Dangerous

Chapter 8

He was here. He was here now, with thousands of other brainwashed teenagers, with guards who didn't give a damn about anyone's feelings, with trainers who made muscles ache and sweat fall like teardrops, with Joanna Collins, the mastermind of this killing organization. With everyone except for me.

I cried.

I sat on my bed and cried for ages, cried for me, for him, for our families, for the life I used to live. For the first time in my life, I longed for gray cinderblock houses, all the same, for unnaturally green lawns, for the way the kitchen sink never shut off all the way, drips of water littering the sink. I longed for my baby sister's singing that used to drive me nuts, for my mother's alarm clock waking me up at unnaturally early hours, for my father's old car rumbling up the driveway when he arrived home from work. I longed for normality, for something to keep me attached to my sanity, if I had any left. But I longed for something out of reach, for everything I had lost.

Tears fell like a storm. I couldn't stop them, and I didn't try to. I cried for hours, sitting on the mattress, head tucked into my knees, wondering how my best friend felt, just a couple of rooms away. Selfishness bloomed within me and I cried about that, too. I would have given anything to freely walk out of this institution with him, to not have to worry about what could happen to our families if we did.

The camera blinked incessantly, red light the only thing I could see through my blurred vision. They were watching me; Jessalyn Peterson, the girl who can't control her emotions. The only way we can fix her is by isolating her. I clenched my fists in anger, standing up abruptly from my bed.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" My voice was dangerously low, but the sound resonated throughout my room. I stood up from my bed, pacing over to the camera's direct line of vision. I looked up into the lens, seeing a small, distorted reflection of me staring back. The red monitor light continued to blink, mocking me. My blood boiled.

"You think you can just take me away from my family, from my friends, from my life?" No response, not that I was expecting one. "You can't take away everything I had and expect me not to loathe this place." My harsh whisper sounded much too loud, but I continued. "You can keep me here for as long as you want. I don't care. But you cannot, will not, break me." I leaned closer to the camera, until I could see the fire in my eyes reflected back at me. "You're a coward, Joanna Christianson. A coward."

And with that, I rammed my fist into the lens. Glass shattered around my knuckles, blood pouring out from the skin, but I didn't care. Adrenaline invaded my body, and I felt invincible.

I was going to get out of here, and Chase would be coming with me.