I reflexively dropped the spoon in my hand as my eyes met Danielle’s narrowed, bone-chilling glare, who had inevitably been staring at me for the last several seconds. There was a moment where my mind became paralyzed, the fear inside of me suddenly overloading my nerves. Oh, shit. I tried to look away, but it appeared as if our eyes were inextricably connected. I felt a mix of shock and fear permeate my body, as the cold sensation from Danielle’s stare only became more and more exemplified.
“You know it’s rude to not at least try something that someone makes you,” Danielle snapped. There was a nasty snarl to the way she accented her words.
I stuttered, the courage that I always seem to think I have, eluding the tip of my tongue once again. Come on, just do it. The adrenaline inside of me tried to push back the fear and doubt clogging my arteries, causing a catastrophic collision of emotions in my body. I winced, a shooting pain beginning to pound against the inside of my head, however, my shoulder still remained numb and sedated.
“Come on, Natalie.” Hunter took another sip of the red, unearthly cocktail, even smiling after he swallowed. “See, it’s all good. Just try it. One drink can’t hurt you.”
Yes, it can. The thought immediately echoed in my mind, but the fear froze my tongue and kept my lips pursed. It was the kind of paranoia that made me feel like bugs were crawling beneath my skin, and maggots squirming around in my stomach. It was the kind of fear that instead of making me scream, caused me to hyperventilate and close my eyes―agonizing.
“I said, I’m not in the mood.” I tried to keep my voice firm, but it ended up cracking. I tried to meet Danielle’s fiery eyes.
Danielle sighed angrily, and I could sense the fury coming from her nostrils, like steam from the engine of a locomotive. And seemingly, the black smoke from her nostrils festered in the air and constricted my airways, causing me to cough madly like an old man with emphysema.
“So now you are being disrespectful!” Her livid voice boomed off the walls. I caught both the advisers glance at her, surprised, before giving her looks of approval.
“No, I was just―” I tried to cut in, but it was already too late for Danielle.
“Yes!” she screamed. Her voice cracked as her mad shrill rung in my ears. She didn’t even have to get up from her chair to inflict physical pain upon my body with the intensity of her yells. “You have blatantly insulted me! What a disgrace!”
I suddenly felt trapped. With the insane, border-line bat-shit crazy glow to her eyes, I was starting to get the feeling that she would get what she wanted no matter what we did. I’m dead either way. I felt the blackness of defeat corrode my veins and calm some of the stress inside of me.
Hunter glanced at me with wide eyes. I could sense the apprehension and pure terror emanating down from his brain and taking over the rest of his body. This bitch is psycho. I was starting to wonder whether she had information of value to us, or if she was just a crazy, abusive fuck like her ex-husband.
“I’m sorry.” I felt an uneasy rumble sound from my stomach. My insides were literally curling up at the sight of the bright-red, precarious liquid that looked like it would singe my intestinal tract like fire. Everything in me screamed no. I could even feel my finger struggle to grasp the cup, my body in firm denial that it would have to encounter such a biohazardous chemical.
I held the stem of the glass delicately, a shiver reverberating down my spine at the touch of the cold glass against my skin. I glanced at the red matter, inauspiciously floating through the glass like the remnants of a lost spirit that has come back to haunt my body forever. I could not only feel, but hear the waves of tension between Danielle and I vibrating back and forth erratically, the pressure between us seemingly on the verge of snapping into a powdery explosion of red dust.
I inched the glass closer to my mouth until it finally made contact with my quivering lips. I could feel Hunter and Ethan’s eyes both looking at me concerned, while Danielle sneered, staring at me with a maniacal twinkle to her eyes. My lips instantly went numb at the touch of the cold glass, as my whole body tensed up, immediately rejecting the red liquid that began to saturate my taste buds. The liquid had a fruity, smooth, slightly sour taste; however, it was overshadowed by the overwhelming taste of death curling around my tongue.
Despite it having a light, tropical taste, my body repulsed at the sinister blackness that seemed to permeate throughout the body of the liquid. As I swallowed the small sip of the liquid, and let the bright-red, possibly lethal, poison, rush down my throat, I could feel my entire body convulse madly.
“How do you like it?” Danielle smiled with a glowering expression across her face. I was getting more of a creepy, serial-killer vibe from her than I used to get from clowns when I was a little kid.
“It was good,” I said, trying to fake a smile over the feeling to tear my stomach out of my body. The emotional pain, over the many years, had always been killing me slowly from the inside out; and this drink could be the last, finishing punch. Will one sip be enough to hurt me? I shivered erratically at the thought that the red dust was now swarming through my body, probably already beginning to rust my insides and eventually cause my entire existence to disintegrate into a pile of ashes.
“Good, good.” The storm raging in Danielle’s throat had now calmed down to a peaceful, sunny afternoon. Her voice was so soft that I almost had to strain to hear her from across the table. “Now, finish up.” She eyed the robots, who were busy marching around in the kitchen. “The third course should be ready soon.”
Danielle shot up from her chair, and walked over to the kitchen to go check on the food, and I suddenly saw an opportunity. If I could just pour it into the soup bowl, then no one will ever know. The robot butlers will just pick the dish up and clean it unsuspectingly. I mustered all the might inside of me to suppress the fear and terror boiling in my veins, and I used the adrenaline pumping through my blood to quickly, yet discreetly dump the rest of the glass into the bowl of clam chowder. Luckily, the two advisers were engaged in a conversation with each other about the government manipulating the stock market, and they had their heads too far up their own asses to notice. But Hunter glared at me with wide eyes.
I could see him trying to mouth the words “what the fuck” as he turned his head in the direction of Danielle. I gulped, suddenly holding the glass up to my mouth as she began to narrow her eyes at me while walking back to the table.
“Hmm,” she said. She adjusted the strap on the black blouse that she was wearing. It was the kind of shirt that revealed just enough to get the guys’ heads turning. Man, she’s still trying to get some at seventy. I almost laughed, despite the anxiety causing my mind to freeze.
I could feel both Hunter and Ethan shoot worried glances at me. It appeared as if they too could see the tension between us, and feel that the vibrations were on the verge of causing the energy between us to snap. Did she see me? Sweat started to perforate through my skin and collect in a puddle at the center of my palms. I lowered the glass slowly from my mouth and hastily placed it back on the wooden table.
Why does she want us to drink it so badly? I felt a flustered anger overcome me, yet every hair on my body stood straight up with the sheer paranoia that was induced in me. I could already feel my body rejecting the liquid now being absorbed in its stomach acid, and I could slowly feel my brain shriveling up at the idea, that our only hope could turn into the last breath of darkness that would finally swallow us.
Danielle paused for a moment, the whole room growing eerily silent apart from the sounds of pots clanking in the kitchen. She liked to assert her control over the room. It seemed that she almost got a sick enjoyment at watching the look of terror spring from within me.
I felt sick; my mind stuck in a groggy, hypnotic lull and my body weak and sore. More than ever, I wanted to jump out of the balcony outside and plummet down into the Colorado River that roared beneath the steep canyon walls. And one look at the soup that had coagulated with the red liquid to
create a nauseatingly thick, soupy mixture, made me only contemplate the prospect of death even more.
At least with death I knew what was coming: a perpetual blackness that would forever reside over my brain. But with that damned liquid, I didn’t know what it would do to me.
Hunter and Ethan had both finished their glasses of the red liquid―which definitely wasn’t a cocktail, by any measure―and I could see a suddenly spaced-out look in their eyes.
“So did you all grow up in Phoenix your entire lives?” Danielle suddenly spoke up, seemingly ignoring the fact that I had just poured out her sacred drink and failed to send the liquid cascading down my throat. She had the familiar gleam to her dark eyes, and a peculiar tone to her voice that made it sound almost like she was testing us.
Hunter looked at me, and then looked at Danielle, bewildered. Damn, she is weird. I felt a chill run down my spine at how fast she could switch her emotions from angry to calm. It was like she was manipulating her own thoughts to essentially mind-fuck herself. What struck me the most was that normally weird, crazy people waited a while to reveal their wild side; Danielle, however, had shown herself to be a full-fledged psychopath right out of the gate.
Great. My frustration at the horrid ways of life had reached its boiling point. I could suddenly feel myself losing it, the force of the anger and fear inside of me taking over my mind. We weren’t getting any answers from her. The moment the realization struck my mind, the desperate urge to at least attempt to figure out what happened to our lives, roared inside of me. She’s not here to help us. Tears poked at the corner of my eyes as I glared at her ferociously. She’s just like the rest of them. She’s just going to use us!
“So have you always been planning to attack Area 51?” I mocked the soft tone to her voice.
Everyone at the table widened their eyes at me. I could see the perturbed look in Hunter’s blue eyes as he motioned with his finger for me to be quiet.
“I’m sorry.” Danielle laughed. “But I don’t quite understand what you are talking about.”
“Don’t bullshit me.” My voice had a vicious snarl to it that instantly sliced the tension in the air in half. I could even see one of the robot butler’s turn his bald head at me as he swung his arm over my head to pick up my bowl, full of the repulsing liquid.
I’m not taking shit from anyone anymore. The fury inside of me suddenly exploded and I could feel my body begin to shake in the wake of its aftershock. I’m done playing games.
“Natalie,” Danielle said. She still had that fake smile plastered to her face. “Why would we ever attack a government facility? That would be practically asking for a war with the government, that we would inevitably lose.” The way she said the word “government” sent chills down my spine.
“I don’t know. You tell me.” I injected a sinister tone into my voice, just to try and intimidate her, but it was useless. She had no reason to tell me anything. I’m powerless, I can’t do anything to her. But she can do anything she wants to me.
“I’m not quite sure what the point would be in shutting down Protocol 00, anyways. I’m sure its harmless,” I continued.
I could see Danielle’s face visibly contort at that statement. Protocol 00 seemed to be like her trigger word or something.
“You don’t know anything about Protocol 00.” Danielle’s advisers looked at her with a shocked expression. The lasers shooting from her eyes were beginning to pierce my skin. “You don’t know anything, period. So stop acting like you do.”
“Ms. Walker,” One of the advisers with frail, gray hair muttered underneath his breath, and shook his head.
“Look, I don’t care if I don’t know anything!” I screamed louder now than I had ever screamed before. I glanced at Hunter and Ethan, who both appeared dazed and drowsy. “I have the right to know about what happened to my family! I have the right to know what happened to this damned country, and why the government is endlessly in pursuit of killing me! And I have the right to know if I can make things better!”
I let the hot air out of my nostrils, as I finally breathed after wasting away all my air bellowing at the top of my lungs. There was a deafening silence that hung over the air for a moment, as Danielle stared at me with a suddenly blank expression strewn across her face. Instead of anger, I could see her desperately trying to push back the sadness and empathy pulling at her permanently tense facial muscles.
“So dinner is actually done. Alfred, please pick up the plates,” she commanded, as she instantly got up from her gold-encrusted wooden chair. She didn’t even have enough energy to fake a smile; the emotion of guilt seemed to quietly seep into her dark brown eyes. Her advisers immediately stood up after her, ready to follow her likes two lost ducklings, to wherever she was headed to next.
“No, it’s not.” I sat down defiantly, continuing to hold onto my fork, refusing to let one of the butlers take it from me. “We still have much to discuss, Danielle.”
“Well, that can wait till tomorrow, dear,” she said, a sneer to her voice, and she shot one of the butler’s a look, which resulted in one of the robots ruthlessly ripping the fork from my hand. Well, okay then. I give up. I sighed, letting the anger flow out of me with every exhale, despite my urge to continue screaming at her. At least I tried.
I stood up, letting the powerless feeling overcome me. Normally, I would tell her thanks for dinner, but she was such an awful and genuinely creepy person that I decided she owed us a dinner for putting us through this. Goddammit! I felt like clawing at her as she walked away followed by her two advisers down the long, dark hallway that had at least two dozen doors. The helicopter pad and kitchen and living room were on either side of the hallway, and I could suddenly feel myself wanting to go back into that helicopter and crash it into a fiery inferno. At least then this would be over. At least then this hopeless, depressed state of perpetual hell would finally fleet my mind.
“Holy shit, she is fucked up,” Hunter said, the minute she closed the door to the room into which they’d walked, probably to have a meeting about what the hell to do with us. Why are we even here? Is she going to torture us? Use us for some crazy mission?
My mind shivered at all the horrific possibilities that could happen to us. All the hope that had, just hours ago, been blocked by the huge thunderstorm that continued to rage on above me, tore apart the fabric of my life until there was nothing left of me. I grabbed onto Hunter, in search of his warmth that could somehow melt the icy fear that had encapsulated my veins.
I followed him, holding onto his arm, as he made his way to the glass pavilion that overlooked the Grand Canyon.
“Ethan, are you coming?” Hunter muttered.
I could hear the tiredness in his tone. All the energy seemed to be missing from his normally vibrant, blue eyes.
“Nah, man. I’m tired as fuck.”
Ethan plopped down on one of the fur couches that looked like it was softer than a cloud to sleep on. Instead of closing his eyes, he began to stare blankly up at the ceiling.
What the hell did that red powder do to them? The anxiety within me caused my body to tremble. My body literally began to curl over. I could feel my intestines slithering inside of me like a snake, searching for a way to crawl out of my body and escape the detestable red matter that was now being dissolved by my stomach acid. A mind-numbing fear coursed through me as I wondered whether just that one sip of the red powder was enough to kill me.
I will be fine. I instinctively pushed back the fear and terror inside of me, and instead allowed the shock and irremediable despair to overwhelm my senses. Even if I was enough of a person to be able to deal with the reality of my situation, I wouldn’t be able to see it through the musty fog that seemed to coat the air and my mind. It was all a misty haze that I was being forced to walk through. And when I approached the treacherous cliff that was inevitably in front of me, I wouldn’t even be able to see it when I was about to fall. And if I was lucky, I would be so numb to the world, that I would be una
ble to even register I was falling. The only problem would be when the impact of reality hit me in the face.
For all I knew, I could be falling now.
The sliding glass door automatically opened up as we approached it, and in front of us, an unobstructed view of the Grand Canyon National Village appeared. The first thing that caught my eyes was not the depths of the canyon itself, but the enormous pier that jutted out over the canyon and contained a massive, rainbow-colored Ferris wheel, that spun around hypnotically. Behind the Ferris wheel, the skyline of the dozens of sleek, modern apartment buildings stood towering above the edge of the steep canyon rock face. The sun illuminated the carbon-fiber buildings and cast a glow on the entire village that made it seem like a fantasy land.
“Wow.” Hunter breathed, edging closer to the edge of the glass pavilion. We were essentially surrounded in a box of glass, that provided clear views of the beauty around us. I looked down at the mind-numbing drop into the Colorado River, whose rapids raged on below.
If I could only just break the glass. I tapped on the wall of glass that surrounded us, and my finger instantly bounced off. It’s not even worth trying. I stared down at the drop that was hundreds of feet below, and suddenly felt my stomach churn. My mom almost fell down this.
I shuddered as the dreadful memories began to flood my mind. Maybe she knew how horrible this would all be. Maybe she was the smart one.
I felt Hunter wrap his arm around me as he sighed and sat down on the surprisingly cool glass. The jagged wall of rock beneath us was covered in a sheet of darkness. The steepness of the wall of rock was truly awing. It towered hundreds of feet above the river that curved gracefully below, its blue waters having carved a path of destruction through the rocky earth over the course of hundreds of millions of years.
The power of water suddenly amazed me. The fact that a smooth, life-giving liquid could erode so much earth and sculpt a beautiful masterpiece out of the desert ground filled with rock and dirt, is unbelievable. Despair and sadness work in the same way. Over many years, they begin to push through your body carving their own path of misery, and degrading your happiness and will to live, until it erodes everything you have, completely absorbing the conscious half of you in a perpetual blackness.
Control Freakz Page 24
