There's something wrong with Phoebe

24 - Phoebe

Nobody dared to speak for so long. Eventually, our legs got stiff as gradually everyone dropped to the ground, though delicately so and no noise was made. We didn’t understand what was happening. Jack had told us what we were supposed to do for so long. We’d had a clear aim in our minds that we had to achieve. The absence of that clear aim seemed to be making our family break down. We never really had time to sit and think when we weren’t focused on a task. It was now that I thought of my family.

Of Kayla and how she’d changed herself so erratically to be more like me, and how warm and welcoming she’d been. Of Thomas and how he put on that confident front but was really shy and cute and loved talking to me about his life. Of Mum and how she’d almost given up home on ever finding me. She’d been ready to settle down and move on, and then I’d come bursting back into the picture to ruin everything. I felt uneasy as I brought my knees up to my chin and shut my eyes. Then there was Dad, who I never knew what he was feeling, and who had been in contact with my abductor for years. And Sam. I couldn’t even think of Sam without shuddering. He’d been so good to me. I had no idea where he was now.

“You alright?” said Lily, coming over towards me. I shrugged, willing myself not to cry. “You’re not,” she said, holding out her hand and helping me up. “Let’s go to our room.” I walked through the familiar corridor with doors either side going into the rooms we shared. They were normally full of chatter and noise. It was eerie without that.

Lily opened the door to our room, and that was what finally made me break down seeing it again. I didn’t want this room I’d lived in for so long. I longed to be back in my repainted room with the new duvet and fresh carpet, and a window to see out into the open world even if it was just the street. The ease of pushing a pane forth and letting cool air flood into the room so I could breathe it in easily. The ample clothes that hung in the wardrobe Thomas had occupied so many times whilst I’d been away. A sense of belonging was what I missed. At that house, I’d had  my own place that I could call my own. Here, every room was the same.

Lily sat me down on the lower bunk and tucked strands of my hair behind my left ear whilst I stared at my lap and the tears rolled down my cheeks uncontrollably. My pain and agony was falling out of me and it was only now that I realised how attached I’d become to my family. That was the family I wanted now. Not this family here, with kids who had all been taken from their own parents or had been dropped off at an orphanage. Jack said we were all special, but why? Why had we been chosen? He’d told us so many stories and I no longer knew what to believe. Had what he’d been telling us been true? These thoughts had been lurking in the back of my mind for so long, but I hadn’t allowed them to surface. It was now that I regretted my whole life for the past six years,  and it was as if, suddenly, with me recognising this, memories came flooding back into my mind.

Memories of being forced into Jack’s bed with him, and being shoved in a dark basement on a tiny camp bed. Memories of pushing a baby out of me with no anaesthetic and having that baby taken from me. Memories of being told my baby would be beaten if I did not comply. Memories of being slapped and punched and kicked as the TV flickered in the background. Memories of arriving here and meeting the cold girl in my room who told me everything I knew was wrong. Memories of a man telling me what had happened and replacing thoughts in my own mind. Memories of manipulation. Memories of being sedated that day in the forest when it had been snowing.

I was startled as I came back to reality. A window had opened in my mind and I could see the truth. “Oh my God,” I said. “Jack lied to us.”

“What?” Lily said, frowning.

“Jack has been lying to us this whole time!”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying!”

“Jack has been telling us things…thoughts he’s implanted in our heads…and they’re not true!” I said, getting hysterical. “We have to leave.”

“Are you mad?” Lily said, as I stood, licking my lips.

“It’s the only way we can escape him now, whilst we still have the chance. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I don’t want to be part of Jack’s games anymore.”

“Phoebe, slow down! You aren’t making sense!” said Lily, grabbing me by the shoulders as she too stood.

“Let’s go; now.”

“I just don’t understand you, Phoebe!”

“Everything we know is a lie!” I yelled into Lily’s face and she blinked rapidly, staring into my eyes. “I’m leaving, are you coming or not?” Lily had been here even longer than I had. I didn’t know if she’d ever be able to see past Jack’s lies. I didn’t even know why I could now. Something had clicked. Maybe it was the taste of the outside world, and knowing what could be. I didn’t know, but I wanted to leave here now. I swung the door open, running back through the room everyone was in and into Jack’s room.

“You have no proof!” Lily said, as we stopped.

“Something in here will tell us,” I said, looking around. I pulled open a drawer in his bed then and saw a slim photo album. I let it fall open and it had pictures of all of the girls here, smiling. There were descriptions, names and ages to the sides. It was like this was his collection. Next to this was a cardboard box. I opened the flaps to see layers and layers of cuboid shaped boxes made out of white card. I opened one up curiously to find a syringe inside.

“What’s that?” said Lily, bending down next to me.

“Some sort of injection,” I said, fumbling in the box. There was a list of chemicals at the bottom and then a name written at the bottom; human enhancement drug. “What the hell does that mean?” I remembered that then too. I pulled up my right sleeve of my orange prison uniform to see a small red dot – it was the mark a vaccine left. I remembered Jack injecting me one night. I’d stayed perfectly still, not wanting him to know I was awake. I had never spoken of it.

“Jack has given us this drug,” I said, fingering one of the boxes. “But why?” I thought for a moment. “Have you ever wondered how we’re so good at all this fighting and making bombs? They say full grown adults can’t manufacture bombs like us. What if Jack gave us the drug to make as more able?”

“But why use kids?” The answer to that hung in the air. Jack was a sick man. “So is Jack some sort of terrorist?” Lily said, frowning.

“No. He made us the terrorists. So my whole family is now dead,” I said, the words lined with no emotion.

“But you have me still!” said Lily, as we stood and I still clutched the cuboid shaped box. I glanced up at her sighing, and then I’d felt her face coming towards me. I hadn’t realised what was happening before her lips were against mine. I jumped away from her, squirming as I scurried to the furthest corner of the room and wiping my lips with the back of my hand as Lily stood, eyes wide but the corners of her lips turned up. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long; just to know what it feels like.” Lily had gone past the point of saving now. She was so desperate to escape Jack that she was turning to anybody else for interaction; even her roommate who she’d despised at first. I hadn’t been lured in deep enough yet.

“You’re confused,” I said simply, trying to close the matter and not make a big deal out of it. Lily did not fancy girls. I knew her.

I ran to the cupboard where Jack kept the bomb supplies, slipping a pre-made one into my pocket. “What are you doing?” Lily said, still in a daze.

“Leaving,” I said shortly.

“You can’t leave; Jack will notice!”

“To hell with Jack,” I said, getting angry now as I removed the hole in the floor and slipped down into the tunnel again. Even I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I wasn’t being Jack’s puppy anymore. It had all suddenly slipped into place. “Don’t follow me,” I called up. “Now, put the insert back over the hole. And goodbye.”

“Wait!” Lily said, peering down at me. “Can I come?” I shook my head.

“You’re screwed anyway,” I said, and the darkness imploded on me as she repositioned the insert in the whole. Now it was time to think of a plan.