Beyond Our Control

Chapter 39

 Annika remembers.

She remembers everything.

Everything her brother had kept her away from.

It was a realization, an awakening moment, her mind felt so sharp, so fresh, so clear. Like she had been dreaming for so long, and now she has finally awoken from it. A dream she should've woken up from the day she had fallen into it.

A dream she was never supposed to fall into.

When one of the assistant doctors of the place they were held captive in came to them, where they had been kept and tied onto beds, the only thing keeping them from going hungry was the energy source that went through their blood system that had been stuck into their skins forcefully, she was relieved to see him.

She was furious, the days passed in the beds felt like years. She didn't know how long they had all been there. She only knew that Kenna, the girl she thought her friend, had betrayed them. But she also laughed. She laughed into the rows of beds, the dark grey room they were kept in, none of them able to move except their faces. The energy source that was feeding into them must've also held them paralyzed. And she knew people could hear her, but she laughed anyway. She laughed at Faye, stupid and foolish, also falling into Kenna's trap along with everyone else. She remembers that image of Faye from that day outside the small cube building, so shocked she didn't even make a run for it when the guards bursted out. She must've never seen it coming, Kenna betraying her and everyone else.

Annika couldn't tell or understand exactly why, but Faye had always stuck with Kenna. No, more like the other way around. Kenna stuck onto Faye. She saw that look in Kenna as she stared at Faye, it was the exact one Skyler had for Faye. Before she was taken away and never came back.

That day out in the gathering where Faye and Kenna stood in front of all of them when Annika found out about Faye's true identity, her lies, and all, she felt infuriated. A deep fury burning inside of her. After Faye had come back without Skyler, she had always trusted Faye, she had always felt sorry for Faye. And she thought she owed it to Skyler to protect Faye, to help Faye. Because she knew that Faye and Skyler were in love. She knew that, she saw them kiss even though they tried to hide it away from everyone. She saw the way they looked at each other when they thought no one was looking. She didn't know why, but when she saw them, her stomach knotted up together. But after Skyler was gone, she knew Faye must've been broken. So she needed to help her recover and get better.

Except, maybe Annika herself was just as broken as Faye.

During the days in the bed, she went through everything over and over again in her head. She analyzed each memory of Faye and Skyler, trying to make sense of things. She analyzed the changes that happened when Kenna suddenly came. How fast Faye came out of that cottage after two years. But in honesty, even as mad as she is right now, she knew she couldn't stay mad at Faye forever. She didn't exactly hate her. She just...it was a feeling she couldn't exactly name. It was there even before she found out Faye's identity and the huge possibility that Skyler is dead and the reason for that is all because of Faye. She's had this feeling burning in her all along. And she realized, it might've been envy and jealousy all along. She wanted to be with Skyler.

When she saw Kenna that first day when she came to the Adjustment Center, something in her stomach churned. She didn't exactly know how to react. Because for a moment, she thought that she was Skyler, Skyler had come back. But something from the girl's expression told her it wasn't Skyler, and disappointment crashed once again. So she became friends with her instead, and everything brought back her memories with Skyler. That big sister she had looked up to, the person she had wanted to spend every second with and share all the happy and sad things that have happened to her. She found some of those comforts she never got with Skyler from Kenna. Look where that had gotten her now, paralyzed in a bed, in a dark grey room where lights are dimmed so low there might not even be lights.