I sat up in my bed waiting for Mom to retreat to her own room so I could sneak back down to Dad’s office. The files were nagging at my brain because, for some reason, those names sounded so familiar. But not enough to put a face behind. I had to understand what the hell was going on, no one else was going to tell me and I was sick and tired of having the curtains shut in my face.
Weight had begun to pull my lids down. I had curled up against my pillows, the blanket barely reaching my hips while waiting for Mom. Sleep had been gnawing at my numbing headache notifying me that I should be asleep by now. My lungs sucked in a calming breath as my sight started to fade when I heard her making her way up the stairs. I jolted up. Fuck yes. That same sorrowful sigh she made after an exhausting day echoed in the hallway. I almost thought I shouldn’t go behind her back. But who was that going to help?
Silently and patiently waiting to hear Mom finally enter her room the knob on my door started to turn. My heart jumped into my throat and I dove into the pillows and blankets hiding my face. Leveling out my breathing I listened as my door creaked open. She stood there a moment and whispered something I couldn’t quite make out. As I let out a sleepy breath the door closed with the whine of the old hinges. I waited till I heard her door squeak shut and fall into place in the door frame.
I threw off the blankets and jumped out of bed, creeping towards the door. I grabbed the knob and started to turn as my skin lit up in a fury of ice and goosebumps, fear burying itself into my chest as I tried to figure out where this feeling was coming from.
No. No. No no no no.
My first instinct was to look up at the curtains. Sitting flat against the wall and wide open, there across the street stood stalker boy. And for the first time I have ever seen, he moved. He’s moving towards me. Towards the house. Panic set into my bones, and I dove downstairs to make sure the door was locked. Almost tripping and stumbling down each stair, not even thinking about all the noise I was making, not worried about avoiding the creaky boards my feet met on each step I took, I made it to the door with relief to find it locked. Same with the back door. I breathed out, trying to calm my heavy heart rate.
Pressing my back against the back door and sliding down till I hit the floor I just sat there, breathing. The icy grasp still held me tight, and the tingles lingered. As long as the ringing didn't exist I was okay, I was going to be okay.
I looked down at my socked feet realizing I was downstairs and the whole reason I came down here in the first place.
I stood and quickly paced to Dad’s office to find it fucking locked. I cursed to myself, wondering what the hell I was going to do now. I fiddled with my fingers until a tiny voice in the back of my head gave me an idea, a paperclip.
I scanned and searched until I found a dented, torn-up paperclip on the coffee table beside the couch. I messed around with the lock, groaning with every failed attempt. Every single time I missed I thought I heard Mom coming down the stairs, a creek or a shift in the house and I'd freeze. After I slipped up again I hesitated, listening for the shift but no such thing came. Instead, a shadow moved along the floor, dashing from one room to the other. For a moment, I thought it was Mom but fear soon bellowed in a deep portion of my body when a breeze moved the curtains to the right of the grey couch. The window was open.
I stood, ambling toward the living room and scanning while I panicked. The window on the right of the plush cushioned couch was completely open. I swallowed hard while I made my way towards the dark, cool air. The dark wooden coffee table sitting to the left of the couch looked as if it were shifted since I saw it last. The fireplace opposite the couch sent a wash of cold over my feet. Forcing my gaze I looked up at the TV sitting atop the mantel that reflected an image of the living room. A shadowy figure sat on the right cushion of the couch.
I turned on my heel, gasping. Nothing. No one was there. My hands began trembling.
Absolute terror filled my bones and waves of nausea started as I launched into a search of my body for my phone. Finally grabbing ahold of the device that was tucked in my right front pocket, I turned on the flashlight waving it around like I was a cop looking for drugs. Was stalker boy in my fucking house? Was I really about to fight some boy I have never spoken a word to? Checking in every crevice, corner, and nook and finding nothing was a huge weight lifted off my chest. I turned around, still scanning for whatever the fuck I just saw I made my way back to the office door, checking over my shoulder every couple seconds till I got drawn back into my main point of focus.
Click. Click. Tick. And I slip again. Start all over.
Click. Tick. Click. Click-
“Kaidance.” My heart dropped. “What’re doing?” I dropped the paperclip but kept my eyes locked on the door. "Kaidance?" Looking up to see Mom in her 'comfy pants', a robe wrapped around her upper half and her hair pulled into a loose bun I just stared at her. She dropped her shoulders and shook her head. “I knew curiosity would get the best of you, I told your father this and he-” She shook her head again. “I saw nothing.” She stuck out her fisted hand.
“What? Mom-”
“Come over here and take this before I change my mind. I know you know what you’re looking for. Go find it.” Opening my hand below hers, she dropped a silver key into my hand and turned around, retreating upstairs.
My stomach churned and ached inside my body as if I were going to vomit. The moment I thought I was caught was almost heart-stopping. I thought she would beat the shit out of me, smack me, yell, cuss, something. I looked down at the key, she wanted me to find whatever it is. I am going to figure out what he is hiding, Mom. I promise.
Without any more hesitation, I jolted back to the door, heavy satisfaction settling into my bones when the door actually unlocked.
Fucking. Finally.
I pushed the door aside, sliding it aside and into the wall to reveal a very dark office. I flicked on the light that hung off the ceiling, the three cupped bulbs reflecting off the white paint. Passing the dark oak desk and stepping over the delicate rug, I made my way to the filing cabinet, which was still unlocked. Which was how I was caught. I was mentally kicking myself. Mom had locked the door fully knowing I had already been in the room, and she knew that I wasn’t just going to leave it be.
I opened the second drawer and the files were all back where I put them last, probably not even close to where Dad had them but when was he ever going to come back. He fucking left, left me here without such a thing as a goodbye. Whatever. I pulled out the two files that I had snooped through before, scanning over them again. I opened Samuel Harlows’ file, scanning over the words I couldn’t understand earlier.
50Please respect copyright.PENANAUuXv2YtonG
DATE:
6.14.2021
TS. responds well to CM. Ideal reaction: camaraderie; not met. A.2 further together testing.
Referent respond well to VS. Alliance met, appeal failed. A.1 further testing is required.
Referent refused to recognize BG. A.3 failed. A.4 testing required.
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DATE:
6.29.2021
TS encountered CM & VS - no issue. Physical engagement took place between TS & BG. Came to their own conclusion
SN: The two seemed to have had an interesting reaction when they fought, SH did end up coming above BG but they both seemed to pick up on a new light in each other. A moment of bond may have occurred - DOC ordered not to interfere
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All the notes were relatively similar, all describing an interaction with what I could only assume were others. What did TS mean? A.1? A.4? This is what Dad was hiding? Continuing my search, I just couldn't make sense of this. There almost seemed to be no fucking point, I couldn’t even understand what the hell this meant anyways.
That was until I saw his picture. It was Sam.
The boy from the seventh grade.
Wavy fawn hair that hung just above his brow line, his eyes a golden brown, his nose was dotted with freckles, his lips were blush pink and his skin almost seemed to glow in the picture. It was the boy I had a crush on in the sixth grade but disappeared after I got sick. I remembered asking my friends and they all said the same thing, He just stopped showing up. Rumors flew, and lies bounced around. Once those girls got word that I had been asking about him, the whole school lit up like a Christmas tree. I was the weird girl who obsessed over him for so long that he ended up leaving, that’s why I was gone for so long. I was in a crazy house for stalking the poor kid.
The worst year of my life. In and out of hospitals due to an unknown illness, with that young girl's heartbreak. And that boy was now all grown up. What the fuck was this? Was Dad some spy to keep me from dating?
I opened the second file that I had read earlier, Cassion Morrison.
I flipped through the pages relatively quickly, reading all similar things except CM seemed to only piss VS off, they seemed to have an odd brotherly connection. I guess, now that I had seen Sam five years later, I wanted to find other pictures. I wanted to understand why these names put a spark in my chest and butterflies in my stomach.
I kept flipping through the pages, with a high hope to find a picture of CM, reading about this encounter and that action and what happened on this day six years ago - wait - six years ago? I opened Sam’s file again, flipping to the very last page of his paperwork.
4.27.2016
One week exactly before I went back to school after a two-week-long hospital visit. Why does my Dad have paperwork of...What was my Dad so desperately trying to hide?
I looked back through Cassion Morrisons’ file again, flipping all the way through, and finding the same exact date with an entry: All accounted for. I searched through the pages again with the intent to find a picture of CM but apparently, it did not exist in this file.
Digging back into the filing cabinet, I pulled another file out, this one blue and labeled VS. This has something to do with Sam. I opened the file and began reading.
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Valen Swovento
Age - 18 Arrival - 12 Visual - 25 Physical - 15
Weekly dosage - Daily check-up - Emotional monitoring
DATE:
7.17.2021
TS monopolized mutiny amongst all other TS. Will be monitored. No testing - 30 days
SN: Since TS has been turned into the program by his father, program? What program? TS has shown anger improvement but 7.17 of 21, TS seemed to have a rage towards the others for no studied viable reason. TS will not speak to DOC, DOC cannot perform tests or blood samples whilst TS is in a heightened state. The gas is ineffective towards TS, TS is unaware - this needs to be maintained.
I flipped to the back of the file, hovering my fingers over the last flippable page. What if there is no picture like in CMs' file? My fingers pinched the corner of the page, I almost didn’t flip. I didn’t want the disappointment, but when I saw the frame of a polaroid my heart leaped out of my chest. I tossed the page aside and my eyes fell on his jawline - sharp and sexy. Scanning over the picture as my cheeks grew hot, his blue eyes almost electrified me, his nose was sharp but crooked as if it had been broken when the picture was taken. His brows sat flat against his forehead but seemed to make him look like he was forever mad at the world. Hell, I would be too if my Dad put me in some fucking program.
I held the picture a little closer and that was when I noticed it. The scar. The same scar I had. It was Eric!? Eric was Sam’s best friend and I was Erics’. I could barely recognize him, he got so…angry. My heart began to ache. The friends I knew, the friends who I had come to care for were taken from me, by my own father?
Fury began to boil my blood, my skin became hot, and my eyes began to burn. I was so lonely for years and I had no one to blame but my father. Pain began to blossom in my neck, and it only grew. It stretched up my neck and into my head. My ears began to burn, tears began to stream down my face, and my body trembled. Why was I so angry? I wanted to rip my father apart. I wanted him to feel the pain he caused, the pain he was causing.
Just as I was about to throw my head back and let a scream bellow out of me a cool hand touched my shoulder. Icy spikes lit up my back, shivers rushed down my arms. It was like jumping into a pool for the first time and shivering as soon as you come back to the surface. My body went limp, I just hung forward letting myself cry, the pain forcing sobs. The hand moved, finally catching my full attention.
“Kaidance.”
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50Please respect copyright.PENANA2EprbJHi1V