by K. Weikel
Chapter 8
Becca’s hands lift to her mask as she sits alone in her new room. It had been assigned to her by Quill. It’s two stories up from Eduard’s room and from where she woke up just a few hours ago, which rests right next to that.
The glitter makes the surface of the mask rough and the paint gives it texture.
She walks into the bathroom located on the left side of the room, according to the bedroom door. Inside of it is a small tub with a clear curtain around it and a white toilet that looks like it’s been used too many times. The counter holding the stained sink reaches Becca’s hips. A small cloudy mirror is placed above that, and it’s only about the size of Becca’s face. Dark wood frames the reflective surface and almost blends in with the black wall behind it, just like the doors in that abandoned room.
She stares at her reflection, something that is frowned upon. The society isn’t allowed to look at themselves in the mirror, mask or no mask, even though they are placed in their bathroom. It promotes vanity, but Becca sees vanity as someone who is obsessed with themselves and can’t stop looking in the mirror. She’s sure people still do it, even though they have a mask that covers their face.
Her fingers find the knot tied behind her messy brunette hair and they undo it. Slowly, she slips the mask off and stares at the sink, the cool sensation that follows the removal of the mask settling into her skin. She stares at the sink.
Becca only sees her face when she showers. Even then, she just gets a glance of it. And then, earlier tonight, she’d seen more faces than she’s ever set her eyes upon in her entire life.
Eduard wanted her to be the Face of this rebellion that he has going on. She doesn’t understand why he needs one, let alone why he wants it to be her.
He tried to explain it to her. He told her that everything has a face associated with it, something to represent all it stands for, like how their society has Quill’s as the face of their city, as the leader of the city.
That’s what he was wanting to do. He wanted her to be the ‘leader’ of the rebellion and to help take down Quill and change the society in a big way.
Even if Becca agreed, could she do it? Could she face the leader of their city on her own if she had to? Could she stand up for what the movement believes in, and not cower down underneath the power that radiates from every fiber of the man named Quill?
Her eyes drift up to the mirror and she looks at her face. There are dark dots, freckles, along the bridge of her nose and her eyes are a caramel brown. Her brown hair falls around her face, framing its oval shape well, and her pink lips are bigger than she realized. She touches it, the skin tender and pale from never seeing the sunlight.
What if she never had to wear a mask ever again?
The memory of her as a little girl in the alleyway makes her eyes jump back down to the sink. She can hear Banshee’s screams in her head, and she can almost feel the searing pain of the mask as he shoves it back onto her face, the edges of the mask cutting into her skin.
She closes her eyes and tries to breathe as the memory fades away. Her eyes creep back up to the mirror and search her face once again.
“I’ll try it,” she whispers to herself, taking the mask in her hands and moving it between her fingers nervously. “But if I don’t like it I’m quitting, no matter what…”
She places the mask back in its position and ties the ribbon tight around her face. It’s time for her to sleep. She has a big day tomorrow.
. . .
She dreams of a fire spreading all over her body. White masks stand by and watch her burn. Her mask lies on the ground out of reach, and she tries to grab it, screaming. She rolls on the ground in agony and cries out for somebody to help her, but no one does. No one puts out the flames. If only she could reach the mask… this would all end. She would be okay.
Eduard walks out into view and stops before the mask, looking down at Becca. His mask is off and his blue eyes are trained on her, a fire of his own burning behind them. He wears a white shirt with black pants, and gloves that are split down the center with the two colors.
“Eduard!” Becca cries out, sobbing and screaming in pain. “Eduard, help me!”
He shakes his head and smirks. “You can’t be helped.”
He reaches around to his back pocket and pulls out a mask. He holds it over his face, and the colors black and white are split at odd angles down the length of the mask. The white side wears a sad face, while the black side wears a smile. But the smile isn’t goofy like Mikey’s was. Instead, it seems to glow with eeriness and mockery and secrets.
He backs up and the people standing in a circle around Becca start to laugh hysterically. A fire erupts from behind them in the trees they stand before, but none of the flames reach them. The sky is suddenly dark and the people’s masks have changed.
They all match Eduard’s.
Becca tries one final time to push through the thick weight of the pain and reach the mask. Her fingers touch it and she feels as if she’s holding on to the last bit of life she has, as if all of her strength comes from this mask, as if she needs the mask.
She slowly, painfully pulls the mask back to her and presses it to her face.
The fire suddenly stops burning her skin as it laps around her and she stands up with ease, all the pain disappearing and the fatigue dissipating. Touching the mask with her fingers, she realizes it isn’t hers anymore. The lines and creases aren’t hers, they’re someone else’s.
Flames dance around her as she takes a step toward Eduard, feeling angry inside. He slowly takes off his mask and smirks at her, as if he knows something she doesn’t. He flings his hand around and a mirror shines into Becca’s eyes. She cringes from the sudden light and looks away before turning back around to him and looking into the mirror that seems to grow larger with each passing second.
It’s Quill’s mask that stares back at her.
She rips it off of her face, the mask sticking like glue to her skin. Her scream makes her throat feel raw as she throws the mask onto the ground. It sinks into the grass like water and disappears forever.
Suddenly everything goes quiet.
She looks up and sees no fire, no laughing people with masks. Only Eduard in his strange clothes and maskless face stand there now, watching Becca. The trees have disappeared and she stands in an open field, the field that they had gone through to get to the forest the day she met the rebellion.
Becca’s breathing is heavy and she feels dizzy as every last flame disappears from around her. Eduard turns and walks away. She tries to follow him, but her feet won’t move, they’re planted to the soggy ground.
“You’re right…” she hears, chills racing down her spine in deluges of cold tingles. “You’ll be alone…”
She slowly turns around to see Banshee, his mask overly dramatized and edgy, as if it had been stretched from the inside with swords. He holds a gun up to her and he cocks his head to the side.
“You’re right,” he says. His mask moves with the words, as if it’s the mask saying it and not the person. “You’ll be alone.”
Becca’s heart thumps madly.
“Alone.”
He pulls the trigger.
Becca wakes with a start as her door shuts.
Her hairs stand on end as she realizes no one is in her room with her, no one is hiding in the shadows, no one had broken into her room. No one is lurking behind the door of her bathroom, no one is in the process of entering her bedroom to steal something, to take her life from pure fun.
Someone had just left it.
. . .
“So now we come up with missions.”
It’s Eduard talking to the five other people sitting around the burned and melted masks from the day before. All of their masks are different now, stolen. They’ve come up with different names, in case they get caught. The masks create a whole different identity for them, or so Becca feels. They’re still them, but they have an undertone of cockiness and haughti
ness when no one knows who they are.
Would Becca be that way?
She hopes not.
Mikey, Victoria, Twitch, Nixon, Eduard, and Becca all sit cross-legged on the grass as they brainstorm. Victoria picks at the remains of the burned masks with a stick. Somehow they had been able to control the flames and keep them from sparking a forest fire last night, although Becca has no earthly idea how.
“Becca, what do you think?”
Mikey jerks Becca out of her thoughts and she looks around the circle at her new friends, her new life.
“About what?” She asks. “Sorry I was…”
“About the mission. What should we do?”
“I…” She looks at the masks around her, not knowing what to say. Are they asking her about what they should do? “I never… Um…”
Victoria glances at Eduard and stands up.
“Come with me,” she says, waving Becca toward her.
Becca jumps up and follows her. They walk to the edge of the trees and Victoria takes off her mask. Her red hair falls down past her shoulders and blue piercing eyes look out at the city before them. The sun shines down on its buildings, the dull colors looking almost pretty in the light, and Becca can see the little people walking around inside the city.
“Bad things happen out here, Becca,” Victoria says quietly. “And it’s not because the white masks are white or the black masks are black, or because the Light Clan and Dark Clan have a specific role in the society. It’s because we’re taught to think one way or the other. There are two groups. Pick one.”
“I—”
“I wasn’t asking you to do that,” she laughs a bit, leaning against a tree. “I was just saying that we’re forced to pick one side or the other.”
“Oh,” Becca says, shifting her weight awkwardly. The black clothes she wears makes her feel almost invisible against the shadows the trees create on the forest floor. She doesn’t like it. She misses the white clothes she had worn since the day she turned thirteen.
“Do you know what Eduard told us about you? Why he picked you?” Victoria asks Becca, turning a bit to face her.
Becca shakes her head, but follows it up with a guess. “He said it’s because I questioned Quill.”
Victoria nods. “Yeah, but that’s not all.”
Becca looks at her in curiosity.
“He said you were different. You had this way about you in the courtroom, apparently. It caught Eduard’s attention. And you recognized him too. He thinks you have good attention to detail, or he’s guessing you do, which is needed to do what we need to do.
“But he was talking about your story. You never looked away from Quill. Eduard thought you were almost challenging him, whether you knew it or not. And then you really started challenging him with what you were asking and how you were responding to his questions. He said you brought him up.”
Becca nods to confirm the notion. She did. She had accused Quill of forcing Eduard to switch over to the Dark Clan.
“And then you quoted him,” Vanessa laughs. “You quoted Quill from back when you were thirteen and it worked! There were people asking about the legitimacy of the government after your trial, even about the national government. Eduard thinks that’s another reason why you lived to see yesterday. Today, even.”
Becca shrugs and moves the dirt at her feet with the toe of her black shoe. A bit of guilt mixed with fear bubble up inside of her as she takes a deep breath. She’d rather not relive that moment…
“But that doesn’t mean you’ll get to see tomorrow,” Victoria says and looks back out at the city.
“What do you mean?” Becca asks, suddenly alarmed.
“I mean Quill won’t let it stand. When the chance comes, he’ll kill you in a heartbeat.”
Becca’s mind jumps to last night.
What if that was him?
“Someone was in my room last night,” Becca blurts. Victoria stands up straight and wrenches around to face her. “They closed the door right when I woke up.”
Victoria’s eyes go wide. She seems lost for words.
“We’ve got to tell Eduard,” she says, her voice shaky. She grabs Becca’s arm roughly and drags her along as she walks quickly back to the circle of dead grass. “Eduard!”
Victoria lets go of Becca and runs over to him. Eduard stands up and looks at the girls with concern.
“Becca had a visitor last night. He left as she woke up. Could it be Quill spying on her?” Victoria asks quickly. “Or could it be someone else?”
Eduard says nothing as he looks at Becca. He takes off his mask and looks back and forth at the girls again.
“Becca, I’m sorry I have to do this, but you have no choice,” he says as he walks behind Becca and unties the knot hiding her face. She tries to protest but gives up as the mask falls into her hands. “You have to become the Face of the Rebellion now. It’s for your own sake.”
Becca looks up at the boy, letting the mask stay in her hands.
“But I—”
“Don’t worry. Someone will always be with you. We came up with some missions. They’ll involve you, but not Becca Reed.”
