*Alice on the right and Bethany on the left above*
The day goes by exhaustingly fast. When they finally show us back to our room, I don't even bother to change into the provided night clothes left on my bed. I just collapse on the mattress and bury myself under the sheets. It feels warm and safe there, like nothing could ever touch me. I hear Taylor's familiar snores that used to fill the silence in the night back at the zone. But I don't lie awake for long, I'm out almost as soon as my head hits the pillow. But I do dream. I can remember little things about it when I wake up.
It was the same nightmare that I always had back at the zone. The same one where I'm running and running and running with so much fear in my head and sweat dripping down my forehead in the dark. But there's nothing chasing me.
Only, this time there's someone, not running after me, but next to me. They aren't the threat and I can't tell who it is until for some reason, their face lights up in the dark. It's Taylor. She looks just as panicked and out of breath as I am. I don't mean to, but I wake up before the dream is over. I wake up breathing hard and terrified for no reason.
"Good morning, sleepyhead." Taylor says, she's sitting on her bed, new clothes on consisting of black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt with a bleach stain down the front.
"Morning." I say, still trying to wake myself up.
I make my way to the bathroom and where another pile of clothes sits on the sink counter.
"Bethany brought new clothes in the middle of the night. That girl is like an owl, didn't sleep a wink last night. I heard her up and walking around all night." Taylor said, standing to slip on her boots from yesterday.
I decide to shower in the morning, it's an odd feeling since we were never aloud to back at the zone but it wakes me up. I wonder if Taylor had stayed up all night. How else would she have heard Bethany up? But I don't let it bother me, she seems fine this morning.
When I finish and leave the bathroom changed into my new clothes, a neon orange jacket that fits like a second skin and a pair of black sweatpants, I find Blake and Taylor conversing in the room with Alice standing at the door.
They don't look to particularly pleased.
"What's wrong?" I ask, drying my wet hair on the towel. Simultaneously, all of their heads snap in my direction, like they hadn't expected me to be here.
Taylor looks more confused than anything and Blake and Alice have blank expressions that are impossible to read.
"Did you hear?" She asked, her voice trembling as she tried to keep it steady.
"Hear what?" I said, throwing the towel onto my bed and plopping down next to it.
Blake took over for Taylor to further explain what they had been discussing.
"Order's not safe, not anymore." I squinted at him, trying to find the right thing to say in reply. Didn't he just tell us that this was the safest place we could be?
"What do you mean it's not safe?" I don't stand up. He sighs and rubs a hand against his forehead.
"There's a mole. Someone inside Order is relaying information to the government, classified stuff. I was worried they'd send out our location sooner or later so I talked Alice into coming over here to discuss it with you."
A mole? Someone's selling Order's secrets? Great, just great. This is exactly what I need right now. When we finally get somewhere new, finally aware from the dangers of the zone, and now this happens.
"Well who is it and what are we gonna do about it." Blake shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck.
"See that's the problem, we don't know who it is and Ms. Daniels refuses to let us conduct a thorough investigation because she doesn't want to worry the younger members." Alice rolled her eyes with an irritated sigh. So I guess I wasn't the only one who disliked Orders leader.
"Well we can't just sit around and wait for the monitors to come and find us! We'll be lucky if they even bother to send some of the younger ones back to the zone. If they show up here, we're all toast. They have no mercy for our lives." My little speech had no effect, Blake was still stressed out, Taylor still fidgeting nervously in the corner and Alice still leaning against the door frame like she'd given up.
"We can't tell anyone though, about the mole. If we do, they won't believe us. You and Taylor are too new and me and Alice don't exactly have the best, most trustworthy reputation." He sat down on Taylor's bed and held his head in his hands.
"Well, you can tell me about your plan killing backstory later." I said, still running through options to expose the mole in my head.
"We could still try, just see if they believe us." Taylor mumbled. She new we'd shoot her down but she had felt obliged to say it anyway.
"No can do, Ms. Daniels would deny it and reassure everyone that there is no traitor hidden in our ranks to keep everyone from flipping out. It's her word against ours and I don't like those odds." Alice said, shifting her weight against the door.
"So we came up with a different plan. One that involves just us four." Blake said slowly, trying to ease his words out, like he was testing us to make sure we wouldn't be utterly appalled by the very thought of it.
"You see, we won't be able to get everyone out and even though Ms. Daniels isn't telling the rest of Order now I'm confident that as soon as things get too bad she'll let them know so they can prepare." I could tell where Blake was going with this and I didn't like it. But, I let him finish nonetheless.
"We'll flee. That way we can stay safe and not be caught up in the fight that would ensue as soon as our location is revealed." There were so many reasons why that was a bad idea. For one, there's no way we could slip out unnoticed and leave behind everyone else to fend for themselves once the government finds us. For another, how could we even think about leaving the safety of Order. Yeah, that's right, I called it safe. It's better than being on the run without anyone else to back you up.
"Us four?" Taylor asked.
"There's five of us. Me, you, Roach, Alice, and Bethany." I hadn't thought of that. I hadn't payed much attention to the number Blake had said when he first proposed his plan.
In the doorway, Alice tilted her head to the floor and pinched the bridge of her nose as if either in deep thought or trying to keep herself from crying.
"Bethany's staying." Blake even slower than when he'd tryst to explain his plan. He said it so slowly that it almost didn't register with my mind at first, and I'm not sure why.
"No." I said, standing back up from where I sat on my bed. "No, if we go at all, we all go. Bethany's what, 9?"
"12." Alice Corrected. Ok, 12. Still so young.
"But still, there's no way she can survive an attack, she's so close to the entrance, and what is she gonna say when she finds out her own sister left her to the government?" I shook my head and held it in my hands. Why didn't they get it? We weren't a team, we weren't some type of friendly group of outcasts, we were sticking together because we had nothing else to hold onto. Bethany is part of that. If we leave her, what will she have left to lean on?
"We told Hector, he's my uncle, about our plan. I knew I could trust him, he's family after all. He promised to take care of Beth and make sure she's safe." Alice said, a heavy sadness in her voice.
"When would we go? And where, once we do manage to leave?" I asked. Blake, stood up from where he was on Taylor's bed and walked over to me. I'm not sure what I expected him to do but it certainly wasn't what he did.
He placed both of his hands on either side of my shoulders, forcing me to look directly into those ocean blue eyes. He looked at me the way Charlotte did that day the monitors came to take me away. He looked at me like he wanted me to be strong, like he was willing me to be strong.
"The truth is, I have absolutely no idea. Not a clue. But any where is better than dead and we have a good chance of being just that if we stay. Come on, Roach, what else is there left to do?" His voice was softer now and soothing when he spoke. I had to force myself to look over his shoulder, away from his eyes before I said something I might regret.
"Ok." I choked out. "I'll go, but only if Taylor goes too. And we have to take a car, we aren't just gonna walk everywhere." I added. I looked at Taylor who was nodding. Yes she would go. We'd all go, escape this disaster waiting to happen.
"Oh thank goodness!" Blake let out a sigh of relief and released my shoulders.
"I almost thought my boyish charm wasn't going to work there for a moment." He jerked the collar of his ripped and faded jean jacket with a crooked little half smile. Alice, who had left the door frame, punched him on the shoulder.
"That's for your attitude." She tried to keep a straight, tough looking face but that was one thing she could barely manage.
"When do we go?" Taylor asked, striding over to stand next to me. I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"Now, if Beth is off duty." Alice said, whispering Bethany's name as if she'd already begun to feel the guilt sinking into her for leaving behind her sister without a goodbye.
I followed Alice and Taylor out of the room but Blake kept pace with me.
"So, since we've now bonded a little more-". I cut him off before I'd even heard what he was going to add.
"No bond, still just met yesterday." I say as we reach the end of the hallway. Bethany is no where in sight.
"Ok fine,". He begins again, "since we are going to be spending hours and hours in a car together, I would love to know your name now." I hadn't expected that. I hadn't expected him to want to know that badly. And truth be told, I didn't really care if he knew my name now. There was no point in hiding it, with so many other things to worry about, what was the point of keeping something as meaningless as a name secret.
"Maybe later." I told him finally. I really didn't know why I said no. I guess because I wanted to see what he'd say.
"Fine, that just means I get to think up a really adorable nickname for you!" Blake gave a little clap of his hands in feigned excitement.
"Oh! How about sweetie pie? No, no, I have a better one! What about honey bear? You like that better, don't you." He started laughing so hard. I suppose he just enjoyed making fun of me, then.
"Your terrible at nicknames." I said, just as Alice opened the door to the little garage where we had left the car.
"And your terrible at come backs so I guess we're even." I didn't bother to say anything back, I just kept walking into the dark garage like space where the black car was still parked.
I didn't know it would be this easy, just to walk out. We didn't have to disarm any cameras, no guards to take down, no barriers to break, you just leave. It almost seemed too easy.
"Pile in." Alice said, this time hopping into the back seat with Taylor, who'd already climbed in.
I slammed the door shut just as I got settled in the passenger side and Blake started the car. I guess he left the keys in it.
"How do we get out? What if someone sees us leave?" I asked. Blake waved away my question with a dismissive hand.
"No ones gonna see us leave, and we get out the same way we got in. Up." I had no idea what he was talking about. When we had arrived yesterday, we had to keep our heads down. I guess so we weren't spotted or something but still, I hadn't seen how we'd gotten in, only the darkness that engulfed us once we'd gotten in the garage.
"What the heck do you mean, up?" I asked, turning to him in a mix of shock and confusion.
But Blake never got to answer. The floor below me rumbled like some beast was trapped beneath it and trying to claw its way out. Just when I thought the noise was the worst part of this whole endeavor, the car moved. Not forward or backward or left or right. Nope. The thing went up. I pressed my hand on the car door to steady myself and I looked at Blake, my jaw dropped in horror. He just laughed and placed his hands on the steering wheel.
As it turns out, the floor was moving with us, carrying the car to the ceiling. Then, when the ceiling split open, the right half sliding to the right, side the left going to the left, we found ourselves in a warehouse, still dark, but not as pitch black as the scenery from the garage. And it was bigger. Much bigger. It reminded me of one of those plant houses with the big white tarp to let some light in but it was always damp and moist inside from the water used to keep the plants alive.
"Where are we?" Taylor asked, clearly intrigued. Blake started steering the car our of the tent/warehouse building. There was an opening on one side that he just barely squeezed the car through.
"The Paisleys' garden improvement shop." Blake satiated bluntly, as if that made any sense at all.
"Why?" I inquired, shielding my eyes from the blinding sun. We began driving down a winding gravel road that crunched and crackled under the tires. There were no other buildings in sight. Just the one we had come from only seconds ago.
"Because, Order's base is underground, how else would we not have been discover yet. The Paisley family was kind enough to sell us their yard and garden care shop since they greatly approved of our purpose and our goals and in fact, they also had a son who became variated and was killed when government officials, monitors, came to take him to the zone. Mrs. Paisley explained they wouldn't have hurt him if he didn't try to fight back as violently as he did." There was an aching sadness in his voice, almost a longing, that was evident when he spoke.
"Oh." Taylor said, pretending not to notice the pain in Blake's voice.
"Now what?" Alice asked, I saw her prop her elbow up on the door and look up at Blake through the rearview mirror.
"I guess we just try and get as far away as we can. Far enough that if anyone finds us they won't expect us to be acquainted with Order." I bit my lip and looked out the window as we approached a two lane paved road that we soon turned onto. I hated this plan. Hated it. Mostly because there was no plan. We just up and left and hoped we'd be ok. But, what sucks the most, is that we left everyone else behind with no idea that they'd soon have to fight off a government attack. We didn't even leave them a note or anything. We just deserted them when they needed our knowledge most.
"Hey," I said, a thought just now popping into my head.
"How come you guys knew about the mole but no one else does?" It was kind of odd, how they knew a piece of information this important, this dangerous, and everyone else was still entirely oblivious to it.
"I found it." Alice says from the backseat.
"It was an accident though, it's not like I was snooping or anything. But I went to go use on of the analyst computers, you know to record our mission. The mission where we went to rescue you two, and well, someone left their email open and they forgot to delete their latest draft. It was just bad timing really, that it happened to be open at the time and they forgot to erase their sent emails." She explains. I lean back in my chair, contemplating this.
"Ok, so didn't you see the email address, didn't you know who was sending it? And even if you didn't, couldn't you have used your curse to see who it was if they went back to the computer." Alice shook her head when I looked in the mirror.
"The address was just a random collection of numbers, no meaning, no way to connect it to anyone in particular without drawing too much attention. And my curse doesn't work like that. I can only see people and outlines of objects. I might've seen someone go back to the computer but they could just be playing Galaga for all I know." I sighed. Well that sucks.
"What about Bethany, could she have seen something?" I guessed. Clearly it had been a mistake to bring up Bethany. Alice sucked in a sharp breath and had to take a moment for responding. Maybe she was still felling guilty.
"Bethany and I's variations are pretty close to the same. She sees the same things I do only her's has a particular distance where it doesn't work anymore. I can see all over the place while her's is limited in small areas. There's no way she could have seen anything and she would've told me if she did." I saw Blake purse his lips. He hadn't thought about that possibility apparently.
"Ok, I think we'll take this next exit and head on the highway for a couple hours until we reach Colorado. Then we'll find somewhere to park for the night unless any of you girls would like to drive at night while I sleep?" Blake said, nobody volunteered to drive. For one, I didn't know how. But part of me doubted that Blake knew how to either. He'd often jerk the car a little to far this way or that and press down a little to hard every now and then.
"Sounds good to me." Alice says, and Taylor and I both agree as well. At this point, any plan is better than nothing.
I can't believe I'm here for a moment. I'm free. I'm away from the zone, a place I called my home for three years. I wonder if my parents are out there, back in Colby, looking for me. I wonder if Charlotte misses me. I wonder if my classmates miss me or if any of them suffered from the variations. I wonder what's going on at Taylor's house right now, wherever that may be.
There are so many things I've missed. And I used to imagine what freedom would feel like, before the zone and all of its utter hopelessness came up and swallowed me hole. But when I used to dream, it was nothing like this. I never saw myself sitting in a car, my life in the hands of two practically strangers with Taylor accompanying me.
But somehow, I like this better. It's an adventure. It's something new, something different. It's letting me test my limits so I can break through them, not be bound by them. In my dreams, I used to somehow go right back to my normal life only I would be praised for my curse instead. I would live happily ever after in a quiet life surrounded by my parents and Charlotte.
But this was fun. I'm going to see Charlotte and my parents again, there's no doubt in my mind about that, but for the moment, I'm glad I came with Blake and Alice. I'm glad Taylor hopped in the back of their car. I want this. I want to have an adventure before things go back to the way they used to be. Maybe it's a mistake to think that way, maybe I should escape while I still can. Or maybe this will turn out to be one of the best things to ever happen to me.
Who knows.
I certainly don't.
Only time will tell...
THIS CHAPTER WAS SURPRISINGLY SHORT I KNOW, ONLY 3,537 WORDS!!! OH WELL, I HOPE IT WAS EXCITING CHAPTER FIVE WILL BE ARRIVING SHORTLY!!!