2
Chapter Two
Reese
A relentless throb poundsinside my head. Is this what Hell has to offer—pain and darkness?Figures. My eyelids are heavy as if a thick fog were dense enough to create a heavy weight. Though, even if the pressure were to release, I’m not sure I’d want to see what surrounds me.
The smell of fresh bread is still present, though. Why fresh bread? Is part of my torment the ability to smell food, but never come in contact with it?
A clunking sound of heavy heels echoes in the vicinity and I imagine a man with nice dress shoes walking down a narrow hall, but there is no way in or out. Right? Or at least, there wasn’t a way out before I tried to end my life. I want to know if it worked. I want to know what’s next. I have to know. With the little strength I have, I force my eyes open, blinking against the blinding light shining over me.Heaven?I think not.
Moving my head from side to side, I find chrome-covered everything—bare and sterile. I bend my chin toward my chest, looking down at my outstretched body, finding straps evenly distributed from my neck down to my ankles. My arm is bandaged up with gauze and I’m in clean clothes—stretchy blue pants; a white-ribbed, cotton t-shirt; and knee-high, black work boots. These clothes are bizarre, but they fit and they are clean. It’s the next best thing to being free and fed. But I remember I’m tied down.Thisisn’t okay.
Normally, I would panic after finding myself in this situation, but I don’t feel anything. It’s like a numbness in my mind, telling me there’s nothing to worry about. There is clearly a disconnect somewhere because I’m smart enough to know there are a hundred emotions I should be feeling at this moment. For one, I should be screaming. My heart should be pounding. My stomach should be lurching from hunger. And the constriction should cause fear. Instead, I’d rather close my eyes and remain inside the containment of my cloudy mind.
“Reese,” a woman says. My eyes open again and I take another look around this room. No one is here, but I notice that even the walls are chrome, too. There are drawers in the shape of boxes lining the walls, each with a handle. I want to know what is in each one of them. “Reese, can you hear me? If you can, please confirm with a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.”
“Where are you?” I respond.
“Reese, I’d like to ask you a few questions.” The sound of heels clunking in the hallway starts back up again, almost as if whoever it is, is pacing back and forth. “Reese, do you remember what year it was when you were taken?”
Three years have passed. It was, “Twenty-twelve.”
“Do you know what year we are in now?”
“Twenty-fifteen,” I respond curtly. I don’t want to answer any more questions. I want to be let off of this bed or table, whatever the hell I’m on. I want to be released from this bunker and from this town.
“It is twenty-seventeen,” the woman corrects me.
My breaths become sparse, uneven, and heavy. It’s hard to swallow as I struggle to comprehend and understand. That’s impossible! It has been three years. I’m eighteen. I crossed off each day on the floorboard of my shed. She is lying. She is screwing with my head. I don’t believe her. I can’t believe her. “I don’t care what year it is, you need to let me out of here,” I grit.
“Where is out?” she asks. What the hell kind of question is that?
“Out of Chipley and out of this bunker,” my voice cracks after each word; the hoarseness becoming worse than it was before. I need water. I need food. At the same time, I still want to die.
“Your mother is deceased. So is your brother.” My head aches. She’s lying. I know she’s lying because I don’t have a brother.
“Let me go,” I tell her.
“Her name was Laura, a nurse at Applebrook.” A stinging sensation fills my heart, feelings I didn’t have five minutes ago. Pain sparks through various parts of my body as tears threaten their way out. “Your brother—he was one year old, but I know you never met him.”
“Why don’t you show your face?” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Better yet, why don’t you do what you obviously want to do and just kill me, you sick bitch? Haven’t you tortured me enough?”
“I cannot release you until you come to terms with what you need to know,” she says.
“Who are you?” I grunt, wasting the last of my voice.
“We need you, Reese. We need your help.”
“You’re not getting a damn thing from me,” is my final remark. Half of the word comes out in air, and I refuse to give her, whoever she may be, any more of what she wants until I have what I want.
“Very well,” she responds.
The echo of heels in the hallway grows in volume until the sound stops completely. The wall separates and a man walks in, dressed from head to toe in a charcoal suit with matching-colored shoes. He has an unblinking stare surrounding dark eyes. His face is covered with a mask, similar to the guard’s mask from earlier, but I think I recognize his eyes.JJ?It can’t be.
He takes slow, almost robotic steps over to me without taking his gaze off of my face. As he reaches across to my opposite side, he releases the straps, freeing me from constriction. I sit up quickly, feeling an incredible heaviness within my head. As my legs swing off the edge of the table, gravity feels twenty-pounds heavier, pulling me toward the ground. How will I walk feeling like this? “Are you releasing me?” I ask.
“Yes.”
