Just then I notice the silence and I turn. Until now, they’d been yelling at each other, although I’d blocked out their screeching and tried to ignore them. But now they stand, glaring each other down, the criminal with a slightly smug expression plastered across his face.
Abruptly Administrator Edelin turns to me with sudden ferocity. “His arm,” he snaps. “Crush it.” The words are blunt and callous as if he has no idea the real implications of his demand.
I blink. My heart freezes in my chest as his words form meaning in my mind, bringing forth a sense of horror. My eyebrows crease together and my mouth opens. “What?” I ask blankly.
“You heard me!” Edelin nearly shrieks with anger. “Crush his arm. Crush it.”
My mouth hangs open in shock and as I catch sight of the criminal I see that his smug face is gone, replaced by a slightly terrified one. He opens his mouth to utter some excuse, some pardon, but Edelin cuts him off.
“It’ll be an example to the people. Not to disobey like you.” His bitter, gray eyes seem to glare holes into the criminal’s head while they both stand there shaking; Edelin from anger and the other man from fear.
“Penelope!” Edelin roars and I stumble back a step.
Suddenly anger rises from within me as I realize that this man can do nothing, physically, to hurt me. “Don’t call me that,” I snap quietly, taking a step towards him. Jed calls me Penelope and the name sounds evil and twisted coming from Edelin’s lips.
“I told you to break his arm,” Edelin spits, reaching for my wrist, but I yank it away, sending his backwards with a snap. His eyes widen in surprise as he pulls his arm away, his wrist twisted just enough to hurt.
His gray eyes harden more than I thought possible and he turns to the guards behind me. “Take her back,” he snarls and I feel a hand on my arm yanking me towards the door.
I easily pull away from the guard’s grasp, but he points his gun at me and I’m forced to walk complacently down the corridor to my room. The door clangs behind me and I’m left in stillness, the rapid beating of my heart threatening to overwhelm me.
. . .
The next day, two guards come for me and at gunpoint I’m forced out of my room and down the hallway. I’m shoved by the gun barrels into an overly antisepticised, sterile room, the smell assaulting me and reminding me of the shots Jed gave me; surprisingly comforting because it reminds me of Jed, but terrifying because it also reminds me of what he turned me into.
I look around the room, the white sheeted bed and the table of tools beside it; sharp-looking objects and scary metal instruments whose use I have no desire to find out.
I suddenly wonder why I’m here and my breathing becomes faster.
Then I notice the doctor standing only feet away and my heart races. A confused frown surfaces on my face as I stare into the brown of eyes someone vaguely familiar.
“I’m sorry, Penelope,” Dr. Duquesne says quietly, his soft brown eyes nearly melting with guilt. “I have no choice.”
I open my mouth to ask what he means when I’m suddenly grabbed and pulled towards the table. I get away easily, easier than I had imagined, and edge toward the other end of the room, adrenaline forcing me to ignore the guns pointed at my face.
“What are you talking about?” I ask Duquesne, suddenly feeling frightened and betrayed. “What did you do?”
He shakes his head and looks as if he’s about to cry. “It’s not what I’ve done,” he answers. “It’s what I’m about to do.”
Too late, do I realize how close he is to me; too close. Close enough to shove a small needle into my arm, my skin stinging and my arm aching in frantic protest. I make some strangled noise and pull violently away from him, sending the half-empty syringe clinking to the floor. I gasp as the upper part of my arm goes numb and take another step backwards, bumping into the counter behind me.
“What was that?” I ask, but my words begin to sound jumbled and quiet and suddenly Duquesne’s face doesn’t look like Duquesne’s, but Jed’s. And then Edelin’s. The guard’s faces blur in front of me, mixing into some weird human-like form and the table a few feet away from me wavers like a boat at sea.
I reach my hands out to grasp the countertop, but realize too late that I’m no longer anywhere near it. I feel Duquesne grip my arms as my legs buckle from beneath me and then the world goes black before my head hits the floor.
22
My head throbs as if someone’s gone at it with an axe, pounding like sharp jabs every few seconds; a weird rhythm that doesn’t stop. My head nearly screams as I open my eyes and bright lights beat down on me, sending dark spots dancing across my vision and bile rising in my throat as my skull seems to hammer against itself.
I wonder where I am and where all this pain came from. My mind is foggy and my vision is blurry. I can’t make out shapes, I can’t make out noises, I can barely tell if it’s a bed or a table I’m lying on. I feel nauseous.
I bring my hand to my forehead, resting it against my skin and feeling it slightly cool. I make a small moaning sound but stop when it only makes my head ache harder.
Suddenly I hear a voice but squeeze my eyes shut as the sound reverberates through my skull like a bullet. “Penelope?”
I make a whimpering sound and I can hear footsteps scuffling away. They return a moment later and my mouth is pried open, something small dropped inside. A cup of water is brought to my mouth and I’m instructed to swallow. I do, my throat feeling scratchy and dry.
“That should help your head,” the voice says and this time I recognize it as Dr. Duquesne.
I want to yell at him for injecting me with whatever it was that knocked me out, and for whatever he did to my head, but it would probably hurt too much so I stay silent. I grit my teeth together, holding in the rude comments and trying to keep my head from feeling like exploding.
“It was successful,” I hear him mutter, almost regretfully, his tone sending a shiver tingling up my spine. If he’s upset about it, I might as well be frantic. Thousands of thoughts flit through my mind like deranged butterflies, making absolutely no sense. I wonder if it’s from panic, or from whatever drugs they gave me.
“What did you do?” I manage to blurt out, wincing as each word slides by with a pang through my head. I’m beginning to feel sick. I’m frightened and my headache is affecting my whole body.
“An operation,” Duquesne says, obviously avoiding the truth.
I want to snap at him to get to the point, but I choose my words carefully, avoiding as much pain as possible. My whole body is starting to ache. “What kind of operation?” Dread rises within me and my stomach is starting to feel sick from the pounding in my head. My thoughts seem too loud; painful.
“Brain...” Dr. Duquesne trails off like he isn’t finished with the sentence but is deciding not to tell me more.
“Brain?” I yelp, clutching my forehead as it sears and throbs.
“I’m sorry, Penelope, I had to. They didn’t give me a choice; my family,” Duquesne talks faster than my mind can register and before he’s finished, I hear a door open and somebody walk in. I turn my head, opening my eyes from their squint to see that it’s Administrator Edelin.
He gives me a long, hard look before turning to Duquesne. “Did it work?” he barks. Duquesne nods quickly, his eyebrows creased together. I see a large smile slide across Edelin’s face like a snake, distorting his already plastic and frigid features. “Good,” he murmurs.
My eyes dart back and forth between Duquesne and Edelin while my head thrums with possible ideas. Horrible ideas. I reach up to touch the back of my head where the skin is still tender and stings.
“What did you do?” I ask again, my voice harder and angrier this time. I glare at Administrator Edelin and at Duquesne as well, even though he had tried to excuse himself from blame. But Edelin only laughs; a short, snorting sound.
“Penelope,” Edelin says slowly, reaching for something Duquesne has clasped tightly in his hands; a small rectangular b
ox. He snatches it from Duquesne’s fingers and begins poking at the buttons. “I’d like you to walk over to the other side of the room and touch the wall.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea this early. She’s still recovering,” Duquesne murmurs, but Edelin waves him silent.
I pause, staring at him in perplexity, looking over to the blank wall and back. Duquesne’s expression has fallen into pity and Edelin looks excited and hungry; his eyes glimmering weirdly. “There’s nothing over there,” I state simply. “Why...?”
Suddenly my legs twitch, sending a gasp from between my lips. Not just an itch or a shudder; movement. Muscles ripple beneath my skin without being asked and just then my legs begin to move and all of a sudden I’m off the table and walking across the room. Panic floods me as I try to override whatever it is inside my body that’s taking control, taking me away; taking my body away. My head pounds with every step but I’m too distracted and frantic to care. I can feel my leg muscles moving normally, my stride is still my stride; I can feel my arm reach out to touch the cool, white wall, the cold seeping into my skin; naturally, yet disturbing beyond comprehension.
What I don’t feel is the thought. Thinking about moving, the action of moving, the decision of moving. Just. Moving.
My hand hits the wall harder than it normally would as my coordination is lost because of my distraction; I’m not in control. My hand presses against the wall while my heart rattles in my chest and my breathing comes out in wavered gasps. Slowly, I feel the control slipping back into my grasp and suddenly my hand is my own, not only can I feel the sensation, but the power as well.
The now limited power.
I gasp as I stand against the wall, staring down at the legs that have just betrayed me. The ones I thought were mine; only mine. I yank my arms away from the wall and clasp my hands together against me, as if trying to hold all my power in.
It’s my body. It’s mine. But Edelin now controls it.
And that’s when I remember and realize how powerful I – no, this body – can be. My legs are shaking as I turn around to stare into Administrator Edelin’s triumphant face. My mouth opens but no words come out. My mind balks as I try to find something, anything to utter, but I come up with nothing. There’s nothing to say, nothing to explain or ask.
My body. I was afraid of it when it was my own. I was afraid of what it could do. And now it’s no longer mine. It’s theirs. It’s just a shell, except I don’t control it anymore. I’m only trapped within it. A soul inside of a killing machine.
Edelin’s smile grows wider as he takes in my expression and distress. “Penelope Trump,” he murmurs. “The living marionette.” He pauses to give Duquesne a gloating glance.
I turn away from him, staring down at my shaking hands; the hands that won’t do what I ask anymore, but what Edelin does. The hands that could save people, hurt people, murder people.
“My puppet.”
23
“Brain cell stimulation,” I hear Duquesne mutter quietly to Edelin, gesturing his hands in the same way Jed does, but the rest of his words are obscured by the sudden roaring within my eardrums and the world begins to wiggle as I think about what’s just been done to me.
I see Edelin across the room, talking nonchalantly with Duquesne as if this is just another day, another girl, another experiment. Another life taken and twisted; contorted and perverted.
I feel despair as I hear Duquesne begin to prognosticate my condition to Edelin, and then just as quickly, anger. Fury simmers inside of me, entwining itself within my heart and soul, turning everything black and burned as I think of all the things taken so easily from me.
I push myself away from the wall and glare with burning hatred at Administrator Edelin’s back as I march towards him, gripping him by the shoulders and spinning him around to face me. His expression registers shock and then fear as I grip the collar of his shirt, propelling him upward just like the marionette at the carnival, his eyes bulging and his face turning red.
I want to scream at him, but my fury doesn’t match any words I can find, so I only stare him in his watery, gray eyes as I shove him towards the wall. But before I can think, even move, my hand suddenly unclasps and Edelin sinks to the floor in a puddle of gasps and shudders.
I stare at my hand in disbelief. Suddenly I feel my necklace pressed against my skin, cold and smooth, as if deliberately reminding me of right and wrong; reminding me of what’s supposed to define me.
I turn slowly around to see Duquesne with the rectangular box clutched in his hands while he stares at me with an expression somewhere between pity and terror. Edelin scrambles up from the ground, cursing me while he backs toward the door, Duquesne following him quietly. Two guards take their place, pointing their guns at me and directing me back to my cell. My door is slammed behind me and I’m left in the silence of my room, seeming more of a prison than ever before.
A tiny tear slides out of the corner of my eye as I think about Edelin and what I would’ve done to him if it hadn’t been for Duquesne; the same thing the administrators might ask me to do to one of their criminals. The things I was scared I might try. The reason I never wanted to be more than what I was.
Suddenly I notice that my arms are shaking, not from anger like before, but from fear, frustration and shock. A strangled cry escapes from my throat as more tears leak from my eyes and I reach for the metal bed stand. With a choked scream I fling it across the room, watching as it breaks into tiny pieces, a large part of it left stuck in the wall, looking like a blade cutting through plastic, or the remnants of an explosion.
I back up to the wall behind me and sink to my knees, burying my head in my hands as tears slide down my face. I think of all the things Edelin will ask me to do now and I beg God to help me fight him, to help me fight myself, to help me hold onto the last piece of me that might have anything good left inside of it – because I’m beginning to wonder if anything was ever there at all.
I pull myself into a ball against the wall and sit, shuddering, until the tears slowly fade and the dread worms its way in and out of my soul.
. . .
Administrator Edelin comes the next day and my legs shake with anxiety as he leads me down the hallway. Two guards are glued to his sides while he watches me suspiciously; the marks from yesterday still burn red on his neck.
I’m shoved by the barrels of the guns into the same cell room I had been in earlier with the other criminals. I look around, trying to keep my arms at my side, wishing I could ready myself for whenever Edelin decides to press a button, reminding myself that it’s my body, not his.
A man I recognize from earlier is pulled forward and Edelin turns to me, his lip curled in a snarl. “Would you like to reconsider?” he asks me.
I’m silent.
“Breaking his arm,” Edelin clarifies and my stomach drops with dread and horror. I can see the man beside Edelin shift uncomfortably and eye me with trepidation, wondering if I’ll really do it. Our eyes meet and his implore mine. I look away guiltily, panic surging through my veins. What he doesn’t know is that it’s not my choice.
With a frantic rush of adrenaline, I see Edelin look down at the small, rectangular box and type something in, my arm jerking in reply. I hiss in a breath of air as my legs move toward the man and my right arm grasps his in a grip harder than I’ve ever used.
A small cry comes from his lips and he begins to claw at my fingers while I watch in horror as they slowly start to tighten. Words, almost unintelligible, bubble from the man’s mouth, begging and pleading as he tries to pry my hand away.
I make some sort of sound and turn toward Edelin, my expression begging him to stop, but he only watches with hungry eyes.
I feel the man’s muscles suddenly relax as he loses control of his hand and then I hear his shriek as I feel the bone snap between my fingertips. I scream as I feel my hand suddenly clasp together and the man’s arm jerks, almost involuntarily, away from me. His bone breaks like splinters, j
abbing his skin and turning the remnants of his arm to mush while I silently beg Edelin to be done, shocked and terrified tears dripping down my cheeks.
Just then, I feel the control surge back to my hand and I pull away, gripping my fingers and arm as if it were mine that were broken and not the criminal’s. The man stumbles away and sags against the wall, cradling his distorted arm that juts out in odd, disturbing angles.
“It will be a lesson for others,” Edelin snaps harshly, turning toward me.
I glare up into his gray eyes, searching for words powerful enough to express my emotion, but none come. Edelin gestures toward the guards and they roughly shove their guns into my back and point me toward the door. I’m taken to my room in silence and left there with nothing but my memories.
Images of the man’s face stream through my mind on constant replay; his eyes, his mouth, his hand, his wailing. The way his bone felt like twigs beneath my fingers, the way it snapped and shattered, the feel of his muscles and skin.
The sliced bedside table still digs into the wall on the other side of the room, just like the man’s bone against his skin.
I stare down at my hand as if it’s a completely different living entity from me. Something that betrayed me. Used me. I lie down against the wall and try to hold back the tears as I think of what Edelin had me do and what he’ll have me do next.
Suddenly the image of James’s lips moving as he tried to speak to me comes to mind. Control you. Don’t let them control you. That’s what he’d been saying. A part of me wonders why he’d tell me that, but a tear leaks out of the corner of my eye and drips down my cheek as I realize how much they’ve controlled me already. I want to tell James that I’m sorry. That I couldn’t do what he asked. That I’m nothing more than a pawn in a weird twisted game of chess.
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