Awaken (20 page)

“He – he pushed me down,” I said, which wasn’t a complete lie. The older man held Paul as he squirmed to break free.

“I’m a cop,” Paul said as he swung his arms.

The son laughed. “A cop, good one. What are you, sixteen?”

“My dad’s Damon Thompson, I work for him,” he said.

“I don’t care who your dad is, he obviously didn’t teach you how to treat women.”

Paul broke out of the man’s grip, but his son was there to catch him. In a blur, he shoved Paul so hard in the chest he flipped him onto his back. I winced and watched Paul struggle to get up, but the older man was there to catch him.

I heard a car engine in the distance and I turned to run. I crossed the street and headed for the park. There were small trees and benches scattered, but nothing looked big enough to hide behind. I ran to the other side of the park, and just as I passed a row of trees, a dark arm reached out from behind a tree trunk and grabbed me around the waist. I screamed as I felt myself being lifted off the ground, and a strong hand pressed against my mouth. I elbowed the sides of my captor and bit down on the finger that had lodged itself between my teeth.

I heard a low grunt and kicked my legs out. He managed to keep hold of me until we got to a silver sports car.

“Damn it, I’m trying to help you,” an unfamiliar voice told me. I squirmed and he finally set me down but kept a strong hand around my bicep.

“I’m not getting in that car.” I stood eye level next to him. He was stocky, young, and dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt. His dark, furious eyes stared back at me as he shook out the finger I just clamped down on.

“I work with Justin. Now get in before I throw you in.” At this point I didn’t trust anyone but myself.

“You’ll have to throw me in,” I insisted, and before I knew it he picked me up again, opened the car door, and shoved me inside, slamming the door in my face.

He got in the seat beside me and started the engine. “I’ve got to say, you are the most defiant girl I’ve ever tried to intercept.” He stuck an earpod in his ear and soon he was mumbling so fast I couldn’t understand him. He turned the corner and we were met with headlights sailing in our direction. Blue and red flashing lights snapped on as the car pummeled toward us. The driver swore as we narrowly missed hitting the car head-on. We drove onto the sidewalk and over a few turf lawns before we flew back on the road. My head was thrown back against the headrest. I looked over my shoulder and the car peeled in a sharp turn to follow us. The driver took a corner too fast and my head smashed against the glass before I could catch myself.

“Fasten your seat belt!” he yelled. He spoke into his earpod again and took another corner suddenly, as if he was being directed. The cop car was still on our tail. I grabbed the belt, my hand shaking. The speed of the car made me fall deeper into the seat and I tried to slide the belt into the lock but I could barely sit up. I widened my eyes at the speedometer to see the car needle climbing to 100 mph. I could see 25-mph speed limit signs pass by in the residential neighborhood we were careening through.

I touched my forehead, where my head had bashed the window, and warm, sticky blood was seeping out. He found a sign for a freeway entrance and peeled the corner in time to catch it. Even with a seat belt on my body was jerked against the passenger door again and I jammed my wrist against the window. I turned and glared at him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

I turned to see the flashing blue lights farther back in the distance.

Just as we gained speed he scowled at something and I heard him mumble “Are you serious?” Instead of entering the freeway, we turned and sped down an alleyway that was barely wide enough for the car to fit through. The cement walls nearly grazed the sides of the car. We bumped and skidded over boxes and trash on the ground. We hit a rubber trash can and sent it flying into the air, dumping its contents behind us before it crashed against the building and rolled to a stop.

He stepped on the brakes when the alley abruptly ended and turned toward an industrial park. The tires squealed as we curved along the edge of the park until we were behind a warehouse in a loading dock. He followed the end of the road and it opened up to a railway track and he sped across it, onto a gravel road that kicked up so much dirt we could barely see out of the windows. The car jumped and jostled over the rocks and I squeezed my eyes shut. It felt like my brain was being knocked against the sides of my skull. I could hear trains next to us, but there wasn’t enough visibility to see how close we were. We stayed on the rough gravel for miles, sweeping up a tunnel of dirt with us, which I realized was keeping us camouflaged.

When I thought my body couldn’t take any more jostling, I felt the car turn. We cut over the tracks again and the car bounced and jerked over brush and turf until we made it back on the smooth pavement.

We drove down a commercial business street for a few miles and passed dark, barren office buildings. He was still talking to somebody into his headset; I could hear him asking for directions.

Streets flew by, traffic signals passed, and it felt like hours before we slowed down again. He braked suddenly and I looked around, weary and my throat parched, at a quiet residential area. We pulled in to the driveway of a dark house and the garage door automatically opened. He pulled the car in and when the door slid safely shut, he opened his door and a dim overhead garage light snapped on.

“Where are we?” I asked.

He grabbed a bag out of the back seat. “We need to keep off the road for a couple hours” was all he said.

When we walked inside the house, I smelled stale, dusty air and from the loud echoes of our footsteps assumed the house was empty. He checked the front door to make sure it was locked and aimed a flashlight down the hallway. I followed behind him and he opened the first door we came to. He motioned for me to follow him downstairs and I grabbed the hand railing to support my shaking legs.

Once downstairs, he manually turned on a naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling. I studied him, finally having a chance to see his face. He had short brown hair and thick eyebrows and looked barely old enough to drive, maybe fifteen.

He sat down at a round table in the center of the large room. The floor was a cold gray cement and the walls, made of cinder blocks, were the same dull color. It smelled musty and a damp chill filled the air. A row of shotguns leaned against the wall and my stomach clenched. I glanced back at him. He could have told me he worked with Justin just so I would cooperate. I took a step back and looked for any kind of an escape but it was a windowless cellar with all the homey charm of a dungeon. There was no way out other than the stairs. The boy continued to talk into his earpod.

“She was with a cop,” he said. I watched the hard look on his face as he listened to someone on the other end. “Fine. Okay. If you say so.”

He turned off the phone and stood up, rummaging through a cabinet, and seemed satisfied with something he found. He sat back at the table and looked at me for the first time. I held his gaze and waited. He opened his mouth and offered a bored explanation.

“We stay here for the night. They’re searching east and west but they’ll look north next, up toward the border. That’s when we make our move and head south.”

I looked up at the dank, water-damaged ceiling. “Where are we?”

He opened his flipscreen and ignored my question.

“In the morning we drive. It’s about seven hours.” He glanced back at me and I returned his look with a glare for skimming around my question. He jerked his thumb toward a door underneath the stairwell.

“That’s the bathroom. There are some bandages in there if you want to clean yourself up.”

My fingers went to my forehead and I winced as I felt the swollen skin and dried blood that formed on top of it.

“I’d try to get some rest,” he said, and pointed to the cot at the back end of the basement. “There’s a change of clothes in here,” he added, and kicked the duffel bag in my direction. The bag stopped a few inches from my feet. He looked down at the screen – apparently the hospitality session was over.

“You think I can sleep right now?”

His expression stayed flat. “How would I know?”

“Who are you?”

“The less you know at this point the better. I can’t tell you anything so don’t bother asking. I’m just the interceptor.”

The interceptor with amazing social skills, I wanted to add.

“Let me talk to Justin,” I said.

He shook his head. “There are three other interceptions going on tonight. He’s a little busy right now.”

I watched him spread a map over the table. “Can you just answer one question?”

He raised his head.

“I don’t know if I should be scared or relieved right now.”

“Maybe a little of both. But I’d lean on the relieved side.” I nodded and a heavy sigh escaped my chest. With nothing better to do, I walked across the room to the cot and sat down. The mattress squeaked and I could feel springs poking through but it felt good to be sitting on something stable that wasn’t traveling at a hundred miles an hour. I stretched my legs out and leaned my back against the cool surface of the wall.

The next few hours were the longest I’d ever experienced. The basement was cold and dreary. My mysterious captor, who refused to tell me his name, made at least a dozen phone calls. The only time he acknowledged me was to tell me there was food in the fridge. My mouth was dry and my throat was still parched but my appetite was gone. I missed Baley. I missed my mom. It made my heart ache to think I let her down.

Time crept by and I counted the cinder blocks and ceiling tiles. The walls of gray concrete enclosed me like cold arms. I stood up for a moment to stretch and forgot I still had my purse strapped over my chest. I opened it up and felt something inside I didn’t expect. Something thick and leathery. I pulled out the journal my mom had given me. I didn’t remember ever putting it in my bag. I felt around in the bottom of my purse and pulled out two pens. I sat back against the wall and tucked my knees up close to my chest to use as a desk. I rested an open page against my lap and contemplated what to write.

My mom used to tell me that whenever she felt scared or lonely or upset, instead of trying to ignore her feelings, she allowed herself to dwell in them. She told me if she acknowledged her problems, instead of avoiding them, they seemed more manageable and more in her control. She told me problems don’t go away by slamming a door in their face. It’s better to invite them in, have a long talk, and try to reach an understanding.

I looked down at the blank canvas of paper. There was only one memory on my mind tonight and even though I wanted to ignore it, I decided to face it, to write about it for the first time. The worst memory of all.

Digital schools haven’t always been around. My mom went to public school, and I started off attending a public elementary school. Until March 28th. Nearly eleven years ago today. It’s a day of silence now, a day of refecting, referred to in history books as M28.

My memory of it is slight. I was in kindergarten and allI remember is we were suddenly dismissed from school early, which is thrilling when you’re six years old. I remember seeing the expression on my mom’s face when she came to pick me up. She wrapped her arms around me so possessively, so desperately, I thought my ribs were going to crack. Her tears scared me and I cried too at seeing my mom so upset, her face white, her eyes red and swollen. I could only guess the worst: my dog died. I knew friends whose dogs died; we talked about it one day in class when the school rabbit died. It’s a part oflife, I was told.

Mom took me home that day and my world changed forever. A world that was bustling with activity fell silent. A world I felt safe in transformed into one I should fear I once was taught the world was my playground. Then I learned that playground was only safe behind a screen.

My parents sat me down in front of what would become my future world, a giant wall screen. I was introduced to Millie, my new kindergarten teacher. She smiled and introduced me to all my new fiends who were all digital images, smiling and waving back at me. I thought it was so entertaining. School became one long television show. We sang and danced. We played virtual kickball and read stories in a circle and whenever I had a question, Millie’s automated assistant, Pebbles, would pop up on my screen and help me. He was a blue puppet with bright green eyes and had a pink Afro that danced on his head He made me laugh and promised me we were best friends.

I’ll never forget a story Millie read to the class one day. It was about a monster with sharp teeth and pointy fangs that could lash out at me. She said it lived outside. It lurked around the city. In the park. Even inside stores and buildings. It was dangerous, she said, because it was invisible. It could jump out without any notice. But she promised me the monster couldn’t come into my house. It couldn’t find me in my bedroom. It couldn’t crawl through a computer screen. And I believed her because I was six years old and that’s when your teachers are your protectors and your imagination is ripe and developing and it’s easy to shape and bend. So, I stopped going outside. My home became my world. My computer became my life.

Before M28, schools were becoming more and more violent. More shootings, stabbings, rapes, drugs, deaths. My mom remembers seeing so many posters for student funerals in the hallways of her high school that she stopped noticing them after a while. Posters for memorial services were hung next to posters for club meetings and fundraisers. Shootings began in smaller numbers, usually in a classroom or outside of school. But killers became hungry for attention. Shootings broke out in auditoriums, cafeterias, sporting events, pep rallies, where one hundred lives could be taken effortlessly. Most of the shootings happened in high schools and colleges. Apparently these kids could obtain
the weapons easier. These kids knew how to use them. These kids mentally cracked.