The Younger Escapees

Chapter 20: Injections and Crying, Sounds Cheery Right?

            When I finally woke up my hand slid across something slick and cool. I kept my eyes shut, my bed had a cotton comforter without a stitch of silk in sight, but my hand was running across silk. Then there was the clank of metal and a dull pain in one side of my wrist and I was unable to go any farther in that direction. There was a constant pain in my other wrist. I recognized it briefly from the two days I spent in the hospital after my tonsillectomy. An I.V.; I hated those things.

            There was a shuffling to my side and a slight pull at the I.V. and a burning that followed soon after. It started at my wrist and spread. The pain was indescribable and I cringe when I remember it. My head pounded and merely a split-second before I was forced back into my world of a fitful and dreamless sleep, my mind exploded with memory of what had just happened. It was a good thing my memory waited to come back, or I would have been a sobbing mess during my brush with conciseness.

            Minutes, hours, or days later I slowly was pushed back into the world of the waking. This time I forced myself to open my eyes. I was in my old room, from when I had been a child ignorant to the cruelty going on just under my nose. The walls were a pale purple and the curtains and bedding (the silk my hand had ran over) were light green. The rest of the room was an assault of random and bright colors. The only things missing were two swords that I’d used as decorative pieces and a letter opener that was always on my desk. There wasn’t a single object in the room that could be used as a weapon. Gone were any figurines or scissors. He’d even taken out the pens and pencils.

            He’d really overestimated me. All that I wanted to do was curl up in a corner and cry until I feel asleep. I wouldn’t have left my corner if I’d had it my way. But I didn’t, because I couldn’t. The metal around my wrists was a set of handcuffs; I couldn’t leave.

            I might have just cried myself out in my old bed if a thought hadn’t rushed through my mind. ‘I didn’t die for you to just sit here’ Darius’s voice rang through my mind. I did exactly hear it. I heard it the way you hear voices and sounds in dreams, without the use of the ears but with a sense of knowing.

            “But…” I whispered (I thought I sounded a little less crazy speaking out loud) my voice trailing off before I can come up with an excuse for my cowardice.

            ‘But nothing, you can’t just hide anymore when things get tough,’ he replied in my head. I knew I was talking to myself, but it felt better to imagine I was talking to Darius. It may have seemed even more insane but in a strange way it made me feel less insane.

            “So genius what am I supposed to do?” I asked fighting back a spiteful tone in my voice. I couldn’t get mad at myself.

            ‘Get out of here. Break out Max, Elise, and Anna and hide again,’ he replied placidly.

            “What sort of life is hiding?” I asked forcing myself not to burst into tears. His voice was killing me.

            ‘The only life you have,’ he answered with a sense of finality. Then there was silence. My conversation with myself was over and it was time for me to grow up. No more being the helpless little telekinetic. No, I think I lost that title when I destroyed those guns. Time to stop being too weak to save myself.

            I focused on the handcuffs first. I tried to pull around a few things inside to make it come unlocked. Nothing. I tried again, nothing. I was in a panic by this point and I attempted to move a paper on my desk. Once again, nothing happed. The pale paper lay there taunting. I wasn’t telekinetic anymore.

            I wanted to scream. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry until I couldn’t anymore.

            Wait a second Rae. There was something you remembered right before you were shot. Maybe it will help. Try to remember.

            Two years ago. That’s how long ago that I sold my soul to the devil.

            “There’s a group of escapees from the compound that I work in Sarah. These are bad people. I need you to help me get them back,” my father said coolly pacing across the room.

            “Why me?” I asked sipping a cup of coffee. Dad was being much nicer than normal. That scared me.

            “Because Sarah, you’re special, like there’re special. They use their… abilities in a bad way,” He answered like I was a five year old.

            “Like my… you know?” I asked

            “Yes Sarah, like how you can make things fly around,” he answered with a smile. He hated my ‘ability’, so why was he smiling?

            “What do I have to do?”

            “Well Sarah… you’re going to be hiding in my compound for awhile,” Ha! Two years is just awhile now? “And then you’ll be going with them. You will not remember anything about here or this conversation for sometime. All you have to do is exist. There will be a tracking device in your arm that we will use to find them. I need you to come back after everything is over. You may be on their side by then, but by the time you remember I’m sure things will be back to normal,” he explained with the edges of a smile playing in his voice.

            “What if I don’t want to?” I asked trying to sound innocent.

            “Your friend, Damien. He’s different like you are. If you do this, I could keep my compound from examining him, you know to make sure he’s not going to use his ability to hurt someone. The examination isn’t exactly pleasant,” he clung to the word ‘pleasant’ for a moment longer. I could almost hear the horrors hidden just under that word. He hadn’t given me a choice.

            “Okay, I’ll do it,” I spat out.

            He smiled before rifling through a pile of papers to find a small long steel box. He pulled out a syringe. “This,” he began before tapping the needle, “is a serum newly developed to cause memory loss. It lasts about a month and it takes about two days to work. After those two days you will be taken to the compound,” he stuck the needle into my neck “Oh yeah, and for the targets to come after you, you’ll have to come close to dying,” he said quickly before injecting the serum in my neck.

            So he lied to me. He went ahead and turned in Darius too. I doubt he’d intended for Darius to be saved by Max, Elise and Anna. Darius was saved before me. I was the only flaw in his plan. I didn’t want to be the quiet, submissive little girl I had been before. I was willing to fight back. The serum must have affected Darius longer than it should, maybe because his ability had to do with thoughts and others minds and intentions, just a theory.

            No it didn’t matter. Darius was dead. I couldn’t think of him anymore. It would kill me. I couldn’t remember that split second before the guns fired, the palm of his hand pushing me to the ground. Getting me to safety before thinking of himself. And I’d been too selfish to tell him about his past when I remembered.

            I let myself cry, and I let myself blame my father for everything.