by Marilyn Grey
I walked away from her squinty eyes and looked at the poor, helpless cow, feeling a bit like the cow myself. I didn’t want to change the world. I didn’t want to do their stupid assignments. I didn’t want the headaches and confusion and boring white bedroom. And most especially, I didn’t want to kill a cow. Or anything.
But I didn’t want to die either.
“Nooooo!” someone screamed.
I turned, realizing it came from the room they took Audrey to. I didn’t want to find out what was beyond that door. At all.
The animals looked pensive. Almost seemed as though they were sick or had been starved for days. Sir Anthony chimed, “One minute,” as I looked around at the other kids my age and imagined them standing up there next. I didn’t want to be a part of it. I didn’t want anything to do with the entire thing anymore.
I glanced back at the two doors. My two options. What was worth more to me? Dying an honest person or living a lie?
I raised my shoulders, turned to Sir Anthony, and inhaled deeply. “I can’t do it.” I looked at the ground. “I mean ... I won’t. I won’t do it.”
I swear it looked almost like a smile tugged at his lips and a weird brightness glazed over his eyes.
Emily covered her mouth with her hand and stared at me as the two men escorted me to the door that Audrey entered minutes ago. I shoved their hands, but they gripped tighter.
“I can walk there myself,” I said. “Where would I run to anyway?”
They gripped even harder.
“Wait!” a voice called.
Red ran up to us. “I’ll take her place.”
“No, Red.” I tried to sound stern, but my voice cracked. How could he do for me what I couldn’t do for my own twin sister? My own twin sister. “Please don’t.”
“Let me take her place.” He looked back toward the crowd. “Anthony, let me take her place.”
Sir Anthony smiled and waved his hand for us to move on. “Take them both.”
The door opened and we were shoved inside an empty room with another door across the way.
“Why did you do that?” I said to Red.
He coughed. Totally fake too. “I just didn’t want to see you go through this.”
“Will they really skin us?”
The other door opened and Victoria entered. “Oh, look who we have here. If it isn’t the valiant Red prince and his damsel in distress.”
“I’m not a damsel.”
Red stepped toward her while looking at me.”Let’s just get this over with, okay?”
“We are waiting for the others this time.” She eyed me up and down. “Which part of her should we do?”
Red blinked slowly and his eyes filled with an emotion I couldn’t figure out. Victoria motioned for us to enter the other door. We followed. The room was small and dark, lit only with a single red light. Audrey sat in a chair blindfolded. Her hands wrapped around the back of the chair, tied together by rope so tight her wrists bled a little. Another rope twisted around her chest and the chair, then another held her feet together. She sat quietly, but even if she screamed it would had been muted by the cloth in her mouth. I wiped my sweaty palms on my arms, afraid to mess up my dress, and looked at Red for reassurance. He stared ahead without blinking. It seemed like his mind drifted to another place, a place beyond this room, beyond his body.
I thought of my place. My room filled with books. My escape.
Three men entered the room with ropes. I closed my eyes and imagined the books tucked away in the shelves. So many books. I ran my fingers along a row of them until one caught my eye. I pulled it out, bypassed the title, and began to read, but a voice interrupted me.
“She’s gone,” the man said. “She’s disassociated.”
“Good,” Victoria said. “Now, let’s get her in the chair.”
I kept my eyes shut and tried to focus on the books, but the voices kept finding their way in.
“Has Red disassociated?” the man said.
A pause, then Victoria responded, “Looks like it. He goes fast. This other 413 is more difficult. Something about her is different.”
“Not when we’re finished with her.”
I opened my eyes. “Hello.” I faked a smile. “Any idea when you may be finished with me?”
They looked at each other and rushed to blindfold me.
“I told you,” Victoria whispered. “She has developed a mild resistance. Sir Anthony believes it’s due to a weakened prefrontal cortex and he is worried it will only increase.”
Prefrontal cortex? Weakened?
I opened my mouth to speak, but they shoved a cloth around my face and in my mouth. Perfect timing.
The door opened.
“Got the knives,” someone said.
The books appeared again. I found one and began to read the story as fast as possible.
They were only children. Audrey walked into Claire’s room, wanting to play the game where she pretended to be a princess and Claire pretended to be an evil dragon, but Claire didn’t want to play the dragon again.
Audrey tugged Claire’s hair and pulled her off of her bed so that she scraped her spine on the wood. Claire burst into tears and Audrey screamed until tears came out of her own eyes.
“Mommy!” she yelled. “Mommy! She hit me.” Audrey punched her own face twice. “She’s hurting me!”
Claire imagined a far off place. A beach with frothy waves lapping on the sandy shore. Blake smiled at her. She smiled back as she dipped her body into the cool salt water and leaned back. The sky welcomed her with an open hug as she floated and drifted away. Further and further and further away.
NINE
Josephine woke me up from a nap. Her voice comforted me like a warm embrace. I needed a friend right now and she was always there, ready to talk whenever I felt alone. Like now.
I sat up in bed and made sure blood didn’t seep from the bandage on my arm. I couldn’t remember how I got hurt, but it looked as though the skin on my arm had been burned. For days I tried to figure out what caused it. If it was an accident or if someone intentionally hurt me, but even the books in my mind wouldn’t give me the answer.
Josephine told me not to worry about it and to focus on other things, like the future. She helped me get through a very depressing few days of being locked in my room.
Today, she woke me up with the words, “You are not alone.”
“Will I be getting out of my room today?” I said.
“Yes.” She smiled. “You have an assignment today. A very important one that cannot be missed.”
Oh, no. “Okay. When do I leave?”
“Time is unknown. We must wait until the current set of twins complete their assignment. You and Audrey are next in line.”
“Is it a hard one?” I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the previous assignments. “Have I been doing well?”
“You’re tired. You may want to get some more rest before they call you downstairs. I can play some relaxing music for you, if you’d like.”
“That would be nice, thanks.”
She disappeared and covered the screen with an image of ocean waves. Light music mixed with the sound of waves crashing into the shore. I closed my eyes and pictured myself there and before long a dream began.
Red grinned at me from across the room while couples danced. I took in the familiar setting of my high school gym and noticed Audrey dancing with Brayden while Blake sat alone at a table by the basketball hoops ... his eyes committed to staring at me.
I turned back to Red as he reached out his hand and whispered, “Blake will betray you, but you can trust me. I would die for you. I love you, Claire.”
“Love is a strong word,” I said, ignoring his outstretched hand. “You should be careful who you give it to.”
“I’m always careful.” He took my hand. “Dance with me. You’ll never be alone again. I promise.”
We danced as I looked over Red’s shoulder at Blake, still alone, still staring at me.
&n
bsp; “He’s still in love with her, you know.”
“He never loved her.”
“Do you love him?”
“He’s my best friend, of course I love him.”
Red stopped dancing. “Do you love him, Claire?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what love is. That kind of love. I don’t know.”
“He’ll hurt you.” He swung me back into his arms as the song came to an end. I ended up with my back to his chest and his breath on my neck. “I would never hurt you.”
I spun out of his embrace and stood very close to his face, then whispered, “I hurt myself enough for the both of us.”
Three beeps woke me up, followed by, “413, 413, 413. Please report to the main hall.”
I left my room without hesitating, ran to the bathroom and went as fast as I could, then jogged down the stairs where Audrey and Victoria waited, along with Red and some girl.
“This your guide?” I said to Audrey.
Dazed, she didn’t seem to notice that I said something.
“Okay, young ladies.” Victoria clapped her hands together. “Follow me right this way.”
We went lower than I remember going before. Down into a damp room in the basement.
“You will have five minutes with your guides,” Victoria said. “When they leave, please undress completely and place this gown on. The doctor will be in shortly.”
Two hospital beds spread out in front of us. A machine towered above the pillows and dozens of wires dangled to the bed like a mob of snakes.
Red put his hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder. “Don’t lose control. Focus. Stay alert.”
“I had a dream about you.”
“Oh yeah?” He smiled. “Good?”
“Depends how you look at it.”
Audrey’s guide left the room. Red moved me closer to the door so Audrey’s back was to us, then he leaned down and hovered near my collar bone. I stepped back. He licked his lips and kissed my cheek, then smiled and walked out of the room.
I didn’t feel a thing.
Three beeps sounded from a speaker I couldn’t locate. Then someone said, “Please undress and sit on the beds.”
Audrey barely moved as she slipped her clothes off and replaced them with the gown. I kept my clothes on.
“Audrey,” I said.
She sat on the edge of the bed and stared into space.
I stood in front of her. “Audrey.”
Nothing.
I snapped three times in front of her face, like I saw them do to Blake, then said her name again. She didn’t budge. “301, 301, 301,” I said.
She blinked, almost seemed to come back to reality, then her pupils got huge and her eyelids moved halfway down her eyes, making her look half asleep.
I sat next to her and put my arm around her. Head on her shoulder, my lip quivered and my chest tightened. I pressed my fingers into her wrist and felt her pulse. It was slow. Really slow. Her heart continued to beat though, giving her life. Looking at her, I wondered what alive meant if her mind wasn’t there to know.
Tears wanted to surface, but I wouldn’t allow it anymore. I told myself last time that I wouldn’t cry anymore. Only happy tears. I woke up every morning with bruises and marks and wounds and never remembered how they got there. I feared for my life and had no desire to spend my last day in a mess of tears. And my last day could had been any day as far as I knew.
The doctor entered, slapped on a pair of plastic red gloves, and asked us to make ourselves comfortable on the beds. Audrey did. I stayed upright.
“What if I don’t want to do this?” I said, looking at my heavy-eyed sister. “What are those wires?”
The doctor pressed something on his watch and within a few seconds a woman entered the room. She scrutinized me with her eyes, raised her eyebrows, then waved the doctor out to the hallway.
A few seconds later Victoria came in, apologizing to someone as she closed the door.
“I’ll take care of it,” she said.
She stood in front of me, snapped three times, and the room began to spin. I grabbed the edge of the bed. My arms and legs stiffened. The room continued to spin.
“I’m falling,” Did I say that out loud? I couldn’t tell.
“Rest,” Victoria said.
I closed my eyes as she helped me to the pillow. Waves lapping. I heard waves lapping again. I listened to the comforting sound as someone put stickers on my head. Lots and lots of stickers on my head.
“Her pupils are still small,” someone said.
“Don’t worry. She’s gone,” another said.
“Looks like she’s developed a bit of resistance.”
“We’re working on it. I think Anthony wants to try more association with her to try to alter her memories. Her mind is actually weak, but that’s her strength against it. Anthony thinks once we finish this procedure that she’ll be easier to deal with.”
“Did you see that?”
“What?”
“Are you sure she’s not aware?”
“Here. I’ll give her this to make sure.”
My arm, attached to the bed like an anchor at the bottom of the ocean, refused to move when I tried to stop them from injecting me with whatever was in that tube.
I tried with everything in me to move, but the anchor tightened. My vision blurred. Their voices faded into silence. Her mind is weak, but that’s her strength. I lingered on the words until I coasted into a deep sleep.
TEN
I knew it as soon as I undressed for my weekly shower. Audrey and I were twins and most people believed we were identical, but no two people are the same.
Maybe it comforted me throughout the last few years to touch my scar, to run my fingers over the light, rough skin just above my belly button. It was a scary experience, but it was the first time I knew Blake and I were true friends.
Father swung at me when I came home five minutes late. Face red, he raised his fist and Blake jumped in front of me. Father wiped him out, but his body flung so hard that he shoved me into the fish tank and gashed my stomach open.
Blake never told his parents what really happened. He didn’t want them to have a reason to hate me or my family.
Anyway, the scar. I cherished that scar and what it meant to me, but when I looked down at my naked body it was gone. My stomach was more toned. My legs looked thinner. Everything was different. Unlike me and so much like Audrey.
I touched my face. No mole under my left ear. And the ears had tiny holes from piercings. I never had my ears pierced.
Audrey did.
I didn’t understand.
I shook my head and breathed in and out. In and out. What happened to me? I rubbed my arm, then my neck, and swallowed hard. A chill swept over me as the room spun. I held on to the sink and placed my hand over my chest.
My chest.
My chest?
Audrey’s chest!
“Breathe, Claire,” I whispered aloud.
A knock on the door startled me.
“Hurry up,” Emily said. “I need to pee so bad and there’s three other people behind me.”
I slipped my dress over my head, straightened it, and opened the door.
“Em,” I said. “Look at me. Tell me who I am.”
“Uh, you’re Claire?” She tilted her head. “You do look different though. Something ... something about your hair maybe?”
“This isn’t my body.” I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. “Something is wrong. This is me, but this is Audrey’s body.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know, but this is my mind. I mean, it’s me thinking. I’m talking. I’m Claire, right? I’m still Claire, right?” My heart palpitations worsened, clicking under my ribs in odd rhythms. I grabbed my chest, then my hair, then my chest. “Who am I? Emily ... who am I?”
“What the....” She scooted around me. “Go get some rest. It’s been a long week and you obviou
sly need it. I have to pee like you wouldn’t believe. So, um, could you excuse me?”
I fell to the floor in a heap. My hands ran up and down my body whether I wanted them to or not. Chills mixed with sweat mixed with more chills. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t focus.
“Make it go away.” I hunched over and hugged myself. “Make it all go away.”
Emily walked over me and left the bathroom.
“No,” I called. “Don’t get help. I’m com—”
Some girl stepped toward me. “Are you 413?”
Familiar hands appeared on my arms. I looked up at Red’s glassy eyes. He lifted me and carried me to my room. Claire’s room. My room?
He set me on the bed, gently helped me to the pillow, then covered me up and tucked me in like Mother always did for Audrey. I always wondered what that felt like and, to be honest, I didn’t like the feeling. I extended my feet out of the blanket and shifted my body until the blanket loosened a little.
“What happened?” Red sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hand along my cheek—Audrey’s cheek.
“What’s happening to me, Vaughn?”
He looked over his shoulder. “Who’s Vaughn?”
I thought for a minute. “I don’t know. Did I say Vaughn?”
He nodded and tugged on his ear. Something dropped from his hands and he fumbled as he tried to pick it up a few times. He looked at me, then away, then at me, then away.
I allowed my eyes to close. “I’m tired.”
“I’ll stay and make sure you’re okay for a few minutes.”
Dust covered the books of my mind in a thin layer. I spent a few minutes cleaning the shelves when it caught my eye. Vaughn Kaplan’s book. That’s why it sounded familiar. I vaguely recalled reading about him before. Red. 413. Vaughn. Whoever.
I opened to a random page.
Dreams overwhelmed him and he couldn’t focus. This constantly infuriated his parents. They were one of The Orange Side, but he always felt more like a Black Sider. The Orange’s carry a certain level of prestige, beauty, and radiance that he couldn’t quite meet. His brother, on the other hand, exceeded everyone’s expectations as an Orange Sider and went on to become a member of The Third Rite, while poor Vaughn never did seem to do anything right. Even as a child, his parents would laugh and tell their friends how Vaughn couldn’t even be disciplined right, because he didn’t mind being locked in his room or beaten. It’s these children, the ones like Vaughn, who end up making the least difference for The Order, but the most difference in the lives surrounding them. According to The Order, they must be stopped.
