by Elle Park
"Leave? Why?" Mumbling something under his breath, he follows me. "Were you not listening when I so eloquently explained everything to you?"
"Oh, I heard every word," I laugh dryly, spinning around to face him, "like how my attacker was an alleged vorak, you're an alleged daemon, and I have an alleged orb that's kind of like yours but kind of not—whatever the hell that even means."
"Exactly. So, you do get why you need me?" Chewing on his straw, he grins. Cute. Noting my unimpressed expression, he changes tactics. "Come on, don't you want to know what you are? Trust me, if you want to learn the truth, I'm your best option."
The truth? The truth is, I've spent my whole life defining who I am—and now I'm supposed to determine what I am? Yes, I've been living through facades, but at least they were my own. Now I'm being exposed to those that were built without my knowledge, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to deal with it all. Everything I thought I knew about not just myself, but the world, has already become compromised and, eventually, might shatter altogether.
I am still certain of one thing, though, and that's that even nothing comes at a price. "And what do you get out of this?" I ask, my eyes narrowed as I search his face for clues.
"Fun," he answers simply, shrugging. "Henry's a boring roommate. I only keep him around because he worships the ground I walk on, and my heart is just too big to reject even one of my many, many followers. Seriously, my groupies could, like, start a world war if they wanted to—of course, I wouldn't let them. I'm a lover, not a fighter. Anyway... what was I talking about, again?"
"You called me boring, then proceeded to spiel lies," Henry says, his face blank as he approaches us with short, even steps. He stops a few feet behind Nolan, clasping his hands behind his back. Seriously, how old is this kid?
"Right, right," Nolan waves dismissively, "so, as I was saying, I give my permission for you to move in."
"I haven't even decided if I'll still be in this house two minutes from now, yet you're suggesting I stay here indefinitely?" What makes him think I would ever agree to that? "You're a stranger who abducted me, tricked me into believing I was in a hospital, and fed me stories—not to mention, blood—about imaginary creatures that even four-year-olds would know better than to believe." Everything I just said is crazy. He is crazy.
He rolls his eyes. "All I did was escort you to my home, where you were given appropriate medical attention. The hospital set-up—which, by the way, I would have gone all out on if it weren't for Henry who so rudely called it a," he crooks two fingers on each hand, "quote-unquote ridiculous waste of time and money. I mean, please, it's not like I don't have enough of both those things." He takes a second to glare at the unapologetic boy, before turning back to me and flailing his arms out. "You see what I have to live with?" He sighs, shaking his head. "Anyway, it was so you wouldn't freak out when you woke up—didn't want you to think you were kidnapped or something," he adds with a shrug. Yeah, a lot of good that did. "And, really, Kaia, I'm very insulted that you would think I made any of that up. I'm a speaker of truth," he says, widening his eyes and attempting to look sincere.
"You haven't shown me a single piece of evidence that might inspire me to actually believe you. Plus, you're a complete stranger with less than zero credibility for me to trust. Do you really expect me to just take your word for all of this?" It's getting harder and harder to keep my voice level, but if there's ever a time when acting like a sweet, friendly girl won't help my case, it's now.
"Hey, we know each other's names, you're in my house, and we shared a hearty, delectable meal. You know, most people would call us friends, but I get it—you have trust issues. What's with that, anyway? Did you spend your entire life just being lied to or something?" More like I did the lying. When I don't respond, he shoots me a dramatically pitying look, even tutting his tongue in feigned sympathy. "Strangers are only strangers until you get to know them. If you live here, you'll get to know more about not only us, but yourself, too. Oh, and you won't have to worry about a certain low-life, messy-haired, drug dealing hooligan anymore. Cough, Manny, Cough."
"How do you know about Manny?" I ask, even more wary than before.
"I know a lot of things," he says, smirking with a slight tilt to his chin. "Like how your dear aunt, Anna, has yet to report you missing—which would've went nowhere, anyway, since you're fresh out of high school. Plus, one look inside your house, and the most the cops would do is wonder why you didn't leave sooner."
"You sound as if you've been there."
"Come on, Kaia, don't be ridiculous. I sent someone else, obviously," he says, chuckling. "Your stuff is in your brand new room—a huge upgrade from your old one, I tell you. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Annie's still alive and kicking—as alive as you can probably imagine, anyway—so whether she didn't notice your disappearance, or just didn't do anything about it, I'm afraid she has no good excuse for her failure as a guardian. Now, I, on the other hand, am kind, funny, caring, handsome, charming, rich and sober. What more can you ask for?"
I don't bother acknowledging his last statement, but for whatever reason, I do bother covering for Anna.
Habits are hard to break, I suppose.
"There's no reason for her to think I'm missing. I have a shift today—"
My shift. Work. Shit.
"Actually, that was three days ago," he says bluntly. "I wasn't kidding when I said you were on the verge of death—the sucker really did a number on you, babe."
Somehow, I manage to keep my mouth from gaping. "Three days? But that means—"
"Yeah, Frankie wasn't too happy that you missed your shift. Guess that explains why you were fired." Fired? "As in, you don't have a job anymore." Yes, thank you for clearing that up.
Releasing a silent groan, I glare up at the ceiling. It's then that I realize I've unconsciously been inching my way backwards, and now I'm standing flush against a cold, hard surface. My escape. All I have to do is walk out the door, and I'll be able to treat this persistent nightmare as nothing more than a tiny, inconsequential blip in my life.
I reach behind me, searching blindly for only a moment before I grip the cold handle. But just as I'm about to turn around and pull the door open, Nolan's voice stops me.
"I'll pay you."
I don't register my movements until I'm already facing him. "What?" I say, rather dumbly.
"You'll stay here rent-free, eat food from all over the world, and I'll pay you—fifty dollars a day. It's a pretty great deal, if you ask me. Don't you think so, Henry?"
The boy turns to face me. "I believe it is more ideal than your current living arrangements."
I'd have to agree, but I force myself to take at least a few moments to mull it over.
I know that if I ever want a chance of making something of myself—of becoming someone—I need to completely sever my roots because the soil beneath Anna's house has been rotten for years, and I'm certain I would die before I ever grew there.
It's almost sad, really. I've been living in that house for practically my entire life, yet in all that time, it's never been a home to me. And it's not out of any attachment to the house or any loyalty to my aunt that has me staying there, slowly lowering myself six feet into the dirt, but because I haven't acquired the means to dig my way out.
I need money to do that.
It would be naive of me to think of this as anything but a potentially lethal disaster, but I would be stupid to believe I'm any safer at Anna's house than I am here. Whether I die at the hands of Manny or Nolan, it won't matter much in the end. But until then, at least I'll be making money.
That didn't take much mulling at all.
I wonder what that says about me.
"One hundred," I say, expecting him to lower the amount to somewhere around seventy-five.
"One-hundred-fifty," he counters, narrowing his eyes.
Seriously?
I'm not going to give him time to reconsider.
"Fine."
"Good,"
he nods, satisfied with the hard bargain he thinks he drove, "because I'm not sure how people would react to you running around in a hospital gown."
At his words, my head snaps down toward my feet. Too busy with planning my escape from an assumed psycho—inconclusive, for now—I somehow forgot all about my new attire. And it's only now that I realize something very, very important.
"Who changed my clothes?" I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
"Relax, Sweets. Don't look so scandalized—I'm a gentleman," he says, chuckling. "I hired a woman—Greta was her name—to do it. She did give me a few weird looks, but I'm sure it's not easy being around someone as attractive as me."
Yes, I'm sure that was the reason.
There's a wide smile stretching his cheeks, and he just stares at me like that, making the newly formed silence feel nothing short of uncomfortable. Henry's not helping, either, his face blank and unreadable.
I clear my throat. "So, where do we go from here?" He did say I would learn the truth about who—or what—I am, after all.
"Where would we go?" He frowns. "You just moved in."
I should have asked for two-hundred.
"She's asking what the plan is—if you even have one, that is," Henry says, and there's a clear undercurrent of impatience to his tone.
"Oh," Nolan scratches his ear, "yeah, of course, I have a plan." He begins rocking back and forth on his heels, his lips pursed in thought.
"Are you going to elaborate?"
"Sure thing, sure thing," he mumbles absently, stroking his chin.
After a couple of minutes of absolutely nothing, Henry sighs. "It would be in our best interest to get her registered." By our, I'm not sure if he means all three of us or just him and Nolan, but at least we're getting somewhere.
No one immediately responds. "Wait, I just had an idea," Nolan blurts, raising a hand. "I think we should get Kaia registered."
Getting a sense of what Henry has been going through for however long they've lived together, I almost start to feel sorry for the kid.
Then I remember I'm now in the same position as him.
Carding my fingers through my hair with barely concealed frustration, I manage to not rip any strands out. "What does getting registered mean, exactly?"
"You'll be scanned into the system and enrolled in The Academy. But before we do that, we need to make sure we're prepared, which means," he pulls out his phone, "I have a call to make."
Out of everything he just said, all I'm able to understand is the very last part, which really doesn't help much, considering I don't know whom he's calling or why.
I don't bother trying to decipher Nolan's one-sided conversation, as almost everything he says sounds either like coherent gibberish or flat-out nonsense—both are impossible to translate into words that actually mean something to me.
At some point during his phone call, we all migrated back to the couch, with even Henry taking a seat this time. The lavish piece of furniture allows us to spread apart generously, giving me the space I desperately need. All I have to do is close my eyes and block my ears for me to trick myself into believing I'm anywhere but here.
I'm not sure how long I sit there like that, staring at the back of my eyelids, ignoring the quiet breaths of Henry and the enthusiastic rambling of Nolan. All I know is that my preferred delusion of solitude doesn't last nearly as long as I would have liked it to.
An actual doorbell reverberates through the air this time, rather than the staccato chime of whatever food delivery service Nolan uses—something I'm not yet mentally prepared to investigate.
Henry opens the door to reveal a short, overweight guy with closely cropped brown hair. "I'm here, I'm here," he says loudly, waving a hand in the air, the other tightly gripping a dark duffel bag. His voice is relatively high-pitched, but also raspy—not in a way that suggests he's a smoker, but more like a boy whose vocal chords stopped developing halfway through puberty.
"Milo, brother," Nolan claps him on the back, "what took you so long?"
"Hello, did you forget who runs the doghouse back there?" He's whispering for some reason, eyes wide and challenging.
"Frieda," he smirks, "how's she doing these days?"
"Do you really need to ask?" Milo shudders. "Now I owe Ben a favor, and if I'm not there within the next hour, I'm dead—dead, you hear me?"
Nolan chuckles at that, shaking his head almost wistfully. "Come on, little Benny is harmless."
His face crumples then, exasperation shaping his round, almost childish features. "Only you would call a six-foot-four giant little. I swear, dude, I almost reached for my stash of paper bags, and you know I save those for the guys up top." He's breathing heavily now, his chest puffing in and out at the effort.
Nolan wraps a loose arm around the baby-faced man, patting his shoulder until the wheezing slows to gentle huffs. "Relax, you know this won't take long. You brought the goods?" At his friend's nod, he brings both their gazes to me. "This is Kaia, the purple girl."
CHAPTER FOUR
THE PURPLE GIRL?
He offers me a quick smile, but it turns out more like a grimace. Gently dropping his bag to the floor, he pulls out a slim laptop, followed by several long wires.
Eyeing them both warily, I force myself not to fidget as I wait for someone to explain what it is we're doing. Milo has already set up his equipment on the coffee table in front of us, and he begins to reach for me when I raise my hand, immediately halting his efforts.
"What is all this?" I ask, motioning to the set of thin black cords, not liking the strange look that passes between them.
"Answers," Nolan replies simply.
Not good enough.
"Answers to what?"
"It will give us an idea of what you are."
At that, I merely sigh, nodding my head in consent because what else can I really do? I need answers just as much as they want them, if not more.
The wires are connected to flat, coin-sized disks that Milo promptly sticks onto each of my temples and on the base of my neck, the cold metal resting directly above my pulse point. They're firm and solid, yet somehow feel like sheer stickers on my skin.
He types furiously into the keyboard before turning to me with a heavy exhale. "You might feel a slight... pinch," he warns cautiously before pressing the "enter" key.
The pinch is more of a mild electrocution, really, and it has my body jumping at the sudden fireworks bursting within my skull. It's all I can do not to bite my own tongue off, my fists clenched tightly and my jaw clamped shut until, finally, the sharp pain fades to a few faint sparks. Realizing my eyes are closed, I open them instantly, only to find both guys huddling over the laptop, brows furrowed in confusion. Even Henry is standing off to the side, obviously curious but feigning disinterest.
A few minutes pass before Milo breaks the silence. "There's... nothing," he says, almost numbly.
Leaning forward, all I can see is a black screen with a white, horizontal line spanning across the middle of the otherwise blank canvas.
All three are staring at me now, scrutinizing my face just as I am theirs. "But that's impossible," Nolan finally speaks, breaking the tense silence. "We both know there wasn't a glitch in the system. And she's definitely not human."
"Of course, there wasn't. I know what I saw, man—what we saw," Milo says defensively. "It was purple."
"What was purple?" I sound fairly calm, which is great because that's far from how I'm currently feeling.
They both reply in unison. "You."
The three of us are locked in some sort of staring contest, and no one even blinks until Henry clears his throat, quietly stepping toward us. "Perhaps the machine is just too old," he offers, though he doesn't sound too confident with his guess.
Milo begins packing his bag. "It may be old, but it's reliable. And whatever she is, you better get her registered before someone finds out you've been hiding her. You know The Union will ask questions, even if it's you."
"More
like because it is you," Henry says.
Nolan's about to protest when Milo interrupts, already walking toward the front door. "Look, man, I have to go. You know what will happen to me if Frieda finds out about this. I'm not ready to die, brother." With those parting words, he practically runs out of the house.
"Milo is right. We need to follow procedure," Henry says once the door closes shut. "You need to take her to headquarters tomorrow."
"Well, we can't just go in blind," he says, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Milo cleared her and the vorak as soon as she showed up on the map, which means there were no trackers or recruiters who could have known about them." Nolan shakes his head as he plops down beside me, the side of his knee touching my own. "She killed the vorak herself—impossible to do without a weapon."
"Yes, it is intriguing, but hiding her like this won't do us any good."
"You know, I'd appreciate it if you guys stopped talking about me and start talking to me," I say, piercing them—mostly Nolan—with a glare. Running another agitated hand through my hair, I twist my body to face him completely. "You said we'd get answers—we didn't. I'd like to know why." It's not so much a request as it is a demand.
He's still studying me, eyes squinted and lips jutting out. A thoughtful hum, then a click of his tongue before he finally exhales, jumping to his feet. "Now, this is very painful for me to admit, so I'll only say it once: I don't know." He visibly cringes, face folding inward at his own admission. Releasing a dramatic lungful of air, his shoulders slump and his features smoothen. "How did I do, Hen? I have to say, it wasn't easy, but being the mature, responsible adult that I—"
"So, what you're saying is, I let myself be a lab rat for absolutely no reason."
"Lab rat?" He actually has the nerve to act offended. "How could you think so little of me?" He shakes his head ruefully. "You know what, I have had enough of this blatant hostility. It's obvious my presence is unwanted right now, so I'll do you all the favor of removing myself. Goodnight," he declares haughtily, marching upstairs with impressive speed.
