! Take her! She knows things! She’s been spying on me! No!” I scream. The cop ignores me and I kick back, connecting with his shin. He curses. “Andy!” I shriek. “Andy, help me!”
My call is in vain. I’ve alienated everyone around me and my brother can’t help me anymore.
You killed him.
Robins’ voice echoes all around me, and this time I know I’m imagining it. I push the guilt away and focus on the man wrestling me out of the office. “Please, stop!” I beg. I hear voices talking all around me and feel my resolution slipping. I don’t know what’s real anymore. Please stop. I just want it to be quiet. I just want to be left alone.
“There, right there, she’s got one of those Vertixes on her neck. Take it off before she hurts herself,” I hear one of the female cops command.
Cold fingers grip my neck and hold it steady, preventing me from turning away. I hear the Vertix gasp as the sensors are torn from my muscles by the officer’s grip.
“Give it to me, I’ll hold it,” the female officer instructs. The Vertix is lifted off my neck with a rough tug and I feel naked, alone. “Someone bring a towel, she’s bleeding.”
A commotion starts as the squad tries to locate something to stem my blood, but the bleeding doesn’t bother me, the loss of my Vertix does. I kick half-heartedly one last time as the lights begin to dim and the voices blur and blend together into one deep, monotone word.
Losing.
The single word slurs through my mind like thick mud and then I fall into unconsciousness.
A metallic clang jolts me awake. I sit up from the concrete floor and look around, wondering how long I’ve been asleep and where I’ve ended up now.
The small room is crowded with other women, some sitting on the floor or the worn steel benches. A few stand at the thick iron bars of our cell, hollering at the woman officer who has just entered.
I’m in jail.
I leap up from the grimy floor and avoid looking down at myself. The smell of urine and cigarette smoke is strong, and my stomach churns. I reach to the back of my neck and the reassuring weight of my Vertix is missing; nothing but greasy hair greets me.
How long have I been here? How do I get out? The questions fire in my mind as I try to remember how I got here. Blood, yes there was a lot of blood. And Ms. Robins—I hit her. I shake my head to dislodge the gruesome images.
“Stone, Margaret?” a voice asks, and I realize the officer is looking at me. She has blonde hair tied in a knot and isn’t wearing a stitch of makeup. She consults her clipboard and looks at me again.
“Yes, that’s me. Can I go?” I ask.
The woman frowns as she removes a pair of handcuffs from her belt. “Come with me.”
Okay. This is all a misunderstanding. Just go with her and talk. I hold out my hands and allow her to cuff me.
The woman grasps my arm and leads me out of the cell and down a long hallway. She motions me into an empty room with a table and a few chairs. I enter and sit.
“So,” she begins, taking a seat across the table. “Margaret Stone, you are being charged with assault and battery on your former employer Miss Fiona Robins. We have it stated that the arresting officers recited your rights at Red Leaf Literary so I’ll move on with the rest of the list.”
I feel myself drifting as the itching begins. I look at the handcuffs holding me hostage. Think of something else.
“Could you tell me where you were on the night of December 24th at two-thirty in the morning?”
I shrug. “I think I was at home,” I reply as my stomach starts to flip. The rancid smell of old urine has become too much. I’m awake and my body knows the Vertix is gone.
“Interesting,” the cop says, making a note on her clipboard. “Because when we ran your DNA through the system, it came back with an exact match to the prints and blood droplets left at a crime scene in one of the shops located in the Scarlet Meadows Plaza Plaza. Any thoughts regarding that?”
Shit. “Um…no, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lie, fighting down the urge to puke in her face. The room is spinning, blurring at the edges. Just keep it together for a little longer.
“Right, well we’ll see about that. Until then, we have enough evidence and probable cause to keep you here until the judge decides. Your bail is set at fifty thousand dollars,” she announces. “You get nice and comfy now.”
I am led back to the cell full of women, the door locked behind me. I walk into the corner and sit on the cold concrete, trying to think. Help me, Vertix! What do I do now?
Sarah was right. Paul was right. Everyone was right.
Paul’s words come back, descending upon me like a horde of excited bats. You and the people you love will end up getting hurt. I had smashed in his skull.
My hands start to shake and I know that I can’t hold down my nausea any longer. Making a mad dash for the single toilet located in the corner behind a pathetic, waist-high privacy wall, I let my insides fly. Most of it makes it into the bowl.
All around me I hear the women groan and curse, holding their noses and rushing to the other side of the cell. “Yo, get this junkie outta here!” one woman cries.
“Come on, Mama, get it together,” another girl calls. “Now we got to smell all that nasty too.”
“Get her ass outta here!”
“Filthy Wired!”
I lean against the wall next to the toilet, ignoring the shouts and insults they hurl at me.
“Get your shit together!”
“Maggie?”
I almost don’t hear it, but then it calls again
.
“Sarah?” I whisper, crawling around the edge of the curtain and peering around the room. I spot her. Sarah, standing there on the other side of the bars, looking perfect as ever. I scramble to my feet and move toward the bars. The women give my vomit-stained self a wide berth. “Sarah, what are you doing here?” I feel my voice catch and know I’m going to cry.
“Your parents called. The police called them,” Sarah answers, looking me over with sad eyes. “Is it true?”
I open my mouth, remember where I am and close it. “Um…I don’t think I can talk about it without a lawyer,” I mumble, dropping my gaze to the dirty floor. Yes, Sarah, it’s all my fault. I messed up so bad.
“Oh,” Sarah says. I look up and see her eyes are also filling with tears. “I don’t have the money to bail you out, Maggie. Your parents are on their way though.” Her gaze drops. I wonder if she can’t bear to look at me.
I look down and take in the puke and blood stains on my clothing. “I got sick,” I explain. “They took my Vertix.”
Sarah’s shoulders slump. “It’s really hard to see you like this, Maggie, but I think you need it. You need to get away from that, that thing,” she scolds, as if the Vertix were something terrible and not essential to my life.
I shake my head and lick my dry, cracked lips. “No, no that’s the thing, Sar. I need it, I need the Vertix to get through my day to…survive,” I whisper. “Do you think you could talk to the guards up there, maybe the one with the blonde hair and ask her to give it back to me? Just for a little while, until I run the battery down again or something? Please?”
Sarah’s expression changes from worried to cold and hard. “Did you really just ask me that? After everything that has happened, after everything that your addiction to that stupid, revolting thing has caused, you’d still sell your soul just to see it?” Sarah rasps. “I came all the way down here to try, to give you one last chance to save our friendship, to get you some real help. But you don’t care. The only thing you care about is sticking that machine to your neck and letting the whole world go blank around you. Can you even see how much you’ve hurt me, your parents, Andy? Can you even understand what has happened? He’s dead because of you—dead.”
My mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for oxygen. I want to apologize, say something, but my throat has swollen and I can’t get the words out.
“You know what? This time, I’m really done with you, done with trying to salvage who you were before all this,” Sarah says as she gestures to me, already turning away. “Good luck, Maggie.”
“Please, Sarah, wait!” I cry, shoving my arms through the iron bars, trying to catch her. Please, please!
Sarah stops and looks over her shoulder at my outstretched arms. If she comes back we can go back to how we were before, we can still be friends. She can help me get better.
Please.
Sarah doesn’t come back. She shakes her head and shoves her hands into her pockets. “I told you, I’m done, Maggie.”
Her words bite like acid as my tiny flame of hope sputters and dies, leaving nothing but a thin wisp of gray smoke between us.
• • • • •
“Stone, you’ve got visitors. You made bail,” the officer barks, shaking me from my self-pity. The cell door rattles open.
Visitors? Who would visit me?
The other women back away from the entering officer, and I can see my parents on the other side of the bars. My dad’s hair has turned gray since I last saw him, and my mother looks frail. She bursts into tears at the sight of me.
Guilt plants itself in my chest, making breathing difficult. I caused so much pain. I distanced myself from my friends and family, got my brother killed, and ruined my career, friendship, and life, all to have a few more minutes in the virtual world. A wave of disgust rolls through me.
I caused all of this for My World, for a few stupid apps. I press the heel of my hand into my breastbone hard. The desire to link up and connect is still strong, making my body shake.
Maybe if I can just use the Vertix for a second…
What am I thinking? That horrible thing put me here, yet I want to dive in again?
Reality is too much. A firm hand grasps my arm and pulls me to my feet, toward my parents.
“How are you doing, honey?” my dad asks as I exit the cell. He is blinking back tears.
“Are you okay, baby?” my mom cries, reaching for me.
“Hi, Mom,” I say as I walk into her arms. I must smell rancid, but she pulls me close and my father reaches out to grip my shoulder.
“Let’s go home, Maggie,” my mom whispers.
I follow them, feeling both numb and alive. I have messed up my entire life. Everyone was right. I threw it all away. They’ve taken my Vertix and I need it back. I don’t know how to function, to live without it. Even after everything I’ve done, I need it.
“And here are your things,” a man behind the counter says, handing me a small cardboard box. I peer inside, eager to see my gleaming copper baby.
You killed him.
The guilt is crushing. I focus on the box before me. Nestled amongst my two hair ties, an old mint, and Sarah’s diamond necklace, is my Vertix, quiet and beautiful.
You killed him.
I reach in and scoop up the small machine. Revulsion battles euphoria as my fingertips trace the smooth edges that I know so well.
You killed him…
Just one minute…
You killed him…
I gather up the delicate gold chain tangled around one of the hair ties and shove it in my pocket.
You killed him.
I leave the rest of the junk in the bottom of the box and nod to the officer.
“Come on, Maggie,” my dad says.
All three of us are quiet as we walk out of the police station. My mom keeps an arm around me and I can feel the warmth of my father’s hand on my back.
They should have just left me here to rot.
I wonder where they’re taking me as my father pulls out of the parking lot of the police station, my mother still holding me in the back seat. I don’t know if I care. A silence settles. I feel myself relax a little as my mother strokes my greasy hair and crusty forehead.
A half hour into the drive, she breaks the silence. “I’ve been calling a few different places to see if they have any programs that might help you,” she says. “There’s a really quaint one up in New Hampshire. It’s in a cute little valley, in a small town. On the way to get you I called and made arrangements for us to check it out on Thursday.”
I imagine sitting in a circle with random strangers and sharing my feelings on the loss of my Vertix, of my brother, of my life. I can’t think about it now so I simply nod.
“We’re going to get through this together,” my father adds.
I nod again, feeling as though my eyelids now weigh ten pounds each. My breath sighs between my lips and I snuggle closer to my mother’s warmth as she continues to talk. I could sleep for days.
“—and I’m sorry it’s such short notice, honey, but we didn’t want to delay it.”
I frown, not opening my eyes. “Delay what? Is it Thursday already?”
My mom sniffs. “Maggie, this is important. I said we’re going to be holding Andy’s funeral tomorrow,” she says. “Your dad and I would love it if you said something.”
At first I don’t answer—can’t answer. All I see is Andy’s pale blue face, the dark red blood drifting toward me over the asphalt. I wish I could erase the image, replace it with a happy memory. Instead, every time I picture my brother, the horrible vision of the last time I saw him fills every inch of my mind, leaving room for nothing else.
It’s all my fault. Everything that’s happened within the last few months is because of me. I’m not sure I could speak. Would Andy even want me to? What can I say? Andy was a great brother until he walked into traffic? I was too selfish to stay and make sure he was okay. He should be remembered for the good times, praised. I
’m not the right person to do that.
Hot tears roll down my cheeks and heavy sobs make my whole body quake. I can’t imagine what my parents are thinking and feeling right now. Losing a son and finding their daughter in jail.
“I’m s-so s-sorry,” I stutter between sobs. I don’t know what exactly I’m apologizing for. Everything and anything. If only that mattered. I’m too little, too late.
My mom runs her hand down the side of my head. “Shh, shh, don’t. We’ll talk about everything after the funeral,” she says.
I swallow the massive lump in my throat and get lost in the comforting rhythm of her touch. A comfort I don’t deserve, but even my mother’s warmth can’t keep the monsters away. As the car merges onto the busy street, the windows of nearby buildings transform into glaring eyes and the cackling voices return, swarming without mercy.
You killed him. Now he’s rotting in the dark while you run free.
Murderer.
Murderer.
I squeeze my eyes as tightly as I can, praying. Maybe if I stare into the darkness long enough, the world will swallow me whole.
The little silver device sits before me on the bedspread, quiet yet intimidating. I run my palms along the soft fabric of my jeans and exhale. This is something I have to do. I can’t put it off any longer.
Biting my lower lip, I reach for the pre-paid flip phone and open it to reveal the tiny screen and large buttons. Before I lose my nerve, I punch in the sequence I could never forget. I hold my breath as I wait for the call to connect. I should just hang up. I’m the last person she wants to hear from.
“Hello, you’ve reached Sarah’s voicemail,” a smooth, robotic voice answers. “Please leave your message and I will relay it to Sarah.”
A quick beep signals it’s my turn to speak and with one last steadying breath, I begin. “Hey, Sarah, it’s Maggie. I know it’s been years since we’ve seen each other, let alone talked, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m doing much better. I was recently released from prison so I’m back with my parents for a while until I can get back on my feet. I just got a job at Subway so that’s a start. It’s nothing glamorous, but it’s stable. I know I put you through a lot of crazy stuff and that I hurt you really badly. While in prison, I attended a weekly rehab program that helped me realize my mistakes. You’d laugh if you saw the phone I’m talking on right now. It’s probably one of the very first models they came out with,” I say. “Anyway, I was just wondering if you wanted to maybe get together sometime and try to be friends again. If you don’t return my call I won’t be upset. My life is full of regret and losing you and Andy will always be the one that I carry with me every day. Have a wonderful life, Sarah. I know that from now, I’m going to try.”
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