Through Glass(59)

I held the wood above me, letting the bright light filter into the air in a halo of sunshine. Bridget looked at me once and nodded as if in approval. Why I needed her approval, though, I wasn’t sure. I narrowed my eyes at her in question, but she only turned away from me.

“Stay right with me, Lex,” she whispered before taking off down the dark aisle.

I hesitated, still not sure what was scaring her, before I followed her quickly. My head throbbing with each step, the pace almost too fast for me to manage. She shone her light down every aisle we passed, the flashlight and neon gun pointed in sync like she thought she was in some spy movie.

I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t find it in me. Her tension still hadn’t lessoned enough that I could feel anything beyond the terror that still rippled through me.

The sounds of our panicked breaths joined the soft sound of our footsteps as we walked, each step sounding louder than I knew it really was.

I held the light higher, my other hand gripping the rail as I followed her. I wanted to say that the light made her safe, but with how she was acting, I wasn’t quite so sure anymore.

Bridget continued to move until she led us out of the grocery store and into the darkness of the world outside. Without the enclosed walls, the sound of our panic spread away from us, leaving us trapped in silence.

I would have expected her to relax, but her body stayed tensed and her gun still pointed dangerously before us. The action only put me more on edge, my nerves jumping dangerously. She walked forward a few steps before she suddenly relaxed then her gun dropped to the side, even though her flashlight stayed high.

“We need to get her back to Azul,” she said, her back still to me as she spoke.

I looked around quickly, not knowing if she was talking to me; her voice was so deep.

“Bridget?” I asked, my anxiety growing the longer she kept her back to me.

“I’m sorry, Lex,” she said, her voice deep as she turned to me, “but I just can’t trust you yet.”

Her face pulled up in a wicked half smile, her high ponytail swinging as she lifted her arm, the gun pointing right to my chest.

The sound of a shot echoed through the empty blackness as light burst from the end of the gun.

I never felt the impact. All I saw was black. All I felt was cold.





Everything was cold, so cold and hard. It was the first thing I was aware of; the cold, hard floor that someone had lain me on. It wasn’t like the grocery store, I could already tell that nothing would be familiar. I knew I had been brought here. I felt the cold rock beneath me, my fingertips running over the small crack in the stone as if looking for something familiar, I already knew there wouldn’t be any and it scared me.

A dull, red light seeped through my eye lids, stinging my retinas. A light that should be unbelievably welcome only brought more questions about where I had been brought and why. Answers that I wasn’t sure I would find.

My eyes opened slowly to a grey cement room that surrounded me. They burned as they attempted to adjust while I took in the cement that seamed and cracked like an over-used bomb-shelter. I held completely still as I looked around the bare space, the only other objects that I could see were a circular grated drain in the floor and a lone light bulb, the dim glowing orb hanging from a single wire. The frigid temperature of the empty room seeped into my body, making my skin prickle, even through my father’s leather jacket, everything was too cold.

I didn’t dare move, a million horror movies ran through my mind as the room in front of me came into clearer focus. I looked at the three walls that faced me. Three bare walls, I couldn’t even see a door.

I was trapped here.

A shiver wound its way over my skin and I moved into myself in an attempt to find warmth, however the one movement made it very clear that it was not going to happen. The coldness of the cement was everywhere.

Everything ached as I moved, deep tissue aches that rippled over my body until they congregated over the still throbbing pain in my head and a spot right over my heart. Right where I was sure the bullet had hit.

My eyes widened at the thought, my hand flying to my chest in a panic. My fingers gripped the fabric of the shirt I wore, a tiny hole over my heart the only evidence that anything had even happened. That I had been shot. There wasn’t a sign of a bullet or of blood. My skin was smooth and unmarred beneath the hole. Besides the pain in my chest, I wouldn’t have known anything had happened. Someone had washed all sign of that away.

I was clean.

My clothes had been cleaned as well. A sharp scent of detergent was stagnant in the air around me. The grit on my skin and hair that I had grown so used to was gone, instead, the smoothness that I hadn’t felt in years was all that remained. It was weird how the grime had become normal and now, without it, I felt unclean. I ran my hands over my skin, missing the texture of the filth I had lived in for so long, but glad someone had washed me.

Washed.

I sat up quickly, my head spinning with the movement as my fingers clawed at my jacket, pulling the sleeve on my right arm down to reveal the skin of my wrist, the lines of Cohen’s drawing now barely visible.

“No,” I panted, deep fear rippling through me as the panic began to grow, my heart seizing together painfully. “Nonononono.”

I covered my wrist with my hand, my illogical thinking begging me to cover it up before it disappeared forever. I couldn’t lose it, the last precious thing that Cohen had given me. It clung to my skin like my brothers clothes, my father’s jacket. I couldn’t lose it. I patted my jacket pockets, searching for a pen, and almost screamed in relief as my fingers found one, tucked in the back pocket of my brother’s pants.