Electric

chapter two

My head pounds as I shakily stand. I glance up at Parker who's watching me with a look on his face. Is that concern or pity? Probably pity. Dexter grins at me like I just gave him the best present in the world.

    I'm going to puke.

    I must look like it, too, because Parker hurries forwards and hauls me out of the room. He runs me into the washroom and I barely make it to the toilet before I throw up. I do it right in front of Parker.Tears puddle in my eyes but refuse to spill, I'm throwing up a lot yet nothing at the same time since they starve us here, and it's all right in front of the one guy who shouldn't see me like this. I can't be a weak, broken girl in his eyes. I just can't.

    "Do you need assistance, love?" Parker questions and he makes the tears feel like acid in my eyes. I feel so ashamed of myself.

How can I be like this? This isn't who I am. I'm the girl who all the other girls are afraid of. They fear me because they don't understand. I grip the toilet seat as another wave of nausea washes over me. I've been beaten down and beaten up, and I'm going to let a dead boy that I don't even know be the tipping point for me right now?

    "Do I look like I need assistance, Parker?" I snap and throw up again.

    "Yes."

    I groan and slouch against the wall next to the toilet. I pick a shard of glass out of my untamed hair. My head still pounds, but the nausea has faded. I dare to glance up at him, expecting pity, but his face is placid. Nothing more than that.

The lump in my throat seems to be lodged there and refuses to be swallowed. Parker flushes the toilet for me as I wipe my mouth with the hem of my t-shirt and his eyes cling to the skin I reveal in the process. I inwardly roll my eyes, but I can't help remembering something I really don't want to.

    "If God was allowed to make one human perfect, love, that would be you." Parker informed and I stood up, my feet unstable in the padded cell.

I wanted to walk up to him and scream at him. I couldn't do that, though. I would just become the monster everyone said I was. But I still wanted to pound on his chest so he would hurt like the word perfect hurt me. I couldn't stand perfection because it was one of the many things I would never be. Could he not see that?

    Everyone else did.

    "I am not perfect." I muttered and amusement twisted his features. "If I was perfect do you really think I'd be locked in a padded cell with you?" It was a low blow but I had nothing else to say to him at the moment.

     "Love, calm down." He soothed, not understanding how much he had hurt me. I should have sent an electric current through his body right then. I should have just gotten it over with, just killed him.

    "You can't use your power in here." Did he just read my mind? That was impossible though. I regarded him uneasily. "I put you in this cell just so you can't do any harm." I can't?

    We would just have to see about that.

    My head snaps back to reality and I take a shaky breath. He used to openly say things like how my eyes reminded him of the freshly cut grass before the plague; or how my hair was too soft to simply be hair. The last time I remember him showing any significant emotion towards me was when I was fourteen and he was sixteen. He was teaching me how to dance and sadly, that was one of the last times I laughed within these walls. Another memory takes over.

    "Just listen to the rhythm, Riles." Parker smirked at me from under his mask of uncut bangs. "If you listen to the beat, you can move your feet to it. The rest just comes naturally." I focused on the steady bass of the song and the lyrics. Instead of moving my feet though, I moved my hips in a steady circle. Parker didn't say a thing as he watched me; he simply kept his eyes on my movements.

    "I think I got it." I whispered half to myself and half to him as I stretched my arms above my head. They swung slightly to the beat as my hips moved along with it. I closed my eyes and a faint smile tugged at my lips. I thought that was the most fun I had ever had at the asylum. Parker laughed when the next song came on and I groaned.

"You understand that type of dancing." He corrected me, already turning into the arrogant bastard he was destined to be. I rolled my eyes. "Would you like to learn how to waltz?" His question threw me off and I found myself nodding my head without really thinking about it. Before I knew what's going on, the station was on classical music and his arms held me up. He was so close to me. It was the first time he had actually touched me openly without a silent look asking permission.

    He slowly walked me through the steps and after a while we were effectively waltzing around my small padded cell in one fluent motion. When I looked up at him during the lesson, he was smiling down at me. I blushed but didn't let myself break the pattern of our dance. After the song ended he swiftly took his arms away from me, grabbed the radio, and walked out of the cell without more than a nod in my direction.

    I remove my eyes from the tile floor and dare a glance at him. He's so much older now. Parker used to have these long bangs that made him look more like a boy than a leader in the military. Now his hair is cut short and does that weird thing where it sticks up a little in the front. And back then, he only had a few inches on me. I've been the same height since I was fourteen. Parker, on the other hand, has grown substantially. He has a little less than a foot on me instead of mere inches.

    Sometimes, I wonder if he's my only friend. I mean, I don't want him as a friend. It's just that he's the only person who talks to me. Even the guards refuse to speak with me. And Dexter doesn't count because he could care less if anything happened to me. Yes, Dexter would be upset, but only because his most promising experiment would be suddenly gone, leaving him with unfinished data.

    One of the things about the older Parker that really gets under my skin is that he isn't as kind as he used to be. Parker used to visit me all the time, check up on me, and be generally concerned for me. Now he's a cold, distant General. I'm sure that by now he's given up hope I'll ever be the ordinary girl he wants me to be.

    I'll never be ordinary.

    I glance away from him when I realize I've been staring at him for way too long. He has his head cocked to the side as he openly gives me a once-over. Well, at least he isn't trying to hide it.

    "I should escort you back to your room." He exhales and I glare at him.

    "Cell, Parker." I manage. "It's a cell."

He remains silent as he grabs my arm and hauls me up off the floor. Then, he drags me down the hallway right into my cell. Before he closes the door, I get a glimpse of his face. He looks mad. He looks really, really pissed, but I didn't think my comment would make him that mad. I just wanted him to understand I can never think of this horrid place as a room. It will never be a room even if I die in here which I probably will. I go over and sit in my favorite corner of the four

    Loneliness is a funny thing. Sometimes it sneaks up on you and covers your mind like a black veil. It will whisper sad things in your ear and press into your thoughts until you're on the verge of tears. Other times, it barges in on you, slamming the door behind it. It scares you because it locks the door and swallows the key. And it only leaves when someone picks the lock open and ushers you out. You can never escape as much as you try to because you can never win against loneliness.

    It has the upper hand.

    At first I just sit here staring at the padded cell walls, but then, I curl my legs up underneath me and sit cross legged. After a few minutes, I curl my body in a ball. And I guess that's how I fall asleep. I don't notice the loneliness whispering in my ear until the tears prick my eyes. But those tears won't fall.

They never do.