I was running but I stopped, now I stand cautiously staring back towards the encampment.
"Crap!" Is all I can mutter to myself. I'm so useless! Useless!
I bash my face in with the palm of my hand, sitting down in the foliage and just groaning to myself. I can't just leave, right? I can't just kill anyone, right?
"Where the hell is my son?" A British voice shouts over the trucks. "I know he's in 'ere! Let me—no, you get the fuck out o' my way!"
Ryan's dad. Ryan is over there trying to claw his way inside, but I can only hear one side of the conversation. I sulk over closer to them so I can hear the soldier replying, straining to listen.
"Currently, we're on lock down, sir. Please calm down. We will have a representative with you shortly. Please remain calm."
"Fuck you, you're fuckin' useless!"
I drop down, peeking under the trucks, and see three pairs of legs—Ryan's father, his mother, and the soldier. His mom is being quiet.
"Lila in there too?" He asks. "Fuckin' creeps! Where are our children? I'll get the mayor—"
"Sir, there is nothing I can do, you just need to be—"
Ryan's father shoved the officer, who pushed him to the ground and drew his weapon on him after he fell to the ground. "Keep your hands off of me!" He screams. Ryan's father looks like he's about to cry. Crap. I have to do something. Haven't I already done enough? I mean, they aren't going to shoot him, are they? I mean...are they?
I close my eyes and concentrate as hard as I can, to summon the apparition, to vanish, to assist however I can. What might I do... Appear behind him, subdue him? No, he'd have me on the ground in seconds. Just like last time. Maybe I can just scare him... Think he sees a ghost. I can do that, yeah. I give myself a confident huff and open my eyes to see that all is black and white once more.
I sprint out from behind the truck and consider where I should be. In front of him, right? So he sees me. I'll walk towards him, appearing, disappearing, approaching. I do exactly that. There's a long dirt path which stretches from the forest edge to the little entrance to the camp. I stand at the very end and psych myself up, getting ready to this. I close my eyes and ask again to come back, but the apparition was there already, waiting for me behind my eyelids.
"Don't close your eyes," He says. "Just ask." When he speaks it startles me, causing me to jump.
I open my eyes and I've not reappeared yet. I just ask in my head... Reappear.
Then, I did. Color flooded in and I saw Ryan's dad still staring up at the soldier, who's starting to lower his weapon. He looks up and sees me, then I ask to vanish, instinctively closing my eyes.
Yes! Yes! It's working! I run forward and stop, reappear. He's just staring down. I vanish again, and run forward. It'd be scary, I thought, if I contorted my body, so I threw my arm over my head, cocked my head as far back as it could go, twisted my body in horrifying ways, and reappeared only for a moment. I disappear and run forward again, now halfway down the stretch, but this time I just stand and stare.
"SHIT!" He screams, drawing his weapon on me. He doesn't fire anything off before I vanish. I can't help but laugh, dashing to the side and forward, away from where he would be firing, this time thinking it'd be funny if I crawled like the grudge.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" He exclaims, firing into the dirt. The gunshots pierce me. Not literally, but my heart skips a beat. I collapse to the ground after vanishing once more and feel my heart racing. I take a moment to recollect myself quickly, then I reappear behind him, but I don't move, I don't make a sound. I just look at him and watch what he does. He's looking left and right, scanning his gun around. Ryan's father is on the ground, curled up with his head between his knees, waiting for it to end. I lean in very close... I put my lips just barely an inch from his neck and I slowly exhale. A hot, breathy exhale. He starts to swing around but I vanish again before he sees anything.
The soldier's body's smoke blows past my face, gently caressing my arms. I fall to my knees, laughing hysterically. That was so funny it hurts my ribs to laugh!
Quickly, I run over to behind one of the trucks and watch from afar, reappearing, excited to see what he does.
I cover my mouth and sometimes vanish for a second because I can't hold in my laughter. Once he was done spinning in place, his gun raised to the horizon, he booked it back inside. As soon as it's safe, I cup my hands around my mouth and call to him.
"Ryan's dad!" I shout. I can't remember his name. Oops. He raises his head and looks around. "Over here!" I yell again. It's sort of a whisper-shout, not really yelling.
He looks over and his brows furrow. He clambers to his feet, looking once inside the camp, then scurrying towards me.
"Lila? Where is Ryan?" He asks me. His round glasses and short blonde hair makes him look so young. Like Harry Potter kinda, but only kinda.
I nod towards the camp. "They're in there somewhere."
"Where? Why?"
"The box you took a picture of?" I try to remind him. He searches his memory for a second.
"Right?"
I think to myself for a second about what I'm about to say. "There are human parts in them," I tell him bluntly.
Ryan's father smiles for a second and then loses it, sort of like an initial moment of disbelief. "No joke, eh?" He says.
I shake my head and say no.
"Shit. Is that why they took Ryan?"
I nod.
"Shit!" Ryan's dad looks around. "What happened to the soldier?"
I think for a second. What should I do? Should I just... vanish? Would that explain it well enough, so that I could start making my way into the camp? What should I say otherwise, if I don't do that?
"I scared him off," I said.
"Okay, but what actually happened?"
I shrug. Not worth the time to explain. I just need to get in there and do something, and do it now.
"I'm going to go in there now and try to get them out. Don't tell anyone, okay?" I say, bringing a finger to my lip.
"What? Are you fuckin' nuts?" He asks. I vanish.
The camp is a quiet calm. The sound of wind brushing through the crowning trees fills my ears once more, but again there are no animals, no life to speak of. No movement. Not even a breeze on my legs now.
It feels desolate with the silence. Tents line either side of this path through the middle, and a small pop-up building lies at the very end. I make my way there, the short, gray, wooden building. It resembles a convenience store in shape and size, and a prison in shade and construction.
The door to the entrance is missing, and in place of it is a wall of busy smoke. Like Terry's car was smoke as it drove, I assume this means people are rushing in and out constantly. I step inside. There's a desk to my left and beyond it is a hallway stretching to either side, filled with doors and rooms all the way down.
The environment looks busy but it doesn't at the same time. Pages litter the plasticy-wooden floor, and it's still just as silent as it was outside.
I approach the doors and found my hand, smoky, could not create any friction against the handles of the doors. I peek inside one of the doors. It's a cell. I look at the one adjacent, and it's another cell, cluttered with so many papers and files. I peek into another and my heart nearly jumps from my chest; a deep maroon shirt, tattered and dirty, lay motionless on the ground, crumpled and wrinkled almost into a pyramid. It's Anna's shirt, I think.
Bending down, I try to scratch the pages off of the ground but all I can manage is a nudge, like a slight breeze merely kissing them. While initially it was just the way it was, now it's starting to really irritate me. Like a dream where you try to scream but you can't, no matter how hard you try. It just comes out like a whimper.
I slap the page on the ground, and nothing. I keep smacking the floor, harder and more quickly, but nothing happens; I don't feel anything, and the page barely moves. I take a moment and pause, then slam my fist, punching the wood, but still, nothing. I feel nothing. I stand up and punch the metal door, and nothing. I run my body into it, and feel like a wave crashing into the shore—there's a little take and a lot of give, pushing my body away from the door.
They're in there. I need to get inside. I think, I try to think of some way, somehow to get inside. I feel the people, the soldiers, moving around all around me. I can't just reappear. What if they realize what I'm here for, and try to hide them. I can't risk that. If I'm in there, though, I won't be seen. I can hide with them.
In a spurt of motivation, I throw myself at the door again, diving up and through the window. The window, made of a grate with no glass, had only take, no give, letting me fly through. When I land, it's like when a bucket of water splashes into a tub. My body, a cloud of smoke, washes up and ricochets off the wall like a wave against a rocky cliff. I lay on the ground and feel nothing now. Just my own breath as it expands and collapses my chest. Then, I reappear.
It's so loud. People are yelling, boots are thumping throughout the building. A hand grasps my shoulder and I spin, taking their wrist and pulling it off, but it was Anna. She sat there without a shirt on, just a thick woolen sports bra and her pants. Then I notice how hot it is. It's so hot.
I have a million questions, and don't say any one of them. "Where's Ryan?" Is all I say.
"I'm here," He says, reaching his hand out to touch my knee. I'm afraid. I didn't notice before, but now, looking into their tired eyes, their muddied and soot-coated faces, I'm truly scared. I don't even know what to say right now.
"Are you here to get us out?" Anna asked. I didn't answer her.
"What did they do?" I ask. They don't answer.
"I wasn't sure what happened to you," Ryan says. "They didn't bring you back with us. We never saw you."
I looked at him. It's because they tried to kill me, I say. Not aloud. I don't think I need to say it out loud. "I'm sorry," I say.