Chapter 15, Part 2

“Hey, Kyle!”

The whisper jerked Kyle from his light slumber. It was so unexpected he thought he’d imagined it. Years of practice had trained him to keep still, so he fixed his gaze on the wall only a few inches from his face and listened. If there was someone in his room they would have come in through the door and that definitely would have woken him up.

“Sparky!”

His eyes narrowed. It was coming from under his bed. And only one person dared to call him that. He edged close to the crack between the bed and the wall and peered down into Mariah’s white face.

“What the…? How’d you get in here?” he hissed.

“Can they hear us?” she whispered back.

“No, there’s no sound on the cameras.”

“Ok.” She dared to speak a little louder.

“What. Are. You. Doing. Here?”

“You saw what happened today. How do you think I got here?” there was a tremor of panic in her voice. He relaxed back into his normal sleeping position. There might not be sound but there was still video for anyone who wanted to see.

“How’d you get across the hall?” he asked.

“I went over. There’s a conference room above us.” She paused for a long moment. “You going to turn me in?”

The suspicion prodded him more than he wanted to admit. He’d never really had a friend before and Mariah was the closest thing to it. Still it made sense that she didn’t trust him.

“No,” he said. “Listen my d…Amelli brought me to his office weeks ago. He wanted me to start training you to see if your abilities would kick in. Said if I did, he’d let me go.”

“You believe him?” She was realistically curious, if nothing else.

“No.” He hated how the hurt bled through. “But it’s not like I had much choice.”

“Think anyone saw that today?” she asked after a pause.

“I think we’d know if they had already.” Given the time and money his dad was pouring into his alien conspiracy theories, he wouldn’t be taking his time if a report had been made. If his dad did find out, Kyle didn’t even want to think of the consequences of withholding that sort of information.

“Ok.” She didn’t sound much relieved. “Listen, Kyle, I’m assuming you don’t want to stay here forever.”

“You think?”

“I can get out of here, I think, but I have no idea where we are and then there’s the small problem of security.”

“What are you getting at?” His heart skipped frantically.

“Listen, I’m planning on getting out of here. But since this is the first time I’ve been locked up in a prison, I’m new at the whole escape thing. I’m going to need help. You in?”

“When?” the word tumbled out of his mouth before he had a chance to think.

“I don’t know. We’ll need some more information won’t we? Like, where on earth are we, for starters?”

“Arkansas. In some isolated corner of a mountain range.”

“Awesome. Any idea how far civilization is?”

“A ways.”

“Yeah, this is going to be great,” she muttered. “Hey, do you know what happened to Cassie and the others?”

“No, they skipped town. Managed to go deep underground from what I’ve heard. There’s been no new leads.”

“Good.” There was grim pleasure in her voice. “Of course that probably means we can’t find them either.”

“We?”

“Oh! Well…”

“Let’s just focus on getting out first,” Kyle interrupted. He didn’t belong anywhere, much less with Mariah’s friends who he’d actively chased down before assisting in her kidnapping. It was actually a miracle she trusted him with this crazed plan.

“Ok.”

“I’m familiar with the guard’s schedule down here. Not so much up top. We’ll have to start paying extra attention when they let us out. Numbers, routines, everything.”

“Got it.”

“If we can pull this off, how are we getting out of the cells?” Kyle asked.

“I’ll need to practice but I think I can maybe pull you through behind me.” He imagined she was tapping her chin at the moment, thinking things through. “Don’t freak out and don’t move.”

Despite the warning, he still jerked a little when her hand stuck through beside his face.

“Grab my hand,” she whispered. He did as ordered and she pulled down. His fingers made it into the mattress before they got stuck. She gave a frustrated sigh and pushed his hand back out and withdrew hers.

“Yeah, a lot of practice,” she said. “We’ll have to keep training. It’s helped me with a lot of things I didn’t know I could do. I only recently discovered I could take things with me.”

“How are you hiding all this from the doctors?” he asked, a little impressed.

“Perks of being a sixteen year old. You say “like” and “totally” enough and no one really takes you seriously.” She had a hint of laughter in her voice. “But really, I’m scared to death and I know if they figure anything out, I’ll never get out of here.”

“You got that right,” he murmured.

“I’d better get back,” she said. “I’ll come over tomorrow night?”

“Let’s see how tomorrow goes,” Kyle warned.

“Ok. ‘Night, Sparky.”

He made no reply and heard her scoot away. Silence fell seconds later and he risked a glance through the narrow crack. She was gone. He shook his head. She was naïve and enthusiastic. If he wasn’t careful, it would rub off on him. But years of bitter experience in the facility and others like it reminded him that escaping would take more than a few miracles.

Hey, guys! Don’t forget that a new character is coming next week! I’m still looking for a name, so check out last week’s post for the details! 

Hope you enjoyed this week’s installment! Anything you’d like to see happen in the future?