I dragged my feet against the cement, shuffling and scuffing them, trying to detain myself a little bit longer. At the open doorway, I glanced over my shoulder into a pit full of darkness as the depressed feeling that began in my heart swept over my entire body. Then, I began walking back to my room.
It wasn’t until I was half-way down the hall that I heard a noise. A soft, vibrating noise that hummed, like a motor in a brand new car. I pivoted around. I didn’t see anyone following me. There were no footsteps, no shadows against the walls. The humming sound intensified. “Where is that coming from?” Perhaps it was a stupid idea for me to investigate, but with Mr. Baker and his family departing tomorrow, I felt like I had nothing to fear.
The humming sound started to putter as I moved toward the mess hall. I took small, slow steps easing myself forward. Then, when I reached the open doorway and peeked around the wall, Owen shined a flashlight in my eyes, a radiant smile on his face, violet eyes gleaming in the afterglow of the dim lighting.
I rushed toward him, beaming and elated. Relief washed over me when I got closer and was able to gaze into his eyes. “You’re here!” I half-shouted, half-whispered. “I thought something happened to you.”
Letting out a controlled, hushed laugh, he extended his arms to me and pulled me up on to the lift. He wrapped his right arm around my waist and held it tightly to his body. Then, he hit a button on the lift and we started going up, up into the ceiling.
Hugging him tightly, I never wanted to let go. An overwhelming sense of warmth and safety flourished throughout me and I knew I could trust him. He hit another button on the lift and spun me around to face him. He brushed my hair off of my shoulders, leaned down into my ear, and whispered, “See, like I said before, I never break my promises.”
Chapter 20: Something Wicked This Way Comes
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known
The lift jolted to a stop in between floors. I stumbled forward and Owen caught me, steadying my stance. “Easy there,” he said, softly.
Once I got a firm hold on my balance, I looked at him puzzled. “Why did you stop the lift? Aren’t we going up to the control room?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have much time and we can’t go up there. Mark is there. He’stearing all of the stuff down because he’s leaving tomorrow.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t have much time?”
“I’m leaving in thirty minutes.”
“What?” I screeched. The sound of my voice filled the narrow, confined space.
Owen lifted his finger to his lips. “SHHH! Do you want Mark to hear you?”
At that moment, Mr. Baker was the least of my concerns. My first and major concern was the fact that I might never see Owen again. “Do you know where you’re going?” Perhaps it wouldn’t be too far. If it wasn’t that far, then that would make us being able to see each other doable.
His violet eyes pierced my chocolate ones, full of uncertainty. “I don’t know. I just know that Mark made it clear to me that wherever he goes I have to follow.”
The last sentence he spoke made me furious. Where was his free will? Did he always intend on being Mr. Baker’s little puppet? And did he honestly think that he wouldn’t be doing the same kind of things somewhere else as he did here? “Do you always do what he tells you?” I asked, crossing my arms and tapping my foot.
He smiled, seductively. “Not always. I kept you alive didn’t I?”
I blushed. “Yes.” The sight of his smile always made my heart flutter—like the exciting feeling a kid would get when they got a present they had been longing for. “But, he treats you so badly. And on top of that, he’s an evil, evil man.”
Owen looked down and took both of my hands in his. He gently brushed his thumb against my skin and spoke sweetly, “I’m not going to disagree with you on that.” He lifted his head and looked into my eyes. “But, I’ve known Mark Baker for years and he does have some redeeming qualities.”
“Ha!” I spat out. “Like what?”
He smirked. “Do you know that I’m a child prodigy? I graduated high school when I was twelve years old. College at seventeen with my Masters in technology and PhD at eighteen in Nuclear medicine.”
He traced my jaw line with the tip of his finger. “I’m sure you’d believe it if I told you Mark Baker didn’t raise chickens for a living.” Oh, I definitely believed that. There was no way Mr. Baker’s obsession with control and tyrannical ways came from raising chickens. “He and I worked together for the government on a string of top secret projects. And everyone in our division had an alias lifestyle. Me, I was a pizza boy.”
I laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
He nodded. “Would you expect your neighborhood pizza boy as a secret government official?”
“No. Not at all.” I tried to picture my neighborhood pizza boy. His name was Barry, he always smelled like stale cigarettes, and he always had this dumfounded look on his face.
Owen went on. “After the asteroid hit, and the earth and human population slowly began to die, I was left without a home, without food, and without hope—just like a lot of others who, unfortunately, are now bones lining the sides of the road.
“Then, one day Mark Baker found me, sick and dying of starvation, lying on the side of the road. And he took me in. He promised to keep me fed and alive, as long as I helped him with some of the things he wanted me to do.”
In that moment, I felt for him, I did, but there are some things a person shouldn’t agree to, whether they are rotting from starvation or not. “Owen, do you know what you’re doing? If you’re as smart as you say you are, you’d see that whether he saved you or not, what you’re doing for him is wrong. It’s criminal!” Placing both of my hands on his shoulder blades, I looked him dead in the eye. “How many more people have to die for loyalty?”
He rolled his shoulders, pulling away from me. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
I furrowed my brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you’re one of the lucky ones. You live trapped in this little bubble of a society, eating every day, two or three times a day. I’ve seen people bite off their own fingers to feed themselves. I’ve felt my organs shriveling up inside of me because of my lack of nourishment. I’ve felt my bones through my skin while my exterior wasted away.”
I glared at him incredulously. “Do you mean to tell me, that you think I haven’t witnessed or felt the devastation of The Great Famine?”
“You haven’t.”
“You don’t know anything,” I growled. My mind instantly reverted back to those two little boys, the ones who cried day and night for their mother. I gulped hard, trying to erase the thought. “I’ve seen a lot more than you think I have Owen Sanders, and I can tell you this, I’d rather starve to death with my dignity than live with a belly full of food doing someone else’s dirty work.”
Owen narrowed his eyes. “You say that now, but have you ever starved?”
“I’ve gone days without eating,” I shot back.
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Well, then,” I said sarcastically. “Enlighten me, genius.”He bit his upper lip and shook his head. “Starving to death is a slow, torturous, and agonizing process. First, every ounce of fat and muscle on your body melts away. You become someone different, someone you didn’t think you could be, snapping at people, resorting to violence, and losing your sanity. Then, your skin cracks from dehydration and you develop multiple diseases because your body is so weak that your immune system fails to fight them off.