Runaway

by Alycia Linwood

  "Alright. She should be here soon. She's not that far behind us." Michael turned to look through the window, almost like he was sensing my discomfort. To tell or not to tell? I ran my hand through my hair, taking a deep breath and resting my head on the seat. Fuck everything. It was now or never.

  "Michael... maybe you and Paula should let me do this alone. You can go somewhere safe to hide and no one will even remember you. And if you stay with me, you're risking everything."

  "Ria, we talked about this already. I'm not leaving you." Michael looked at me, his green eyes as warm and kind as ever.

  "I slept with Adrian twice." The words that left my mouth sounded harsher than I wanted them to be. Michael opened his mouth to say something, the color draining from his face. Then I felt like I was drowning. There was water all around me, in my mind, in my lungs... everywhere. I shut my eyes and dug my nails into the seat, the warmth of my element rising around me, but it was useless. Nothing I could do was enough to push the water away. Finally I heard the door open and, just like that, the water was gone.

  I opened my eyes, taking a deep breath of the fresh air that was coming through the open door. Michael angrily walked away from the car into the green field. He kicked at something on the ground, and just stopped and stared in front of him, his back turned to me. I felt something wet on my cheek and realized it was a tear. Our relationship wasn't supposed to end like this, but there was nothing I could do about that.

  After what seemed like an hour but was only a few minutes, Michael turned around and started walking back to the car.

  "I'm sorry," I said as he was getting in the car.

  "Yeah, you don't really look like it." He shot me an angry glare. I opened my mouth to say something but I didn't know what.

  "Was any of it real?" Michael yelled. "Or were you just toying with me like Adrian with Paula?"

  "No, Michael! I loved you! I really did. It's just..."

  "Just what? You couldn't have told me earlier you have stopped loving me somewhere along the way? Did Adrian brainwash you? Do you want me to congratulate you for being the only girl he slept with twice?" He was furious and he had every right to be, but I couldn't feel his element this time, which was weird. What I had done to him was probably worse than I had imagined.

  "Michael, I'm sorry! I don't know what happened. I was just... I was so confused about everything and... I told you now because I realized I was only hurting you more. And I've never wanted to hurt you. I swear." I leaned my forehead on the steering wheel, feeling Michael's intense look on me.

  "Right." He snorted. "I should have known. The way you started acting around me, the way you looked away when I mentioned the night we made love,..."

  "Umm, there's something else I haven't told you..." I had no idea if there was any point in telling him this. No, I couldn't tell him. "Actually, forget that. It doesn't matter."

  "Tell me. It's the least you can do." He looked wary and he was clenching his fists, probably to try to stay in control of his element.

  "I don't remember anything from the night we spent together," I said, feeling like my throat was going to close up, my hand going for the necklace around my throat. "I took some pill Adrian gave me. He planned to give the pill to Paula and I couldn't let that happen, so..."

  "Wow." Michael actually laughed, but it was a bitter laugh. "All these things he did to you, and you love him. How awesome is that? Or you need me to give you a list of reasons not to fall for Adrian Liandre? Or maybe I'm getting it all wrong. Tell me, how does it feel when you know he's going to take your heart, stomp all over it and return it to you in pieces? Is that what girls want these days? Man, I've been doing it all wrong, haven't I?"

  "Michael..."

  "He's going to ruin your life! You know it. You said that to Paula, and she didn't listen, and look what happened! Or maybe you'll enjoy when that happens. What do I know? I obviously wasn't enough for you, disease or no disease."

  "I don't love him, ok?" I raised my voice, the warmth coming into my cheeks.

  "Yeah, that's why you're clutching that necklace like it's the only thing keeping you alive."

  I dropped my hand like I had been burned. I hadn't even noticed I'd reached for the damn necklace again. How had Michael figured it out? I must have been way too obvious. Just at that moment someone pulled over behind us, and we both turned around in panic, but it was only Paula's blue Mazda. Michael opened his door as Paula walked over to us.

  "Hey! Sorry I'm late. I got stuck behind a truck." She smiled, but then she looked from me to Michael and her smile faded. "Is something wrong?"

  "Oh, it's nothing. Just a nasty break-up," Michael said.

  "Why...? What...?" Paula seemed to be at a loss of words.

  "It doesn't matter right now," I said. "Look, maybe I should just go alone from here."

  "No," Michael said. "I'm coming with you. And yeah, I will pretend to be your boyfriend if you need me to, but I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it because there are things more important than you, more important than all of us. Something weird is going on with magic disease, and if I can do something to help people, I'll do it. Even if I have to stay around you."

  Ouch. I had always known Michael was a great person, but this... He truly was amazing. Too bad I couldn't have made him happy, but we had had our moments.

  "I'm coming too. I want to see what I can find out about the disease." Paula played with her car key, turning it around in her hand. "Ok, so I'm going first. If someone is waiting for you, I'll call. Got it. But I don't know where that building is. I can just get to the town."

  "No, I need you to get only to the town. You'll stay somewhere until I send you a message that you can come. I need to be the first one to reach that building because I'm not sure what and who will be waiting for us there. You just notify me if there's police waiting somewhere so we can find another way to get to our destination." I bit my lip, wondering what I was going to do if it turned out my father wasn't there. I decided I would deal with that later because he had to be somewhere nearby.

  "No problem. See you guys later," Paula said, giving me a look that meant she planned to talk to me about what had happened between Michael and me. I just nodded, and she ran to her car.

  "I hope you know what you're doing," Michael said, staring through the window and avoiding looking at me.

  "Me too," I said under my breath, not even sure if he could hear me.

  "Paula says everything is clear," Michael said, returning his phone to his pocket. Well, damn. Either Alan hadn't thought reporting Adrian's car missing was worth the trouble or this all was primarily the Council's thing, or the Element Preservers'... whatever they now called themselves. I sped through the nearly empty streets of the town, hoping I still remembered well how to reach the place my father had taken me to a few times.

  "Where is everyone?" There was surprise written all over Michael's face.

  "I have no idea. Probably somewhere inside, working." A lot of things had changed since I'd been to Rosentown. The whole town had grown; more white, mostly windowless buildings greeted us as we went deeper into the town. They were all laboratories, the perfect places to torture magic disease carriers. But as I took a turn to another street, we were suddenly surrounded by large houses ornamented with marble Greek columns. Oh yeah, we were getting close.

  "Wow, this place looks... too white, actually." Michael squinted his eyes as he was trying to see better. Indeed, almost every building was painted white because the Council and the government had always wanted people to think they were doing something good and pure. Yeah, okay, I had wanted all magic disease carriers dead and totally thought killing them was a good thing, so maybe everyone else thought they were doing something good too.

  "I just hope they didn't get a fence or something," I said, slowing down the car. The nearly identical buildings didn't really help me to recognize the right path. "That would certainly mess up my plan."

  "You could always run it down with th
e car," Michael said, making me roll my eyes.

  "Not gonna happen." I could only imagine what Adrian would think of me scratching the car all over because I had decided to bring down a fence. But there was really no reason for a fence since no one ever tried to attack the place. Magic disease carriers rarely hung out together and they certainly wouldn't risk exposure to cause a little bit of trouble to the Council. As for the Magic Disease Carriers Association, they would get banned immediately even if one of their members was caught merely talking about a possible terrorist attack.

  Lost in my thoughts, I nearly missed the right building. Michael tightly gripped the sides of his seat as I took a sudden turn left and stopped in front of a large black double door. In what seemed as a second, a dozen of guards armed with rifles came out and surrounded the car.

  "Well, fuck. This is... a warm welcome." I slowly unbuckled my seat belt. The color drained out of Michael's face as he lifted his hands up. "Michael, don't move. Stay in the car."

  "Umm, was this a part of your plan?" He swallowed.

  "Not exactly." I slowly moved my arm to open the door. A guard had a rifle pointed at my head as I got out of the car with my hands up. "Are you going to shoot Mr. Milanez's daughter? How rude!" I tried smiling at the guy, but his face remained serious as he observed me.

  "Get out of the car!" the guard on Michael's side of the car yelled, and Michael had no other choice than to comply. I turned my head to look again at the guy who had a rifle still steadily pointed at me. Would he never tire or lower his arm? But as I took a better look of their uniforms, I realized they were just normal guards who usually kept this place and followed the members of the Council. No police. Interesting.

  "Can't a daughter speak to her father?" I gave an innocent smile to the guard, but he didn't even flinch. Great. His element was fire, but it wasn't bothering me, which meant the guy had an iron control on it.

  "Ria?" I heard my father's voice coming somewhere from the inside of the building, but I couldn't see him through all the guards.

  "Over here, Dad. Could use some help, you know!" I yelled. "Unless you think I'm a threat."

  "Make space!" my dad ordered, and just like that, the guards parted in front of him as he approached us, but the rifles remained pointed at my and Michael's head. Lovely. There was no way my dad knew I had the disease, so there wasn't a reason for him to try to kill me. I really, really hoped he didn't know.

  "Honey, what an unexpected surprise!" Dad smiled, stopping at a safe distance from me. Now I was starting to get worried. What if he knew? Would he kill me? I felt my pulse quicken, and I tried really hard to ignore the elements around me.

  "Umm, Daddy? Is this necessary?" I waved my hands around me. I hadn't called him 'daddy' since, like, forever.

  "We'll see," my dad said, snapping his fingers. The guards surrounding me finally lowered the damn rifles, but two of them came closer to me and grabbed me by the arms. Whoa, wait a second. We'd see? See what?

  "Dad, what are you doing?" I blurted out as my dad turned around and started walking back to the building, the guards pulling me after him. Unfortunately for Michael, the guards surrounding him were still pointing their rifles at him, and I could clearly see the fear in his green eyes. I wished I could do something to assure him everything would be alright, but the truth was, I wasn't even sure myself what was happening. I hoped Michael wouldn't do anything stupid, but then I realized I was the one who usually did stupid things, not him, so I guessed he was as safe as he could be.

  "Don't worry, Ria. It will be alright," my dad said.

  Yeah, right. Would that be before or after you kill me? And what if he planned to put me in one of those laboratories? But how could he know? No, there was no reason to panic. My father probably just wanted to know why I had come in a magic disease carrier's car, but he could have simply asked. And what if he thought I knew something about Adrian?

  "You know I can walk just fine on my own, right?" I said, but my dad just waved his hand as the guards led me through a long corridor to an empty room which reminded me a lot of an interrogation room. Except there weren't any chairs or anything, just plain dark-gray walls and something that looked like a giant ceramic bowl in the middle of the stone floor.

  "Leave us," my father said, and the guards finally let go of me. I rubbed my arms, almost sure I'd have bruises from this. The guards were out, closing the door firmly behind us, and somehow I knew that the door couldn't be opened by using any of elements against them.

  "Is this how you welcome your daughter?" I crossed my arms in front of me.

  "Put this on fire." My father took out a paper out of the pocket of his black suit jacket, waving with it right above the large bowl. What the fuck was going on? I let out an irritated sigh - more because I knew my father would expect of me to feel annoyed than I actually felt that way-and I focused on the paper. The flames started licking the paper and rapidly spreading, so my father dropped it into the bowl.

  "Happy?" I gave him an impatient smile.

  "Honey!" He was suddenly across the room and hugging me tightly like he had just gotten me back from the dead. Huh. I awkwardly hugged him back. It was weird not to know how to act around your own father.

  "What was all that about?" I said when we finally broke our embrace. My father looked just like always, except there were now more gray hairs in his short, carefully combed dark brown hair, and his brown eyes were full of joy.

  "I needed to make sure you are still my daughter," he said. "I was worried you have become one of them." His face turned into a sneer at the last word. Ah, great. My daddy had thought I had turned into a monster. Little did he know his precious little daughter indeed was a monster that he tried so hard to destroy, but I wasn't about to enlighten him that I was the improved kind of a monster; one you didn't simply detect by checking whether it had an element.

  "Umm, I'm just the old little me." I grinned. "You got more paranoid since you have been chosen to be the president of the Element Preservers Organization... Ah, well, congratulations, Dad."

  "Thank you, honey." My father looked pleased for a moment, but then his face became serious, almost angry. "I heard some unsettling news about your relationship with that magic disease carrier. What were you thinking, Ria? How could you be so stupid? And you came in his car... I didn't know what to think."

  So my father knew about that... how awkward. I wasn't going to discuss my sex life with my father. Just no. But did this mean Alan and my father were still in contact or people just talked too much like usual? I could still deny everything, no matter what.

  "Oh, come on, Dad! I know very well what I'm doing." I tried to look indignant. "Adrian means nothing to me. Besides, I heard he killed someone, so he's dead anyway. That's why I took his car. It's so damn pretty, and since he doesn't need it anymore... I thought what the hell, I could take it."

  There was no reason for him to suspect anything since this was the usual behavior for someone as spoiled as me. Of course I would have taken anything I wanted just because it was pretty. He couldn't know I no longer thought like that. Ok, maybe I still did a little. A little more, then. Oh, well.

  "He means nothing to you, yet you call him by his name?" My father raised an inquiring eyebrow at me. Crap! I should have said something more impersonal.

  "So what if I called that worthless magic disease carrier by his name? Wouldn't calling him anything else be rude?" I played with a strand of my long dark brown hair, twirling it between my fingers just to keep myself busy.

  "In public yes, not with me. But I see your short acquaintance with him hasn't changed your opinion on all magic disease carriers." My father started walking up and down the room, occasionally glancing at me. "But you see, Alan gave me the impression you and that monster were much... closer."

  "Oh, please." I snorted. "Alan doesn't know a thing about anything. The only reason I was around that monster was to torment him, but I couldn't exactly show that in front of Alan, so I had to pretend. You kn
ow, public image and all. The poor monster has fallen in love with me, so..." I hated Alan, I really did.

  "That's great news, honey! But you should have thought earlier about our public image because people misinterpreted your actions." My father stopped pacing and looked up at me. "So I assume you're going to stay here for my party?"

  It looked like Alan hadn't told him he'd caught me in Adrian's bed. He'd probably only said we seemed close and that there were rumors about us being together, otherwise my father wouldn't have let this go so easily. I wondered what reasons Alan had to cover that up, but I had a pretty good idea.

  Alan was the only witness that I'd truly been in Adrian's bed, so he was the only one who could confirm the rumors. If my father saw that as a threat, Alan would be in big trouble. He knew this secret could cost him his life, so he'd decided to keep quiet... or planned to use it against my father one day. Maybe they weren't such good friends after all.

  "Well, duh! You know I love parties, but do I have to start looking for a new escort?" I smiled. "I mean, is my boyfriend still alive outside?" If something had happened to Michael, this place was going down in fire, even if I had to find a way to burn this obviously impenetrable cell.

  "Oh, yes! He's fine," my father said like he had just remembered Michael existed. "So I suppose we need to find another room for him?"

  "Yeah, and for Paula. She's coming too. She's just a little bit late." And thank to God of Magic she wasn't here. She'd have freaked out.

  "Well, that's a pleasant surprise then." My father moved to the door and knocked twice. "I hope you'll all have a good time."