Imprisoned

by J D Jacobs

  “Sorry you had to go through that.” My study is interrupted by Ribbon Twelve, who has stealthily made her way onto her balcony. “Thank you for saying something to Tankian… You don’t know how grateful I am to you.”

  Don’t talk to her, Jaden, I remind myself. She’s on Ricardo’s side. Remain in your dictionary and don’t say a word.

  “Earlier, when I said we were the prizes, I didn’t fully elaborate,” she continues, taking my silence as deliberate. “There’s twelve girls on this floor. They call us Ribbons, and we’re the prizes that the Atonement winners get to choose from. They can rape us, beat us, knit us a sweater, do whatever they wish to us for the night. That is why this floor is being kept a secret from the people in Avvil… Apparently, publicly and brutally killing people is something that Miguel wants to flaunt; sex slavery isn’t. The people of Avvil don’t know about us. And to the people who do know about us, we’re not even viewed as people. Just… objects.”

  Why is she telling me this? Is she lying to me, trying to throw me off so I can confess my displeasure for Ricardo so he can come in and justifiably stab me to death, too? Or maybe she’s not on Ricardo’s side. Maybe she’s only pretending to be.

  I still can’t trust her, so I remain flipping through the pages of the dictionary, reading Spanish words that I care nothing about.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, my ignoring her something that she feels she deserves. “I shouldn’t be talking to you in the first place. Thank you again.”

  I look up from the dictionary as I hear her head inside. I don’t want to talk to her, but I don’t want her to leave, either.

  “So there’s nothing dangerous on this floor?” I ask her.

  She returns to the balcony and sits back down. “We’re only dangerous to Miguel because he doesn’t want people to know about us.”

  “Hasn’t anybody wondered what happens on the top floor of the Grandsmont? Or perhaps what sits at the top of this arena? My friend and I weren’t in Avvil two hours before we started raising eyebrows.”

  “The people here are too scared to be curious about it. Asking questions is basically a crime in Avvil. The ones who had assumptions have been Atoned for long ago in the same Arena we’re in right now. People just show up to the Atoning Arena, watch what they came here to watch, then leave. People haven’t asked questions in a long time. Or so Miguel has told me.”

  That sounds like something only a ruler would brag about. “I was right, wasn’t I? You’re Ricardo’s wife. That’s why he said Tankian wasn’t allowed to touch you, right?”

  “I’m not his wife,” she quietly tells me, afraid he may be listening. “I’m his Ribbon. He chose me to be his Ribbon and his only. At the end of the day, I’m still alive, so I do whatever he wants me to. He may think he’s taking care of me, but I’m still his property in his eyes. Everybody is Miguel’s property because he feels like everybody in Avvil owes him their lives. He just keeps me as his puppy while everyone else is his stray dog.”

  She’s luring me in so she can set the hook for Ricardo. I’m too reluctant to believe her. “You shouldn’t trust me enough already to be telling me this.”

  “Why shouldn’t I trust you? Are you saying you’re going to rat me out to Miguel and hope he rewards you by letting you free?” she counters, far from correct. “You don’t know him well at all. If either one of us ratted the other out, we’d both get thrown into the Arena.”

  “You could be lying to me, for all I know. Why should I trust you?” I ask her.

  She thinks her response over. “I’m trapped on this floor like you are. Even a protected prisoner is still a prisoner.”

  She makes a good point. Or maybe she wants me to think that she makes a good point. For the time being, it would be best to avoid talking about Ricardo until I know for certain which side of the fence this girl is on. “So, Atonements… Apparently there’s been thirty-nine of them. How did these things start? I’m sure not everyone would be up for the idea of killing other people.”

  “You’d be surprised,” she assures me. “Apparently the people of Avvil absolutely love to see the egotoned die. The egotoned aren’t the people they once were: they’re the Cozmin. I suppose seeing the egotoned die is like seeing the Cozmin die, in a way. That’s a sight that many people love to watch. After seven months of watching Atonements from this room, though, I’ve grown tired of them. They’re disgusting.”

  “Seven months?” I repeat aloud. And I thought six months alone in a city was rough.

  “Unfortunately. It’s been far too long since I’ve stepped out of this room.” She pauses, then continues on from my earlier statement. “But as much as I hate the Avvil people for watching the Atonements, I sort of understand their reasoning. The egotoned aren’t people anymore. I saw that with my own mother. She wasn’t my best friend anymore. She was no longer the mother who fixed my hair when I went to my first high school prom, who cried tears of joy when I graduated college, who was so excited to find out she was going to be a grandma, who stayed strong for me when…” She loudly inhales to calm herself down. “As much as I despise the egotoned, it’s a depressing sight to see humans on the brink of extinction, killing each other for sport.”

  The silence creates a tension that stuffs my throat, and I struggle to speak as I try to break it. “Egotoning is a terrible thing. I’ve seen it happen to people. I suppose I’m lucky that I haven’t seen anyone close to me egotone, but that’s because I didn’t have much family to start with. When I was seven, my mom died in a car wreck. After that, my dad spiraled into an abusive drunk and beat me constantly. I spent my childhood with my grandparents, the only other relatives that I ever knew. My Pawpaw died a couple of weeks before the Cozmin spread, and I found Grandmother’s body after it did.” My words settle as we both sit quietly. This is the first time I’ve actually ever told anybody about my past. Cody knew about most of it as it was happening, but I don’t even know if Ryan and Scarlett were aware of Dad’s abusive history. And I never told Grant about it, either. I’m confessing my life to this woman and I don’t even know her name.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I never got your name.”

  “Ribbon #12,” she tells me again, a response that acts more like a force of habit that has slowly tried to take over her identity.

  “No it’s not. What’s your name?”

  I can tell she doesn’t feel comfortable telling me. She may have been punished for viewing herself as anyone except for Ribbon #12. But she warily tells me. “Sabrina.”

  “It’s great to meet you, Sabrina. My name is Jaden.”

  “Thank you, Jaden.” Her voice is soft and comforting. Wait, what am I doing? I told myself not to talk to this woman. Everything she just told me could be a lie. She could be setting me up. I have to be cautious.

  But I don’t want to be cautious. I want to have somebody to talk to.

  “I’m sorry, Jaden,” she interrupts my thoughts. “I shouldn’t be talking to you.”

  “Why not?” I ask, knowing that she’s right but not wanting her to be.

  “It’s not good for me nor you. I’m the last person you need to be talking to.”

  “Tell me why, at least.”

  She hesitates, then sighs. “The last person who was in your room died because he thought he could fix both of our problems. I don’t want you to end up like him.”

  “I’ll try my best not to, but I have to know what he did.”

  “He confronted Miguel about the things he and I talked about. And that didn’t go over too well with Miguel.”

  “What happened to him?”

  I can hear Sabrina swallow hard from here. “He became the fourth sane loser in the Atonements.”

  Four losses? I assumed that the sane would be undefeated. Surprising that the number of losses is that high, especially when the sane are equipped with bladed baseball bats.

  “What was his name?” I ask her. I then think back to the flashback I had, where two people were being escorted
to the Grandsmont Hotel. “Was he one of the Colorado people?”

  She pauses, perhaps debating on whether she wants to tell me or not. “Miguel called him Poco Loco. That’s all you need to know.”

  I quietly flip through the dictionary in my lap, trying my best to conceal the page turns. Poco means… “little bit.” And loco means… “crazy.” I remember what Ricardo told the man he was escorting in my flashback, told the guy that he was crazy. There’s no doubt in my mind that the guy that Sabrina is referring to was the same guy that Ricardo escorted to the hotel.

  So Ricardo gave a nickname to the guy even though he was still alive? Ricardo is biased with his Atonement contestants. He picks the winner by the name he gives them, which chooses who the crowd cheers for. The people with Spanish nicknames must be viewed as the enemy. That doesn’t fare well for me, then. “You know, Piloto Malvado was my friend. His name was Stewart. He was the pilot that flew my group to Avvil.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s terrible what happened to him. Wait, you said he was the pilot that flew you to Avvil?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Of course. Miguel did that on purpose. He strategically planned for your pilot friend to be the egotoned, to show you that your key to going back to where you’re from just got tossed out the window.”

  That is a reality that I didn’t piece together. A very depressing reality. Sabrina quickly backtracks. “That was a tad harsh. I’m sure there is another way for you to get back to, erm...”

  “Tryton,” I finish her statement for her.

  “Tryton, huh? I’ve heard of Tryton. It has walls, right?”

  “Yeah. My dad helped construct the wall idea. It’s done us good so far. It’s not as pleasant as looking at an amber glass for a sky, but yeah, it’s not too bad.”

  “Considering it’s kept you and your friends alive this far, I’d say ‘not too bad’ is an understatement,” Sabrina convinces me. Of course she thinks the wall saved my life; she doesn’t know I’m immune. She doesn’t know that I survived fully exposed to the Cozmin virus for six months. She doesn’t even know I have half of my face burnt off.

  Incognito is a great feeling. I’d like to keep it that way.

  I hear a soft knock on Sabrina’s door. “I’m guessing lunch is served,” she says as she walks to her door. As I hear her walking back to the balcony, an identical knock comes from my door.

  “What is it?” I ask Sabrina before I leave to answer the door.

  “Banana sandwich with avocado on the side.”

  “What kind of lunch combination is that?” I comment as I leave the balcony. I hear Sabrina give a short, tender laugh behind me as I head toward the door. What a beautiful laugh to hear. I want to hear it more.

  Once the door opens, my mild happiness from talking to Sabrina is rushed away. Mrs. Margaret stands at my door, her strawberry blonde hair brushing her shoulders, an empty cart pushed in front of her. She hands me the last plate on her cart without looking me in the eyes.

  I angrily stare at the woman, waiting for her to lift her eyes from the plate she’s handing me and look me in the face. She knows that she lied to me. She’s somewhat responsible for my being here in the first place. And now here she is, following orders from her boss Ricardo, too much of a coward to look me in the eyes.

  “Thanks.” I snatch the plate out of her hands with the same amount of antipathy in my voice. She begins to reach for the doorknob to close the door back. I can’t take it. I can’t contain my urge to call this woman out on what she did to me. As she reaches for the doorknob, I grab her arm.

  “How dare you come to the room you helped lock me in,” I tell her, bitterness blanketing my breath.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Foxx, but I’m simply following orders,” she answers me. It sounds like a safe response that she’s practiced in her head.

  “Of course you are. Obeying Ricardo and hiding his dirty secrets. You lied to me, and thanks to you, I was forced to watch my friend get beheaded.”

  “Don’t put the blade in my hand when you’re the one who cut yourself.” The shame in her voice has been replaced with tenacity; a sharp switch.

  “Don’t ever come to my room again,” I tell her. The hated lock between our eyes stays strong until it’s broken by the closing door.

  23.

  I stand at the closed door for a few seconds, trying to calm myself, before I return to the balcony.

  As I turn around, I’m met by another familiar face: the nonexistent one with the orange bowtie.

  “Well, how’s your new home?” Xander asks me, tossing himself onto the guest bed. “It’s not too bad, if I say so myself. There are definitely worse ways to be imprisoned.”

  “What is your problem?” I ask him. “You’ve been avoiding me ever since we made it to Avvil. Have you seen what they did to my face? These people are dangerous; there’s no telling what they could do to Cody or me or–”

  “Yes, I saw everything,” he interrupts. “I haven’t left; I’ve just been out of your sight the whole time. There’s always a reason—”

  “And you Grims led me to this floor, knowing I would enter that elevator, say that phrase from that song, and push that guard to his death. You knew and you encouraged me to do it!”

  “Uhm, Jaden?” I hear Sabrina call out to me from outside. “Everything okay over there? Is Mrs. Margaret in your room?”

  Great. Everything I say to Xander, Sabrina is going to think I’m talking to an actual person. Actually, without her hearing Xander’s response, she’ll think I’m just talking to myself. I don’t want to explain my situation with the Grims to her because honestly she wouldn’t understand any of it, not even the concept of Grims.

  “Uhh, Sabrina, listen. For the next few minutes, I’m going to be talking to myself.” I stop, thinking how strange my explanation must be sounding to her right now. I place the plate of food on my balcony chair as I think of what to say. “It’s very hard to explain so please just disregard everything that you’re about to hear me say.”

  “Oh… Okay,” Sabrina stammers, nowhere near making sense of what I said.

  “I’ll try and explain it later.” I then turn to the Grim who’s now lying on the bed as if he were asleep. “I am in this room because that Grim in the yellow V-neck led me here.”

  “Okay, wait a minute,” Xander starts. “Five seconds ago, you were blaming that sweet old lady who brought you a banana sandwich for locking you in the room, and she was telling you that it was your own fault. Either way, none of the three people mentioned were actually the one to knee you in the face and toss you in here, so understand your true enemies before you point fingers.”

  “I’m not pointing any fingers; I was just thinking how–”

  “I know what you were thinking,” Xander tells me as he walks up to the TV, turning it on and off and admiring its black-and-gray split screen. “You thought that maybe Ricardo isn’t as bad as you first thought. I mean, it was Tankian who physically killed Stewart. Mrs. Margaret did lie to you. The Grim with the yellow V-neck shirt did, in fact, give you the instructions on how to get on this floor. Ricardo is even protective of that girl next door, so could he actually be protecting you, as well? He brought you breakfast, saved you from getting your face bashed in, and even cleaned your attacker’s blood out of your carpet. Surely, surely, he can’t be too bad. Right?”

  I’m stunned. And insulted. There’s only one way he could be able to interpret that. “Can you… can you read my mind?”

  “These flashbacks you have, I never finished explaining them to you.” For a second, I think that Xander is just ignoring my question, but he continues. “Like I said before, they don’t necessarily come to you at random. I give them to you and choose what you see, but I can’t necessarily choose when to give them to you. That’s the essential part.”

  “Boohoo for you. You told me all of this on the ride to Avvil,” I remind him. “Why are you telling me this again?”

  “I don’t think you h
eard me correctly,” he tells me, turning away from the TV and focusing on the conversation. “Yes, I possess the ability to make you experience the past, but I can’t send you into flashbacks whenever I want to. Flashbacks have to meet two criteria: they have to be something that you desire to see, and they have to be something you can handle.”

  “Something I desire and can handle, you say? Well, I desire to know how to get out of here. I can definitely handle the solution on getting out of here. Why don’t you help me with that?”

  “Don’t play stupid with me, Foxx. Flashbacks are only in the past; you know that. You can’t see the future or even something that’s occurring in present time. But that’s beside the point.”

  “Then what is the point, Xander? If you’re not going to help me get out of this room, then why bother showing up?”

  “There’s a flashback I need to show you but I can’t because you don’t want to see it. That’s the point. You can’t get out of here because you won’t let yourself.”

  I gulp as his words taunt me. “Tell me what I need to do then. What’s this flashback about?”

  “It’s about Ricardo. And to experience this flashback, you have to desire to see it.”

  “How do I desire to see something when I don’t even know what it is I’m trying to desire?” Just saying those words aloud confuses me even more.

  “I know it’s a tedious concept to grasp, so perhaps an analogy will help you,” he tells me. He then reaches behind his back and pulls out a set of oven mitts. “You ever played hot potato?” he asks as he tosses me the pair of mitts.

  I stare at him and then at the mitts, not exactly enthused on how I’m going to be involved in this analogy. “You want me to put these on?”

  “Not yet. Right now, I want you to stand there and look pretty. Now…” he reaches deeper behind his back this time and, even more surprisingly, pulls out a small wooden-framed window. He lobs the window in between us and the window pauses there, immobile in mid-air as gravity somehow doesn’t affect it anymore. “This window is closed, correct?”