Shit...
I could barely hear Chris start to encourage her for being brave. My head was stuck in the past. Ryan had practically accused of me being a Sed and had me touch a necklace back at the camp. What if he had been doing the same thing in Arrino? Was it possible to root out Paranormals that way? If he had seen my fit, he probably would have taken it as a sign. If any of the other girls had reacted the same way in front of him, what would he have done?
My question was cut short as the sound of someone outside our door immediately brought us all to our feet. Ellie motioned for the air-duct, but Chris quickly turned her around and guided her towards the kitchen. He caught my attention with a hiss and nodded towards the couch. I pushed the piece of furniture back along the wall and bounced back to attention just as the door swung open with Ryan in the center. He looked at us for a moment in brief uncertainty.
He still had a gun strapped to his hip, but was otherwise alone. He stepped inside and went back to his regular dick self when he prodded the couch I had just moved and Chris had been using as a makeshift bed. “You kids having fun yet?”
I let it slide. It took everything I had not to look behind me and make sure Ellie wasn't standing out in the open, so I tried to focus on what I would normally think to say if she wasn't hiding just a few feet from us. I had enjoyed talking with Chris. It also didn’t hurt that he could have killed a bear in the middle of the night if one had happened to find me. I’d fallen asleep feeling safer than I would have otherwise. I felt like I could trust him. I didn’t think even Ryan could ruin that buzz. I looked him square in the eye. Nothing was better than his absence.
“Always.”
He squinted at that and continued to hobble across the floor towards Chris's folded arms in front of the kitchen.
I looked down to see the metal grating from the wall just peek out from underneath the couch. I carefully pushed it out of sight with my toes. “How’s the leg?”
He stopped abruptly, catching on pretty quick. I thought I might have even seen him smile. “Ah, you know what they say. Stab a guy in the leg one day, he watches you get raped the next, but I’m sure you know how that goes...”
Chris cleared his throat. If he had been a part of the mean green war machine upholding standards and fighting for everything that I enjoyed in life, then Ryan would have been the personal embodiment of everything that he’d been trying to destroy, but he couldn’t do anything so long as he had that gun. We outnumbered Ryan three to one and we'd have the element of surprise, but the odds of it ending poorly were still too high for me.
I let it go before anyone decided to try. “What do you want?”
Ryan kept glaring at Chris before finally coming back down to me. “We’re going for a walk.”
“And what if I say no?”
He found that amusing. “You’re assuming you have a choice.”
It made me feel like an idiot. Food, water, and shelter felt good, but I never should have gotten comfortable as long as he was still alive.
“Don’t worry,” said Ryan. “We’ll be back.” He held the door open for me and took the chance to ridicule Chris. “Try not to invade another country while we’re gone, soldier boy.”
I left before he said anything else and watched from outside as he locked Chris inside our room. There were five other doors in the hallway that I was sure lead to the same thing and it made me sick to think that we weren’t the only ones being held prisoner. Ryan didn’t give me much time. We were already on the move.
I couldn't help but notice the lack of security this time around. “What, no blindfold?”
He looked over his shoulder and seemed annoyed. It made me feel a little better. “Kyle thinks you won’t try anything stupid after your last stunt.”
It took me a second to figure out who he was talking about. The only Kyle I knew had used to work at the mall and sell video games and hit on all the girls that had happened to walk into his store, but I assumed he must have been referring to the man at the school with the taser. I liked the first one better.
“So, you’re pretty much his bitch, right?” Comparatively speaking, anything I could do to piss Ryan off would be a small drop in the bucket, but I wanted to see him crack. Maybe if he knew how much of a dick he was, he’d kill himself and I’d be able to run away.
“I would’ve left you in the truck.” He held open another door and gave me his familiar sadistic grin, then gestured for me to move. It made me think it would probably be better to come up with a different plan.
After what I had learned from Ellie and Chris, it didn’t take me long to decide that Arrino was a strange place. It was big enough for a two story apartment building, yet further out in the middle of the sticks that I half expected a piece of tumbleweed to roll down the street next to us. It probably didn’t help that it was still early in the morning and hardly anyone else was outside. There weren’t any cars on the road thanks to the lack of gas and some of the buildings had obviously gone without care. It felt lonely, but the thought of being alone with Ryan forever gave me hope to think just the opposite.
We came up to a two-story house after a few minutes and he knocked on the door. I would have been upset that he didn’t gave me the same courtesy, but after a few seconds he went ahead and walked inside. It was a little cluttered, but otherwise better than where I had been staying.
“Martha?”
I was surprised to hear Ryan say her name, but she didn’t make an appearance.
He prodded me forward and closed the door behind us before going further on inside. “Stay here.”
I held my tongue and soon caught myself staring at a speck of dust that floated down in front of my face. I thought about making a run for it until it led me to notice a picture frame on the mantle just a few feet away. I picked it up and ran my finger over the smooth glass, leaving a grainy wake like a towel dragged across a beach.
A younger girl, probably just a few years older than me, stared back through the cloudy texture with a smile on her face. She looked remarkably familiar, but I couldn’t place where I might have seen her before. I wondered if she had gotten out of town. Hopefully she had done better than I had, wherever she had gone. And if she wasn’t alive anymore, then at least she wouldn’t have to worry about it.
“Jessica...”
I put the frame down as Martha peeped in from around the corner.
“It’s good to see you.” She gave me a hug and cupped the side of my face with the palm of a hand.
I was a little embarrassed, but the truth was that we had gone through a lot together in a short amount of time. It was too bad none of it was any good.
She peered over my shoulder, her face already much colder. “Why are you here?”
Ryan stepped around us. “Kyle wants you to give her a checkup before he puts her to work.”
Puts her to work?
It was almost amazing how he had a natural talent to make me feel like utter garbage. I could feel Martha squeeze my hand. At least I wasn’t alone.
“Why?”
“Use your imagination. You’ve got five minutes.” He gave the room one last once-over, probably checking for any sharp objects that I might be able to use against him, then walked outside.
By the time I brought my attention back to Martha, she had already been taking me in.
“Are you okay?”
The sudden empathy was almost too much to handle. “Yeah.” I gave her a reassuring nod. “I’m fine.”
She scrunched her face and I could tell she wanted to press the question, but I was glad she didn’t. She looked back down at my arm before patting at her chest pocket to find and put on a pair of glasses. “Well, go ahead and take a seat, I guess.”
I did as I was told and tried to stay still while she pulled down a corner of my shirt.
“How’s the shoulder?” She checked the bandage next to my neck. It probably should have been changed a long time ago, but I did manage to keep it dry. Mostly, anyway.
“Better.”
She put a hand on my chin and turned my head to the side, looking at the bruise around my eye. “Any boyfriends?”
The question left me puzzled until I realized that it must have been a part of Ryan's checkup. I supposed it was in everyone's best interest to go along with his demands, though I preferred not to think about my sexcapades—or lack thereof. I sighed. “A couple.”
“At the same time?”
“
No
.” I watched a grin spread across her face and she managed to make me smile. I could feel my face putting the unfamiliar muscles to use.
“You look beautiful. You should do that more often.”
I managed another one. It had been a while since I heard all three of those words in the same sentence. Sometimes they’d be accompanied by some sort of awkward sexual tension, but I didn’t think that would be a problem this time around.
She looked at me curiously and I could see the swelled up version of her eyes through her lenses. “Well as far as I’m concerned, whatever you’ve done before isn’t anyone else’s business, but if you want, I can tell them you used to give it away like Christmas.”
I smirked. “No...” Between her and Chris, I was starting to think I had underestimated the amount of good people left in the world. Yet after a brief pause, the smile was gone. It still made me sad to bring up the opposite. “You know what he's doing... don't you?” I had a feeling that I didn't have to mention Ryan by name and I was pretty sure she knew what I was talking about.
She let out a breath and took her glasses off, looking down for a moment before saying anything. When she finally did, her tone was more hopeful than anything I had been expecting. “I've lived in this house my whole life. I've never left this town. I've treated more people here than I can bare to count, including my husband. We watched our daughter walk across these floors and saw her fall in love and start her own family.” She squeezed my hand again, her next words strong with the memories of her past. “I am not going to run.”
I slowly began to put two and two together: the house, her story, the picture on the mantel, the little girl that had found me in the middle of the field and everything else that I had seen her do. I let it out quietly. “Amanda's your granddaughter, isn't she?” I watched as Martha brought her focus back onto my shoulder and she went back to work on my bandage.
“She's the single best thing to ever come out of this place.”
I winced reflexively and my skin started to sting, but her answer wasn't good enough for me.
If that's true, then why aren't you doing anything to help her?
“You're scared...” I refocused on her to see she had stopped moving entirely. “You're scared of what they might do to Amanda even though you know that just by being here she's being hurt every day. So you don't do anything. You're scared that she'll end up like your daughter...”
She let go of me. “My daughter was killed in front of her only child. I pray to God every day that Amanda was too young to remember anything about it. So yes, you're right. I am scared. What else did you have in mind?”
I didn't have an answer. I couldn't have possibly expected anything like that. “I-I'm sorry... I didn't—”
“No...” She thumbed at a spent wrap and stared at it for a moment. “No, it's not your fault. I'm sorry.” Her silence replaced the motion of her hands until she slowly got back to work. “But you're right. This is no place for her, even if she's safe for the time being.” Her eyes fell back onto me. “She asked about you this morning.”
As if I hadn't felt bad enough about Amanda before. Now I had to disarm my way through an emotional mine filled conversation. “How is she?”
“Considering everything that's been going on lately?” She managed a half-cocked grin. “Better. I had half a mind to kill her myself. She wouldn't stop talking about you.”
Me?
The mental image of the quiet kid staring at me with nothing to say begged to differ. “Why?”
“She likes you.”
There's her first problem.
“And she was paranoid that she would accidentally lose this...” Martha reached into a small pocket and pulled out the familiar heart shaped pendant. I could feel my stomach sink like a rock at the sight of it.
“It's beautiful.” Martha held up the necklace. “Was it a gift?”
I shook my head.
More like a curse.
She lifted it up over my head and I instantly flinched and almost smacked her hand away from me, the new wrap on my shoulder already pulled taught from the effort.
“What's wrong?” She looked at me like I was crazy. It was exactly what I was afraid of.
“I just...” I let myself ease back towards her and tried to relax. “Bad memories...” I stared at the chain coiling around itself. It looked more delicate than I had remembered.
Bad memories.
But not my own.
“I'm sorry. If you don't—” Martha started.
“No.” I gently grabbed her hand before she could lower it back down. “It's okay.” I swallowed the knot past my throat. If I was going to go through with being set on fire and forced to relieve someone else's memories again, then I wanted a witness. Who better than Martha?
She reached around my neck and clipped the chains together.