Caged

11 - Mask

“Velvet!” Lacey exclaims. I’m frozen in my spot. I cannot move. Part of me thinks that if I don’t move, she’ll forget she saw me.

I’m not a strikingly beautiful person, but I have been told on many occasion that I am striking on its own. I think she would remember seeing the shimmery gold hair and the navy rimmed white eyes on the abnormally lanky body in practically a big loose t-shirt walking in with the others. Either that or I’m giving myself too much credit.

“Velvet, what are you doing all the way down here?” Lacey says as she walks towards me, her heels loud on the floor. “You’re supposed to be in the interview room you were just assigned.”

Her face tells a different story. She knows I just snuck in, I know she knows. Lacey widens her eyes. “Isn’t that right, Velvet?”

“Uh,” I stumble. “Yeah, yeah, I’m supposed to be in there.” I aimlessly point to the wall, hoping that the room I’m “supposed to be in” is on the other side.

“And where are all your little friends, they’re supposed to be there too,” she says loudly, so loud I think she’s trying to convince herself. “Because I assigned you all there.”

She peers down the hall and surely enough six heads are poking out of the door. I begin to gesture them over, but Lacey waves her hand to stop them.

“That’s your room,” she says. “That’s the interview room I just assigned you into, okay? You tell that to Gaetan if he asks, you tell that to anyone if they ask. Got it?”

I nod. “I can’t believe you’d do––”

She shushes me sharply, then whispers. “You had the guts to come anyway, and the Panel wants guts.”

“Does the Panel want liars?” I think aloud.

Lacey shrugs. “I think the Panel wants manipulators.”

“Oh,” I say in agreement, but I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment.

I walk back to the room. It’s empty, besides the people. The room’s design is archaic with paintings on the ceiling and gilded molding and heavy drapes that probably house as many bed bugs as it does vibrant fabric.

Scott’s eyes light up when I enter. “I’m not alone anymore! That’s what Lacey told me when she assigned me here. She said, ‘Sorry, kid, looks like you’re going in alone,’ because we had an odd number and––”

“Scott!” Damara whines. “Please, if you’re going to talk, slow down. Or just don’t talk all together, you’re giving me a headache.”

Elena rolls her eyes. “Oh, get over yourself, Damara. The evening we’ve been having –– I think we all have headaches.”

“I think I have a migraine,” Dalton says. He points at me. “You give me migraines.”

“I didn’t ask for you to stay and wait for us,” I say defensively. I remember what Atlas said, how Dalton didn’t even want to wait, and I want to say something bitter about it. But I can’t get my lips to move anymore.

So I don’t say anything else, and I walk to the wall and sit down against it, closing my eyes.

I sit like that for a while, until I feel a presence next to me, heat radiating, another set of lungs taking in air and letting it out.

“I’m sorry about that,” he says. I open my eyes to see Dalton sitting next to me, twiddling his thumbs. “I’m sorry about being a jerk and not wanting to wait for you guys.”

“Whatever.” I have to force the word out of my mouth.

“No, but honestly,” Dalton says. “Would you please look at me?”