Sleepsong. ↣ BΔSTILLE

Chapter Four

I'm still laying on my bed when I hear a knock in my door. For a second fear surges through my chest, spreading out with electrical arms until I realize there's no yelling accompanying the knocking. The cult always yells at me to open the door, it never fails, so this shouldn't be them, right?

I slowly get up and walk to the door. I take a deep breath before opening it. I look up to the person knocking on my door and let that breath out. Dan stood at my door smiling with his hands in his pockets, Diana stood about ten feet away, scowling.

"You should come to the front room with us, we have things to discuss." Diana said, trying to sound pleasant but failing completely at the task. I swear, her voice is worse than nails on chalk board!

She starts walking away and Dan turns to follow, nodding his head at me to walk with him.

"Before anything is final, I just wanted to ask you if you wanted this?" He asks me, and I stare in amazement for a second. He was seriously asking me my opinion? Wow.

"Uhm, yes, of course." I say, but then wish I would have said something different. I made it sound like he gave me a poptart, not rescuing me. I should be more excited and thankful and happy, why can't I? "This is kinds really amazing, actually." Is that an okay thing to say?

Dan chuckles and starts walking down the stairs. I follow behind now, as the stairway is too narrow for me to walk beside him.

"Okay, then." He says smiling.

Diane leads us to the food room, where I notice a few stacks of paper on the table. Diane sits on one side of the table and motions for us to sit opposite her. I sit with Dan on my right and she hands him a paper and tells him to sign on the bottom blank, which he does quickly before handing the paper back.

"If you take her, we will need to meet two weeks from today to discuss how things go and if you'd like to continue. You can only return her without charge within those two weeks." Diane explains, and I let everything sink in. If I mess up, even once, the slightest thing, he'll probably bring me back here. If he takes me in the first place. I can't screw this up. I can't. I won't.

Diane hands him a few more papers, some of them are passed to me to sign. I don't do cursive, at all, so my signature is in print. Looks like a four year old wrote it. Who does their signature in print? Oh yeah...me.

"Go pack your things please, Archer." Diane instructs me. It never surprises me how even when she tries really hard to sound pleasant, she still sounds how she really is. A bitterly cold-hearted woman.

I obediently get up and go to my room. I was lost in my thoughts and being too stupid to run to my room, I walked. When I turned the last corner to my room door Steven stood leaning against my door.

"What was that?" He asked me. Did he really think I have control over if Dan wants to take me? I don't, but I'm sure not going to turn him down. I can take one more beating. Just one more.

"I-I, I don't know." I say, and drop my head a look at my feet. I can have the guts to be sassy in my head, but I don't have the guts to say that crap out loud.

He laughs a bitter, sarcastic laugh. He looks at me with his stare, just a little colder than usual. He's jealous. Even people like Steven want out. "You got it coming, Archer." He says and walks off. I mentally note to watch my back while I'm here.

I get in my room and lock the door behind me. I grab my bag and put all of my belongings in it, which isn't much. A few band shirts, jeans, jeggings, toothbrush, eyeliner, iPod, and a few here and there's. I zip the bag and toss it over my shoulder. This was all kind of fast...I just met him...a week ago? And he's already saved my ass twice. What was that saying, about being too good to be true? This must be what it's talking about. I reach my hand down and pinch my leg so hard it brings tears to my eyes. Well, I'm not dreaming. I'm being stupid.

I walk out the door, hopefully for the last time. No one bothers me as I walk down the hall and make my way back to the food room. When I walked in Diane was still writing things down and Dan smiled at me. How can someone be this nice? Like wow. 

 "Okay, everything is sorted out now, you may go home. I will call you in two weeks to see how things are going." Diana said with an authoritative tone in her annoying voice.

 "Okay, thank you very much." Dan said to her with a smile, and I wonder how anyone can actually smile at that wretched woman.

  Dan walks out of the room and I follow him to the front door. He leads to me to a car and opens the door for me. Shotgun, wow. I smile gratefully and climb in clumsily, scrambling for the seat belt with my shaking hands. I'm not sure if I'm shaking from nervousness or excitement.

  Dan sits down in the driver's seat beside me and starts the engine. He notices my shaking hands to my dismay, I'd hoped he wouldn't.

  "Are you okay?" He asks me, concerned.

  "Yeah, yeah I'm fine." I smile lightly. Probably not very convincing when he's looking at my violently shaking hands. "I'm just really nervous and excited." I add, laughing at myself half-heartedly.

  Dan smiles so big it almost looks painful. "You don't have to be nervous." He laughs and I smile and shrug.

  "Habit, I guess," I try, not knowing what to say now.

  Dan starts his car, and we both put our seat belts on in silence. He pulls out of the lot, and away from my old life that I hopefully never see again.

______

 "Oh my gosh," I breathe, spinning in a circle, taking in his place around me. It's gorgeous, and massive. Bookshelves line the walls, the living room connects to the kitchen with a nice open floor plan. "This is amazing," I say, and I wasn't lying. Cream colored walls, dark hard wood floor, dark leaher couch, it was all beautiful. I was used to the dull grayness of the care home. This is so different. And I love it.

  Dan stood behind me, smiling at the way I was gawking at his place. "Well, I'm happy you like it." He says, walking into the room from the door way. He pulled my luggage up. I insisted that I could, especially since I only had one, but he insisted harder and I ran out of excuses as to why he shouldn't. "Your room is down that way," He says, pointing down a hall. "Last door on the right," He adds and I nod.

  Dan leads the way down the hall and I follow silently behind him, looking at the different pictures on the walls. He opens the door and I stop. I can't believe this.

  On the back wall in the right corner is a bed much bigger than the one at the care home. It had a closet and a dresser and a desk. All ash wood. This room has a cream white carpet like the walls in the front room, but the walls in here are white.

  "Wow," I breathe again. Is this real? No, this can't be real. Molly will wake me up any minute and insult me lamely.

  "You like it?" Dan asks, and I slowly stept into the room, taking it all in.

  I merely nod with a 'mmhmm,' as I think I've lost the ability to sleep. I look at Dan, who is smiling at me. I want to hug him, but I hesistate, before throwing my arms around his middle. He laughs and hugs me back.

  "Thank you," I whisper.