by Rue Volley
Thomas flashed to him and knocked him to the ground. Josh’s blades flew from his hands and he groaned as Thomas pressed his foot against his throat. Josh grabbed his foot and tried to flip him off of him, but it was like trying to move a boulder. Thomas pressed his foot against his throat harder. Josh tried to breath, but he could feel his throat closing up. Thomas leaned down and looked at him.
“Do not question me. I helped create you and I could destroy you just as easily.”
Josh started to see white creeping in around his eyes. He continued to struggle, but it was no use. He could not break free. Just as he felt as if he was about to lose consciousness Thomas lifted his foot from his throat. Josh rolled over and grabbed at his throat, coughing and sucking in air. He lay on his side, trying to get his bearings. Thomas laughed as he stepped back from him.
“You disgust me,” Thomas muttered.
Josh pushed himself up and glared at him as he clinched his fists.
“Everything I did was to please you. When you turned on the ways of our people I followed you, like a sheep to slaughter,” Josh said with as much venom as he could muster.
He knew that Thomas could probably kill him in an instant, but he did not care.
Anger had taken the place of reason in his mind.
“Good, Joshua, that is what I wanted to see. Your anger makes you so much more than you are now,” Thomas said as he grinned.
Josh slowed his breathing and tilted his head at him.
“You never wanted me to be angry, father. You wanted me to be more calculated… less impulsive,” Josh said as he stepped back from him.
Thomas laughed and pulled his blades from his back. He held them at his sides and tilted them, obviously wanting to fight. Josh stared at him and shook his head.
“This isn’t you. You taught me compassion… although I fought to hold it back. You told me that I needed to understand that all living things beat as one.”
Thomas took a step forward.
“I renounce you,” he said.
Josh ran to his blades and rolled as he grabbed them up to his face. Thomas came down on him with the force of a hurricane, knocking Josh back a few feet. Josh scrambled to his feet and found his footing.
“I do not want to fight you, father,” he muttered.
Thomas tilted his head and grinned.
“I don’t need you to fight me. I need you to kill me, Joshua.”
Josh drew in his breath and looked at his father, knowing that this was something that he would not be able to talk his way out of, but he felt a tinge of love in his heart and opened his mouth anyway.
“I love you, I always have. The best part of me came from you and my mother. I do not wish to do you harm.”
Thomas cried out as he misted out of sight.
Josh stood there staring at the empty void he left behind.
He lowered his blades and looked at his hands. They were trembling.
“Damn it,” he muttered as he looked across the field at grass waving like water.
“This is memory… I need to find a way out,” he said as he started to walk forward.
***
Kai slammed the door open and ran into the house, anger overwhelming him. Sam flashed in and watched him run down the hallway and slam his door shut. She could feel the frustration coming off of him.
“So dramatic,” Jonah said.
Sam turned to see Jonah on the couch with Lily by his side.
“Shut up,” Sam muttered as she took a step forward.
Jonah flashed to her and stepped in her way. Sam grinned and placed her hands on her hips.
“Get out of my way, Jonah.”
Jonah grinned and tilted his head.
“What?” Sam said as she shifted her weight to her other foot.
“Oh, I just cannot get over how emotional you all are… it is quite peculiar,” he said as he held his ground.
“We are not ‘emotional’ by nature. Caring for someone may be a foreign thing to you, but in this house we care for each other,” Sam said.
Lily giggled. Sam shot her a look.
“What?” Sam asked her.
Lily shrugged her shoulders and looked at Jonah.
“My sister here is not used to seeing protectors so…”
“So what?” Sam said as she glared at him.
“Well, so concerned for each other, it is disturbing,” Jonah said as he glanced at Lily.
Lily smiled and let her teeth hang out.
“You think that’s weird...? Please, Jonah… that is your sister!” Sam said as she waved her arm at Lily.
Jonah looked at Lily and walked back over to her.
He placed his hand on her face and grinned at her.
“Yes, Lily is my sister, but I understand that if she were to wander off, I may have to find other arrangements.”
Sam laughed as she walked to the kitchen.
“Oh you liar...! You were all in self-destruct mode when you thought that Lily was going to die, Jonah. So please don’t give me that line of crap.”
Lily looked up at Jonah and he took his hand from her face.
“Oh that...? Well you see, if Lily dies then I do also, so it was more of a self-preservation thing I had to execute.”
Sam stopped drinking from the jug of orange juice and lowered it as she stared at him.
“What do you mean by that?”
Jonah sat down on the couch and Lily put her legs up on him.
“Well, you see… us rogues, we are made a tad bit differently than you. If a sibling dies the other dies too… it’s a secret.”
“That’s crazy… you lie,” Sam said as she walked back into the living room.
Jonah looked up at her and smiled.
“Believe as you wish, Samantha Barrington.”
“Well, why would you tell me that, Jonah...? That is something that you shouldn’t tell anyone.”
Jonah smiled.
“I just felt like sharing. I guess all this emotional stuff has made me sentimental in a way.”
“Whatever,” Sam muttered as she walked towards Kai’s room.
Jonah looked at Lily and grinned.
“Lucky that we don’t get all clouded by love,” he said as he stared in her face.
Lily smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
***
I rolled over and watched as Carver rolled a wheelchair into my room. I bit my lip and watched him adjust the plates on the bottom of the chair to accommodate my feet. I looked up at him and tried to smile. He pointed his finger at me.
“You need to behave today, alright?”
I nodded and he reached over to my wrist and started to undo the restraint. I watched him, wondering if I could knock him out with one hit. He stopped and pulled a needle out. He held it to my face.
“You see this, Rue?” I nodded.
“This goes in you, with no second thought if you try anything. Even if you sneeze,” he said.
I grinned. “I won’t beat you up,” I said to him.
He grumbled and undid the first restraint. I let my hand lay still, afraid that he would jab me if I even flinched. He undid the second restraint and he sat me up. My head was spinning a little. The blood rushed back in and I started to hear an echo, maybe a voice… or was it a heartbeat. He stepped back and he still held the needle in one hand. I stared at it. I never liked needles anyway, they made me woozy.
I crawled into the wheelchair, completely disgusted with the fact that he felt like I needed to be carted around. He rolled me down the hallway and then stopped at a large door and opened it up. I looked in and saw Holly sitting at her white desk. I looked up at Carver and he grinned.
“Doc thinks you need a little one on one with her before you go out,” he said.
He rolled me into the room and stopped me right in front of her desk. She was shuffling through a stack of papers and looked up at me, giving me a grin. She nodded to Carver and he left us alone. He shut the door a little too hard and I flinched in
my chair. Holly looked at me and tilted her head.
“Loud noises seem to make you uncomfortable.”
I smiled at her and shook my head.
“No… it is the rudeness of it. I mean why does anyone have to slam a door...? What did the door do to him?” I asked her.
She grinned and tapped her pen on the desk.
“Well, maybe Carver hates doors,” she said.
“Carver hates me,” I said, hoping that I wouldn’t sound like some paranoid freak.
Oh how funny, what a thing to worry about when you in an asylum.
“Well, I doubt that he hates you, Rue,” Holly said.
I just let that sit. Why not?
“Are you excited about going outside, Rue?” she asked me.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I don’t know, I guess so,” I said, with no enthusiasm.
“Oh, I would have hoped that you would have been excited when you were told.”
I looked at her and laughed. She leaned back in her chair and stared at me.
“Why do you laugh?” she asked me.
“Oh I don’t know. I guess that I just find this entire thing just too funny.”
She leaned forward and interlaced her fingers on top of the desk. I looked at her hands, they looked older than she was. I wondered if she was a victim of plastic surgery.
“Why?” Holly asked me.
I guess it’s time to give her some more crap for my file. Maybe it would signal a need for a change in my medication. God knows the last cocktail was nothing short of a disaster.
“Okay Holly, listen, I just experienced some crazy,” I said.
She waited for me to go on… so in true Rue fashion I did.
“I… well, Elliot was my intern. He took me to the fifth floor and I swallowed some pills. I then had a freak out and he came back and got me… rolling me to the torture chamber with the…”
I held out my hands and did a “zzzzst” soundtrack to indicate the electrode business.
“Well, then this tag team zapped me.” I looked at her and she waved her hand.
“Well, the girl was pretty but she had funky teeth, looked like a piranha. You know those freaky fish that eat meat...? Anyway, she shocked the crap out of me. Then poof, they were gone, after I broke out of my restraints.”
“Did you know the girl?” she asked me.
I shook my head. “I don’t know, she looked kinda familiar… I just don’t know.”
“Okay, so then what happened?” she asked me.
“Well my imaginary intern, Elliot, he came back in and I shocked the crap out of him,” I said.
I looked at my hands and got fixated on them for a moment.
“Rue?” Holly said as she leaned forward.
I looked up through the hair that had fallen in my face.
“What happened then?” she asked me.
I cleared my throat and tucked my hair behind my ear.
“Oh you know… just regular stuff, the room tilted, I fell through a mirror, and then I hit the girl with the pointy teeth,” I said.
“Mmm,” Holly said. I looked at her and leaned back in my chair.
“So, where was Johnathan?” she asked me.
“Oh you mean the other imaginary boy...? Oh yea, he scooped me up and he ran through the forest with me at supersonic speed.”
“Mmm,” Holly said again. I smiled and shifted in my wheelchair.
I waited. I mean, that’s the only thing I could do right?
Holly stood up and turned to the filing cabinet behind her. I stared at her and she turned back to me and sat down with the file in her hand. I leaned up a little, craning my neck to try to see what she had. I thought I saw a picture of me, it looked like a school photo. She cleared her throat and tilted it up as she read it.
“Rue Volley: Talks of mirrors and being able to portal through them. Mentioned the dangers of the carnivals and likes to ride horses. Highly agitated, with some boy. Johnathan I would guess?” Holly said as she looked up at me.
I swallowed. I didn’t know exactly know where all that came from but I guess the mirror stuff is something that I have been talking about for a while.
“I don’t remember anything about him,” I said to her.
“Is he your boyfriend?” she asked me.
I grinned and looked around the room.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, I would like for you talk about him some more,” she said.
I shook my head at her.
“I really don’t remember much about him, its bits and pieces of weird stuff,” I said.
“Okay, how about you go outside and then, before you go to bed, we can talk one more time.”
I stared at her and then at my hands. What am I supposed to tell her? I knew I liked him a lot. Anything else was a mystery. I mean he couldn’t possibly be running around in the forest faster than anything I have ever seen, right?
Holly stood up and walked past me to the door; she opened it and stepped out into the hallway. Carver came walking back into the room and grabbed my wheelchair. He rolled me out of her office and into the hallway. He started to roll me down the hallway and I leaned my head back and watched the ceiling tiles. Good God, who plasters an entire building in white? I mean, how crazy.
We passed by room 314 and I heard my name whispered. I looked over and the room was dark. I could barely see someone lying on the bed. I looked up at Carver.
“Who is in that room?” I asked him.
He looked down at me and shook his head. I guessed that he didn’t feel the need to entertain the crazy girl. I didn’t blame him, god only knew what I’d said or done to him over time. He rolled me into a larger elevator, large enough for a bed. The doors closed and he typed in his code. I peeked and he shifted to block my view. I rolled my eyes and looked up at the ceiling. It was all mirrored. I tilted my head and looked at myself. I looked messy, dark circles under my eyes. Is that really me?
I pulled my hair aside and saw a small scar on my cheek. The doors dinged open and he pushed me out into a beautiful atrium. I looked up and saw that it was domed in glass. I looked back at him.
“This isn’t really ‘outside’ is it?” I asked him.
He clicked my wheels into a locked position and muttered something. I hated that he acted like I didn’t speak his language. I mean I didn’t just jump up and pull my hair out, screaming at the foliage. I asked a normal question, in a normal tone.
I felt myself start to get angry, but I looked around and saw that this place was actually beautiful. Carver clapped his hands together and birds flew upward. I watched them and then looked back at him, crinkling my eyebrows. He really was obnoxious. He grinned and walked back to the thick glass doors and walked through them. They “swooshed” behind him. I watched the birds settle up high, and decided to get out of the chair. This ridiculous chair. I could freakin’ walk.
I walked over to the large fountain in the middle of this oasis and leaned over the side. I looked at my reflection, hoping that by some miracle I had lost the dark circles… but no. Of course not. Nothing says insane like dark circles and messy hair. I stood there and took a breath, then I turned around when I heard a throat clear.
“So you got parole too.”
I looked at the boy standing there. He had dark hair, beautiful eyes. His mouth. Oh, his mouth had me stuck for a moment. I took a breath and felt a strange rattle in my chest. Maybe a vibration, deep in me somewhere. He stared at me and I looked down at my hands. I started to rub my palms.
“I’m sorry. I just thought that I could talk to you,” the boy said.
I looked back up at him and grinned.
“No… I’m sorry, umm yea, you can talk to me I guess,” I said.
The boy walked towards me and I had to look up, as he got closer. He was tall, but not freakishly tall… just to me. I’m only 5’4, so most people would be tall to me anyway. The boy walked to the fountain and crossed his arms on his chest; he turned
back to me.
“So, what got you a pass to crazyville?” he asked me.
I looked at him and smiled. He obviously had a sense of humor. Thank god somebody did.
I walked up next to him and watched the koi fish swim in the bottom of the fountain.
“Oh, well… let’s see. It was either the fact that I think that I can portal through mirrors or maybe it was the fact that I seem to see people that don’t exist,” I said, all nonchalant.
I mean why not? Like this hot boy is going to be able to ask me out or something.
He smiled and ran his hand through his hair. I watched him, it felt so familiar to me that I had to blink. He sat down on the edge of the fountain and I sat down too. Now we were a little closer to even, height wise. I watched him clinch his fists and then he looked up at me, his hair had fallen in his face a little and I had to fight the urge to touch it for some reason. God, I hoped that I wasn’t the sort of person that went around just grabbing boys. That would be an awkward thing to find out. He grinned and his canine teeth were just a little crooked.
“What?” he asked me.
I looked back down into the water.
“Oh, nothing really, I just… Ummm, anyway, what did you do to come here?” I asked him.
“Oh, well I can’t promise that it is quite as elaborate as your reason,” he said.
I felt somewhat weird about that. I mean we are both in the asylum, right?
I stood up and started to walk. He jumped up and started to walk behind me.
“Hey, listen… I didn’t mean anything by that,” he said.
I shrugged my shoulders and turned to face him, ‘It’s cool.’
He smiled and leaned forward.
“I have a little problem with fire,” he said.
“Oh, fire huh?” I said, like we were having a regular conversation.
He smiled again. I watched his mouth. I think he noticed. I cleared my throat and rubbed the side of my neck. The doors swooshed open and I looked over to see my new best buddy, “Carver”, whistling my way.
I turned back to make some smart-ass comment about Carver, because I have sooo many, and the boy was gone. I looked around and then back to Carver. Carver stopped and looked at me. I had a strange look on my face.
“You are not getting ready to flip out are you?” he asked me.
