Acaia knew the rules. But that didn't mean she had to like them. Or like the fact they were painted on sheets of thin metal, screwed into the brick walls all over the place.
· No smoking.
· All homework from home school had to be done between the hours of three to six o'clock.
· No eating after eight.
· No engaging in any type of sexual activity without consent from Moses.
And the number one rule: No phones. Which Acaia found a lot of redundant and a little funny considering they lived on a reservation. Anyone worth talking to was within walking distance.
The tip of an old match struck against an exposed brick. Acaia angled her face toward the fire and took in a deep breath through the filter of her cigarette.
"You know you're not supposed to be smoking." A voice beside her mentioned.
"Really? Where'd you get that from?"
Beside her, Cage pulled a pair of worn-out jeans to his waist, his chest still bare. He made a gesture of pointing to one of the many signs around them. Acaia nodded and blew a ring of smoke in the direction of the nearest sign.
"We're not supposed to have sex either but that didn't stop us three minutes ago did it?" She reminds him with raised brows.
Cage smiled crookedly as he pulled his already buttoned, button-down shirt over head. He loved screwing the rules almost as much as he loved screwing her. Besides, the only people who observed the rules were those in the fifteen and under crowd.
Cage stood by the bed, leaning in for a kiss. "You, Miss Acaia Brown, are a bad influence." A soft peck landed on her lips. "Keep it up."
She could only smile. She had known Cage since she was five and he was ten. Even then she managed to coerce him into doing her bidding not for the sake of her not getting caught, but for the simple fact that he never did. Of course, there was the possibility that he never got caught due to the fact of being Moses' only begotten son. She desired his immunity sorta speak. Although she wouldn't admit it, she even desired his true belonging.
Acaia was adopted. However, her foster parents had taken great strides into making sure she didn't know this. But how else do you explain a child with pale skin, reddish-brown hair, and green eyes coming from jet black-hair and brown eyed parents? She didn't mind their differences. She loved them because they loved her even when her real parents didn't. Yet the fact still remained, she was adopted. She would never be flesh of their flesh, and blood of their blood.
Acaia sighed at her train of thoughts and watched as Cage sat on the bed to lace up a pair of dirty red boots he wore year-round. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her watching him and she fought not to blush. A warmth rushed over her like it always did whenever moments like this struck, making her feel like the luckiest girl alive. It also left her feeling a little uncertain. Was love supposed to feel so vulnerable?
Done getting dressed, Cage leaned in again to kiss her. "Sleep." He ordered as he was walking away.
Acaia quietly nodded to his retreating back.
She was what you call 'a poor man's insomniac' because she could never sleep at night, Acaia did her sleeping during the day. And even then did she do it in fits and spells.
On cue, her eyelids felt as heavy as anvils. She lowered herself onto her pillows. No use fighting it. She could feel herself drifting off. The deeper she went the more she felt the impression of a small hand holding hers.
"Come with me." A little girl's voice cut through the haze on the edge of her dream.
Acaia did, like she usually did, hoping that maybe this time she would be able to save the little girl from her monsters.
For the past two months, Acaia had been seeing the little girl in her dreams. Every time she tried to do anything or come close to doing anything to save the girl there was always some hideous creature holding her within its grips and snatching her away. The screams and the pleas of the girl, the look of horror are what gave the nightmares. Because try as she might, she could never help. She was what kept Acaia from sleeping at night. However, by chance Acaia had discovered the nightmares were less hopeless during the day than at night.
"Acaia!" Her bed shook suddenly, jolting her out of her sleep. She awoke dazed and startled, looking into a pair of concerned eyes. "You were screaming again." Her best friend Menya Stokes explained as she cautiously sat on her bed. "Is it time to tell Celeste and Abraham about her yet?" Menya asked, pushing at the familiar old subject. Cage knew she had nightmares but Menya was the only soul who knew about the troubled little girl.
Acaia vehemently shook her head. She didn't want to get into it over the subject again. Instead she slung the covers almost off of the bed and got up to get dressed before her parents came home.
Anything deemed odd or of questionable behavior immediately resulted to a conference with Moses. Third person knowledge proved that no teen who went in to those conferences ever came out the same. Seeing her unclothed in the middle of the afternoon would definitely be considered odd and would most definitely get her sent to Moses. As much as she enjoyed breaking his reservation rules, having to meet with the man himself wasn't necessarily on her list of things to do.
To be honest, the man creeps her out. He was too touchy-feely and a personal-space invader. He had small eyes and large hands, a combination Acaia found abnormal and discomforting because neither belonged on his five feet, six-inch frame. A bushel of thick, black hair was usually braided down the middle of his head with the end of the braid resting over his shoulder and down his chest like some lifeless snake. And the worst of it all was his voice. It sounded forced and syrupy twenty-four, seven. She just did not trust syrupy.
Acaia stepped into a pair of maybe-clean jeans lying in a puddle in the middle of the floor and tugged a purple knitted sweater Celeste had made over a tight white tank top. Then ran a brush through her short, black-dyed mane a few times while going through doing her ritual of imagining how her hair would look of it were longer. But that was another rule: Any change in hairstyle had to be okayed by Moses.
Her stomach soured at the thought of his name.
Just as she slipped into a pair of handmade moccasins, her parents were home. She and Menya rushed into the kitchen where they usually unloaded from their day over mugs of homegrown tea.
"Hey mom, hey dad." Quick kisses landed on their cheeks. "Me and Menya-"
"Menya and I." Her dad corrected, setting a twice-repaired mug on the table. He was such a stickler for grammar.
"Menya and I", her eyes widen as she stressed the correction, "are going to walk to Raven's."
"Okay Manny, be safe." Her mother noted. Then froze.
Acaia frowned, but her bestie had grabbed her hand and was pulling her out the house before she could comment.
They walked quietly down the dusty road. The only sound heard was the crunch of dirt breaking under their feet.
"What are you thinking about?" Menya questioned, obviously tired of listening to their sound effects.
"...Cage." A complete lie. Her real thoughts were on the last thing her mother said to her before they left the house. She said Manny. She called her Manny. Who was Manny?
She knew for certain there weren't any Mannys on Eagle Canyon. So who was Manny? And how could her mom mistake the two?
Menya reached over and shook Acaia's shoulder, "Well?"
Acaia's head snapped out of her reverie. "What?"
"I asked what were you doing about your birthday?"
Acaia frowned. "What do you mean what am I doing about it?"
"Well, are you going or staying?" Menya questions while she literally kicked rocks along the path.
On Eagle Canyon, when teenagers turn eighteen they were given the option of staying where they were or leaving for good. There weren't many who choose to go. Menya hadn't. Their life was there. Where else could they go? And would it even make a difference?
To be honest, Acaia herself hadn't put much thought into it. To her, it would be just another day at home. But now that she was thinking about it, what was out there to be seen? Beyond these dirt roads and rules. What was she missing?
"I don't know." She mused more to herself than to her friend.
Menya gave her an empathetic half-sided smile that barely reached her eyes, but said nothing else for the rest of their journey. Acaia stewed on the unspoken subject, not quite ready to put it behind her. The possibility of what would she do ate at her blasé behavior. What was out there that she missing?
She had become so wrapped in her own unanswered questions, it took her a minute to realize not only had they reached the store but were also in it.
A short chunky woman with a buzz cut stood behind the counter looking every bit as irritated as she did tired. In front of her, on the opposite side, stood another woman who could have been Raven Stokes' funhouse mirror reflection seeing how opposite they were, counting out change by the dimes and punctuating each number with a noticeable clink against the rest of the awaiting change.
"Hey mom." Menya threw over her shoulders while heading to the cold drinks in the back. Raven grunted in response. Acaia snagged a small pack of grape bubblegum from the shelf near the register and got in line behind The Coin-Counter.
"Forty-seven! Twenty dollars and forty-seven cents accounted for!"
"Gee, that's great." Raven deadpanned. "But your total is twenty-three, sixty-five."
"Oh." The Coin-Counter deflated.
Acaia watched as the woman's shoulders slumped in slow defeat. She dug into a pocket to produce a five then slapped it on the counter. "All accounted for." Acaia announced to Raven.
The woman turned around, her face radiating gratitude. "Thank you so-ohmigosh!" She jumped as soon as her eyes landed on her convenient benefactor. Suddenly she froze, dropping all her once counted out change to the floor in the process. The clash and clank reverberated in the quiet store.
A look of both confusion and apprehension drew on Acaia's face. She didn't know what to do next.
The woman let out a sharp gasp. "You're her." The words strained through clinched teeth.
"What's going on here?" Menya asked saddling next to her friend.
The woman gasped again and stared at Menya as if she was a ghost. Her head swiveled to Raven who gave to the woman a look Acaia couldn't read. But The Coin-Counter could. Without warning she abandoned everything, stumbled and ran out of the store.
Acaia ran after her.
"Hey! Hey!" The woman didn't stop. Acaia tried to jog to catch up to her. "Please, stop." A shoe came off. She cursed herself for wearing moccasins while she backtracked to shove her feet into the abandoned shoe. "Please." Acaia begged.
The Coin-Counter stopped shy of her beat-up truck and looked back at the girl whose face she couldn't forget.
Acaia hopped on one foot a few times until her shoe was secure while she hurried toward the raggedy truck before the lady changed her mind and made a run for it anyway. She stood as close as the woman would allow, barely ten feet away from the store.
Coin-Counter looked nervously from Acaia to the door. "Where are you staying?" The woman asked out of the blue, her voice kind of shaky.
"I don't-" Acaia hesitated. It would be stupid on her part to tell a shaky character like her where she lived. She may do a lot of crazy things, but crazy she was not.
"You can tell me." The woman urged in earnest. Her words were soft and concerning. Maybe she was crazy after all because Acaia's gut wouldn't let the hesitation last. Tell her, it screamed. Tell her quickly! "Ea-eagle. Eagle Canyon Reservation." She pointed in the direction from which they came.
The woman gave a clipped nod and threw herself into the cab so forcefully the truck rocked. Then the passenger-side window rolled down. 'Say cheese'! Snap. Acaia stood there dumbfounded while the woman snapped her picture with her camera phone. And then sped off, leaving a trail of dust in her wake.
"Raven said we should head back home." Menya whispered behind Acaia.
She nodded. Nothing else could have made more sense to her right then. They stepped away from the store saying nothing else to each other because neither knew how to process the strangeness of the situation. As they passed the spot The Coin-Counter's truck had been parked, Menya foot down almost came down on a piece of paper that caught Acaia's eyes.
"Grab that." Acaia ordered, pointing it out to her friend. "What is it?" Acaia asked as she leaned forward to get a better look.
Menya bent down to retrieve it, briefly scanning the material. "Something about saving twenty percent off on a lube job." She frowned and flipped the small paper over, her frown suddenly deepened.
Her pulse quickened at her friend's change of reaction. Acaia leaned in closer to see. Her breath instantly abandoned her. On the colorless, gray, three by five-inch paper was the face of the little girl who haunted her in her sleep. Above the black and white photo of the girl with the wide, crooked smile and innocent eyes were the words: Have You Seen Me... beneath that Samantha Hodgens, missing since 09/16/1993, last known location: Gary, Indiana in large, bold black print
Menya studied the picture closely, "You know, she kind of favors-Acaia!" Meya shouted but the words were lost on Acaia's ears as she snatched the piece of paper from her friend's hands and took off at a dead run to the reservation.
She sprinted all the way back to Eagle Canyon, barely stopping to catch her breath, with the paper clutched tightly in her pumping fists. She didn't stop running until her feet brought her to the only singular cavernous structure on the reservation grounds.
Her fist pounded onto the yellow painted door. All inhibitions toward the man who stayed there were forgotten until the doublewide doors slid into the pocket of the doorframe, Cage stood on the opposite side with his thin eyebrows knit to a frown.
"Acaia? Everything okay?" His face was full of concern.
He grabbed her by the hand and led her into what he called home. As he navigated them into the massive living room, Acaia staggered, realization of where she was fully hit her.
She told herself the eerie feeling she was having of her own making.
"Acaia?"
Although the room was massive, it looked and felt empty. Besides the seating area and a few scattered tables, the space was, well, spacey. It was hard to envision Cage with all his passions, encompassing love and gentle touches coming from a cold environment like this. She shuddered as they stood in the middle of the room. Cage figured it was because of a draft from a window and began to slide his hands up and down her arms in effort to warm her. The motion caused a strange, rustling sound below him. When he spotted the paper, he gently removed it from her hand and laid it on the nearest table. Then he gently eased her onto one of the many chairs around them while he, himself, sat on top of the table in front of her.
"Tell me what's wrong?" He continued to absently rub her arms.
Her mouth opened but no sound came out. She had to tell him. But how?
"Can I use your bathroom?" She stood unexpectedly.
He nodded and nudged her in the direction toward it. "Down the hall, turn left. It's the first door you see, can't miss it." He instructed to her retreating back. It almost felt odd giving her housel directions when he knew the layout of her home by heart.
She followed his directions and tiptoed into the dark room. A jittery hand slid along a wall in search of a light switch. The overhead lights flickered first and then spilled over the room.
Clear plastic containers lined all four walls of the dormitory sized room. Several rollaway carts, some holding small plastic bins and others housing books, were pushed off to the far end of the room. The room smelled of chemicals and bleach.
It made her stomach turn.
She eased unsteadily yet further into the room. Inside the bins on the carts were shiny knives, scissors, needles wrapped in plastic, gauzes, and alcohol pads. Spines of books advertised any and everything about hypnosis and hypnotherapy. On the walls were small jars with clear, yellow and brown liquids, most bearing labels with names she couldn't even pronounce. The few that she could, she did not like it. Ketaminine, Midazolam, Diazepan? What were they? And why were there so, so many?
"Acaia?" Cage stood in the doorway. His eyes were nearly popping out of their sockets.
They two stare wildly at each other, both with questions they didn't want to ask and answers they didn't want to give. His eyes glued to tiny bottles in her hand, her eyes glued to the crinkled-up paper in his.
"What is this?" "..is not the bathroom." They spoke at the same time.
"What are these?" "I can explain." They do it again.
Suddenly she felt tired. She threw an empty hand in his direction. "You first."
Cage stood there, as lost as he was caught in his own lie. He couldn't explain. Didn't know where to attempt to begin. He had to start somewhere because he didn't know if he could handle the look of dread and disgust in her eyes any longer.
"This is difficult," he cleared his throat. "Things ...aren't what they appear to be here Acaia." He paused to gauge her reaction. She gave him nothing but on the inside she was crumbling to pieces. "This really isn't a reservation, it's...it's a compound. And..." He looked at the picture of the little girl smiling in his hands before he handed it over to her. "Her name is Samantha Hodgens but she was also called Manny. Acaia, this is you."
The tiny jars rolled out her hand and smashed onto the concrete floor. "Easy! Geez!" He jumped to the side as the array of liquids splattered at their feet. "Those are hard to come by." The minute those words left his mouth he regretted them. Again, he had to explain. "They're called sedatives. They render people momentarily unconscious. Moses uses them to take kids from their home and bring them back here." He points to the books, "It's a technique that makes you forget certain things."
Her chest suddenly felt tight. She was having a hard time breathing and an even harder time hearing over the beating of her heart in her ears.
It took several breaths before she allowed herself to speak. When she did, her voice cracked. "Did he-did he take Menya too?" She heard herself ask.
Cage nodded. She bit her bottom lip to keep from to screaming but there was nothing she could do to stop the tears.
The world as she knew it had just tilted on its axis and been dumped on her head as she swayed in silence. Acaia felt unbelievably dizzy. She never experienced hopelessness as she did right then. It took everything in her to stand there until she felt like there was nothing else she could give. So, she calmly pushed past Cage and walked away.
He watched her but he couldn't let her go. He bolted after her, caught a swinging arm and spun her to a stop. "Acaia, please! You don't understand."
His words slammed into her like a freight train. "I don't understand?" Her eyes narrowed. What could she not understand? What was there to understand? She didn't get it. And the more she didn't get it, the angrier she had become. "I don't understand!" She yanked her arm away. "Your father drugs us, snatches us away from our actual families, brings us here, hypno-whatever us so we can't remember, and leaves us to live this lie that this is our life!" In spite of the warmth from the afternoon sun, she was shaking. "What else could there possibly be that I don't understand Cage?"
Cage took the longest, deep breath she had ever seen. "He did it for me." She let out a sharp, jagged gasp, but when she said nothing else he plowed on. "My mom died when I was four. Out of fear from losing her he never let me out of his sight, withdrew me from school, moved out here in the middle of nowhere. For the longest it was just him and me and it got boring, quick. I begged him every day for a year for a brother. When I turned eight he took me to this park where a bunch of kids were playing, told me to pick out a kid I'd like to play with and sent me in the opposite direction to play. When we left that park, the boy I picked out was in the backseat of the car, tied down and crying. I didn't understand what was going on. He told me it was a game and I had to make him quiet before time ran out. I tried, but time was up. He just cried and worked himself up until he started convulsing in the backseat and hit his head against the door. We took him to a hospital and dropped him off for the nurses to get.
"I still wanted a brother, so three weeks later dad took me to another park and told me to pick. This time he came more prepared and used something called chloroform to get my new brother who stayed out of it until we were home. Dad told me to name him and he became Kordo. After a while I got bored with Kordo, so I wanted a sister. I got her.
"And then I got another brother, and another sister until there were too many kids here. He started contacting the people you see here now, bringing them to our home. He called them uncle so-and-so and aunt whatchamahcallit. They became family, but then some of them started wanting their own kids. They paid dad to get them. By then I stopped picking them out for him, stopped naming them, stopped wanting to have anything to do with them. It had become more of a business, less of a family.
"When the Browns wanted a little girl, dad bought home one with the cutest red-tinted hair, a dimple in her chin, and had the widest set of brown eyes. She looked like an angel when she slept and was a ball of energy when she was awake. The Browns begged me to name her for them even offered to pay but I couldn't take their money. I named her Acaia Brown. I thought it would be perfect for you.
"As a kid you were so...infectious," his voice rose with excitement. "You had this pull on people; I couldn't get enough of you. There was this energy! You lived in the moment and you were just so fun to be around, I offered to babysit you whenever I could. I watched you grow, and grow up and as you got older, in the process, I ...I fell in love with you.
"I'm sorry you had to find out the truth this way. But I guess now is as good as opportunistic as time will get. If you choose to leave tomorrow, there is no coming back. You won't even remember how to." He took a step closer to her, grabbing hold of a stiff hand. "Please stay. I don't know what I would do if you go."
The weight of his words felt heavy to her. Not only was there the matter of whether or not if she stayed or if she should go, but there was so much more because despite knowing the truth. This was home. And it was all that she knew.
Here is where she laughed and where she cried. This was where the center of her memories were. Where her dreams and nightmares were created. Eagle Canyon was all she had ever known. All that she had ever remembered, but was it enough to her to make her stay?
She looked into the eyes that confessed everything to her, that hurt and loved her at the same time. For a long time. She doubted she could look into those eyes everyday and not feel betrayed by their love. Look past the truth of their reality and not be saddened. As she turned and walked away only one thought crossed her mind: sometimes vulnerable love is worth forgetting.
**********************************************************************************************
"Acaia?" Cage whispered into the dark. His hands touched the sheets to feel her but the bed was empty.
"Go back to sleep." She said softly as she leaned against the bathroom doorpost in the hotel bedroom.
Moonlight filtered into the room through the curtain-less window so she could make out the smile spreading at his lips.
Yesterday, she made up her mind to leave. She told her parents. She told her friends. Yet she didn't feel right about not telling the one person she hated to love. The minute she did, he wrapped her in his arms and wouldn't let go. Right then she realized she didn't want to leave him.
"Come with me" she whispered to him in their embrace.
Without so much of a second thought, he went into his low key bedroom and threw a few of his things into two duffle bags and told her they leave that night.
Acaia didn't question him. Just did as he instructed taking nothing but her underwear, her toothbrush and her best friend whom she grabbed out of bed, told her she would explain everything later and they left. Packed and ready they took one of the trucks on the compound and vanished.
As they powered out of town, Acaia still hadn't told Menya anything. At the same time Menya didn't seem to care, she just wanted her sleep.
Time and many mile markers passed by the time they pulled into an empty parking lot of a seedy, barely lit hotel. The building itself looked run down and almost abandoned. But it was perfect. So here they were, in Nowheresville in a double bed room paid for by Cage and everything was fine for her.
Neither of them knew, and probably wouldn't care, that at the very moment as Acaia crawled back into bed, that as Cage wrapped his arms around her as she slid next to him under the covers, that as Menya tossed an unused pillow at the noisy couple across the room, Eagle Canyon Reservation had been completely surrounded by the Silver City, New Mexico S.W.A.T. That Moses had been shot in the chest during a two-hour standoff. The people they once called parents were either killed trying to escape or were being read their Miranda Rights and driven away in the back of various squad cars. Or that the kids they once considered friends were once again snatched away from the only lives they had knew and were taken into state custody by the vanloads.
Nor did they know that the one piece of the puzzle, the picture of the girl which had been taken by a woman who made an emergency stop for snacks at a convenient store, and had given the picture to the New Mexico authorities after seeing a Missing Person's update on TV the night before, was considered missing. Again.
No, none of what they didn't know mattered. Everything worth caring was in
Room 14, with a red-head named Mya, a boyfriend named Jestin, and a best friend name Ramey.
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Author's Note: I've done short stories before however this is the only I was bold enough to share and submit to a magazine. Just my luck, the month I did send it off was also the very same month they decided to change the direction of the magazine so it was not accepted. Gotta love a brick wall sometimes, I tell ya. Anyway, I finally dug it out of a place you do not want to know where (promise the place was clean though) and share it so that it still will be read. And thank you for taking the time to do just that.
This story came to me one day after a guy who just seemed weird came into the bookstore I was working at with his hands clasped around two little girls who looked scared and a strange feeling struck me. I remember him asking for a magazine he couldn't pronounce because it never existed which set off warning bells. He said he wanted it for his little girls. The little girls looked absolutely NOTHING like him, not even the same race. When I told my co-worker I though we should call the cops because something about this dude seemed off and to look at how non-responsive those kids are to him. It was not natural. She told me to get back to work and that I was overreacting because they could have been adopted, and went on to answer the store phone. But that guy really bothered me. So I went into the back to get my phone from my locker but when I came out he and the girls were gone. For the longest, I would studied "Lost" and "Have you seen me" pictures just in case.
So of all the retail horror stories, that incident is the one that stuck out the most and I did this story as a what if. What would you do if you if it were you in that situation?
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