Ten Steps Back

Chapter Four: Sense of Community

The heat of Paurvi's little body burned into my side, providing the smallest bit of comfort as we all suffered in the cold. My hand, at first combing through her tangled hair, rested lightly on top of her ears in hopes of muting our conversation a bit. It wasn't really doing anything. I knew that if she'd been awake she would have heard every word anyway, but for now she was still asleep.

"Amelia!" Harvey shouted. He quickly slapped a hand over his mouth, looking at Paurvi for a moment to make sure he hadn't woken her up. When she didn't stir, he turned his watering eyes my way and whispered, "Amelia, Twelve. My sister's name is Amelia."

"Roman," I corrected quietly.

The nine year old deflated, realizing he'd defaulted to our numbers again by accident. "I know. I know that," he muttered sadly.

"You know that," I confirmed knowing the poor kid was starting to doubt his mind again. That's just what this place did to them. Harvey was clearly done talking now. The joy of remembering his sister's name had quickly fled and all that was left was a tired child. Holding out my free hand, I whispered, "Come. Get some sleep."

He was quick to climb into my lap, another little heat lamp disrupting the cold. I just settled back into the stiff sheets of my cot and sighed. It had been a very long day, but every day was. At least the kids hadn't broken yet. I tried to keep them motivated. I made sure they remembered their names, and their ages, and anything they could from outside the cells, but that's all I could do. One day they were going to realize this was reality now and stop trying to remember. I know I tried less and less as the years went by. I remembered my sister and my parents, and one friend I'd had as a kid but beyond that? I knew that my name was Roman and that was about it.

I jumped at the creak of the big iron door, craning my neck to see who would walk through as anxiety flooded my veins.

"Do you have the laptop char- oh shit were you asleep?"

I blinked the dream away quickly, rubbing the blurriness out of my eyes to find the form of my sister in my doorway.

"No?" I groaned out unconvincingly.

A glance at the time told me I'd taken a longer nap than I'd planned to, but I wasn't complaining. Sleep was such fickle bitch. Sitting up and stretching, I snatched up the laptop charger we shared and tossed it towards Elise.

"Thanks, loser," she said and just like that she was gone.

"You're welcome," I muttered to the air, rising and stretching my stiff muscles.

The tendrils of my dream stuck with me even as I gathered up fresh clothes and hopped in the shower. It had been a while since I remembered something so tame. In fact, the dream was almost fond to me as Paurvi and Harvey frequently brought me joy in my dark places. Harvey would be twenty four now, and Paurvi wasn't far behind. They weren't even the youngest of us either. Of what I hoped were the survivors, Ebony was the youngest at a sweet sixteen present day. If I remembered correctly, Daniel would be twenty this year, Saffron would be twenty two, and Jack would be somewhere near twenty five. If they'd made it home, that is.

I liked to pretend I was confident that they did, but I wasn't. Not really. The last time I'd seen the others, they'd been running for their lives, and I'd been mixing the chemical combination for explosion in the labs. I didn't get to see who made it out or where they ended up. Truthfully, I hadn't planned to see anything at all after that, but I'd woken up in the end. Bruised, bleeding, and alone in the middle of nowhere, I'd somehow survived yet again. I hoped fiercely that those kids did too. Jack wouldn't have abandoned anyone, so their chances were decent. It wasn't outlandish to think that at least a few of my companions had made it to safety that day. If they hadn't and I had, I might seriously have to take up fighting dirties and hash things out with the moon goddess.