Freefly (12 page)

“I’m sorry,” I say.  “Stay, please.”

Slowly, she sinks back into the chair. 

I take a deep breath.  “Listen.  Michael Thorne...he wanted me to give information about you.” 

“Did you?”

“No.  I couldn’t.  But he said he was going to make sure I never got into any college, ever.  Is he...does he have the power to do something like that?”

Her whole body slumps in the chair, and she looks on the verge of crying again.  “Damien, I’m so sorry.  You should have talked.”

“I couldn’t, okay?”  I breathe hard and am completely unpreprared for the following words to fly out of my mouth:  “I love you.”

She shakes her head back and forth, hard.  Excellent.

“It’s true.  I love you.  I know you said it could never happen between us, but it’s too late.  I think about you all day long.  I wonder where you are, if you’re doing okay, if you’re hurt, if you’re hungry, when you’re going to come back.  Isn’t it obvious?  I want to know you, not just as the girl who flies through my window every night, but as a whole person.  I know you don’t love me back, and I don’t blame you, but can’t you tell me your story?  I threw away my future because I didn’t want that guy to hurt you.  Can’t you answer
some
of my questions?”

The oven dings, and I leap from my chair, mostly because I don’t think I can bear to watch Sammie’s reaction.  Hot air blasts me in the face as I yank open the oven door and pull out the sizzling pizza.  Carefully, I walk the pan across the kitchen and set it on the table with a clack.  I look up to see Sammie’s face.  It’s worse than I imagined:  she’s full-out bawling, her face in her hands.  I rush forward to comfort her, then leap back (because after making her cry the last thing I want to do is freak her out with physical contact).  I feel like scum.  Clearly, I cannot do anything right. 

“I’m sorry.”  I sink down in the chair beside her.  “Just
—
pretend I never said anything.  We can...go on as usual, okay?  Please.  You’re starving.  I’m starving.  Let’s eat pizza.”

She looks up, swallowing hard.  Though I feel like knifing
myself
, I run a knife through the pizza and cut it into four big squares, then hold one of them out to her.

Though tears continue to drip down her face, she takes it and bites off a large piece.  I pick up my own piece and take a bite, flinching as the hot tomato sauce scalds the top of my mouth.  We eat in silence.  I wonder what is going through her mind.  Undoubtedly, it is a plan to get out of here and never return.  I give her my other square of pizza, because she finishes her own two squares and is obviously still hungry. 

When we are finished, she leans back in her chair and eyes the ceiling, as if there is something fascinating up there. I glance up myself, but find nothing but the usual bare white plaster.  I look back at Sammie.  Her eyes have closed.  Has she gone to sleep?

“I didn’t have a normal childhood,” she says. 

I jolt.  She just said something about her past.  I remain silent, scared that I’ll say something idiotic and make her clam up again. 

She clenches and unclenches her fingers around her arms.  “I had a really bad childhood, actually.  I...you know those dogs you were talking about?”

I tilt my head.  “Dogs?”

She opens her eyes.  “Yeah.  Pavlov and his dogs, the ones who salivated when he rang the bell.”

“Yeah,” I say, wondering how this relates to her past. 

“Did he keep them in a lab?”

“Probably.”

“I bet he did, because he was experimenting on them.”  She glares down at the table.  “And
—
and I bet he didn’t let them go outside, because he was afraid if they interacted with outside stuff, like the grass and trees and air, the experiments would get messed up.  I bet he put tubes in their mouths and stuck them with needles, and ran all sorts of tests, and made them lie in a metal tube so he could look at their brains.  And I bet
—
I bet those dogs wished more than anything they could have a normal life, and wondered why they were being treated this way when it wasn’t their
fault
they were born with the ability to...salivate.”

She looks up, breathing hard.  Her blue eyes contain a mixture of emotions:  anger, pain, and extreme vulnerability.  I want to get out of my chair and hold her, but I know this would freak her out, and now I know why:  she grew up in a science lab, getting experimented on like some kind of test animal.  Of course she doesn’t like to be touched.  How many years of her life did she spend getting poked and prodded without her permission? 

“Sammie, I’m so sorry.”

She laughs a little, and her eyes fill with tears.  “For what?”

“That this happened to you.”

“It wasn’t
your
fault.”

“No, I mean, that’s just something you say.”  All those times she didn’t understand some figure of speech, the reason she knows nothing about school, or families, or field trips
—
she never experienced them.  Anger burns through me, a powerful feeling that starts at the tips of my fingers and surges up into my arms and chest.  How could someone do this to her? 

“It was that guy, wasn’t it?  Michael Thorne,” I spit.

She nods.  “He was sort of the leader of the whole thing, though the place was huge.  Tons of scientists and doctors and, uh, how do I put this?  Investors?  Their big goal was to figure out the exact gene that turned on the ability to fly, so that maybe they could turn it on in other people, too.  Sell it to the military and whoever else had the money.  So there were always lots of people around, coming in to see what I could do.  Checking out the product.”  She rolls her eyes.

“Thats...that’s awful.  I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

I shake my head.  “How long were you there?”

She takes a deep breath and glances at the ceiling.  “I’m not entirely sure.  I hardly remember anything before it, so I must have been really young when they...took me.  About eleven years?  It’s blurry.  Whole months kind of fuzz together.  I
—
I try not to think about it.”

I blink.  Eleven years?  I’m having a hard time processing this.  It’s just, I didn’t think people were capable of this, of holding a child captive for more than a decade.  If it were any child I would be enraged, but because it’s Sammie, I’m completely losing it.  I rise from my chair.

“Damien, are you okay?”

“I don’t understand how this could happen.”

She gets up, steps in front of me, and lays her hand on my chest.  I start, shaken.  Her eyes are wide and intense, their blueness vivid against the gray of my sweatshirt.

“You feel that?” she says. 

“What?”

“Your heartbeat.  Life.”

I nod.

“A lot of people, I don’t think they’re very careful with it.  They’re so focused on improving their own lives, they don’t care what they do to other people’s.” 

I swallow hard, as my heart continues to pulse beneath her fingers.  After a long moment, she pulls her hand away. 

“I’m sorry I ruined your life,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.

“I’m sorry other people ruined yours.”

She steps away, then slides down into the chair again, as if all of her energy is drained.  I sit in the chair beside her, watching her carefully, trying to gauge her emotional state.  She is unreadable.  Her expression is blank, her eyes distant, as if she has withdrawn from reality. 

“How did you escape?” I say.

She jolts.  “What?”

“The science lab.  How did you escape?”

“I didn’t.”

I cock my head.  “What?”

“Can we
—
can we go somewhere else?  I think I need to get out of this kitchen.”

“Why?”

“It’s too white.”

We get up from the table, and I lead her into the living room, where she’s never been.  (Heck, I hardly even go in here, too often studying to be lounging with my parents in front of the TV.)  The room has thick green carpet, tan couches made of leather, and walls painted a pale yellow.  Against one wall, a wooden entertainment center contains the widescreen television, Dad’s record player, and shelves and shelves of videotapes and DVDs.  Sammie jumps into the air and hovers about two feet off the ground to get a look at the framed pictures arranged atop the entertainment center. 

“Aw, it’s you at the...zoo?  Is that a zoo?” she says.

“Considering there’s a zebra behind me, I think it’s safe to say that’s a zoo.”

She casts me an annoyed look.  “Raised in a science lab.  Still figuring out the world.”

I swallow hard.  “Right.”

“And what’s this?  Why are you wearing that weird hat?”

“I was a cowboy for Halloween.”

“How old were you?”

“Eight.” 

She turns to me and grins.  “You were so
cute
.”

My heart goes spluttering.  I’m extremely embarrassed to have her poring over the old photos my parents insist on plastering every room with.  (This is one of those things that makes me wish I had a brother or sister, with whom I could have split the embarrassment.)  But also...she called me cute.  The eight-year-old version of me, but still.

Then Sammie’s story comes crashing down on me again, and my emotions slump.  Someone stole from her the chance to wear a goofy costume and sprint from door to door begging for candy.  As if this hits Sammie, too, she sinks to the ground and clutches her arms around her chest.

“I don’t really remember my family, in case you’re wondering,” she says.  “I barely remember my mom, and my dad...”  She shakes her head. 

“Do you think your family looked for you, after you got taken?”

She shrugs, looking distant again.  “I hope they didn’t.  Thorne, well, he gets what he wants, and people who get in his way...tend to disappear.” 

I shiver, thinking about how I refused to help him yesterday.  “You said you didn’t escape from him, but if that’s the case, how are you here?”

She walks over to one of the couches and drops onto it, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to her chest.  “I got kidnapped.”

My mouth drops open.  “By who?”

“Let’s go ahead and use the general term ‘criminals.’”

“You got kidnapped from mad scientists by criminals?”

She nods.  “Basically.”

“Is that...where you go every day?  To the criminals?”

She nods again, and her eyes drop to the floor.

“What kind of criminals are we talking about here?” I say.

“The highly organized, rich, powerful kind.”

“Do you, like, engage in crime?”  Unexpectedly, my tone comes out disgusted.  I think I’m more repulsed by the idea of criminals kidnapping Sammie than with Sammie herself for doing what they say, but she looks like she’s been slapped in the face.