The Necklace: The Trial Realm

Chapter Twenty Eight: Welcome Back, We've Got A Problem

I feel the soft blankets tucked firmly around my body first.

Then I noticed the low hum of the air conditioning and a steady beep coming from somewhere near my head. Next I notice the almost overpowering smell of bleach and antiseptic we learned to use over a week ago.

Finally, I realize I'm not dead.

I'm not dead. The thought forces my eyes open and I find myself in a bed in a tiny room with white walls, two chairs across from the foot of my bed, and a big machine beside the head of my bed that marks my blood pressure and heart rate.

I survived.

And if I survived, that means so did everyone else. This isn't Utopia anymore, so I must be back somewhere in the Hub. I've never been so happy to be confined in its locked walls in all my life, or well, weeks that I've been here.

The second I sit up in bed though I remember my arm.

The flashback of the man who shot me with his white burning light makes me cringe all over again and the sharp aching beneath the heavy bandages means it was probably pretty bad. It hurts like hell, but finally I ease out of the bed, not putting too much strain on my injured arm, so that I can shuffle to the door.

I peek out into the hallway, and find it's just a short one, definitely not one I've been in before. Two other rooms share the narrow hall with mine and at either end is a door. I go to the one closest to me first, pushing against it only to find it's locked. Sighing, I go back up the hall to the other door. It too is locked. Worry begins to set in and then I realize all of the things that have happened in the last day all together in my mind and I know these doors weren't locked on accident. I'm in trouble.

I can't be angry as I stalk back to my little room and sit cross legged on the bed. I knew what I was risking when I followed Oliver out of here. He had been convincing and I'd fallen for it, but I made the decision all by myself. I've got no one else to blame but me. If Tawny and Mags were really rescued, then I'm fine with whatever punishment comes my way. I probably even deserve it. I definitely feel like I do.

I still have a hard time believing I was so stupid.

I'd let him in.

I'd wanted to.

Because...I wanted him.

From the moment I first met Oliver back in the Ring and he gave me my first pair of shoes, I'd liked him. I've only grown to like him more and more the longer I knew him. Except that I never really did get to know him. That mask I'd always thought he was hiding behind had been real, and apparently it was hiding a lot more than I could have ever foreseen. He tried to kill me. Sympathetic and remorseful or not, he'd tried to kill me. I felt like the biggest idiot in all the realms. What kind of girl falls for these stupid tricks? Yeah, I totally deserved whatever was coming towards me.

I look around the boring room and I know I could sit here and stew on it for the next four days and still be no closer to understanding what had happened. I would probably never know. What I could do, was try to get out of here.

I crawl back off of the bed and pad quietly to the next room. I peek in the crack and my heart jumps up into my throat, beating fiercely. Tawny is laying in the bed on her side, not hooked up to any monitors like I was. I creep into the room but her slow even breaths tell me she's asleep. I reach out and touch my hand to her dirt crusted one, marveling like I've done before about how different things are for me now. How far I've come.

They'd be proud of the person you've become.

I remember the faint whisper of the memory and it makes my chest tighten. I never wanted to confront all of those feelings again. I wanted to leave them all in the past, but now that I'd been there...Back to Utopia, the place I was born to Marion and Elija...it was hard to shut the door on it all again.