In White Robes

Chapter 4 - Subject Number Thirty-Three

"They caught someone else?" Avery sat facing the glass; I mimicked him. I nodded. We had spent the last half hour gossiping about the fox I'd seen. The fox with deep-red eyes and the black mark on his face.

"I never thought they'd allow three in a room," I said and shrugged. "It's usually just two. Where would he even go?" Avery stared back and forth, from my side of the room to his, pondering in his eyes.

"One of our two sides I guess." The thought made me ache. I didn't know the guy. Neither did Avery. I felt as if we both wondered the same thing at that moment: if our new roommate posed a threat to either of us. New subjects, as we were sometimes referred to as, were simply unpredictable.

The week prior Avery had told me a fight broke out in the room two doors down from us. Both subjects were covered in gashes, bite and claw marks, and yet the cause for the fight was never disclosed.

Avery smiled a little, his mouth twitching at the corner. "Well, it was nice while it lasted."

"What was?" I said. He set his palm against the glass as if reaching for me. Looking into his eyes now, I could see that he wasn't really happy. Somewhere behind those beautiful blue irises, hatred was buried.

"It won't be just you and me anymore," he said, his tone bitter. "Seems like we're the special room. Five-star treatment, right?" I looked down to the ground. The stark, cold, white tiles barely reflected my face.

"Maybe it won't be so bad." Reassuring Avery of anything always seemed to be a daunting task. He would always retaliate with something that sounded oddly specific, oddly correct coming from him. There was no doubt that he alone was lightyears ahead of me, both in wits and the ability to gather information.

That was the gap between us. The second line created to separate us, parallel to the glass barrier in our room that forbade us from reaching each other again.

Avery bit his lip, staring absentmindedly toward me. The uncertainty in his eyes lingered, and I shrank away from his stare after a moment of silence drew out between us. I watched him turn his head away from me, and instead look at his door.

The locks clicked a few times before one of the Concealed stepped inside. Avery did not move. He never did. I sometimes wondered if, somehow, he was not truly afraid of them. He would lock eyes with them, stand there as if he were looking right through them.

I wanted that kind of bravery for myself.

From behind the Concealed came a second figure, and it didn't take me very long to identify who it was. Their orange fur stuck out amid the white walls, their walk was strangely confident and feminine . . . that black mark on their cheek.

The fox who had been alone not too long ago was now in our room.

Avery hesitated, staring at the figure. I could sense his discomfort. His disappointment in the Concealed's choice of putting this new subject in our room. Our room. It no longer belonged to Avery and I alone; we now had to share it. We now had a third voice trapped with us.

The fox stared blankly at Avery; Avery stared back. The two shared this look for a long while, until finally the fox turned away from Avery and looked at me. His red eyes bore through me, staring deep into me like some kind of hypnotic gesture.

I'd then noticed there was a glow within those eyes.

"Him," said the fox. The Concealed gave a short nod, and I wondered--fearfully--what they meant. My wonders were cut short when the two left Avery's side of the room and circled around to my side, opening my door and coming in.

This time the fox didn't stand by the door and stare; he casually came to my spot by the glass and sat beside me. The Concealed left and locked the door behind him, leaving us three to the sad silence of our room. At first the fox was gazing coldly through the glass to Avery's side of the room, but then slowly he turned his head toward me.

"Nice to meet you, 20," he said. Don't call me that. "I'm Tabby." His lips formed into an impossibly wide grin. "Subject Number 33."