I Become Shadow (6 page)

“Turn and face each other,” he said.

I turned to face Katie, and she me. She had a light scar on her jaw and a small piece of her ear was missing. A dog bit her as a kid maybe? Who knows? But otherwise she was a cute girl. I wondered how she was judging me at that moment. Probably checking out the freckles. Everyone stared at those.

“Bow to each other,” Cole said.

Katie and I shared a confused look.

“Formalities should always be followed,” he added, but he sounded bored.

We bowed. Why not?

Cole smiled. “Good. Now fight until one of you is unconscious.”

Huh?
I froze, still half-bowed, not quite sure I had heard right. I blinked at Katie, whose lip was quivering. Her eyes widened. We turned to Cole. His smile hardened. “Is there a problem here, ladies? I’m not joking. Fight. Now.”

I looked back at Junie for support, but he only shook his head, as frightened as we were.

“Now!” Cole spat.

I had never been in any kind of fight, ever, and judging by Katie’s non-reaction she wasn’t too eager to obey Cole either. So unless Cole’s idea of fighting was a brutal stare-off he was going to be sorely disappointed by this contest. Given my new occupation, I got that physical confrontation was something we should be ready for, so the idea of having to train for it was understood. But I figured a fight-off like this would only be appropriate after some extensive training, right? Not day one type stuff. Did Mr. S. know about this?

Cole stood up and glared at the two of us. Then he did something I don’t think anyone expected. He reached behind his back, pulled out a gun, and pointed it first at Katie then at me.

“Fight or I’ll kill one of you,” he said.

I froze, terrified. If you’ve never had a loaded gun pointed at you, be happy. It’s not a pleasant experience.
Combine that with a death threat from someone whose nose you’ve broken. But this was only a scare tactic, right? How would killing either of us make any sense? It would be stupid and defeat the whole purpose. He couldn’t be serious.
We’ll be safe here as long as we obey—

BANG!

Katie crumpled to the ground.

Crimson blood began to pool around her lifeless body. I stopped breathing. This couldn’t be real. It was a trick, an illusion. I looked at Cole. His eyes were blank behind the wisp of smoke still creeping out of the barrel of the gun.

Now here is something that I’ve never told anyone. To my fellow snatched tweens it looked like I charged Cole, ready to attack him for what he’d done. But the truth is that I knew that somewhere behind him was the hidden door. It was that simple. I wanted out of that room. My only thought was to run. It was pure panic, nothing more. I never told the truth to anyone because after that they all thought I was some crazy brave girl. It gave me a dangerous reputation I would carry through my time at the center, a certain level of totally undeserved respect.

So here I was, charging Cole (wink). His eyes narrowed as I barreled toward him, and he looked confused, then oddly amused. The last thing I remember before everything went black is Cole’s grinning face. That, and terrible pain.

WAKING UP AFTER PASSING
out was becoming a regular thing in my life now. It was strange that I had been knocked out more times in the past twenty-four hours than I’d brushed my teeth.

I was back in a hospital gown and lying in a pretty comfy bed, but my head was killing me. I guess you can’t lose consciousness without consequences. I’d only been drunk once when Beth’s older sister had given us some gin so my hangover experiences were limited, but this seemed pretty similar. Curtains were pulled around me, but I could hear other people out there. Moans of pain and anguish, mostly. There was also hushed chatter, the beeping of machines, and someone snoring not too far away, but mostly it was agony. I saw the shadow of a pushcart pass my curtains.

I took a deep breath but choked. My throat was killing me from where I think Cole had rammed his knee. It was all a little fuzzy. His sadistic smile popped into my head. And then, just as suddenly, Katie’s face was all I could think about. I remembered her confused face as she looked at me, then the image of her body. I could feel her warm blood spray across my face. Here came the waterworks. I tried to be quiet about it, but everything I’d been fighting since minute one of my kidnapping came pouring out. I was a blubbering mess. The scales had tipped; I was no longer in control of my emotions. I covered my head with my pillow to muffle the sounds, but that did very little.

“Are you okay?” came a soft, sweet voice.

“Yes,” I barely choked out.

There was a snort of laughter. I tried to collect myself and was able to control my gasping and sniffling, but the tears kept coming.
Better than nothing
. I removed the pillow, expecting to see a nurse, or maybe even Not-Beth. I was not expecting to see Katie’s face grinning back at me.

A sniffled and shocked, “What?” was all I could muster.

Katie arched an eyebrow. She was actually quite pretty when not confused, terrified, and dead on the floor.

“May I?” she asked and motioned toward my bed.

I nodded and scooted over. She sat next me, and we looked at each other for a moment.

“Those aren’t for me, are they?” she asked, pointing at the tears.

“Not all of them,” I said as I sat up. “I saw you die. Am I imagining this?”

“Ha. No, I’m really here. Never assume you know everything in this place,” she said. “That was part of my final test.”

She pulled down the collar of her own gown to show a strange, hard patch to the right of her heart.

“Show no fear in a situation that could mean death,” she said. Her eyes twinkled. “I passed!”

“Does it hurt?”

“No. Fire acted pretty quickly on me. Been pain-free for about six months now. But feeling no pain and having no fear aren’t quite the same thing. This showed I was capable of both.”

She looked around the room before muttering “I won’t miss this, that’s for sure.” She glanced back at me. “They said you charged Cole after he shot me? Gutsy. Stupid, but gutsy.”

Remember that lie I mentioned earlier? When I nodded, it began right then and there.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“I wait to be linked to my FIP,” she said.

Then in a mocking, highbrow voice she added, “
Individuals whose safety and protection are essential to the welfare of the human race
is such a mouthful. So
we
,” she motioned between the two of us, “call them FIPs. It’s easier. We made T-shirts.”

I made a mental note to remember this useful windfall of hip so I could share it with Junie and the others to enhance my rep.

“How long will getting your FIP take?” I asked.

“Could be tomorrow, could be a year,” she said flatly. “No one knows. Hope it’s soon though. I want to get linked and get out of this place.”

“What do you mean by linked?”

“When you get your FIP, you’re linked to them. It’s hard to explain. Their safety becomes more important to you than anything else on the planet. Make sense?”

I shrugged, “Kind of.”

“You don’t really know what it’s like unless you’ve done it, which I haven’t.” She shrugged her shoulders. “How are
you
feeling?”

She had kind eyes, but you could tell they’d been through a lot and had barely come out the other side.

“Fine,” I lied.

“Riiiight,” she said sarcastically. “Trust me, I’ve been there.”

“I hurt everywhere. Happy?” I said.

“Beyond,” she said with a grin. “Thirsty?”

There was a glass of water on a nightstand to my left. I started to reach for it, but Katie reached across and got it first. Her movement was fast, almost unnaturally so. Curious, I took the glass from her.

“A pleasant side effect of fire,” she said. “Since your body knows it will never feel pain, there’s no hesitation on movements anymore. Makes you faster than you were before.”

I drained the water.
When is the last time I’ve eaten or drunk anything?
My stomach gave a growl. Katie took the glass and put it back. I really watched her this time. The movement was faster-than-normal enough to be noticeable, but not fast enough to raise suspicion.

Knowing I was watching, she smiled. “Now you keep taking your medicine and you’ll be just like me.”

I gave a light laugh. There was the clang of a tray being dropped nearby. Katie stiffened, alert and ready. There was something about her that sent a shiver down my spine. She was no longer my older confidante. The façade was over, and the look on her face was that of a stone-cold killer. Realizing her mask had fallen away, she quickly
joked, “Looks like you’ll probably take my place as the regular here.”

“Let’s hope not.”

She took a deep breath as she absentmindedly touched her wound.

“I thought you said it didn’t hurt?”

“It doesn’t. It itches,” she said. A few seconds of silence passed before she announced, “I better get going.”

“Please don’t go,” I said, fighting fresh tears. I didn’t know this girl; I didn’t trust her. But she gave me hope, like maybe I could actually get through this. I didn’t want to be alone again.

“No. Stop that,” she scolded, as if I were a child. “You can’t do that anymore. Not here. The girl you were can’t survive here. She won’t make it. You need to become someone else.”

“Okay.” I sniffed and wiped my eyes.

She held my hand and whispered, “I’m trying to give you advice I wish someone had given me.” She gently let go before continuing, “But I gotta get going. They’re moving me to new quarters while I wait to be linked.” Her eyes twinkled again. “I get to have a TV and a radio. Man, I miss TV.”

When she reached the edge of the curtain she turned. “They’ll try everything they can to break you. They’ll hurt you. Threaten you. Threaten your friends. The worst of anything and everything you can imagine. Don’t let them win. If you believe you can get through it, you will. Good luck. Maybe we’ll bump into each other in the world.”

And with that she turned and slipped past the curtain.

I WAS TO STAY
in the hospital wing that night for observation. I didn’t argue. For dinner I was given some kind of mush that “had everything I needed in it.” It tasted like grits, which means it tasted like dirt. Halfway through the bowl one of the nurses snuck a pinch of cinnamon on it which helped immensely. It was a small gesture, but I appreciated it. From then on the search for and barter of spices for our breakfasts and dinners of mush would become a fun distraction from our other everyday activities. The nurses always had the best stuff.

As I was dozing off, Not-Beth returned for my nightly dose of fire. I thought being in the hospital would get me a night off. Silly me.

I WAS AWAKENED THE
next morning by a nurse and told to get dressed. Sitting up proved difficult. I was sore from the fire, and from Cole’s abuse. Finally vertical, I found a nicely washed pile of yellow sitting on the stool next to the bed. Stupid yellow. This place sucked.

Since I’d spent the night in the hospital, I got to eat my breakfast there instead of my room. Today’s mush was seasoned with rosemary. When the nurse came to take my clean bowl she dropped a twisted-up baggie full of rosemary on my bed and winked as she left. Big fan of that one.

Fully dressed and fed, I was instructed to return to training. On my way out I saw others like me. Most were nursing minor injuries, cuts and bruises, that sort of thing.
Others weren’t so lucky. One kid had his lower body in a cast. I passed one girl who was missing what looked like half of her face. What little skin remained was charred black. She stared at her hands, lost and alone.

I couldn’t place the location, but somewhere I could hear wailing. At the time I had no clue what it was, but later found out that behind the hospital wing was where you went if you broke and completely lost it. The wails were the animal cries from those whose minds were gone. If you went in, you never came back out. A lot of people I would come to know and call friends never did. I still want to believe that they eventually recovered and got to lead normal lives. But why believe a lie?

I hurried the rest of the way out. The door slid open. I was at the end of a hall with nowhere to go but straight. As I approached my first intersection I got nervous. I had no clue where I was, or where the room I was supposed to be in was either. How would I know where to go? If I got lost, would they think I was trying to escape and punish me? Or would I become some hallway hobo, begging for help? The image of myself in tattered yellow rags popped into my head and made me laugh. But to my very pleasant surprise, when I reached the intersection a green light softly pulsated on the hallway wall, leading left with a pleasant
ding
.

Left it is
. At the next intersection my good friend the green light and his trusty companion
ding
told me to keep going straight. Four left turns, two rights, one elevator ride, and who knows how many keep-on-truckin’ straights later brought me to a door with no windows. I knew I had
to go inside, but the idea was like a punch in the gut. My eyes began to tear up, but then I remembered Katie.
Not here. Not anymore
.