by Daise, Sonny
It seemed like I had been in this dream for hours, and I must have been. When I looked at her drawing, she had drawn herself, and she was almost done drawing someone next to her. I couldn’t yet make out who it was, but it was a guy. When she was finished, I looked over her shoulder, I recognized the guy in the picture—Cooper. They both had smiles on their faces and their arms around each other; she drew a big heart over top of them. I knew if we were going to try and find George and Elizabeth, I would have to take her with us.
When I woke up, I felt rested. I walked down the stairs. Dante was still sleeping, and I didn’t see Grace, so I decided to take a walk. As I went to go out the door, Dante’s eyes opened.
“Where are you going?” he yawned.
“Oh,” I said, surprised. “I was going to go for a walk.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“Sure,” I said.
He got up from the couch and put his shoes on. Before we left, I decided we should leave Grace a note. I didn’t want her to think we just left, though if she looked out the window, she would see that Dante’s car was still there.
We walked down the street. It was a quiet neighborhood, and no one was outside.
“I need to talk to you about something,” he said after we walked in silence for three blocks.
“Okay,” I answered, waiting for him to speak.
“I realized yesterday…” he trailed off.
“I saw what happened when you visited Allison, I had a dream.”
“What?”
“Oh,” I laughed. “I forgot you didn’t know; I dream about things. I used to think it was only the future, but now I dream about all kinds of things. Things that happened, things that will happen; it’s hard to explain.”
“So then you know that we broke up.”
“I know you said if you left without her, then you were broken up….” He looked shocked; I didn’t blame him. “I just don’t understand why, because you couldn’t teleport her?”
“No, well, yes, but…. I read in that book that if you find someone who’s perfect for you….”
“Oh,” I said, now understanding what he was mumbling about yesterday. The whole sharing powers thing.
“It said some people don’t even have the luxury of being told they’ve found their soul mate, but only people who are meant for each other can share their powers.” He grabbed my hand and closed his eyes; I closed mine too.
When I opened my eyes, we were back at Grace’s house; he looked at me and smiled.
“I—”
“Last night I had a dream, too… it was so strange. First, we were at some house way out in the woods, and the power went out. I needed to tell you something, but someone had broken in. Then we were at some old abandoned building. It seemed like the dream went on forever.”
I felt a tear stream down my cheek. “That really did happen.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you… I just feel so bad for Allison.”
“Don’t,” I said. “She’s meant to be with someone I once knew, in fact, maybe you saw him in your dream? His name is Cooper.”
“Cooper…” he laughed
“Yeah, we’re going to have to find them. Cooper and his family, I mean. We have to let them know what happened. I think we should introduce them, if you’re alright with that.”
“Yeah, she deserves to be happy.”
We went back inside. Grace was sitting on the couch. It didn’t matter that the future no longer existed—we still needed to go to Meadowbrook. I needed to see for myself what was there. Then, on the way back we would go see Elizabeth and George; I only hoped that they still lived there. So many things had changed, and that could be one of them.
“Are you ready to go?” I asked Grace.
“Yeah, let me just pack a few things,” she said as she walked away.
“Dante, we should go to your house and get some clothes. Then, can you take me to my house?”
“Sure,” he said as he grabbed my hand.
Soon we were standing in Dante’s bedroom. It wasn’t quite like I remembered, but it was still nice. He grabbed a bag and a few changes of clothes, and then we were off to my house.
I had to search and search to find much of anything that wasn’t a dress or skirt. I had forgotten how much I had changed here. Eventually, I found a few pairs of jeans, some T-shirts and a couple of tank tops. I heard someone moving around downstairs.
“We need to go,” I whispered.
He grabbed my hand, and we were back at Grace’s before she was even done packing. She came out of her room, and we headed out to the car. Meadowbrook was pretty far from Greenview, but we just had to head north and go straight for the most part, and we were good.
Once we got closer, I had to figure out which way to turn. I remembered the way, but it seemed as though it was in another life—and it kind of was.
We parked down the road behind a couple of bushes. Then, we walked to the building. It looked just as abandoned as it did the last time I was here. The gate was open, and we went right in; the door was unlocked as well. The desk and file cabinet remained, but other than that, it was just as empty as before. I walked over to the filing cabinet. I wasn’t expecting to find anything, but it was worth a shot. I stopped before I opened the drawer. I felt stupid. I didn’t know what I expected to find here, but was almost certain that I wouldn’t find it.
When I opened it, there were two files instead of one. The first one I pulled out, said ‘Scarlett Summers’—so I went to Meadowbrook anyway, but why? Before I looked in the file, I decided to see who else went here. The second file said ‘Rose Summers’—she sent both of us here. There was something off about this place. I opened my file, but it was almost exactly the same as the one from before. They gave me medicine to stop my powers, so whoever worked here must have had powers themselves. The only thing that was different—there was no birth certificate. I looked through Rose’s file. It was almost identical, but they didn’t give her any of the medicine. Something weird went on here. I wasn’t sure what, but I knew this was no run-of-the-mill mental hospital.
“This is crazy,” I said aloud. “What did I do in this life to get sent here?”
“What does it say?” Grace asked.
“They locked me and my sister here. They gave me medicine to stop my powers, but they didn’t give any to her.”
“Who else has been here?”
“As far as I can tell… no one.”
We walked back toward the rooms, and all but two were empty. The rest were filled with cob-webs and mice. The two that weren’t empty, looked as though they’d been recently cleaned up. In fact, when I stopped to look around, pretty much everything on the way to the rooms was spotless. Then I heard a noise. It sounded like a truck pulling up in front of the building. I ran to the window to look, in the back of the truck, there was a sign—Meadowbrook Hospital for the Mentally Insane.
There was nothing we could do. We couldn’t leave, they would see us. So we sat inside and waited for them to leave. They put up the sign and pulled away, but mere seconds later, a car pulled up. A woman in a nurse’s uniform walked up to the door. Before I could get a good look at her, we ran and hid.
There was a room right down the hall with a window, so we could still look out and see what was going on in front of the building. Twenty minutes later, a familiar car pulled up—Ann. She got out of the car, dragging Rose behind her.
“Come with me,” the nurse said, I recognized the voice—Nurse Debby. “First, I would like to talk to you. Do you have any idea where your sister is?”
“No, I don’t,” she said with defiance. “Why am I here? This is ridiculous.”
“You need help, stop denying it to yourself.”
“No. I don’t.”
“I need to know where your sister is.”
“I told you already. I don’t know.”
“We have to get her out of here,” I cried.
“First we have to get out of here; we’l
l come back when it’s dark,” Dante said.
“Okay, we should go now.”
We ran to the entrance and down the street to the car. I needed to get her out of there, but first I needed to know why she was in there in the first place. Why we were in there before?
I needed a plan; I needed to know what was going on, but how? Obviously, Nurse Debby and Ann were the only ones really in on it, so how would I get any information?
I imagined that I looked like Ann.
“Whoa,” Grace and Dante said together.
“I’ll be back in a minute.” I walked through the doors. Nurse Debby was sitting at the desk with her laptop.
“Ann, what are you doing back so soon?”
“Did you find anything out?” I asked, remembering her asking about where I was.
“No, she says she doesn’t know anything.”
“Maybe I should just take her home.”
“No,” Nurse Debby yelled. “We can’t risk her going to find Scarlett. You’ve really screwed up this time haven’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I said nonchalantly.
“We took Rose’s powers. We made our way back here, and all for you to lose Scarlett again!” she shouted.
“I’m sorry. I’m having kind of a hectic day…. We came back from the future…” I said as if it wasn’t a question, but she could tell something was up.
“Yes, we came back from the future. The Alliance…” she took a deep breath. “You’re going to be in some deep trouble if you don’t find that little bitch.”
“So we find her, and then…” I trailed off, seeming as though I was deep in some other thought.
“Ann, you should really know this. We take her powers. We take everyone’s powers. Everyone will bow to us; we will be the new head of the Alliance.”
“Why? Why does everyone need to be powerful to be happy?”
“Oh Ann, please don’t tell me you’ve somehow found your heart. This was our plan all along.”
“And what does Scarlett have to do with this?”
“You’ve known from the very moment you took her away from her mother what she has to do with this. She’s the most powerful of our kind that’s ever lived. The people behind the Alliance want her to lead with them… but they’re idiots.”
“What if she doesn’t know that?”
“The less she knows, the better. The less they know the better, but we need to find her soon.”
“And if the Alliance finds her before we do?”
“Well, then, I guess we’re screwed,” she said, glaring at me the entire time.
“Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I’ve seen her powers. They really don’t seem like anything that special,” I said, waiting for an answer or anything that would explain this in any little way. Why was I so powerful? Yes, I had powers, but there had to be someone more powerful than me.
She took a deep breath, “Ann, I really am worried about you. Has this been too much to handle?” I shook my head, not knowing what else to do. “Well, then, get your act together.”
“Alright, let’s just forget about this little meeting, okay? I’ll get back on track. I promise.” She nodded, and I walked out the door. Dante and Grace were waiting by the car.
“What happened?” Dante demanded as I walked over to them.
I closed my eyes and changed back into myself.
“Ann and Nurse Debby came back from the future, too. They plan to take my powers and kill me. They want everyone’s powers, and I’m sure they’re planning on killing everyone else, too.”
“So what do we do?” Dante asked.
“Either we kill them, and somehow take over the Alliance ourselves. Or we hide.”
“Whatever you decide, I have your back,” Grace promised.
“Me, too,” Dante agreed.
“Well, until we come up with a better plan—a flawless plan—I think we need to hide, and I know just the place, but first we need to get Rose out.”
Chapter 7: Rescue
We sat in the car until the sun went down. We could see the front of Meadowbrook faintly through the bushes in front of the car. It was obvious that Nurse Debby was the only one there. She went out to her car and left.
“Perfect,” I said aloud. “There’s one thing though… I don’t know how this will all play out. Rose kind of thinks I’m crazy, I told her about coming back in time, and she didn’t remember.”
“If she puts up any kind of fight, I’m sure I can handle her,” Dante said.
“Alright, let’s go.”
We walked up to the front doors; I went over to Nurse Debby’s desk, nothing unusual. I turned on the computer monitor; the computer was still running and Nurse Debby had left it on her email.
To:
From:
Debby,
I think I might know where Scarlett is… it’s a hunch, I don’t think she would be stupid enough to return, but I’m going to go check it out. I’ll get back to you when I know more.
—Ann
I knew exactly where she was thinking; now I only wished that I had their number. George and Elizabeth were in danger.
“Dante,” I called from across the room.
“Yeah?”
“Remember that dream that you had?”
“Yes, but what does that have anything to do with—“
“I’m wondering how… accurate it was. Do you remember calling Elizabeth and George?”
“Yeah… I do.”
“Do you remember what number you dialed in the dream? This is important.”
“I—“
“Think, please, I need to get ahold of them. They might be in trouble.”
I knew it was a stretch to think they had the same number. With everything that had changed to think a phone number would be the same was wishful thinking, but I had to try.
“I think the number was stored in the phone, but I have a better way… let’s get Rose out first.”
I looked behind me; hanging on the wall was a set of keys. I had been trying not to look at them as I was talking to Nurse Debby. I grabbed them and went down the hall. I knew she would be in one of the rooms that had been cleaned up, but both of the doors were shut. I knocked on one of them, no answer. No answer when I knocked on the other one either. I needed to try both, there were five keys. The first one didn’t work in either door. The second key worked on one, but the room was empty. The third worked on the second door, and Rose lay passed out on the bed.
I looked over at Dante; he nodded and went over to pick Rose up.
“Take her back to the car; I’ll be there in a second. Be careful.”
“Do you want me to stay with you?” Grace asked.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said as I walked into the room.
I looked around. I needed to make it look like she escaped, but how? I grabbed the lamp on the table and threw it at the window. The lamp shattered into a hundred pieces, but the window was still intact. There was a wooden chair, I grabbed it and walked over to the window. I smashed it against the window three times before the window even cracked. I hit it three more times, and the chair was in pieces all over the room. Finally, I gave up and imagined it shattering.
I shut and locked both of the doors, and returned the keys to their place. I turned off the computer monitor, and left Meadowbrook—hopefully for the last time. Grace and I ran toward the car. Dante had Rose lying across the back seat.
“Grace,” Dante said. “I need you to stay with Rose, okay?”
“Where are you guys going?” she asked, looking at Dante. He had his eyes fixed on me.
“I’m taking Scarlett to see Elizabeth and George, to warn them.”
I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. He threw Grace the keys and grabbed my hand, and soon we were traveling through the neon passageway.
When it stopped, we were standing right in front of their house. Even with everything on my mind, I couldn’t he
lp but push it away and think about how much Dante had changed within the last three days. He went from hating me, to being my hero. I only wished that he could be more.
I went to run up to the door, but I stopped. I wondered if I should change my hair color and make up a new name. I wanted to be the one to tell my mother, with Rose of course. Maybe just changing my hair would be enough; I closed my eyes and imagined my hair turning a beautiful, golden blonde.
“What are you doing?” Dante asked.
“I don’t know, dealing with the issues at hand, and nothing else.” He nodded, and we walked toward the door. Within seconds of knocking, George stood at the door, looking tired.
“Yes?” he said robotically.
“Hi, I’m—I’m Scarlett and this is Dante. We’ve come here to warn you.”
“It’s not often that people come here to help us, so excuse me if I’m a little cautious… what’s this about?”
“Is your wife home?” I asked.
“No,” his tired face crumpled into a frown.
“The Alliance might come here… they’re looking for… someone. They want to take their powers, and I think they believe that person will come here.”
“Well, if they can come here, I’ll just tell them that they’re not here, and they’ll leave. Thank you for the warning, and I hope it wasn’t too much trouble coming here, but I’ll be fine.” He went to shut the door.
“No wait!” I shouted. “Things are different this time, the woman that I think might come here wants—well, to take over the world basically.”
“There’s always some nut who wants to take over the world, I think I can deal with it.”
“Please, you have to listen to me.”
“Look, I don’t have the time for this, unless you have a problem, there’s nothing I can do.”
“I do have a problem; I’m the one they’re looking for.” He stared at me for a minute.
“George, we came here to help you, but we need your help in return,” Dante said, breaking the silence.
