by Dawn Dagger
“But!” she cried, standing up.
“Get out of my room!” I climbed off the bed and she skittered back, looking as if I were going to hit her. I thrust open the door and pointed. “Get out now. And don’t you ever talk to me again unless you’re fully dressed and on the other side of a table. Leave.”
She huffed and tossed her curls, then stormed out, looking as if her pride had been injured. I slammed the door shut, then pressed my back against it, shakily falling into a sitting position. My heart thundered in my chest. I was shaking, and I felt sick.
I made sure the door was locked, from my side.
Again, I couldn’t sleep. No matter how hard I tried. No matter how many times I checked the door, how many times I paced, I couldn’t get the lingering scent of perfume out of my room.
I felt so unsafe. I felt shaky. Alice had scared me so badly.
Finally, I lay on the ground, my forehead pressed against the cool floor. I wanted to sing a song to drown out the horrible silence buzzing in my head. I hated not feeling safe. My throat croaked as I coaxed it to move. I eventually got it to work.
A tune played in my head as I hummed through the notes of ‘do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do’. On the ‘mi’, a chord struck in my head, and I felt my brain latch onto something. I couldn’t tell what the song was, but I could hear the notes of a voice.
I could taste it, right there, right on the top of my tongue. I stood up and took a deep breath, trying to remember the words to the song. I could picture the place in the song so clearly.
Rolling, deep green meadows of long, blowing grass. There was a girl wandering through the grass. The sun was smiling in the pale blue sky.
Blue sky.
“Blue sky,” I whispered, beginning to pace back and forth again. I tried to sing it, to pull the words forth from the recesses of my mind. “Blue skyyyy.” It didn’t work. “Blue sky, oh—” I gasped. That was it. “Blue sky, oh blue sky.” I remembered the tune! As I paced, the words slowly came to me, one after the other, like a stream, or beads falling onto a string.
“Blue sky, oh blue sky,
Smile at me.
Sunshine, fall on my face.
And if it rains,
I will not cry,
For I love everything.”
I felt giddy with happiness. I could almost hear the wind chime voice in my head as I made my way towards the bed, singing. I spun in a happy circle, continuing to sing.
“Flowers, oh flowers,
Look at the sky.
Look how he smiles at you…
Brook, oh brook,
Share me your song,
I want to sing with you too…
Birds, oh, birds,
I love you so.
My soft, feathered friends…
And tall, long grass,
So sweet, so soft.
Show me the secrets you have…”
I crawled into bed, altering the next lines. I didn’t know if I had heard it before, or if I was just changing to fit the feelings that swirled through me.
“Beautiful, beautiful girl,
I watch you from afar…
Come say hello, and smile at me,
The same way as do
The sun and the stars.
Beautiful, beautiful girl…
I come closer still…
Come dance with me,
Come hold my hand…
And happy, we will be…
Still…”
I pulled the blankets over me, turning onto my side, humming the song. I was happy. It described something I felt. I felt safe. It felt safe. As if someone I trusted were holding me, wrapping their arms tightly around me.
Just before I fell asleep, I realized what it was.
It was a song for Yellow.
21
Amy and I were nearly running down the hallway, searching for the silver doors. I kept my hand in my pocket, running my thumb over the card stashed there, reminding myself it was very real. It was lunch time, and every hallway empty.
We slid to a stop in front of the silver doors and I slid the keycard through the reader. It beeped. The doors slid open and we stepped inside. I clapped to activate the lights, then pressed the button for the doors labelled ‘Lock’.
Once I was sure the doors were locked safe, I ran to the table. I gingerly picked up the owl with a thin piece of sheet, then I slipped into my pocket. Nothing happened. My heart thumped in my ears.
“Okay, Amy,” I said, turning towards her. She looked frightened. “Grab the snake.”
Amy swallowed, nodding. She slowly approached the table, then in one movement, leaned forward and plucked the rattlesnake off of the table. Her eyes widened and she gazed into space for a moment, then sighed softly. She grinned and clutched the snake.
“Okay, Clayton! Hurry! Grab the jaguar! We have to save Dierdre!”
Dierdre? Was Dierdre Yellow? Yes, she was. The name itself was so powerful it knocked the air from my lungs. I lunged for the jaguar and grabbed it. The pain gripped my body and I shouted, falling to my knees.
It hurt like hell, the pain pouring through me. I thought I was going to die. My head was going to explode. Memories flooded in, choking me, overwhelming me. As suddenly as it had poured into me, the white-hot agony disappeared, and the violent shaking in my body ceased.
I shakily rose to my feet, my mind whirling. I blinked the sweat out of my eyes and rolled my neck. I felt like a different human.
“C’mon, Amy. Let’s go get Dierdre.”
I hated the way my head felt. I felt as if I were two different people at once. One was gentle and just wanted to save Dierdre (‘Yellow’, in the back of my head), and the other wanted to kill everyone in the building. I wanted to break jaws and bones and destroy everything until I got out.
I settled for ragged breathing instead. Amy led me down the hallway, towards the door where Yellow-- Dierdre was. As we ran, I heard her whisper in one of my split thoughts, ‘That’s why they’re hurting me.’
I was going to kill every person who ever stepped foot in this place.
Amy led me toward the grey door where she stayed. I punched the door as hard as I could, putting my first through the metal. Red streaked down my arm. I stuck my arm through and used my momentum to rip the door out of the wall.
The inside of the room was small and black. A tiny figure lay curled on the ground in the far corner. I reached down, for Dierdre. She was covered in filth, and skinnier than I had ever seen her. Her hair hung in long, disgusting strings that resembled dreadlocks. I was going to commit murder.
“Dierdre…” I whispered, feeling my eyes burn. Her eyes opened into slits, and the drained blue contracted. “Hey, I’m here. I have your owl. Is there any way to get out of here?”
She opened her mouth, and as she did, a red bubble of saliva and blood popped between her lips. Amy let out a cry and gagged, and I stared, my stomach twisting in horror.
Dierdre’s tongue had been cut out of her mouth.
22
No alarms were going off. No one was running out of the dining room, ready to recapture us. Not a single thing to indicate they knew that anything was wrong. So, I decided to at least give Dierdre a shower. She had earned at least that much.
“C’mon, Amy. Let’s give her a bath.”
Amy looked frightened. “Do we have the time? Shouldn’t we--”
“Let’s go. We’ll be fine.” I could break bones and smash in heads. I could kill every person in the place, if I wanted to.
We made our way to the bathrooms. I walked into the largest of the showers and laid Dierdre on the ground. “I’ll keep watch and find her clothes. The head is removable. Can you wash her off?”
Amy nodded vigorously, still looking worried, and stepped into the shower. I stepped out, and as I walked away, heard the water running. I barricaded the bathroom door and searched through the lockers. I found a towel, balled it up and slid it back to the shower. Then I found an oversized sweatshirt, a
too-large jumpsuit, a pair of clean, folded boxers, and an odd assortment of socks.
I knew girls wore a lot more clothing than I did, but I ignored that for now. I slid the clothes down the hall to the shower as well, then sat on a bench across from the door, crossing my arms. Once I stopped moving, once I lacked a mission, I started to shake with anger.
I desperately wanted to convince myself that I had seen Dierdre wrong. That she still had her tongue and was not covered in burns and cuts that all oozed and pulsed. No, no, she was just bloody from our journey. Her mouth was filled with red because of them hitting her.
Oh, God, someone laid their hands on her and hit her. My chest roared with righteous, white-hot fire.
I couldn’t shake the image of the stub of bloody, scabbed-over tongue left in her mouth. That’s why she couldn’t talk to you. She can’t ever talk to you again.
“Hey, Amy? How’s it going?” I called, beginning to pace. Edward was in my sweatpants pocket. I kind of hated him.
“I can’t get all this junk out of her hair!”
“Just wash the rest of her, we’ll deal with her hair later.”
There were still no alarms sounding. Dinner had to be out about now. Were they just silent alarms? Maybe so, maybe not. Technically, I realized, nothing would have triggered an alarm except ripping the door out of the wall. But that might have shorted the alarm.
How had Blanco not realized that his key card was gone? Hazel had always seemed more observant than that to me too. Had they noticed we had never even gone to dinner?
“Okay, I’m done!” She called faintly. “I need you to help me! I don’t want to get her clothes wet!”
My face flushed in three or four waves, but I took a breath and wandered back anyways. Before I turned into the shower, I closed my eyes tightly. Amy led my outstretched hands to Dierdre’s sides, which were wrapped in a wet towel, and I scooped her up gently.
I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead, not paying attention to the white towel and pale skin in the edges of my vision. It was nicked with so much red that I couldn’t bare to look. I laid Dierdre down on the bench. Amy dressed her in the boxers and sweatshirt with my back turned to them, then I helped her pull the jumpsuit over her body.
The jumpsuit was too big, but it fit alright around the sweatshirt that served as Dierdre’s underclothes. I observed Dierdre quietly, swallowed thickly. Her face was mottled purple and brown with splashes of violent red. Her lips were cracked and swollen. I was going to throw up the anger boiling in my stomach.
And her hair… her gorgeous, silver hair was so matted we would have to shave it off, I assumed. There was no way to save it without hours and hours of struggle. I would dedicate myself to that, if need be. They had to shave my mother’s hair like that before.
My mother.
I cursed so vilely that Amy jumped back. “Shit! We have to go and get my mom!” I threw aside the bench barricading the door and opened it. Amy darted out and I picked up Dierdre, following her. I led Amy down the empty hall towards where my mother was being kept.
She was asleep in her cot, peaceful and content. We stepped into the room and I used one hand to block the door with a chair. I sat Dierdre in a bigger, fluffier chair, then looked around the room. Amy wrung her hands.
“Clayton, how do we get out?”
“There’s gotta be some way.”
“We were depending on Dierdre to get us out.” She fretted.
I reached into my pocket and carefully pulled out the owl, which was still wrapped in the torn fragment of sheet. I held up Dierdre’s hand and palm and slid the owl into it. I closed her fingers around the figurine, then stepped back, taking a breath.
I didn’t know what I was expecting, but she did not stir. My stomach sunk. The two ideas were swirling in my head again. Go out, kill anyone in the way. Tell someone they were going to tell us how to get out, or we would rip out their tongue. We? No, it’s just me in my head. Oh, I’m finally losing my mind.
I held my aching head. The other part of my thoughts suggested we wait for Dierdre to wake. Maybe she could teleport now that we were off of the dead world? No, no… She would have left long ago…
I sat down and huffed. Amy was swaying back and forth, looking sick and horrified like only a child thrown into a war can. Her fingers danced along the back of the rattlesnake. Each of these damned things gives us a power…
“Amy… hey…” She glanced at me, her eyes large. When the douche with the bad haircut had stolen the rattlesnake from us in the museum, he hadn’t needed to teleport… “Could you run from one side of the room to the other. Fast as you can?”
“Why?” she squeaked.
“I wanna test something. Just trust me.”
She nodded and walked to the other side of the room. She hopped lightly and I crouched, holding my arm out to catch her. She shot forward and I gasped as she blurred, then slammed hard into my arm. I swung it forward as well as I could, using the momentum to stop her from crashing headlong into the wall.
She fell out of my arm and stumbled backwards, looking dazed. “Oh, wow…” she mumbled. “Did I just…?”
“Yeah! You sure did! You’re a superhero too!”
Her brown eyes sparkled, but then her face fell, and she looked ashamed. “Why isn’t Dierdre a superhero, Clayton? Dierdre can have my superpowers, if it will help her get better.”
“She has her own superpowers,” I reassured gently. “She just has a different power.”
Amy crouched in a chair, looking thoughtful. “So, I’m super extra fast… What do I do now?”
“Well…” It was a horrid idea. A wild idea. I hated myself for thinking it, but we had to get out of this place. We had to. “You could… you could run around and see if there’s any way out. There has to be a way they leave.”
Amy’s face glowed. “I can run around! Yes! Okay, I’ll do it!” She jumped to her feet excitedly. “I’ll come right back and we can save everyone!”
“Be safe,” I insisted as she pushed aside the door and reached for the handle. “Please, don’t take too long. If anything goes wrong--”
She gave me a charming smile. “I’ll be right back, don’t worry!” She stepped out of the room and I peered out through the window, watching her disappear in a blur down the hall. I did not block the door. I didn’t want to lock Amy out.
Dierdre was going to kill me when she found out about this.
Diedre.
I knelt beside her, trembling. I took one of her pale hands and held it in my own. Her fingers were not broken, upon examination. That was good. They were dry and cracked and bleeding. I wondered how long it had been since she had gotten a drink.
I rummaged through the cabinets and cupboards of medical equipment, chancing upon an IV bag, full and titled ‘saline’. The needle and tube were there as well. I hooked the IV bag onto the stand beside my mother’s bed and twisted it so it would drip, then crossed over to Dierdre. I was careful, and easily found her vein. I pressed the needle through her skin and into her vein as softly as I could. Although my mother was sick and it tormented me, it had taught me some very important things.
She twitched.
I watched her carefully, then gently shook her shoulder, hoping to rouse her from her coma. “C’mon, Dierdre… It’s time to wake up. It’s Clayton. I need you awake now…” I whispered gently to her. “I know you don’t feel good, but it’s going to be okay. We just need your help. Soon you’ll be outside in the grass with the sunshine and the birds. You can stay there as long as you want, okay?”
She stirred, but did not open her eyes. I felt tears prick my own eyes. “Diedre, Dierdre, come on, please…” You were too late to save her. My head growled. You are a failure. This is why you should have died. She would have trusted Tiberius, unlike you. Look at you.
I let out a sob and pressed the bottoms of my palms against my eyes. “Shut up! Shut up! Get out of my head, you awful voice! Leave me alone! Stop bothering me!” I slid to my knees
, shaking. “Leave me alone! No, I will save them! This isn’t my fault! I didn’t ask to be born!”
A hand suddenly laid on my hair, weak fingers gripping my long curls. I looked up, and through tears saw Dierdre looking down at me, her blue eyes tired and filled with concern. ‘Are you okay?’ she mouthed. The same word formation my mother always used. With Dierdre, though, her lips formed the words more sweetly. More intensely.
“Dierdre!!”
23
Amy loved being fast. She had never been fast before, due to her oddly shaped feet (like a duck!), the doctors told her. She always lost footraces to her brother, and tripped over herself a lot.
But Amy loved being fast. She loved the air rushing past her cheeks and pulling on her ponytails, and she loved sliding to a half stop to turn corners. It was so much fun!
Amy missed her brother. And her dad. And her mom. But she didn’t miss them quite so badly now that her memories had been erased and then replaced. It wasn’t so bad, she guessed.
They were in a better place. They didn’t have to worry about zombies or starving or horrible bad people who would erase their memories and cut out their tongues.
Amy shuddered as she took a running leap over a metal plate in the floor. She couldn’t believe the bad people had hurt Dierdre like that. It was worse than a horror movie. She hated it. Hated them.
Her momma had told her never to hate, but her momma had never seen anyone cut out her friend’s tongue. Maybe her momma was wrong. Maybe it was okay to hate very, very bad people.
Were her momma and daddy worried about her in heaven, or had they forgotten about her in the happiness of Heaven? They had to be at least a little worried. Every now and again. Even though no one cried in Heaven, surely they could see her?
Maybe there was a giant mirror in Heaven that looked down on Earth, so people could see those they loved. Did they drag Buddy by his ear off of a velociraptor over to the mirror, to watch Amy, to make sure she was safe?