Trapped | The Trapped Trilogy Book 1

Six (Part 1)

Six (Part 1)

EENIE

"You wouldn't do that in front of your people," I press.

"Wouldn't I?" He smiles, looking past me as we dance. "You'd look like a little candy cane."

I pull away, but he pulls me back, making it look like a dance move.

"You're sick," I spit.

"At least I'm not the one going insane," He grins evilly. "Touching the wall could just mean your end-not to mention this dress. Spin."

He twirls me, and I have an urge to introduce his face to my knuckles.

"Yes, definitely the dress."

"You're disgusting," I hiss.

"Make up your mind, why don't you? Am I sick, or disgusting?" He chuckles.

I scowl.

"I've had my eye on you, Eenie. Oh, please, not like that. Don't flatter yourself," He smiles wickedly. I just want to get this over with as fast as I can. "You've grown a rebellious side, even if you can't see it."

"Let me go," I say through my gritted teeth as his hands tighten around me.

"A fire has been lit inside of you for a while now, a fire that I haven't seen since-"

"Let me go," I repeat.

"Well, since your mother," His eyes locking onto mine.

I stumble a little, and hear a few chuckles from around us.

My mother?

"Tell me, Eenralla Land, what did your mother do? What was her job?"

"She was a-"

A what?

I can't remember.

"A Government Official," He finishes.

The song ends, and he tells me to go back to my seat. I'm so stunned by the information given to me, so awestruck and shocked, that I barely notice Ken has disappeared.

o0o0o

On the way back to the Dame's Dome, the bus is buzzing with energy. The excitement passes all around me, but does not reach my ears, or my brain, or my heart. They're all somewhere else.

My mom was a Government Official. How did I not know that? How did I not piece together the white dress and the white lab coats she had in her closet, and the white shirt she wore most of the time she came home? Was I a stupid child? And on top of that, how did I manage to get the one guy-the ONE guy-who is supposed to be there for me, my everything, my knight in shining armor-the ONE guy that would walk out halfway through the ceremony? How can someone be THAT unlucky and stupid at the same time?

I groan and run my hands over my face, intertwining my fingers into the hair at the top of my forehead. I pull the headband off and pick at the diamonds.

I was lucky enough to even know the job my dad had. It's hard to have an actual conversation about their jobs when you're supposed to be working on your own. But to not know my mom's job... that takes stupidness to a whole new level-a whole new area. It must be a gift or something.

BOOM!

The bus rolls over onto its side, and I'm thrown forward. Screams and shouts fill the air, and I stand myself up. The bus driver is making her way down the side of the bus trying to calm everyone down. I bolt for the door, and force it open.

And suddenly, I'm awestruck.

The sky is dark and laden with stars, and the moon is as full as, well, the moon. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

And then I see the fire.

The flames cover the entrance to the Home Dome. There's a big, gaping hole in the glass on the right side of the tunnel, and the smoke is gathering fast.

I duck back inside of the bus, and shout, "Get everyone out! There's a fire!"

I start to help the girls out of the door, and tell them to go through the hole in the glass. Once everyone is out, I follow them, and we stand right outside the tunnel, watching the fire and smoke grow higher.

"We've got to do something," The girl in the pink proclaims as she limps over to me.

We can't go back into the tunnel. The smoke will suffocate us, and we'll all die. The gate to the Dames Dome is closed, and I don't think they'll open unless the bus is going to go through.

"Does the gate open up automatically?" I ask the bus driver, who is staring at her bus.

She gulps and looks at me. "Uh, no. I have to flash my ID at the camera, and then it opens."

"Okay," I say, formulating a plan in my head. Maybe we can-"

I hear a rustle of leaves, and shush the party of girls. Pulling up my dress enough to move well, I slip off my shoes and slowly make my way to the bushes to the right of us, maybe twenty feet away. It rustles again, and I squat beside it. Slowly, I raise my hands, and then quickly thrust them through the leaves. My hands close around fabric, and I pull it forward.

I see the face in the moonlight. Confusion and anger bubbles up inside of me as my brain brings forth a name.

"Ken?"

"Hey!" I hear a girl calling for me. "It's closing!"

I drop Ken's collar and run over. Sure enough, the glass is fixing itself. It's regenerating slowly in a straight line parallel to the ground. I've only worked with this once as a Mechaneer on windows for the Domeshouses, and I know you can manipulate it with weight and gravity, but I've never worked with it on this scale. If this glass closes, none of us will have a way back into the Domes, and we'll be stuck outside here forever. We wouldn't survive out here.

I lunge forward, and jump up to grab on to the edge. The glass begins to give way.

"Jump on!" I yell.

The glass begins to shift itself downwards with every new body. Soon it's to my stomach.

"Start going over one by one," I say, exasperated.

"Why don't we all jump over at once?" The bus driver asks through her heavy breathing.

"Because the sudden loss of weight would send it shooting up, and we'd all be missing our legs," I snap, frustrated.

With each body thrown over the glass, it lifts a little more.

By the time the bus driver is over, the glass is at my chin. I begin to pull myself up, when something hits my arm, and I fall back to the ground, the glass lifting a little more.

I look behind me, and see a man tossing a rock up and down in his right hand. I can't see his face in the black of night, and his dark clothes hide him well.

Did he just throw a rock at me?

I pull myself up again, and feel an even bigger rock hit my back. I cringe at the pain, my hands almost slipping from the glass. I can feel them rip open a tiny bit.

There's arguing coming from behind me.

Welcoming the possible distraction time I have, I heave myself up one last time.

Suddenly, there's a sharp blow to the back of my head.