Chapter Song: Cradles - Sub Urban
XX
As soon as the room is quiet, I slip from bed and into the bathroom, feeling once more over where I long for a lock to be. What if Isaac comes back and invites himself into the shower with me? What if his anger makes my lack of interest a challenge? I think back to the night after we argued about the phone, the way he drew out the pain when I told him to stop. I see now the message that he was impressing onto my body. Isaac doesn't take no for an answer, Sam had said, and he was right. 'No' is a threat, a resistance to be bent or broken into a 'yes.'
Through the rush of the shower I listen for the sound of the door, but Isaac doesn't return, and soon I am clean of traces of him and dressed in clothes that don't smell so much like him. The emptiness in this room is daunting like it never was before, but I can't leave it now, not yet. I pull out each drawer in the bedside tables and rifle through the loose shit that Isaac has tucked away over the years. His desk drawers are largely empty; any important documents are probably kept in his office, which I know he locks with a key attached to his motorcycle keyring. And then there's that fucking safe. I try several combinations of Isaac's old phone password, but the translucent white buttons continue to blink red no matter how many times I punch in the code. Scanning the room doesn't turn up any better passcode combinations, and finally I sink to the floor in front of the dark metal box and lean my head into my knees.
There has to be something in this entire goddamn school that will help me. When I try the door, I half-expect Isaac to have locked it, but I step easily into the empty hallway. No stalker that I can see. I don't see any cameras in the hallway either, but then, most of Isaac's pack sleep in this wing so there would be little need for it. I walk down the hallway and try different doors that I haven't been through before, but many of them are locked with a deadbolt, and the other hallway branching from the cafeteria is busier than the old dorm hall.
No one speaks to me, but they all look—they're watching with an intensity that shifts quickly away when I try to meet their gazes. I can't measure the hostility in their eyes, but there certainly isn't any pity. I think I'm an enemy to them more than anything, an interloper who has only brought trouble. But they don't say a thing, whether out of dislike of me or fear of Isaac I'm not sure.
"Layla!" I don't like the voice that calls my name from behind. I don't turn around to acknowledge Reiner, but keep walking down the hall as his footsteps approach too quickly. "Hey, wait a second, I just want to talk."
"Do you tell that to all the girls before you tase them?"
"Come on, man, just wait up."
And only because I'm running out of hallway, I do. Some thirty feet ahead of me is a door with sunlight bleeding through the window, and Isaac's words are enough to make the sight of it flip my stomach. When Reiner is near enough, I whirl on him and grab a fistful of his shirt, shoving him hard enough into the wall that I know it will hurt. It hurts me too—I instinctively used my right arm despite the twist of pain that now creeps up my shoulder.
"Is this what talking looks like to you?
"I didn't say I wanted to talk to you."
He's humoring me though, motionless against the wall with his head leaning back against the blue painted brick. "You okay?"
"Unless you're offering to drive me to the border with a wad of cash in my pocket, I'm not interested in whatever it is you think you need to say."
"Layla—"
"And don't you fucking dare apologize to me. Your words don't mean shit if your actions are the opposite, you get that right?" He's just like Isaac, without the swing. He'll offer friendship and tase me in the back when he gets a chance.
"Fine, okay."
"If that's all you wanted to do then you can leave me alone now."
I let go of him and try to ignore the deep pain in my shoulder and the thrashing in my chest. I shouldn't have lashed out at him, not with his proximity to Isaac. I don't want to repeat yesterday or discover a new way for Isaac to punish me for fucking up. Reiner won't hurt me, not without Isaac's permission anyway, but I'm still surprised to find that he isn't glaring at me when he looks at me.
"I just wanted to see if you needed anything."
So he really was just trying to apologize. "You know Isaac better than I do," I manage, throat suddenly tight. "You should have dealt with your guilt before you forced me to come back here."
Reiner doesn't respond for a few seconds, ducking his head aside like he does when he's searching for something to say.
"I'll hate you a little less if you let me go outside."
"Not going to happen," he says quietly, and I grit my teeth to keep the vitriol inside. Pushing hard past his shoulder, I'm satisfied by the breath that leaves his mouth as I walk back toward the cafeteria. "Wait, Layla!"
"What do you want, Reiner?"
"I'll walk out with you if you promise not to do anything stupid."
"Wow, an escort in the prison yard." I want to tell him that I'd rather he go fuck himself, but I can't stand the peeling blue paint any longer or the way the pieces of this school so abruptly end in doors that I can't open or walk through. And if I go back to Isaac's room right now, I really will lose my mind. I turn again and walk back to Reiner's side, nodding at the door.
"I hope you don't talk like that around him."
It's like a punch in the gut. "You know I don't," I manage. He lets me push through the heavy school door, but his presence is close behind. Outside, the sky is a sharp blue that bites. "Wow." The humidity has dropped considerably since yesterday, leaving cloudless skies and and crisp winter air. It's always this way in Northern Minnesota; every mild autumn day is just one snowstorm away from plummeting to winter.
"Need a coat?"
"No." It's something to focus on. My boots crunch satisfyingly through the top crust of snow, plunging five inches down to grass that is still touched with green. Silent as a dog, Reiner follows me as I trek along the border of the school, no destination in mind other than distance from where I came.
When we reach the front of the school, my fingers and toes are sufficiently numb to prompt me back into the building, but Reiner doesn't leave my side. Even when I offer him a glare he remains unfazed, keeping pace with my swift clip. I pause when we reach the edge of the cafeteria, which is mostly empty save for Sam.
"Hey, I know how you can apologize," I say softly, and Reiner's gaze is steady on me. "You have a phone, right?"
"Yeah," he replies, drawing out the word as if he's realized he shouldn't have admitted to it.
"I just want to talk to my sister, that's all. I miss her and I need to tell her I'm alive."
"You're only asking me because you asked Isaac and he told you no, right?"
"Obviously. But I think you owe me."
He's quiet, an unnerving seriousness leveling his face. "Layla, you know I can't do that. You could cause a lot of trouble."
"I'd let you listen. One wrong word and you can tase me til I shut up."
His frown deepens, and his eyes flick away for just long enough that a bubble of hope rises in my chest. "Isaac said no, and I'm not going against his word."
"Why are you so afraid of him? What's he going to do to you if you make your own decisions?"
"Isaac has kept us all safe for long enough that we know to trust him."
"So Isaac says jump and you do it, even if it's off a fucking bridge. What if he's leading you wrong?"
"He hasn't so far."
"Then it'll hurt even worse when it does happen, and trust me it will."
"You don't get it, Layla. You haven't lived here long enough to understand what he does for this pack, for the whole territory."
"Enlighten me then!"
"You're not going to argue your way into a phone call, if that's what you're trying to do."
"Honestly, Reiner, at this point I just want to understand. I want to know why, yesterday, you still brought me back here to have the shit beaten out of me, when there was no one else around to know if you just let me go. What about your trust in him has anything to do with me being here?"
Reiner stares at me—just stares straight at me almost as if he didn't hear a word I said. Then, he shakes his head and turns toward the cafeteria. "I'm done talking, Layla. For what it's worth, I'm sorry."
"Not much," I whisper. "It's not worth very much."
"Then I guess I don't have anything more to say to you."
He walks into the cafeteria, shoulders suddenly drawn in tension, and slides onto a bench across from Sam, who has been staring at us since we walked inside. Sam hazards a wave, which I force myself to return. I know they're in the same pack, but it still feels wrong to see them talking together after what Reiner did. But maybe, just maybe, it was Sam who told Reiner exactly where he could find me. I don't look back at them when I leave the cafeteria for Isaac's bedroom.
It's a fucked up thing, this feeling clawing inside of me. It's a growing, shifting feeling like rage or grief or heartbreak, but it's got an edge to it that I can't seem to avoid as I turn the handle to Isaac's room. If I live here for another week, my life will consist of quietly letting Isaac fuck me, or being made to let him, and wandering around this goddamn school until I'm granted privileges to walk in the yard on my own again. If I'm here for a month, or three, there will be no more quietly putting up with pretenses; I don't think a person can just hold out like that. Or maybe there is someone who can, but it isn't me, I'm not strong enough.
I can already feel the understanding of Isaac's inevitability weighing on my heart like lead. At what point of staying here do I give up and give in? What does that even look like? Or do I fight and let myself be broken to that point—or let Isaac get tired enough of me that he gets rid of me? And what would that look like? Trafficking to someone who would treat me worse than him, who wouldn't even try to love me, maybe. Or maybe I'd just end up dead.
And if I lived here for a year, I would lose myself, of that I'm sure. And it's that thought, of time stretching on in a way I can't comprehend, of feeling so swallowed by my inability to help or defend myself, that makes me want to leave Isaac with my dead body to contend with when he returns home tonight.