A Place Worth Living

by B D Grant

  “She knows he goes to his doctor’s appointments without her sister.”

  She frowns again. “That’s it?”

  “She didn’t answer one of your questions,” I say about Cassidy asking the woman who told her that she did have a say so in the decisions surrounding Parent Day.

  “I know, but it isn’t a secret I have Will’s ear.”

  “Cool, so, I can go to lunch now?”

  Cassidy looks around her desk. “You can go eat.” I get up. “But tomorrow you bring food with you.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Three days, Taylor! I cannot wait to see them,” Ashley rejoices about seeing her parents. I stand my pillow up long ways for better support sitting on my bed. Ashley is too excited to sit still. “Is your mom going to make it?” she asks me.

  “It would be nice.” But doubtful.

  “She could meet my parents. This is so great.”

  She’s right. Family Day is going to be great, but not for me. I will be thinking about Dad, Jake, Aunt Beth, and Uncle Chuck as everyone walks around with their loved ones. Wondering if they’re still alive. Worrying about if Mom will be taken too. Worrying about the fact that Rogues know where the school is.

  The walls in my room start to close in on me. Claustrophobia or panic, I can’t tell which. Staying in this room one more minute is impossible.

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  Ashley, who has been pacing with excitement stops when I jump up. “But they’re about to do room checks.”

  “I’ll be quick.”

  I kick rocks outside. With only a few students hurrying to get inside for room checks, I’m not concerned about how immature I look. “Who do they think they are taking Darrell Jameson? Stupid,” I grumble. A boy from one of my classes gives me a weird look as he passes. I could play it cool but I’m in no mood. “Just having a melt down. Carry on,” I say in his direction. He speeds up.

  The sun is low, casting long shadows across the grass. It feels so good outside. I’ve walked halfway to campus when out of nowhere, “Stop right there!” I jump, turning around. The two trees that I just passed suddenly have someone standing between them. He’s big. I’ve never seen him before.

  A scenario of this stranger being a Rogue that’s infiltrated the school waiting for the moment to strike plays in my mind. Do I run? He’s blocking me from student housing. The school is my only option for escape. He takes a step toward me. “What are you doing?”

  “I, uh…” I run for it. I hope he’s not as fast as he is big.

  He chases after me yelling, “Section three, section three!”

  I’m running up to building four when another man comes running at me to my left. Oh, thank God; it’s Bryant. I change my course to him. Ben’s running right behind him. They both have handguns drawn.

  “Bryant!” I yell. He slows. “No!” Why is he stopping? We’re in danger. I point behind me where the man is coming at me fast. “He’s right behind me!”

  Ben slows too, stopping behind Bryant. “Look who it is,” he says, and then spits on the ground. I skid around Bryant to hide behind him. Why aren’t they shooting? Ben throws his hands up to the man running at us. “That’s the fastest I’ve seen you move, John.” The big guy is huffing hard.

  I stay behind Bryant. Bryant and Ben holster their guns. John bends over putting his hands on his knees. “Man,” he huffs, “she’s fast.”

  Dillon and Tony come jogging from the direction of the track. “What the hell?” Tony asks. Dillon remains silent assessing the situation. None of them are fazed by the giant stranger’s presence.

  Dillon turns around waving his arms. “False alarm,” he says. “Student, only a student!” Two other men that are running to us a good distance away turn and retreat to their stations.

  Bryant steps to the side as he turns to face me. John straightens, still trying to catch his breath. “Why, why did you run?”

  The other guys stare at me. They seem to be wondering the same thing. I throw my hands in the air dramatically. “What was I suppose to do? You were chasing me.”

  “You ran.”

  No one comes to my defense. “Okay, sorry if I hurt your feelings but I was taught not to speak strangers that pop out of shadows.”

  “This is John,” Ben says walking next to him, patting him on the back. John doesn’t look to be enjoying Ben touching him. “He got here this morning with the additionally security detail.”

  John gets closer to Bryant and me in order to get farther away from him. Ben doesn’t seem to notice.

  “We just witnessed how John gets chicks,” Ben announces to the group. He laughs, “He chases them until they can’t run anymore.” Bryant smiles at Ben. No one laughs with Ben.

  “That’s enough,” Tony says. He tells Bryant and Ben, “You two can return to section two.”

  Ben gives him a salute. “Yes sir,” he says with heavy sarcasm.

  “My shift is about to be over. I’ll be in section 5 until my replacement takes over if you need me,” Dillon says.

  Tony nods, “Okay.” Dillon heads for the track. “What are you doing out this late?” Tony inquires.

  I square my shoulders at him. I was scared to death just now and none of them care. “I needed some fresh air.” I look at John. “I live in a building full of females. It gets overwhelming.” John crosses his arms. With a chest that big he can’t be very comfortable like that.

  “Where were you going?” Tony asks. Would they believe me if I answered honestly? Walking to nowhere in particular sounds totally suspicious. I am the principle’s niece. How about I use that card. “I was going to check if my uncle, the dean, was still in his office?”

  Tony glances at John. John’s unmoved. Tony clears his throat. “I didn’t know Principle McBride had any family.”

  “Besides my parents, I’m the only family he has,” (That I know of.) “You could bring me to him if you’d like or Cassidy. She’s vouch for me.”

  John and Tony simultaneously jerk at the mention of Cassidy.

  “Come to think of it I have heard of you. Nice to finally meet you,” Tony says trying to sound confident. He’s lying about hearing about me. He backs away slowly. “John, will you escort the principle’s niece to student housing?”

  John uncrosses his arms. “I don’t see why not. I have to go back there anyways.”

  “Good,” Tony says nodding. “Have a good night,” He tells me.

  “You too.”

  The silence between John and I as we walk to my dorm is tense. It could have something to do with it getting dark fast and I’m walking with a descendent of Big Foot who just scared the Bajesus out of me. To break the silence I ask, “Do you like it here so far?”

  “Sure,” he says with his eyes set straight ahead. “This place reminds me of a lot of things I’ve forgotten.”

  “Oh yeah. Like what?”

  “Like why I don’t want to have kids.”

  “Ah.”

  We remain silent for the remainder of the walk. At the first sight of student housing I speed up. “Night,” I call over my shoulder.

  “For future reference,” he says, “security will be stationed out here from now on.”

  “Got it.”

  “No more late walks or you might run into Big John,” he says, with emphasis on big. “If I intimidate you he’ll make you pee your pants.”

  No way, I think to myself as I walk to near jogging speed. He’s just trying to scare me. There’s no way they make humans bigger than him.

  That night when the mysterious woman invades my sleep I’m ready. As soon as she’s in my head, or I’m in hers, I try to push the same way she does to me. I want to dig into her life the way she does mine. “You don’t want to do that, Mystery Girl,” she says inside her head.

  She found out that I call her Dream Walker since I can’t get her actual name out of her. In turn, she’s begun calling me Mystery Girl. She does it to annoy me considering she knows my actual name.
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br />   I ignore her and keep looking. I get flashes of images from her, nothing more. Most of them come with pangs of regret as she sees them too. One of the flashes grabs my attention. There was something familiar about it. It was a room. I try to go back but there isn’t a rewind button for what I’m doing. She gets what I’m fishing for and stops me. “You aren’t ready.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I know far more than anyone realizes.” She looks down at the arms covered in needle scares. I wish I didn’t, she thinks to herself.

  A scream pulls her focus to what’s going on outside of her head. This is my chance to dig without resistance, but the scream gets my attention too. I’ve heard it before. I think back to the deer stand. It was the same scream I heard that woke me from my nap in the deer stand when I was with Jake.

  The memory of Jake holding me protectively grips my attention. I have to force it back. I don’t want Dream Walker to see him. I don’t want her to see anyone I love. I don’t know what she wants and, more importantly, I don’t know if she can be trusted. I don’t even know how long she has been getting in my head.

  Dream Walker is screaming at the tiny window on her cell door. She bangs her hand on it with all the strength she can find. I feel the sting from her palm as if it were my hand hitting the door.

  “You’re going to kill her! It’s not doing anything! Listen to me!”

  The door she’s banging on swings open and three people rush her. She’s pulled to the ground. One pulls a syringe out and stabs it into her arm.

  “Karen can’t take anymore! She’s only…” She struggles. “Human!”

  My sight through her eyes goes dark. I’m alone in my slumber. Dream Walker either ended or lost her connection to me. Her emotions were slaughtering me. Unfortunately the solitude doesn’t last.

  It feels like mere seconds pass before she’s with me again. She knows that I’m there. She always knows. It’s why I think she’s the one pulling me to her somehow.

  She’s in a laboratory of some kind now. A good amount of time has passed on her end, but I don’t know how much. She’s thinking about the woman we heard scream earlier. Karen LaCourt, she tells me silently when I push for information about the person who screamed, the same way she pushes into my mind.

  My pushing doesn’t yield anything as to what happened for us to loose connection. The person that’s actually with her in person pulls her attention. He’s talking to her. I haven’t seen anyone besides the three people that rushed in her room earlier. I stop pushing for information and survey Dream Walker’s surroundings. She silently applauds me for taking stock in her environment.

  “You don’t trust me?” a nice looking man in a white lab coat asks her.

  “I was drugged and woke up in this…” She looks around acting like she’s searching for the right word, but I think she’s trying to give me a better view of the lab. It’s extensive, unlike anything I’ve seen before. It’s set up more for research of some kind than a place to treat patients. There are more people in similar lab coats at various stations in the large room and only a couple of areas for people like Dream Walker to have…whatever she’s having done. “I would be crazy to trust any of you,” she tells him.

  She offers her arm to him. It’s easier to do it obligingly, she tells me silently. If I don’t he’ll take it nonetheless. Her sleeve is raised and she makes a point to look higher up at the bruises wrapped around her arm from hands holding on too tight. She must have put up a fight a time or two.

  The needle pokes her soft flesh. She watches the needle. The blood flowing into the tube makes me queasy. If I could look away I would but I can only see what she sees. To my relief she looks around the lab again to give me a break from the tube of blood. Something happens to our connection. I feel a pressure of some kind. Dream Walker casually starts talking to me in her head about my day. There’s a poke sensation I feel, higher up on the same arm she’s getting blood drawn.

  “What’s that?” I ask. “Is he giving you something?”

  Dream Walker looks at the lab guy. When she sees him pulling a tiny syringe out of her arm I’m mad, but she doesn’t say anything. She isn’t even surprised.

  It’s nothing to worry about, she tells me.

  This is something. It makes me nervous. What is he doing to her? Is this what happens when the world finds out that you have abilities? They steal you away like Rogues stole Dad so that they can treat you like a test rat.

  She startles me when she answers my concerns silently, it is alright. Calm down.

  I can’t calm down. I begin to question her motives. She isn’t helping me in any way. If ending up like her is a possibility then she isn’t even telling me how to prevent it. I stop my train of thought. She can hear and feel everything from me. There aren’t any secrets when we’re connected like this, at least not on my end.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” she sings gently to me.

  I break the connection. I don’t know exactly how I do it but as soon as the thought to end it entered my mind our connection was gone. I can’t trust her. She hasn’t given me a reason not to trust her but she hasn’t given me a reason to trust her either.

  The next morning Ashley and I are hanging out in the courtyard before first period. Three new security members walk through the courtyard with Ben in the lead. Other students are also noticing them.

  “Ben is soaking up the attention,” I say to Ashley. She looks at Tiffany and her clique who are staring at the men walking their way.

  “Your old friends see something they like. It isn’t Ben either.”

  She’s right. Kenzie is looking past Ben to one of the men in the back. Tiff is fixed on the one walking closest to Ben.

  “His new coworkers are stealing the lime light and he’s none the wiser,” I say with a smile.

  “Is John one of them?”

  “No, he’s bigger than those guys. You’ll know him when you see him,” I assure her.

  For lunch I pick up the quickest food I can get, a burger.

  “Good afternoon,” Cassidy says sweetly. She takes out two food containers saying, “I want to apologize if I was short with you yesterday before you left.”

  “You weren’t. Will practicing my expanded ability going to take as long today?”

  She looks at the wrapped burger in my hand. “Another cafeteria burger?” She asks, ignoring my question. I nod. She hands me one of the containers. “I’ve never been impressed with the food served here. I hope you like cheesy chicken spaghetti.”

  I open the lid and steam spills out. The aroma is mouth watering. “You made this?”

  “It’s my mother’s recipe. I’ve tweaked it some.” She hands me a fork. “Tell me what you think.”

  I swirl the noodles around the fork and stuff it in my mouth. The cheese is rich. It carries some heat with it. It isn’t too spicy but there’s a kick. I look for a drink. “Do you have anything to drink?”

  “Do you like sweet tea?”

  “Love it,” I say overly excited at the idea as the heat kicks up on my tongue.

  She walks out the room. I eat a few more forkfuls before she returns with two plastic cups full of iced tea. I take a gulp as soon as the cup’s in my hand. “Thanks. This is delicious.”

  “It’s not too spicy?”

  “No, it’s perfect.”

  “The secret is in the sauce.”

  I take another bite. “What’s the secret?”

  “Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”

  I finish my chicken spaghetti in no time. Cassidy has barely put a dent in hers. She sets her container down as I finish my cup of tea.

  “Now then, it was evident in our session yesterday that your advanced ability needs working out. I think a more appropriate term to describe what you have is, advancing ability. At this point we really don’t know what limits we are working with. The simple fact is that in a school of gifted, Taylor, you’re the gifted one. Do you agree?”

  If hearing tha
t doesn’t make you feel special then you aren’t listening.

  I hesitate with my answer. It sounds like she’s leading up to something. The sudden heaviness in the room reminds me of the lecture about responsibility my parents gave me when I got my first high school boyfriend. “I’m beginning to understand that I’m not typical, yes.”

  “You’re being modest. If we can work on sharpening your advancing ability then the things you could do could be game changing. I don’t know about you but I’m overwhelmed with the possibilities. I recommend we focus on testing your limits today.”

  The Salem witch trials come to mind when she mentions ‘testing’. More specifically, it makes me think of me being strapped to a medieval dunking booth that ultimately leads to me drowning.

  “Hold on. What do you mean by test my limits?”

  “I want to nail down how much time you need to see beneath a lie and how detailed you can go into this “expansion” as you call it. Get a baseline reading of your ability at this point. Ultimately, it’ll help us judge how much you’re improving, if at all.”

  “You think there’s more to my ability?”

  She bites her lower lip before answering. “I think so. Like I said, the possibilities are…overwhelming.”

  Cassidy begins by identifying the time it takes for me to read a lie. She starts simple by lying about her favorite ice cream flavor. She then gets a book out and reads a passage to herself. She lies to me about what she’s read. I have to expand on the lie before her next lie. Each exercise is harder then the last. At the end of lunch my head is throbbing.

  “You said Seraphim think true ability advancement is a myth. Is that true? There had to have been others, right?”

  “I’ve looked in the literature we have on hand and so far I haven’t found anything like this mention.”

  I slump in my seat. Cassidy stands and walks me out. “I’ll keep digging. Seraphim are secretive; we have to be. Straight-forward information is tough to get ahold of.”

  “You’ll tell me if you find anything, anything at all?” I ask, pausing with my hand on her office door.