The Clean Ones

Chapter 14

"Make it stop.... Make it stop." I groaned. I sat stark upright, my eyes still firmly shut.

"Are you alright, miss?" An unusually soft voice asked.

I opened my eyes. "Gah!" I screamed as I looked into the beady eyes of the Mayor. I quickly pulled the blankets that were wrapped around my waist up over my entire body.

He laughed. "You gave me quite the scare there."

"W-what time is it?" I groaned. I quickly covered my mouth with my hand to suppress a yawn.

"Nearly 5:45; we need to get going." His voice was as hard as stone. "Are you ready to go?"

I stood up and immediately felt overwhelmed by emotion.

I didn't want to go.

If I didn't go, what would I have been saved from? Information?

No. No, no, no.

Liam.

If I didn't go, I would never know what happened to Liam.

More than ever, I needed him to be here with me now. He would have known exactly what to do when faced with a situation such as this. Nor course, he would've told me to go with Cale, and not to risk anything- my life nor my sanity- for him.

But Liam wasn't here; I had to do it.

"Yes, I'm ready." I said with a lackadaisical smile.

"Alright then, if you'd just follow me. We're going to take matters into my office, if that's okay with you." He commanded. I didn't answer, not like it mattered anyways. Even if I had tried to protest, he would have replied with some snide remark about how, since I already agreed to this, it was too late to back out now. I followed him down the narrow hallway and into a small room at the very end of it. A guard, who stood in front of the door, stepped aside to allow us through. After I was in, the Mayor locked the door behind us.

"Well," he started, "I guess I might as well be upfront about this. Miss Perri Bennett- that's your name, is it not?"

"Yes, it is." I confirmed.

"Now tell me, how do we know each other?" He said as he placed himself on top of his large desk. "Please, enlighten me with the true tale of our meeting."

Beads of sweat rolled off the edges of my fingertips hopelessly fast, as if a faucet had just been turned on to its full capacity. I rung my hands amongst the cerulean satin seam of my dress. "Um," I began, "Well I was dragged from my home and brought here and-"

"Stupid girl!" He bellowed. He jumped off the desk and stood with his face a mere inches from mine. "I said the true tale of our meeting."

"That was true!" I shouted. The intensity of my voice, the roar behind it, made me stagger backwards. Hearing myself in such an enraged state felt as foreign as any third-world language would feel on my tongue. The Cleanse never permitted anger.

"But that," he said, his face turning a violent crimson, "was not the first time we met. Was it? Or are you going to sit here and continually lie to my face!" His hand, which was previously clenched at his side, reached out and struck me on the side of my face. I yelped out in pain. His hand came up again, but this time, it only clamped shut over my mouth. "Silence! If you insist on screaming,you're going to wake up that boy of yours along with everyone else in this residence! Now, when I remove my hand you better have a damn good explanation for me. Understood?"

He removed his hand from my face and returned to his place on top of the desk . "Yes, sir." I squeaked. "We met when I became ill during school one day. You caught sight of me walking home, and stopped me to ask me why I was going back so early. I was ten years old."

"Thank you." He sighed. "Was that really that hard?"

"No, sir."

He paused for a moment. "Perri, Do you remember what happened on the day Mr Liam Dawson died?"

"The details are a little fuzzy, I guess." I muttered. I frowned- I wasn't particularly happy about where this conversation was going.

"Ah, I apologize. I sometimes forget the negative side effects that can occur. I'm surprised you don't remember much about your conversation with Miss Lilliana. Quite a shame, actually, considering she sent you here-"

"What do you mean by sent you here?"

He chuckled. "Oh, how you make me laugh. Are you really trying to pretend that you don't know? That I don't know?"

"I assure you that I have no idea what you're talking about." I said. I clasped my hands behind my back and hoped he didn't notice how badly they shook.

"Is that so? Alright then, why don't you empty out the contents of your jacket onto the desk?" He smirked and patted an empty space beside him on the desk.

"And why should I do that?" I snapped.

"Don't you want answers to all your questions? Is that what your precious friend sent you here for? Wouldn't want to disappoint her, or your precious Liam now would we?"

No, I thought. I don't want to do that. I can't. I promised. "I don't care. And, I don't care who you are, but my business is personal. You can keep your answers for all I care." I'm sorry, Liam. I'm so sorry. "Now if you'll please excuse me, I'd like to go back to bed now. You should be glad to know that I'll be out of your residence first thing this afternoon."

Please forgive me, Liam.

"May I ask where you intend on going?" He asked. His face was twisted into a puzzled expression, probably due to my sudden change of heart.

"Home, I guess." I shrugged. I hadn't thought about going home before I had gotten the truths to what happened with Liam. But now, it seemed like the only possible solution. Lilliana had warned me before I left that nobody could know about the Retrograde. If Lu and Benton couldn't even know, then for Mayor Johnson to know would be heinous. His beady eyes turned to daggers. Before I could turn around, he leapt off the desk and yanked me up by the lapels of my jacket.

"Listen, Miss Bennett," he sneered. "You are not going anywhere without my consent, you hear?" He grasped the jacket even harder before he tore it from my shoulder. The contents of my pocket spilled out as he tossed it to the floor. "What's this?" He examined and bent down to pick up the Retrograde "Is this... No, it couldn't be. Surely a girl like yourself wouldn't have something so illegal... Or dangerous in their possession."

His hand was still firmly grasped around my arm. I tried to pull free but given the considerable size of his hands, I failed to do so. I cried out in agony as freckles of purple and blue began to dot the otherwise tanned spaces in between where his fingertips would not loosen. "Give it back!"

"No, I think I'll go ahead and take it." He smiled. "But don't fret, little one. I will take you with us, if you don't put up a fight. Now, c'mere." He yanked me towards him and pressed my hand onto the Retrograde.

"W-what are you even saying?" I stammered as he punched numbers into the keypad.

"You'll see." He shouted. I turned to yell something back at him, but found it nearly impossibly to make out his face in the swirling purple vortex that consumed us.