Remade

Chapter 21

"C'mon, hurry up you!" The boy has the girl by the hand as they speed walk down a dark alley. His legs are miles longer than hers so she has to jog to keep up with his quick pace. Sam's face is huge with a grin and eyes wide with excitement, something that's contagious to the girl.

They make dozens of twists and turns and finally arrive at an abandoned subway station. Sam lets go of her hand and starts to spin in circles slowly with his hands cupped around his mouth, checking out the lonely underground location before he yells "Alley alley bison free!" The girl looks around confused as boys of all ages pop up and surround them. They walk up from the tracks, they jump down from the homemade hammocks hung from the ceiling, they emerge from the abandoned car she failed to notice. A group of about 30 boys gather together. Their ages go from about 8 to 16 but the majority are around Sam's age. "Who is that?" a grimy boy points at her bluntly.

"She's new," Sam states boldly.

"She's a girl," a older boy scorns. His spiky black hair and green eyes make him look scary. By the way that he stands and the other boys look at him like he's a super hero or a god she can tell that he is obviously the leader. His black t-shirt and scuffed up jeans enhance his dark look. She hides behind Sam a little bit more.

"Who has been out there, by herself, with no one to show her the ropes. She'll do fine, she'll learn the rules, and she'll become one of us. C'mon Pan. Let's give her a shot. You've done it for all of us." He motions to all the boys and most of them nod in agreement. He then turns to Bridget. "What do you say? Want to be the first girl to join us?"

She looks timidly at the 16 year old boy Sam called Pan, who is sizing her up with his arms crossed and his eyes narrow. She swallows and nods. "I do."

Pan stares her down and she stares back, afraid to break eye contact. He nods his head. "Fine. I'm Pan. That's Cookie," he points at a freckled ginger. "The Squirts." Two identical boys lift their hands in greeting. "Hitch." A black boy grunts a greeting. "Navy." A teen with a ratty Old Navy t-shirt nods at her. Pan keeps rattling off the strange names of the strange boys and they all acknowledge her in some way or another. She keeps her eyes stony and strong, looking at them dead in the face so they don't see how intimidated and scared she is. So they can see that she deserves to be a part of a group. "And of course, you know the one and only Sam."

Sam takes a little bow and for the first time in years, the girl smiles, looking at the boy with puppy dog eyes. "And you are?"

The girl opens her mouth to respond but the ground opens up from under her feet with a deafening rumble and she tumbles down the dark hole again, and the ending of the last nightmare repeats itself. Incessant laughter, tumbling, clenched hands, spinning out of control, falling, falling, falling...

I wake up again with a gasp and sit up immediately as if doing a monster sit up.

Leave it to a new boy to cause my past to torture me every night. I take in deep breaths to try to calm my raggedy breathing and next thing I know, a lamp flickers on. "I was wondering when you'd wake me up," Alison says. "What is it?"

I look down at my lap and try to continue to clear my head. "Bridget? What's wrong?" Alison insists.

"I really don't want to talk about it Ali. It's fine, it's nothing to worry about."

"Well I am worried. So what is it?"

"Not important. I don't want to talk about it." I settle my head into my pillow and close my eyes.

"No, tell me," she pushes.

I roll over and slam my pillow over my head trying to block out the light and the noise. This is the last thing I need right now. To be asked questions that I may never be able to answer.