He points to the door. Go, he mouths. I’ll take care of it.
I will never be able to repay him for this.
I grab the man behind me by the hand, pulling him along, running toward the door.
We are getting out of here. Today, now, this moment.
Not quick enough.
Just outside the door wait too many soldiers. I stop, grit my teeth hard. Within minutes, I’m being dragged by my wrists and I’m screaming and this is too much like Russia.
I just want out. Please. Just let me out.
Everything changes.
A deafening roar. The swipe of paws against soldier bodies.
I drop, curling into a ball. Because I am terrified and alone and no one will help me. And now I can’t move, can barely breath, can hardly think. And all I’m wondering is what happened to my body?
All is silent and my companion in the cage and out here now is dragging me to my feet, lifting me up into his arms, cradling me to my chest.
“Come on,” he says. “We’ve got to go.”
I want to tell him to put me down, I can walk, I can run. I don’t. I let him carry me and now he’s running again and I’m crying and everything is still.
I shake my head. “What are we going to do, Jay?”
I’m avoiding it. His question about the modeling agency. Ignoring truths better kept untold. Fighting memories I want to sink into.
“Will they come after us?
My voice is rising now and I’m hysterical and I stop talking. Because it came on so fast, because I don’t want to lose it, because fear controls my body. And I won’t, I can’t, I don’t cry.
I’m shaking my head again. Have years of abuse taught me nothing? I should be stronger than this. I should be better.
Jay sighs. “I wish I knew.”
His shoulder catches my head when I start to fall. So tired. Tired of being tired. And now I’m wondering. Can I be happy? I’ve tried so hard. I ran away. I became a model. I came to America. But I’ve ended up worse off than before.
“Make me laugh, Jay.”
“What?”
I’m sitting up and falling back and his arms are holding me steady. “I need to laugh,” I whisper. “I am tired and sad and I want to forget.”
His forehead wrinkles. “I was thinking I need a nickname for you. Tatyana is a mouthful.”
I raise an eyebrow, arching scales in my forehead. I don’t understand. Is it funny? Is it supposed to be funny? I don’t understand American humor.
“I’m going to start calling you Tater Tot.”
I laugh. In surprise, delight. Tater Tot. I’ve been called a lot of things. Tat, Yana, Galerkin, Stupid Girl. And now I have to ask myself. What is a tater tot anyway?
“Tater Tot?” The words feel strange on my lips.
“Yeah,” he says, wearing a bashful smile. “Like Tat. Tater Tot. It’s an American snack, made of potatoes.”
I laugh again. “You are comparing me to a potato?”
His eyes are serious now. “Absolutely not. Potatoes are bland.”
I giggle before falling into gratitude. “Thank you, Jay.”
He’s smiling again. “Any time.”
I lean against him and he’s so tense and I wonder if this is dangerous. He must have not spent much time around women before. He’s so uncomfortable around me, always fidgeting, always rigid, always uncertain.
It’s adorable.
And I wish I understood. I wish I knew why. Because this man, my only companion in the cage, my only friend in this city, wants to make me happy.
And that is a new feeling entirely.
Kate
“Everything is falling apart. Maybe being Kate McCallister has become too hard for even me.”
-Kate McCallister’s journal
Twelve
My body is screaming in the morning.
Everything aches. My head is twisting under the blade of a knife and my limbs are numb with bruises and my muscles tighten with soreness I didn’t know they could feel and my throat feels smaller than it is.
I groan, rolling over on my side, stiffening in pain, glaring at the alarm clock. It’s getting louder and louder and I can’t hear anything but the pain my body feels and that annoying clock. I slam my hand down on it, silencing the sound.
I curl into myself, holding in my aching muscles. Exhausted. I barely slept. I barely did anything but wonder and cry and shudder.
I’m overreacting.
I got away, I’m alive, I’m free, I’ll heal. Just brush off that terror and move on.
But I don’t know how. Terror is constant and unrelenting and more potent, more powerful than anything I’ve ever felt before.
Miserable.
How do most people deal with their fear? I have never felt anxious or afraid or a need to be cautious. And I can’t imagine how anyone could do it more than once in a lifetime.
Start moving. Distract yourself.
I sigh and suddenly I’m sitting. The world topples in on itself and I slip to the ground. My forehead is against cool wood and I’m not sure how I got there.
Hands placed on the floor, body rigid, I push myself away from the floor and into a sitting position. I lean against the bed for support.
I’m shivering and I have to stand up, I have to move, I have to get away from this cold place beside my bed.
I try. Slower this time, steadier now, I stand and shuffle into the bathroom. I lean against the mirror as I look at the reflection of a very tired, very beat up woman. I cringe.
I didn’t look last night but it’s bad and I look like a zombie and I feel like a ghost.
Sore back, legs, stomach. Scraped knuckles on a bruised hand, a scraped back that I can only feel and not see, a scraped cheek stinging when I move my expression. Bruises everywhere, on my arms and legs and stomach. My neck is covered in black and blue, painted with bruises in the shapes of fingers crushing my throat.
I turn on the water, scrubbing away blood wherever I can see it. But bruises are tricky. I don’t have makeup to cover them.
Hobbling back into my room, feeling like an old woman with a broken hip, I decide to do what I can to cover up my injuries with an outfit.
An oversized sweater to cover my bruised arms. A pair of jeans to hide my legs. And a scarf to hide my purple neck. Nothing to be done about the scrape on my cheek. No way to hide it.
Swinging my backpack over a shoulder, dipping feet into black heels, running downstairs, I snatch up the permission slip to Glass Tech from off the table, grab my coat and walk outside.
I shiver. I am alone, on an empty street, with plenty of alleys to get dragged into. I don’t see anyone watching me. And I have only ever been attacked when I couldn’t see him until it was too late.
Walking down the street, my eyes are everywhere. I will not, I cannot, I refuse to take any chances. To let him catch me again would be submission. The terror I thought I was immune to is real and I will not let consume me as it did before. I will not let it be real.
I breathe out my anxiety in a sigh when I see the school. I’m close and no one is following me. Maybe I am not as breakable as he thought, maybe he doesn’t understand me like he should, maybe I’m free.
Walking into school, striding through corridors, hiding my pain, I feel every stare bearing into my back like needles in my spine.
Ignore them. Ignore them, ignore them, ignore them. This is no one’s business. Let them look. Let them wonder.
I’m piling notebooks out of my bag, shoving dance clothes into the deep corners of my locker, when an arm slips around my stomach.
Rigid with terror, I flinch. I’m choking on my heart and drowning in dangerous thoughts and reaching for air I know I should be able to breathe.
The arm is gone. “Kate?”
And now I’m embarrassed and relieved and nearly hysterical with tears that sink back into my skull. I turn to face him, shutting my locker, pretending today is normal and I am fine and he didn’t see my fear.
“Hi.”
Dalton brushes nothing off. He cups my chin, touching my cheek, and I wince. His eyes are thoughtful and worried and tense.
“This is new,” he murmurs. “Where did this come from?”
I’m silent. No sarcasm. No anger. Not a bit defensive. Because even someone as witty as me can’t take the kind of tension thrown my way.
Dalton reaches for my hand, maybe to comfort me, maybe to get me to talk to him, maybe to help me feel normal again. But his fingers brush past cut knuckles and he’s studying my fingers with a very surprised, very upset expression.
“What happened?”
I’m looking down, biting my lip, swallowing my tears. Because I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I don’t want to remember what happened in clarity I can’t avoid if I speak. I don’t want any of it.
Dalton grabs my shoulders and now he’s gripping me so tight, trying to get an answer, trying so hard to understand, but I feel as if the world is falling into chaos and I’m sinking, falling, slipping so far.
Too far.
I’m going to faint, puke, do something so weak he will have no choice but to worry about this frail monstrosity that stole his girlfriend.
He loosens his grips on my shoulders and I’m so tired, so weak, so ready to cry.
Dalton grabs my chin. “Kate.”
I sigh, because we must be making a scene, because he looks wild with concern, because I have to tell him before he decides he already knows what happened.
I grab his hand. “Come with me.” And now I’m leading him through the hall and my body is screaming again and we’re in the gym now.
Dalton tucks a stray hair behind my ear, studying my face, waiting for the answers he’s so impatient for. “What’s going on, Kate?”
I rub the back of my neck, wasting a moment of time so I can think. How do I start? How can I tell him secrets I have kept for so long? How can I help him understand? I don’t want the police to know, I don’t want anyone but he and I to know. This is my business and I will be strong and I will be brave before the whole world knows what happened to my face and my hand and the rest of my body.
“I have to tell you something,” I say. “I’ve only ever told my mother this and she blew me off but I really need you to believe me.”
My words are coming out so quickly now, spilling off my tongue like its burning. “And you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone. This is personal and I don’t want anyone to know until I understand what’s happening.”
He takes my uninjured hand, squeezes it gently, holds my heart in that simple motion. “I promise.”
And so I tell him. About the strangers who follow me in the street, about my mother doubting me, about the way they’d simply faded into the background.
“They follow you all the time,” he says slowly, trying to put the pieces together, trying to understand what I’m telling him. And now his eyes are hard and it’s clicked in his thoughts. “They hurt you.”
I’m swallowing, past the bile behind my lips, past the pain in my throat.
“One did.”
He drops my hands, grabs my arms, watches me very carefully. His face is stone and he’s so angry. “Where?”
Slowly, I step back, pointing to my cheek, to my hand, to my stomach. I show him my arms. And now I’m unwrapping the scarf and now his eyes are wary, wide, wild. He grabs my chin and I look up so he can see my neck better.
“Kate.”
He lets go, pulls me tight, fingers in my hair, hand on my back. And I’m shaking again and
I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
How did fear ever become more important than pride or wit or courage? How did this happen?
“I’ll pick you up and drop you off every day,” Dalton says, rubbing comfort into my back. “There won’t be a single opportunity for them to touch you.”
I lean into him. “Thank you.”
Dalton kisses my forehead, cradles my head in both hands. “You’re going to be safe.”
I frown at the tone in his caramel voice. Because now I’m wondering if I have choice, if I could be in danger if I wanted to be, if I could be free if he wasn’t there.
He is powerful, like dating a river that can’t be blocked, can’t be stopped. Nothing will ever sway him from the decision to protect me. And maybe that’s what I need.
Maybe that is the only thing that can save me.
Thirteen
We’re lucky.
It’s a big deal, Glass letting anyone but his staff into his skyscraper, letting more than a couple associates, letting every science class from Lincoln Park High School inside. Glass Tech is a mystery to everyone. What goes on in the technological skyscraper is a decade of secrets.
I knew that. I knew from the beginning that it was a chance many dreamed of. But it does not make me feel lucky.
Dalton makes me feel lucky.
Because there are so many going on the trip, because everyone has to go, Dalton and I will be riding on the same bus, we’ll be walking through the tour together.
Relief is a flood. Because if I wasn’t with Dalton, I would be stuck with Alec in a world somewhere between awkward and angry.
I am lost to my thoughts on the drive.
Dalton is talking to everyone, girl, boy, student, teacher. He has always been, always will be Mr. Popular. He can be chatty when he doesn’t want to be, he can fake emotions, he can pretend to be happy when he’s very angry.
That is not a skill I have.
All I can think about is yesterday. Yesterday, when I was attacked. Yesterday, when I yelled at Alec. Yesterday, when I got grounded. Yesterday, when I snuck out. Yesterday, when my face was slammed against a brick wall.
I can’t do that again. I won’t do that again. I’ll go insane first.
“Babe, don’t worry,” Dalton says under his breath. “You’re fine.”
I open my mouth but I’ve already lost his attention. He’s laughing at something someone else said now, forcing himself back into the conversation. I lean my head against the window, watch the cars go by. He’s so hard to talk to when we’re in a group. Normally, I don’t mind. Normally, I enjoy watching him. Normally, I throw myself into the conversation.
Not today. Not when fear is my shadow and exhaustion is my body. I want Dalton to myself. I want him to hold me. I want him to look at me. But he’s popular and he involves himself in every conversation. I will wait until I can have his full attention later.
We reach it.
I sit up, look out my window. Glass Tech stands high above the buildings around it, mocking everything it looms over. Every inch of glass gleams too brightly. The walls and the ceiling and the floor. Glass is everywhere and it all shines more than it should.
It’s too open for a secretive company. Like it could be brought down by a single baseball. It must be supported somehow, somewhere I can’t see.
Men in black suits wander the building, armed and alert. Glass’s security.
I get off the bus, walk by Dalton. He’s still chatting everyone up and I’m still silent. Normally, I am the loudest person in the room. Normally, I’m witty and sarcastic and snarky. But not now, not when I’m thinking about why I’m so sore and why I’m bruised all over and why my face and skin is cut.
I don’t know how to be myself when I’m scared. Because it’s overwhelming, because it’s controlling, because it’s not something I’ve ever felt before.
As we walk inside, into the giant skyscraper, into the secret company, I force my mouth closed.
It’s huge, like a giant monolith, a castle, an entire kingdom of glass. Sun reflects off the walls, shining from every angle.
I look up and I’m stumbling. I’m so dizzy. I can see a hundred floors through the glass ceiling. How does anyone find anything in here?
A man greets the classes and I’m not paying attention because everything else is so much more interesting than the old man in the lab coat. He introduces himself as Dr. Pelletier, a scientist
here, and that’s all I catch before my attention flits away on the wings of a songbird.
I look around, surprised, shocked, amazed. I’ve never seen anything like it. Incredible. Labs with windows for walls. Scientists in white lab coats with microscopes and computers and syringes. Projectors displaying possible experiments on glass walls, experiments of human bodies and DNA strands and healthy people.
And I understand. Because I’ve heard the rumors, the theories, the guesses. That Glass Tech is a company on the road to curing every disease, past, present, future.
Another sweep of my eyes and I see Alec. His focus is on Dr. Pelletier, taking in every word, memorizing every fact. And for a moment, I miss my friend. I miss teasing him, I miss his caution. But it’s only a moment. And soon all that is left is annoyance and betrayal and fury.
Dalton is no longer at my side.
I stop and others pass me, giving me dirty looks, rolling their eyes, ignoring me completely.
Where did he go? He was right here, right beside me. Did he wander off? Did his curiosity overtake him? Why didn’t he take me with him?
A glance at Dr. Pelletier. Not paying attention. Focused on what he’s saying. He’ll never know if I slip away. And I won’t be gone long enough for anyone else to notice.
I step back, watching the group shuffle along, listening to Pelletier, watching everything but me. I slip down an empty hallway, not really sure where to go. But this corridor is long and it was the first I noticed that Dalton could have slipped down.
I haven’t made it far. Past a few labs, a few doors, a few more glass halls.
But I stop. Voices down the hall. I press myself against the wall but not even the fear I have felt so recently can take away my curiosity. I peer around the corner, watching for voices.
Three men. Two standing in their black suits, guns holstered, sunglasses on. Another man on his hands and knees.
My attention clutches for the third man. So weak, like he couldn’t stand if he tried. So pale, like a vampire awakening for the first time. I’ve never seen anyone look like this before and I wonder if he’ll faint. It’s alarming and the guards aren’t doing anything and he looks sick.
The Invincibles (Book 1): Trapped: A girl. A monster. A hero. Page 6
