Lindsey Renee Backen's Blog, page 2

Chapter Seventeen - Reunion

The closer she got to home, the more she wanted to see Clark and Mallory, but the entire village would come out and that would overwhelm Neil. She also hadn't figured out what to tell Mr. Blackwell about her decision to return home without his royal permission.

"Tucker, can you take us to Jeremy's the back way?" she asked. "I don't want the entire village coming at once."

"Neither do I," Tucker said. "They're going to wonder why I still have all their things."

Neil nudged her leg, whispering, "I buy."

"Can you do that?" Katie asked.

Neil nodded.

"Do what?"

"He wants to buy the whole load, but I don't know how much that would cost."

Tucker threw her a glance. "Sweetheart, Neil's got enough money to buy the entire market. But we're going to keep that between the three of us. Nobody in town needs to know that, least of all Mr. Blackwell."

Neil’s eyebrows pinched but he said, "Give to pride."

"Mallory and Jeremy?" Katie asked.

Neil nodded but he kept his face toward the window, watching the trees rush by. Winter now, the grass was dead. The mesquite trees maintained their tiny leaves, but the thorns still offered a sinister look. Katie swallowed. December was dreary but January and February could be brutal, and she wasn't sure how Neil would handle three months of cold and hunger. But Jeremy would have meat at least, though she wasn't sure if he'd planned for four people instead of two. She'd have to tell Neil all about spring.

She felt helpless and tears pricked. But Neil was no stranger to pain. If he could handle being shocked at a level six, he could handle the cold. She refused to look down the road that led to her old house, afraid it had fallen into the hands of Mr. Blackwell who had dismantled the house for scrap wood.

Jeremy's house was close now and her heart sped. This would work. This had to work.

Neil tore his eyes from the window to glance at her, sensing her squirm. She sent him what she hoped was a convincing smile. "Almost there."

And then they were there. Jeremy and Malory were both striding from the barn, carrying feed buckets. Mallery cocked her head toward the truck, said something to Jeremy. Then spied Katie and dropped both buckets, spilling the feed over the ground. Katie climbed over Neil and Tucker barely got the truck stopped before she jumped out.

"Katie!" Mallory's arms wrapped around her, and her sister squeezed so tight Katie couldn’t move for a moment. "We were beginning to think we'd never see you again! Are you on school break?"

"No," Katie whispered. "I . . . wanted to come back home. Can I still stay with you and Jeremy?"

Mallory blinked, then sputtered, "Of course you can."

Katie wiped her eyes, then motioned back to the car. "Um. I'll explain everything but I have Neil with me. He needed to get away too. Can he stay too, at least for a while? Oh, and he bought Tucker's stuff so we could come right away so that's all yours too."

"What?" Mallory frowned, then eyed the boy in the truck.

"It was all a lie," Katie said. "There was no school. Me and Neil have been locked inside a house."

"Oh my gosh . . ." Mallory sputtered.

Katie had planned on explaining things calmly but now that it came to the moment, all she could really do was cry. She didn't see their stares, but she heard Jeremy shifting from foot to foot, still holding the feed buckets, Neil’s breathing, strained and slow behind her, Tucker shifting in the creaking seat.

"Why don't you come inside and stay for lunch?" Jeremy said. "I'll finish the feeding and you can tell the whole story."

Katie nodded, wiped her face as she stepped back. But now it was Neil who had frozen, eying the peeling paint on the door of the house.

"I got to get this all unloaded," Tucker said. "If I'm going to take people their money I don't want to explain why I still have their stuff."

Jeremy frowned but offered a nod. "I'll help you after I finish."

Neil glanced between the men and Katie, but climbed out and began to unload the crates. Mallory pulled Katie into the house.

Jeremy's kitchen wasn't much different than Katie's farmhouse, but she still blinked at the dim interior. Even with Mallory's scrupulous housekeeping, the walls were faded paint with bits peeled off and smoothed away. An entire wall was covered with hanging dried herbs and a loaf of bread peeked from a glass covering on the table. The fire flickered behind the screen and an aluminum kettle steamed.

Tucker whistled cheerfully as he crossed the threshold with a crate full of the jars of corn. Neil followed with the crate of material but hesitated at the door. He swallowed and stepped through, kneeling to set down the crate. Katie began to talk to him, but he hurried out before one word was out.

"He bought all of this?" Mallory whispered.

"He wanted to make sure everyone got paid."

"Katie, we can't afford to pay him back."

"It's a gift," Katie said. "He came up with the idea. Please just take it. He won't miss the money, but he's scared. He's not used to kind people."

"How does he have money? I thought he was locked up."

"He was, but he wasn't supposed to be."

"Katie, that doesn't make sense."

"I can't tell you everything about Neil. He doesn't talk well so I don't even know everything about Neil. All I can tell you is that there's no way I would be here if it wasn’t for him."

And that was enough. Mallory was won over.

The items were squirreled away before Jeremy could see the extent of them. Neil offered his wrist again to the machine plugged into Tucker's truck and Tucker declined lunch, opting to go to the bank to exchange the UCs into the town currency.

Katie stepped closer to Neil as the truck rolled away. "Come inside and eat."

Neil shook his head. "No doors."

Katie paused. "How about we just keep the door open? Neil, they're not going to lock us inside."

Neil's eyes glinted again, and he sucked in a breath. "No doors."

Katie sighed but turned to shout, "Mallory, can we eat outside for lunch?"
"Outside?" Mallory called back.

"It's not very cold. I've been locked inside for four months."

Neil threw her a grateful look, but he still squirmed.

Mallory appeared with a plate of sandwich’s. "Well, when you put it that way..."

By the time Jeremy came in from the pigs, the girls had a blanket on the ground and plates of food set around like it was a spring picnic. A smile pulled at his mouth, but he asked no questions as he sat next to his wife.

Katie told the story as simply as she could: Neil was kept inside and required to do a certain amount of work each day. She was brought to keep him company. They had been left alone, planned an escape, and he'd broken down the door and helped her navigate the city.

She made no mention of AIDA or punishments, nor Neil’s last name or the detail that he hadn't exactly planned any escape. Neil stayed quiet, offering no protest to the story, but his head swiveled toward the rustling trees, the squeal of the pigs, the distant barking of a dog and there was no pretending in the building nerves of a slave who'd never seen anything beyond four walls.

Mallory grew pale but Jeremy attempted to pick up the conversation, pulling the boy back in. "What kind of work did you do, Neil?"

Neil's head snapped back. He blinked. "I . . . build worlds."

"Build world?"

"On screen."

"He's kind of an artist," Katie said. "He makes pictures that move. It's something they do in the city."

"What are they for?" Jeremy asked.

"I don't know." Katie turned to Neil. "Do you even know?"

Neil shook his head and shrugged.

"Well, what else can you do?" Jeremy asked.

Neil blinked. " . . . build little worlds."

"I imagine he could do just about anything," Katie said. "He's a quick learner."

Jeremy nodded once. "Well, I guess he can always help me with the pigs until he finds somewhere to work."

"We'll have to find work for you too, Katie," Mallory said. "After you've settled in a bit. Maybe you could help Kathrine at the dress shop. She's been struggling to keep up with the winter clothes."

Katie nodded slowly. She'd been so set on getting home, she hadn't thought about what she'd do when she got here.

"I'll ask her," she said. "We'll need to get some clothes anyway. They took mine, and we didn't bring any back."

Mallory nodded. "We'll go tomorrow. Everyone will want to see you anyway."

Her sister turned back to drink the last of her waterglass and Katie swallowed, remembering Mr. Blackwell's reminder that he owned the well her sister drank from.

Surely, he wouldn't risk it. Jeremy may be a pig farmer, but he was well-liked in town. She glanced at Neil, swallowing slowly. If Jeremy was punished for her choice, he wouldn't be the first one.

Chapter Sixteen - The Road Home

The backyards turned into a street, then a sidewalk. Katie resisted the urge to run, hoping holding Neil's hand would give the appearance of two people strolling on a morning walk. Though no neighbors would recognize her, she doubted they'd know Neil either. Her suspicion was confirmed by the drawn eyebrows of the first man who drove past.

"Katie," Neil whispered.

"I saw," she said.

"The sky is pink."

She blinked, glancing toward Neil's face. His gaze traveling far past the houses around them, past the doors that could potentially open, fixated at the end of the road where the sun broke through.

"Yes, it is," she answered.

"Not blue?"

"Oh," she glanced back toward the painted colors. "It will be blue. That's the sunrise. It's always pink, purple, and orange first."

Neil huffed a laugh. "Sun... no rise."

"What?" Katie answered.

Neil dropped her hand to show a stationary finger. "Sun still. Earth moves." He circled one finger around the other. "Earth rises."

She knew that from the science books, though she'd often wondered if it was an error. But his attention had been at least temporarily arrested by the display of a world he'd only seen on a screen, a display that kept him walking in the right direction.

"It does?" she asked. "How does that work?"

They traveled another ten steps before he shook his head and replied, "Too many words."

A low hum rose from behind them as a car like the ones from the screen slowed, then blinded them with a flash of blue and red lights. Neil grunted, turning his face away, squeezing his eyes shut, yet he still managed to grab her hand. Katie took a step to run, but Neil was rooted again. She swallowed, swaying back toward him. Trick them. Trick them. It wasn't against a law to walk down the road, was it? Had AIDA tattled on them?

Neil forced his eyes open, pulling in a deep breath as a man in a tailored gray uniform stepped out of the car. He smiled at them. "Hello there!"

Katie opened her mouth, but Neil squeezed her hand before he replied himself, "Hello."

"One of the neighbors called," the man said. "They didn't recognize you. Are you visiting someone in this neighborhood?"

Neil pulled in a deep breath before he spoke. "We are going on a walk. We got lost."

"Where are you trying to go?"

"To the market." Neil kept his voice from cracking, but his breath sounded like it was scraping lightly against his chords.

The officer's eyes flickered down to Katie. "Is she chipped?"

Katie kept her eyes on the sidewalk, feeling her face flush.

"She is mine," Neil said.

"How much you want for her?"

Katie fought to keep her breath under control, but now it was her fingers tightening around Neil. Even if he didn't want to get rid of her--and she was no longer sure he wouldn't--Neil's voice wasn't going to last much longer.

He took another breath, let it out. Then sucked in another and said, "We're going to buy. Not sell. She is to carry... the things home."

The officer shifted his weight toward Neil. "Show your ID."

Katie resisted a look at the car to see if the door was unlocked because she could hear it running, but a second officer sat in the passenger seat watching her. She could say nothing, not without breaking Neil’s charade that she was his slave. And was it even a charade? He could sell her to this man right now, they could load her into that car and take her wherever they wanted.

Neil held out his hand, palm up, like he was attempting what he thought was a shake, but the officer passed a black box over his wrist. A voice like AIDA's, only a male version came from the box.

"Neil Alcott. Simulator landscape programmer. Address: Number three on street B. Citizenship Class A. No restrictions."

The officers knees had stiffened at the announcement of Neil's citizenship class, but he took a step back after the announcement was completed. "You mentioned you got turned around. Would you like an escort to the market?"

Neil shook his head, then replied, "Only directions. It is a nice day to walk." He'd kept himself from croaking, but his voice was losing the relaxed, deep tones and gradually moving to a strained higher pitch. She peeked at him. His face remained emotionless, but his eyes were beginning to shine with moisture.

But there was no need for him to continue to speak. The officer swung his arm to point further down the street, giving a series of right and left turns and numbers of blocks. Katie tried to remember the pattern but ended up with only a squiggly line of questionable lengths.

Neil at least sounded confident as he said, "Thank you."

"My pleasure," said the officer. Then he climbed back into the car, pulled onto the road to make a large turn, and glided out of the neighborhood.

"Neil, you did it," Katie said.

Neil panted twice, wiped a full tear out of his eye. His hand was still wet when he grabbed her hand and towed her quicky down one street, then a turn, another two streets, another turn. She said nothing, afraid to break his concentration, unsure if his turns were right or wrong but he had as good a chance as she did.

The market. She had lost track of days, wasn't sure if Tucker would be there. But even if he wasn't, the road home was. The road ran by the river in portions. If they could find the road, they could find the river. And if Neil was going, he had committed himself to this journey. She would never succeed on this escape without his help, but she wasn't ready to think of that yet.

She sneaked a glance at him, but his eyes were locked ahead, still blinking more than usual.

The houses grew into higher buildings like workshops, only completely enclosed, and it was impossible to tell what the merchant sold from outside. The city was noisy, mostly covering the occasional birds with cars, honking, and people talking to their wrists as they walked past. But she'd been right on one thing. No cars crashed into each other; no bodies were brought out covered with sheets. Neil's village was larger than hers, louder, busier, but still different than what had been portrayed on the screen.

They walked on, collecting curious glances but no one else spoke to them. The buildings began to shrink and become spaced out. Houses reappeared. And still Neil walked on, making each turn without hesitation. Until he stopped, lifting his head to survey the fence of metal ahead, the links offering a glimpse of the other side, blocked only by signs that read: Electrical Fences. Do not touch.

Neil read it the moment she did, and it elicited the first noise from his mouth in half an hour in a whimper. A long line of trucks stretched back from a gate and beside it a guard stood at a small entryway where people showed their wrists before passing through.

"You have no restrictions in town," she said quickly. "They'll probably let you through."

Neil nodded.

"Will they let me, do you think? I never got... vaccinated."

Neil sighed, looking at her, his eyes already dulling with defeat.

Katie chewed her lip, then whispered frantically, "We've already made it this far. We can't go back to your house. We'll be punished for leaving. We have to at least try."

Neil turned a worried look back to the gate. "Live . . . there." His voice came out more rasp than tone. He motioned with his head back to the city, then whispered, "No restrictions."

Katie's knees shook. She watched the gate, not him. He wasn't wrong. Mr. Alcott may find them if they lived in the city, but he also knew where her village was and could find them there. Neil was an adult with no restrictions: he could probably purchase things in the city, get a house, continue his job. She could go to school. She could have exactly what she had wanted and do what Mr. Blackwell suggested. Marry Neil, start a new life, never return.

Her eyes filled. All she wanted was her sister back. At this point she'd be thrilled to lay eyes on Jeremy. And Clark. Clark was someone she couldn't leave behind, a gap in her heart that all Neil's company couldn't fill, a constant draw, no matter how far away he was. No matter how incompatible their futures, how much pain their relationship brought to the table, or how severe the potential difficulties it presented.

The gate doubled, then blurred. Neil's hand slipped back into hers, but it didn't tighten.

He tugged her toward the back of the line, and she walked with him. Her tears dropped as she turned her face toward him, wishing he was as blurred as the gate. Surely if this went sour, only she would be taken. He could go live by himself. He'd be free in the city or the country.

His face didn't twitch, didn't show any tinge beyond a neutral mask, but his hand began to tremble as they grew closer to the gate. But the process looked easy. Most people flashed their wrists and were waved through without question. One or two showed a box they carried or gestured toward their companion. But it looked like one person identifying themselves was enough, at least in a few cases. Katie relaxed a little, but Neil’s tremble grew into a shake as they neared the sign on the fence. And now she was squeezing his hand, rethinking her own choice, but they were too close to ears to whisper that perhaps they should gamble against the city.

And then the guard was looking at her. "ID?"

Neil held out his wrist again and the voice from the box at the gate announced: "Neil Alcott. Simulator landscape programmer. Address: Number three on street B. Citizenship Class A. No restrictions."

The announcement had little effect on the man. He eyed Katie, then motioned toward her. "Is she chipped?"

"She is mine," Neil repeated.

"Is she chipped?" the man repeated, spatting each word.

"No."

The guard's eyes lit with interest. "How did you get her?"

"Gift."

"How much you want for her?"

"She is mine."

"Come on, everybody's got a price. Will you take five UCs?"

"No."

"Ten then?"

"She's not for sale!" Neil growled.

The guard's jaw jutted to one side. His eye scraped down her body. "Will you rent her for an hour?"

Confusion broke through Neil’s face. Katie squeezed his hand harder than she ever had.

"Give me an hour, and I'll wave your exit fee," the man said.

Panic began a steady build in Katie's chest. They'd brought no money. But Neil offered his wrist again. "She is my wife."

The guard glared but lifted his own wrist and held it above Neil's, elicit an even higher beep. Then a voice that sounded exactly like AIDA announced, "One UC requested. Entry transaction complete. Have a good day, Mr. Alcott. Would you like to hear your balance?"

Neil looked struck. The skin pulled tight against his throat, but he managed to open his lips. Confusion crossed his face again and he cocked his head. "Yes."

"Your requested balance is $186 UCs." AIDA announced pleasantly. "Your Citizenship Class is A. Your reserve is $870,000 UCs."

She wasn't sure what a UC was, but even Neil's eyes widened at the amount. He sagged, caught himself and re-masked his face. Even the guard looked startled. His eyes sparked before he wiped the interest away with a blink. He hit a button and the gate opened behind him. "Have a good day, Mr. Alcott. Let me know if I can find someone to assist you at any time."

Neil only offered him a stern look that mirrored the real Mr. Alcott and tugged Katie through. They cleared the fence and the land opened in front of them. Rows of cars lined up, hiding tables and the merchants, then shored by another set of older, rusted vehicles. And beyond that, the open fields that led to the sweeping limbs of a forest of weather-beaten oak trees and scrub brush. And past that, home.

But AIDA's speaker could be heard by anyone within ten or fifteen feet and consequently every eye lifted toward them as they walked through the gate. Neil warded them back with a glare while Katie lifted herself on her toes, peering for Tucker's truck. She had five seconds of a clear, but unproductive view before they were swarmed by merchants.

Neil pulled her against his chest, though he wasn't certain if he meant to protect her or instinctually shield himself. She waited for him to roar, the order them back as Mr. Alcott had, then realized . . . he couldn't. So she raised her own voice, yelling into the crowd. "Stand back from us! You will not touch us! You will not speak if you have any hope of a sale!"

It startled everyone, including Neil but he took the chance to drag her between the shoulders of the man directly ahead, and plow a path through the crowd. But the crowd followed, speaking rather than shouting, still trying to reason, to list off the things they could offer.

Neil lifted his arm, knocking aside one man who stumbled a few steps before he recovered but no one shouted foul play. They fell back only an inch.

Katie spun, peering, but every man was taller than her and she could only see a sea of chests, shoulders, and dingy clothes some covered in holes, others only dust.

"Go!" Neil called, then coughed. His breathing grew trapped and increasingly ragged, but he croaked again. "Leave us . . . alone!"

And then above the clammer a man called, "Katie?"

Her head jerked around, seeing only a sea of stubbled faces and nostrils, but she gathered the biggest breath and screamed, "Tucker!"

 From the edge of the circle, men began to be knocked aside as Tucker roared, "Leave 'em alone, you scumbags! Back to your booths and let them breathe!"

She wasn't sure if it was his shout that was effective or the speaker that boomed from the fence. "Every merchant to his booth!"

The crowd broke up, leaving her gasping for fresh air. Neil clung to her, his entire body so ridged, even the shaking was restricted to a short, tight tremble.

And then Tucker strode up with a grin, sweeping his eyes from her to the man standing behind her. "Well, it's about time, girl!"

"Back to your booth!" The guard behind them yelled.

Tucker threw him an irritated look but waved the pair to follow him. "I've been looking for you at every market day. I didn't know if my poor heart could handle going back to your sister again with no letter."

"How long has it been?"

"Four months." Tucker peeked back at them. "Who you got with you?"

"This is Neil?"

"Well, I heard that from the speaker. Neil, you a college boy?"

"No." Katie answered. She glanced at the other merchants, a few engaging customers but most standing at desolate booths eyeing Neil with hungry eyes.

"Neil," she said. "I need you to look at the things at Tucker's booth and act like you're going to buy them. Given them to me and I'll load them in his truck. Tucker, we need you to get us out of here."

"I'll explain everything on the road, but please, just help us get out."

The man frowned. "How come?"

"We've been locked in a house ever since I got here. We just away, but they're going to be looking for us." Her voice cracked as she begged, "Take me home. Please, take us home."

"Well, I gotta pack up my stuff," Tucker said. "Half of it I'm selling for other people. I don't even own it."

Katie nodded. "Okay. You load up and . . . Neil and I will pretend to look at the booths to appease them. Neil, can you actually buy things?"

Neil snorted, then nodded with raised eyebrows.

"I'll get loaded," Tucker said.

Katie took Neil’s hand perusing Tucker's booth, suddenly realizing it was almost a museum of her little village. She touched the stack of cloth. "See this? This is made from cotton me and my sister grew."

Neil cocked his head touching first it, then touched the jars of canned corn.

"That's corn. My friend Allison . . . her family grows it."

Tucker eyed them as he made trips to the truck and Katie grabbed two jars of corn to walk beside him, nesting it back into the crate and swallowing as she arranged the hay. "Maybe Neil can buy some of this to help you. I'm afraid if we don't leave now, they'll . . . they'll catch up to us."

"Who locked you up?"

"My sponsor family," Katie answered.

"And who is that?"

"That is Neil." Katie glanced at Neil. "He was locked up when I got there. He is the only reason I escaped."

Tucker's eyes turned toward Neil. "Why he locked up?"

"I don't know," Katie said. "But he's a friend. I told him if he could help me get here, he could come too."

Tucker sucked in a breath like he was contemplating the repercussions of taking a city person away from the city. But he nodded. "A friend of yours is a friend of mine."

"Thank you," Katie whispered.

She glanced back but Neil had wandered on his own to the next booth to the delight of the merchant.

"I'm supposing you've moved on from Clark then?"

Katie froze. Swallowed, then evaded with a question, "How is Clark?"

"Dutiful son by day. Black market, water-deliver by night, but you didn't hear that from me."

"How long has he done that?"

"He's done it for years." Tucker raised his eyebrows toward her. "I thought you knew."

She shook her head.

"Well, most people don't. They just know the water shows up in their bucket like it was left by the fairies. I only know because I caught him."

Katie took a breath. "Please don't . . . I'll figure out what to tell him about Neil."

"Have you told Neil about him?"

"I told Neil what he needed to know."

"Don't you think you should, before you haul him away from the city?"

"I told Neil if he helped me get away, he could live in the village, and nobody would hurt him anymore. I never promised anything else." She moved away before Tucker had a chance to respond, sucking in a breath as she moved to the booth where the merchant was talking so much Neil didn't have to say a word.

He was calmer now and sent her a soft smile. The merchant was smiling too. Neil must have bought something. It was weird to see him outside. Weird to see him normal. But something in her relaxed, something she hadn't even realized was tight.

Neil would be fine. He would adapt to village life. He would be accepted. He would, eventually, forgive her. But she couldn't tell him, not now, not yet. He wouldn't come. Figuring out how to buy something at a market didn't constitute knowing how to live on his own. His parents would find him. They'd lock him back up. Clark would understand.

Neil took her hand, held it in place and piled in a delicate golden necklace. Its pendent was two circles locked into each other, held by chains.

Chapter Fifteen - The Promise

Starlight twinkled through the gap in the door. Neil stood, stunned at the destruction he'd caused. The small delivery door that he'd managed to pry loose, wobbled on the floor in a bent square.

“Neil, you did it," Katie whispered.

The man began to pant. “I don’t want you gone.”

“We have to,” she said. “We have to go. Together, remember?” She dropped to her knees and tucked her head into the square, twisting to fit her shoulders and grunting as she slithered, squeezing her ribs, scraping her stomach. Even Clark would struggle to fit through this hole. There was no way Neil could leave unless the door was opened from the outside.

Crisp, cooler air hit her face. Her eyes ached as she stood and surveyed the horizon where dim yellow lights twinkled from the rectangles of every window as though they were created to outshine the stars. House after house blocked her view with dark blotches, the lines of rooftops broken only by the scraggly branches of an occasional tree. Her muscles tensed as she crouched, resisting the urge to flee with the instinct of a wild animal.

“Katie?” The door muffled Neil's voice. "Me too?"

She turned back toward the narrow square opening. She reached for the handle. Put her thumb on the latch. Paused. Swallowed. Pressed her thumb against the latch. The hateful bolt obeyed with a simple click. She pushed the door inward. The hallway was so dark, it seemed to suck in the starlight.

Neil stepped across the threshold, blinking at the red streetlights that guarded the sidewalks. His face pivoted to one side, then the other, blinking rapidly as his gaze followed the stretching sidewalks. His face lifted toward the stars, with eyes so wide she could see pinpoints of reflection into them.

“They’re watching,” he whispered.

“What?” She followed his stare toward the lights in the sky. “No, those are stars. That’s . . . natural electricity. It’s a ball of swirling light. There’s no AIDA up there.”

His eyes lowered slowly toward hers, then rose again. “Not true.”

“Those are stars. They’ve been there forever.”

Neil’s voice grew somber, but he only cast a glance back toward the safety of the house before he said. “Must run.”

Katie strode across the driveway, turning the corner, fleeing to the backyard where the houses created squares of shadows. She stalled, searching the low moon, useless now when she had no idea whether it was setting or rising.

Houses behind her. Houses in front of her. But a distant tree line stretched into the sky like an army of hands emerging from beneath the water. It was a guess, but it was the best she had.

“Follow me.”

Lines of trees grew near rivers. Home was upstream. Find the river. Find home.

Neil stood, roving the horizon with glazed eyes.

“Neil! We have to walk.”

He glanced at her. “Never—been out.”

“I know,” she whispered, mostly to herself. She released a slow breath, then extended her hand. “Come on. Hold my hand.”

His eyes lifted toward her, wary. “Big,” he said. “Too big.”

“It’s okay. I know the way,” she said. “We have to go. Before your dad gets back. They’ll fine him, remember? He hates fines. And then he's going up to an eight.”

Neil’s face grayed. His eyes dulled. He nodded. Grabbed her hand.

She swallowed, then led him down the sidewalk. The further they got from the house, the more she relaxed and the harder he gripped. The uneven ground punished her deception, threatening the thin soles of the shoes his mother had purchased for her . . . or for the girl before her.

“What was her name?” she asked.

“Who?”

“The other girl.”

He shrugged.

“You don’t know?”

“Never said. Just screamed.”

"Where'd your parents get her?"

"Market."

Katie walked faster. As the sky lit into a gray haze, the houses grew fewer and the block of trees grew taller. Lights began to outline windows, even sweep the yards whenever an occasional car pulled out of a driveway.

Katie set her eyes on the trees, tugging Neil as he spun this way, then that, sometimes even trying to walk backward. The sun began to paint the sky, lining the undersides of several thin clouds with a pinkish hew.

Neil stopped walking.

Katie spun, resisting a growl.

He blinked from behind splayed fingers.

“Neil?”

“Hurts,” he wailed.

She lifted her own eyes to the expansive pale blue, the golden beams showering the land. "The dawn?"

“Why’s it . . . so bright?”

“It’s not. Not yet.” She reached for his hand. “Close your eyes if you have to. Just follow me.”

He whimpered. Lowered his fingers to catch her hand. She gave him a reassuring smile. Felt his fingers tighten. She took a step, came to the end of her arm, and jerked against it like a tethered boat.

“Neil, come on. I’ll lead you.”

Neil swallowed. “Go back.”

“We can’t go back, remember? AIDA’s there.”

“AIDA’s dead.”

“Your parents are there,” she said. “We have to find my village--my pride--remember?”

He grimaced. “Prides don’t like . . . outside lions.”

“We’re not lions, Neil,” she said. “They’ll like you, I promise.”

Her heartbeat was turning into a war drum.

Neil studied her, then the trees around them. “Stay here.”

“We can’t stay here,” she said. “We can’t survive here. We need other people to survive.”

“I don’t have . . . others.”

“Your parents took care of you. They brought you everything you needed.”

“Um-hum.”

“But . . . but you weren’t free. They made you work. They hurt you. My people won’t hurt you.”

He swayed toward her. His eyes glittered like a starved animal.

“Please, Neil,” she said. “Come with me. Just try it. If you don’t like it, you can go home.”

His fingers gripped tighter. “And you come?”

She caught the refusal before it left her lips.

He stood, rooted like a tree.

She kept her eyes on weave of his shirt. Tasted the lie, felt its bitterness on her tongue before it left her lips. “Yes.”

His chest expanded as he drew in a slow breath. His grip lessened, palm cradling hers, though his fingers trembled. “How . . . ” He trailed off, searching for a word. “Many steps?”

“How far? I don’t know,” she answered. “It might take a few days, or we could find them by tonight. I came in the truck. I don’t know how long it will take to walk up the river.”

He eyed the water, his frown growing. “That killed your father.”

“Yes.”

“Your pride . . . didn’t want you.”

She wet her lips. “I think I didn’t want them.”

“I want you.”

“I know you do,” she said.

Even the smallest of smiles summoned his.

Novella: Chapter Fourteen -

A steak knife was no match for one inch of steel. She sawed in the dark, feeling the teeth of the blade file smoother with each pass. She sawed, driven by the idea that one inch of steel was all that kept her from freedom. She sawed because every second brought Mr. Alcott and his wrath closer to the door. She sawed because it was pitch black, because even finding her way to the kitchen drawer had been a challenge. She sawed because she had no idea what else to do.

The door was backward, its hinges inaccessible on the outside. It was steel, not wood, so it wouldn't splinter or burn. She jammed the knife into the delivery door, pulled hard. A sliver of sunlight appeared. The blade snapped, pinched between the lip.

She fell back, sitting in the darkness. Without sight, her tears felt warmer, sliding fast, leaving a sticky trail behind. The air was growing hot and stale.

She had made mistakes in her life, but most of them could be altered with an apology and an atonement or, at the least, interference from a third party who had stepped in to soften the blow. This one couldn't be fixed.

She couldn't turn back the clock. She'd gambled and she'd lost, and she'd pay with her life. Clark would never know how hard she'd tried to return to him. Mallory would assume she'd embraced city life and left them all behind without a second thought. Tucker would wait every second Saturday in vain. And she . . . She wasn't sure what would happen to her. If Mr. Alcott would kill her; if he'd punish her before he did. Or if he'd sell her to work inside a neighboring home.

Terror returned, and her imagination fled her skull and crashed around the layout of the house, searching for any object that could set her free. Her chest tightened; the tears created a stream.

She hadn't wanted this, hadn't signed up to be shut away in a house with a man who built entire worlds, but didn't know how to function like a normal human being in his own.

And she couldn't stop it. AIDA was broken. The electricity wouldn't come back until someone fixed it, until the fine was paid, and that wouldn't happen until Mr. Alcott returned.

Unless the man who would fix AIDA came first. Hope flickered. She crawled to the end of the entryway, flailing one arm in the darkness before her. Neil had the candle; if she found the light, she would find him.

She patted her way to the stairs, counted them as she climbed until her hand fell further and hit carpet instead of the ledge.

The air was gray now, not black, and a dim glow came from Neil’s bedroom. She crawled to the door, peering toward the tiny flame on the bedstand.

He sat on the floor next to the lion with his face pressed against his knees. His arm lay across his shins, limp, fingers loosely holding items she couldn't make out, like he'd been trying to make something and had given up.

She'd had found him even in the dark, for his breaths were long, strained.

“Neil,” she whispered, then scooted closer. “I had a thought. If the repair man came, or whoever gives the fine, would they knock on that door? Because if they did, we could shout through it. Or could you pay the fine, and then when the electricity comes back on, we could try to jam it when the delivery man comes. Or–”

His fingers tightened. He lifted his head, but his eyes were dull. He swallowed. Opened his mouth, took a breath to speak, then let it out.

Katie sat, pulling her knees against her chest, watching his eyes rove with the effort of choosing which words carried the most meaning with the least effort.

She waited so long, she almost guessed he wouldn't but then he choked out.

“Why you want me hurt?”

“What? I don't want you hurt, Neil.”

“I called. You sneak. Leave me . . . to be hurt.”

Her body froze, pricked, then panic washed over the shame.

“He wouldn't have hurt you, Neil, not if I had escaped. That's why I didn't tell you, so you had nothing to do with it. And for that matter, you let them bring me! You knew they were going to lock me up the moment I walked in, and you said nothing! Nothing!” She dropped her voice; the tears made it shake but the words still poured out in a shaking sob. “You deserve everything he does to you.”

His eyes hardened. His chest heaved, like a dying wave, each breath growing tighter until he stopped altogether.

Katie swallowed, regretting her words, but she'd put them out and now she had to stand behind them. She saw pain flash through his face before it went blank and she dropped her own eyes adding, “Besides, he's gonna punish me, not you. And I probably deserve it too.”

Then, from the bedstand, came the shrill call of the phone. They both jumped.

“How… I though AIDA…” Katie sputtered.

“Line,” Neil rasped, then rolled sideways to answer. He failed in the dark, waving his hand, whimpered at the second ring, and nearly panted at the third as his hand made contact. He snatched the receiver and dutifully rasped, “Hello?”

Mr. Alcott’s voice made Katie's heart sting, so loud his words were distinct this time. “Neil! Is Katie still there?”

“Yes. Dark.”

“Did you not warn her about the electricity! Did you?”

“Honey, we all forgot,” Mrs. Alcott’s voice echoed through sounding small and distant. “We forgot too, you and me. She didn't know, she didn't mean to, did she sweetheart. It was just a mistake, wasn't it, Neil?”

Neil's eyes lifted to hers, but she never saw them meet because she'd already squeezed hers shut. She heard the click of his swallow.

“Forgot,” Neil said. His voice grew steady, repeating, “I forgot.”

Katie's body shook in a burst of silent sobbing that only grew as Mr. Alcott took a deep breath.

 “I will pay the fine,” the man said. “I will ask them to turn the electricity back on, but I don't expect they'll bother coming until Monday and by then you are going to be three days behind in your work so you're gonna have to catch up or we're going to be fined for that too. You do whatever it takes to make sure Katie never does this again.”

“Yes,” Neil said, though his voice had become breathy, almost hopeful.

Katie ventured a peek, finding him still searching for her eyes, questioning if she could hear it.

She wouldn't be taken. She wouldn't be killed. His lie had saved her.

“And Neil,” Mr. Alcott said, “When AIDA comes back on, it's going up to an eight.”

Neil's smile sagged, then his face drained all color. His pupils, already larger in the candlelight expanded so much they nearly hid all traces of hazel.

His lips opened like he would pant if he had any breath. The voice that came sounded very different than the one Katie knew. It was higher and smaller and scared.

“Papa . . .”

“Do not call me that!” Mr. Alcott roared. “You are grown like a man; you are punished like a man! It goes to an eight. If you are very good, you will only feel it once.”

“But that's. . .” Katie began but Neil pressed his fingers against her mouth. They were cold. They shook.

But he rasped. “Yes.”

“I will try to get the lights back in as soon as I can,” Mr. Alcott repeated. “Your mother and I will be back on Monday. Until then, you and Katie will have to make do.”

“Yes,” Neil's voice cracked.

Mrs. Alcott spoke quickly, “Now there are candles in the . . .”

The voice stopped. The silence settled.

The candle burned between them.

Neil hung up without looking.

“Neil,” Katie began but after that there wasn't much to say. She bit her tongue against anything involving the word ‘sorry’ and instead whispered. “AIDA's not working. She can't hear us.”

“For now.”

“She can't see us either.”

Silence, then he agreed. “Yes.”

“Do you really want to protect me, Neil?”

Slower now. “Yes.”

“Then help me get out. I want to go home. And . . . if you do . . . you can come too.”

The darkness thickened.

“To your home?”

“My village, yes.”

She heard his fingernail run across material, once, twice, three times.

“Are there lions?”

“No,” she answered. “I've never seen a lion except on your screen. So maybe that means the other things on the screen aren't really outside either.”

“Hmmp,” his huff verted on disappointment. “I want lions.”

“But if we get the door open,” she said, “you can be free too. Your dad can't hurt you anymore and . . . you can see the rain for real.”

“And . . . we live there?”

“Yeah. You can meet my sister and my . . . friends.”

“Will they hurt us?”

“No. It's not like a lion pride. Everyone shares the land--or they have their own parts of it. We just have to force the door open.”

“Before they return.”

“Yeah,” she said. “If they catch us, your dad is going to be really mad.”

“He'll take you,” Neil said.

“Probably.”

“He will. Like the other.”

She searched the darkness between them. “What other?”

“He took her.”

“How long was she here?”

“Four days.”

“Where did he take her?”

“Away.”

“And then?”

“Don't know.”

She couldn't speak. Her throat grew increasingly tighter almost as though each second was pulling a noose tighter.

“Could stay,” Neil said. “No trouble.”

She watched the candle flicker, as though it was running out of fuel. She imagined the years ahead, filled with food that didn't have to be cooked, a house regulated by cool air from the vents, unlimited water so abundant she could swim in it if she knew how. Neil would keep plodding forward like a faithful workhorse. They could have every luxury she could ever want if they were willing to do everything they were told exactly the way they were told to do it.

She thought of her village. The harvests in the heat of summer, living next to the fire in the winters, the hunger that came every spring. The snide looks from the family that ruled the town. But also Malory's chatter as she made homemade biscuits that melted beneath the white gravy. The dances that came after the workday was over. The surge of excitement seeing Tucker's truck rattle up the road with its treasures, watching the cotton bloom and look like the pictures of snow.

Life in the village was unpredictable, filled with emotional highs and lows, friends and enemies, and problems that needed to be fixed before they grew worse. It was . . . life.

She looked at the dead lion, the closest thing Neil had for a companion with the exception of four harrowing days with a girl just as panicked as her.

She swallowed. “We have to try, Neil. I can't explain life in the village to you. It's hard in a different way than here, but it's worth it. We could have whole different lives. But you have to help me.”

Neil took a breath, then answered, “Yes.”

Novella: Chapter Thirteen - The Choice

She woke, facing the holes in her wall. She shoved back the covers, almost dramatically to reinforce to AIDA and any Alcott parent that may be watching that she was not sleeping late. Gathered her dress, wondering if it had been chosen for Neil’s pleasure just like she had. Walked to the bathroom. Relaxed only after the door was locked and AIDA could no longer see her.

“Hot,” she said. The water in the shower responded with a torrential rain and within thirty seconds the steam began to coat the glass.

She waited in front of the mirror over the sink until their messages appeared.

Am I allowed to leave? No.

Are YOU allowed to leave? No.

I told them not to bring you.

She gripped the sink, feeling guilt and anger alternate in sweeping waves and the eyes in the mirror changed from a dull, tear-rimmed gaze into a red glint as tiny blood vessels buckled beneath the pressure. She gripped the edges of the bathroom counter, felt her jaw tighten, thought again the refrain in her head.

This is our world. All we get.

She no longer fought her anger, for anger was sadness transformed. Sadness only crippled. Anger...

She stomped to the doorway, rolled her tight shoulders into performance mode, and smoothed the indenting lines of the skin around her eyes from their tiny stripes of betrayal. She walked on borrowed time, but for now each day was another step she must take. Follow every rule, appease every hurt, perform every task, stifle every heart cry. She closed her eyes.

She couldn’t. Not without becoming a shell, and what was a shell except the hollowed exterior of a creature who had died inside? Shells were caskets. She steeled herself with a breath and pushed open the door, already analyzing where AIDA was and what her face needed to show as she walked down the hallway.

 Neil had one lamp on the side table. She turned to the other one, sitting down. He glanced over at her, his fingers never slowing. Offered a small smile, a curious glance.

She swallowed, pulling her knees up while she pushed the thought away. “Last night I dreamed that everything you created on that screen became real. You put a door into one of these walls, and I thought it went outside. But when I ran through it, you were in a room with about twenty lions, just hanging out. And I stopped and stared at you and was like, 'you would.'”

Neil’s smile grew until he barked laugh that lasted three seconds before his body jolted. He yelped, but the sound only set AIDA off again. Neil grabbed the pillow, pressed his entire face into it to muffle the second cry.

“AIDA, stop!” Katie called. “Deactivate!”

“I’m sorry,” AIDA replied. “I am not synced with your voice.”

Neil lowered the pillow, rubbing his eyes.

“Why’d she shocks you for laughing?” Katie demanded.

“Loud,” Neil said. He blinked as he turned to retrieve the keyboard.

“Sorry,” Katie said.

The word made Neil brace, but nothing happened.

Katie uncurled herself from the couch, moving to the upstairs bathroom where Mrs. Alcott had left the little pills. She struggled to pop the lid off, hoping that electricity never made a comeback to her village, that the blackout had thoroughly fried the wires and buttons so they would never work again. Wondered what it was that made the electricity stop coming through the wires in the first place.

She lifted her eyes to the five small globes that lit Mrs. Alcott’s mirror, wondering how much electricity would be needed before the breakers were flipped and AIDA blacked out. Had Neil ever tried to use it up? There was no way to ask him. No way to get his consent for an experiment that could backfire so badly. But if AIDA lost her power, she could no longer control the door or report if someone went through it.

Katie paused. She popped the lid back onto the bottle, replaced it into the cabinet, cupping the pill in her hand. She walked out of the bathroom, leaving the light on. AIDA said nothing as she went to her room to pick up the dictionary she didn’t actually need.

She pretended to drop the pill and turned on the lamp next to the bed. With the pill safely in her hand, she crawled to investigate the carpet, then circled to turn on the second lamp. Feigning finding the pill again, she rose, again conveniently forgetting to turn out the lamps. Still, AIDA said nothing.

Her heart sped as she walked down the stairs, making her way to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Another flip of a switch flooded the room with light. She fished the coffee pot from its place, poured in water and hit the brew button. Still AIDA gave no response, but she imagined the machine huddled in a dark corner, trembling because she realized her time was short.

She plugged in the toaster, fished two slices of bread from the basket, aware that she was on the radar now that she was near the food rations. But two were allowed, and she pushed the slices into the toaster, then turned it to the darkest setting she thought she could get away with. There was nothing else she could do in the kitchen with the food locked in the refrigerator, so she padded back to the living room, hitting the switch to the overhead lights and turning on the fan.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she asked, then offered the pill and glass to Neil.

He took it, offered her the flicker of a smile, then swallowed the pill without the help of water.

The coffee began to gurgle, promising sustenance that would get them through the morning until the refrigerator unlocked. She sat on the couch for ten minutes, but the lights stayed on and strong. She glanced toward Neil, wondering how to communicate her plans, but there was so little she could say. If he understood what she meant, his father could too.

“Do you think your mom would mind if I lit one of the candles?” she asked, then offered a playful smile. “More romantic that way, don’t you think?”

He glanced over, surprised, confused.

“Do you know what romantic means?”

He shook his head slowly.

“Oh. Well, do you think your mom would mind?”

Again, he shook his head.

She stood, scolding herself for the comment. She felt her fists clench and forced them to relax. She had to speak this way if his parents were going to hear. She pulled open drawers, then seized the match box and slid it into her pocket. She lit one of the scented candles, letting it burn obscurely on the table. What if they guessed? What if she couldn’t use up enough electricity to black out AIDA? She was running out of objects to subtly turn on.

The refrigerator beeped. Neil threw aside the keyboard, but she beat him to the kitchen door. She lurched to open the refrigerator, reaching for the top two boxes while trying to count the remaining. Only six boxes left. Three days until they would run out. Would Neil’s parents return then? Would the man drop groceries through the door, unaware that he was the lifeline for two captives?

One. One captive.

Neil had never even tried to run. He belonged in this world.

She pulled two containers from the boxes, swallowing at the meager portions. Wondering if Neil was beginning to rethink his choice to keep her and endure a slow starvation.

Around her the house was filled with buzzing, like tiny insects humming away, sending tiny streams of sunlight to each appliance, but denying the smallest ray to the humans. The coffee sputtered as it reached the end of its water supply. She opened the door to the microwave and slid the frozen meal inside. Sent up a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening.

She hit start. The tiny light bulb flipped on, illuminated the tray that began to pivot. Then a brilliant pop of light. She heard a shatter, saw a tiny shard of glass illuminated in flight before it plunged into darkness as deep as any overcast night in the woods.

Neil yelped from the living room. She stood, her heart battering her chest.

“AIDA,” Neil rasped. “Reactivate.”

The darkness embraced her, challenged only by the tiny candle that flickered in the corner. She reached for it.

“AID—,” Neil tried louder, his word ending in a choke.

Her hands trembled. Why was he calling back the thing with the power to hurt him? The ability to relock that door. She abandoned the candle, slipping behind the counter and crawling along it as Neil crashed into something in the living room. Even in the wilderness, she’d never moved through such complete darkness. On her hands and knees, she inched her way across the floor, waving her hand before her to find her way.

“Katie?” Neil called.

Katie crawled on. Her hand hit stone. She pivoted into the entryway.

“AIDA! Activate!” Desperation lurched into Neil’s voice.

She swallowed, feeling her chest burn. But he wanted her in his pride. He’d never voiced any desire to leave. He wouldn’t let her leave either.

“Katie? Okay?”

Her fingertips brushed the wall as she crawled toward the door. A crack of light showed beneath the lip, beckoning like a magic wand she could pick up with her fingers and tap the door. She reached for the light, found the wood, ghosted her fingers toward the handle. She put one foot beneath her, straightened slowly. One pull and daylight would betray her.

“Katie! Alive?”

The candle in the kitchen sent erratic light as Neil lifted it.

Katie yanked against the door.

It yielded a fourth of an inch. Then metal hit metal, its journey stopped short, sending vibrations down her spine.

“No,” she breathed.

She yanked again. The dead bolt held fast.

“No!” She kicked the delivery door. “No, no, out! Out!”

Behind her, the orb floated through the darkness, then made a sudden dart to the side where it settled into a steady hover.

Neil’s arms wrapped around her chest, pinning her arms, pulling her into the void.

She flailed, trying to kick him. He sat on the tile, wrapping one leg over hers, pinning them against his opposite shin.

“Calm,” he said, repeating with a more distressed tone, “Calm. I’ll . . . protect you.”

“I don’t want protection, I want out!”

“Candles, see?” he said. “AIDA will . . . come back. Storm . . . maybe.”

She swallowed her screams, trying to find logic again. He thought a storm halted the electricity. Would his parents? No. No, there would be a fine. Mr. Alcott hated fines. She closed her eyes, pretending that was the only reason it was dark.

“Calm. More light.” He coughed. “I give you . . . light.”

There were two more candles in the house, one in the bedroom upstairs, one in the bathroom. She’d counted them all. She breathed deeper and deeper, forcing herself to calm down when she only wanted to run.

His arms loosened.

“No,” she said. “Don’t light the others. They'll burn down too quickly, and we’ll be left in the dark.”

“AIDA . . . will come again.”

She shivered, crawled closer to the candle that now outlined the side table where Neil had set it. “It’s not a storm, Neil,” she said. “I killed AIDA.”

The silence that followed was unusual, even for the man who rarely spoke.

She felt his eyes swing to her. She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them. “I thought it would unlock the door. And now we’re stuck.”

“You killed AIDA?”

“She’s not responding, is she? He’s going to know. You have to help me get out.”

“Don’t leave.” The same level of panic crept into his voice.

“You can come too!”

“No. No, I’ll. . .” He stopped panting long enough to swallow. “I’ll protect you. Promise.”

“If you want to protect me, help me get the door open!”

“AIDA . . .”

“AIDA’s dead!”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Neil, please . . .” Katie trailed off, realizing what he said.

Two seconds passed. Five. Ten.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

The air was still, so still she felt the puff of his breath as it escaped in a rushed whisper, "You killed AIDA."

"So we can escape," she said.

He moved away from her, lifted the candle above her head. It lit his face, distorting his features but illuminating a very real stare. He swallowed, once, twice. But his lips never even opened to try and speak. His eyes dulled. He turned, found his way up the stairs, and took the candle with him.

Novella: Chapter Twelve - The World Within

Her mind adapted to AIDA’s rigid rules by numbing. She spent her days like a ghost, gliding through a routine that only mimicked life. Hunger was her only tie to reality, to her past. She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, going through old memories like a half-forgotten dream.

“What is this, Dad?” Katie had asked, tracing the three holes that peered from the circle on the wall like a tiny face in a rectangle frame.

“That’s an old plug,” his father answered.

She crawled onto her knees and closed one eye, practicing a skill she’d only recently acquired, to peer into the tiny slots. “What’s it do?”

“It used to bring electricity into the house when your grandfather was little like you. It made things happen by themselves without anybody touching them.”

“Like magic?”

“Sort of. Like lightning.”

“Lightning is magic.”

Her father laughed. “Sort of.”

“Why don’t we have lightning make things go by themselves now?”

“Well, they didn’t use lightning. They used the sun. Taming nature is a dangerous business, Katie. Electricity belongs in the sky. Try to bring it to earth, and you’re asking for trouble. Kind of like magic. What would you do if I gave you a wand you could wave and make anything you want to happen anytime you wanted it to happen?”

“I’d heal your leg, so you don’t limp no more.”

Her father jolted, then smiled at her. “That’s sweet. What else?”

“I’d wave it over the table and make breakfast show up. A big breakfast with pancakes and fruit and honey.”

“And what else?”

“Mmm . . . I’d turn our walls purple.”

“Purple?” Only in her memory did Katie pick up on the tinge of horror beneath the tone.

“Yeah, ‘cuz you don’t see purple very often. Only when the little flowers come out.”

“What else?”

“I’d make the cotton grow so tall that it wouldn’t hurt your back when you pick it.”

“But then you couldn’t pick it!”

“Well,” Katie drawled, “maybe I’d just wave the wand and it would pick itself. Like electricity.”

“So, your wand would be doing all the cooking and cleaning and schoolwork for you?”

“No. I’d do my own schoolwork.”

“What if everybody in the town had a wand and everything was happening by itself?”

Her mind filled with silly images of people floating down the roads, bread bouncing onto counters, her teacher’s chalk hovering over the board, her mother’s shuttle darting between the strings of the loom like a water bug. She looked at her father and began to laugh.

“You’re funny,” she said, because it took too many words to say what she saw.

“That’s what it was like when your grandpa was little. They didn’t have wands, but they had lots of things that worked by themselves. They told the sun where to go, what to bring to life, and the sun did everything for them.”

“Can we do that?”

“I imagine we could,” her father replied. “But here’s the thing, Katie. One day when your grandpa had just turned six years old, the sun stopped coming through the plugs. Nobody knew why. It just stopped. That’s what happens when you enslave something and make it do all your work for you. You forget how to do things for yourself. Like if you spent years waving your wand and then one day it broke. You find out really quick that you don’t know how to do anything. Your grandpa’s dad didn’t even know how to make a fire to keep his family warm. Most of the food had been kept cold by boxes that stole energy from the sun, and all that food went bad and smelly because nobody had salted it to keep it safe. People who weren’t in their villages had to leave all their things and walk home. Lots of people died on the way or couldn’t even find their villages because the sun machines had always told them where to turn. The sun’s just like people. You can trap them and make them do your work for a while, but one day you’re going to wake up and they’re going to be gone, and you won’t know how to do anything for yourself. It’s a bad idea, Katie, enslaving the sun.”

 

The refrigerator, true to Mr. Alcott’s words only let them pull out one meal at noon. Her stomach growled, but what Mr. Alcott didn’t know was she was used to going without food, sometimes for days, when the stores were used up and the crops newly sown. It would take a lot to break her down if he planned on using food.

But not Neil, apparently. He sat on the couch again, shakily typing the numbers that manipulated the lines on the screen, creating a fake world.

“You were right, Dad,” she thought. “It is a bad idea, enslaving the son.”

He glanced toward her, took in the outfit, then returned his focus to his work, adding a light color to the blades of fake grass.

She watched the world he created, intriguing but wrong. “Is it supposed to look real?”

He nodded.

“It doesn’t,” she answered.

His jaw tightened before he simultaneously swallowed and winced.

“Grass isn’t that green, at least, not in my town. It’s got more yellow than that.”

He glanced toward her, his eyebrows tucking in thought, then typed a series of six numbers into the keyboard. The grass turned a sickly yellow green.

“Yeah, that looks more like home. Except our roads are mostly dirt and clumps of tar now. The roads broke up a long time ago.”

Neil studied her, then typed a series of commands into the computer, creating first a brown line, then a wavy line, then a rocky texture, then nonuniform dark circles. Katie stared as the process slowly shaped, not home, not quite. But very close.

“Do you have to make the world look a certain way?” she asked.

He shrugged, then shook his head.

“Can you add a house—not like your house—a farmhouse?”

His eyebrows worked in thought before a white generic house showed up, something that didn’t look like her home or his.

“It’s made of wood,” she said. “Most of the paint was white, but now it’s peeling off.”

His replica took longer now to create, trying a few false attempts, adding windows and a porch.

“Yeah, that’s close.” Katie’s eyes filled, and she turned them to the pages of her dictionary.

So many words, many no longer needed and others that may not be in the book. She glanced at AIDA, then flipped the pages with sudden inspiration. And there it was:

 

artificial intelligence

noun

1: a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers

2: the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior

 

A machine. She flipped the page quickly before Neil could see, looking at the screen. Was AIDA connected with that? She’d seen computer carcasses before after the blackout, the elderly people in the village still talked about their parents pulling the machines apart to dig out the bits of gold in them, discarding them in a big pile that had yet to break down. In school, they rearranged the old key caps to teach the little ones to read.

AIDA was a computer. She worked because she was hooked up to the electricity, which must be how she could access it to shock them. AIDA might not be so different than what was in Katie’s grandfather’s house before the blackout. She swallowed, then flipped the page to the E section.

 

Noun Electricity.

the time rate of flow of electric charge, in the direction that a positive moving charge would take and having magnitude equal to the quantity of charge per unit time: measured in amperes.

 

“Whatever that means," she muttered.

The curved lines on the front pages caught her eye as she began to close the book. She opened it again, smoothing out the page, feeling her heart slow as she again caught sight of Clark’s handwriting.

She blinked before AIDA highlighted her tears. Wondering if Clark thought of her as much as she thought of him. Wondering what would have happened if she had stayed with her village.

“Neil,” she asked. “Do you ever see people?”

He glanced at her, shut off his work, and flipped to another screen where a woman sat at a desk. She had blonde hair and Katie ground her teeth, thinking of the fabled brunettes that all attended college with their luscious brown locks. The woman was older than college age, with fine lines around her eyes. She spoke straight to them, her voice tinged with a sense of urgency, dropping a few decibels like she was revealing a secret.

“Thirty-six people were killed this morning when a public transportation train took a curve too quickly and ran off the rails. Authorities are investigating the driver, a 36-year-old villager who was allowed to cross our borders from the outlying village of Pine Forrest. The deaths have sparked a hot debate among officials about this growing trend of issuing education and work visas to villagers. Meanwhile, in the north sector of town, a family was rudely awakened when their AIDA alerted them of a man trying to gain access to their home . . . ”

Neil let the woman talk for nearly an hour, the show flipping between the woman and bits of the outside world. Sometimes the buildings were lit by blue and red flashes. Sometimes victims were hidden beneath white cloths, carried by men in uniforms. Sometimes trucks crashed into each other and rolled across the road.

Aware of Neil’s eyes on her, she tried to cover any expressions. This was the city, the world outside of these four walls.

She clutched the dictionary to her chest like it would calm her heart. She swallowed hard.

Neil hit a button and brought the lions back. “Lions . . . are . . . better,” he said, measuring each word.

“My village isn’t like yours,” she said. “We have death, but most of the time people don’t kill other people. And when anyone does, the entire village will hunt them down.” Aware she was rambling, she glanced at him, but Neil had turned slightly toward her. “We don’t have electricity,” she said, “so, we can’t fit more than a few people on a vehicle at a time even when we do have them. Most of the time we walk or ride a horse. Do you know what a horse is?”

He shook his head.

“It’s . . . well, a little like a large gazelle, only without horns. My friend owns one. His name is Clark—the friend, not the horse. The horse’s name is Path Finder. Which I think is a stupid name, but Clark named him when he was younger.”

“Why did . . . you leave . . . your pride?” Neil asked suddenly.

“My pride?” Katie asked. “You mean . . . my village?”

He nodded.

It was an excellent question. “I guess I felt like there wasn’t really a place for me there,” she said. “My sister was getting married and Clark . . . well, things were going to change after school. And I guess I didn’t want to stay, but I wish I had.”

“Clark . . . your leader?”

“No, he’s not our leader. But he is from the wealthy family. They own the well, so they control all the water.”

He nodded like it made perfect sense. “His pride.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “And his family doesn’t want me in their pride.”

He didn’t reply right away, too busy swallowing from the effort of his first sentence. But he created a large pond on the screen, then said, “We are . . . a pride.”

She said nothing, sat with trembling hands, biting the inside of her cheek, looking at the screen so she didn’t have to look at him. “Two people don’t make a pride, Neil,” she said. “We didn’t carve out our own kingdom. We’re locked in your father’s cage.”

“But . . . ” Neil coughed, then shook his head.

Katie slid her feet to the floor, escaping to the kitchen to get him a drink. Suddenly worried that AIDA would report the statement. She clenched her teeth as she held the glass under the sink, wondering what the Blackwells would think if they knew she could summon unlimited water with a turn of a handle while they were hoarding their bucketfuls. She carried the glass back, offering it to him. He took it, drank, managed to say one syllable, then shook his head in defeat.

“The shower makes me think of rain,” she said, picking up the slack and moving the conversation away from prides. “In my village, sometimes water falls from the sky. In drops, one at a time. Sometimes just a few. We call it ‘sprinkling’ and sometimes a downpour like a giant shower. That’s called rain. Sometimes so much water stays on the ground that you can kick it up. If you brought your foot to one side, you could send the water up against a friend’s legs. When it rains, we put out every pot and pan we have in the house and collect as much water as we can. Even if it rains while we’re at school, some of us will run home if no one at the house is around to collect the water. It makes me wonder where your water comes from.”

“River?”

“I doubt it,” she said. “It’s too clean. The river water can make you sick because it washes poison down from the city. That’s what killed my dad. We had one year that all the rainwater dried up. So dad gave the rest of his money to the Blackwell family for a jug of water from their well. He let us girls drink one glass from the jug every morning and evening, but he boiled the water from the river for himself and Mom. That usually works. But it didn’t. They went to bed and—never woke up. Mallory found them the next morning. She screamed so much she couldn’t talk for two days.”

“How do . . . you spell?” Neil asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

“What?”

“Rain.”

“R-a-i-n,” she answered, wondering if he’d heard the last part at all.

Neil typed, pulling up a list of numbers. He inserted it between the lines of numbers and suddenly his landscape was marked by falling white lines.

He smiled. “That?”

She looked up. Swallowed.

“No. Not that, Neil. That is rain, but it’s not real rain. You can’t feel it on your skin, it doesn’t make your hair wet and run off your chin. The real world isn’t on a screen. It can’t be made on a screen.”

His eyes slit. He punched a button and the rain disappeared. His fingers jabbed the buttons, causing mountains to appear in the background, adding mist to float around them.

“This . . . is our world,” he said. “All we get.”

Novella: Chapter Eleven - The Compromise

Katie sat with her hands folded in her lap, feet huddled together like they sought comfort from each other. Gloriously numb, except the distant pain of the hairbrush the woman drew through her hair in fast, repetitive strokes.

“Things aren’t really as bad as they seem,” Mrs. Alcott said. “You have seen Rich at his worst, but this is his worst. You haven’t had a chance at all to see him when he’s in a good mood."

She didn’t want to think about Mr. Alcott or what it would take transform him into someone besides the grim-faced man looming over them, unmoved by his own offspring’s pain.

“Who is AIDA?” Katie asked.

“Oh, she’s not anybody,” Mrs. Alcott said. “It’s not a name. It’s an acronym. AIDA stands for ‘artificially intelligent domestic aid.’ She’s supposed to do things like listen for your grocery list, turn on and off the lights, keep people from breaking into the house, and film all your life moments. Then she’ll compile all the good moments, so you have them to look back on. I have videos from when Neil was young that are adorable. The correction mode was an add-on that Rich invented for the prison system. He’s very intelligent.”

Katie swallowed, aware that AIDA was still watching, still recording everything she asked, “But . . . how does she punish Neil?”

“He’s got a bit of metal in his neck, a chip,” Mrs. Alcott said. “She’s synced to it.”

“Do you have a chip?”

“Of course not,” the woman answered. She parted Katie’s hair in three sections and flipped the ends over each other, one after the other. “They’re very expensive. Neil’s was a prototype. He needed to test it out, you see. I suppose I could have let him insert it into me, but he was set on installing it into Neil. It was . . . well, he hadn’t programed AIDA with the correction mode. That came later when Neil turned six.”

“Does he get punished a lot? Is that why he can’t talk?”

“Oh no!” The woman’s hands jumped, giving Katie’s hair an accidental jerk. “No, this rarely happens. Neil’s usually very compliant. Rich was trying to scare you. Neil’s just out of the habit of talking. Most of the time he’s got no one to talk to. Rich gets jealous, you know, if I talk to Neil too much. That’s why I found you.” The braiding slowed as Mrs. Alcott looked into the mirror like it was showing her former days. “But he did sing sometimes. He had the sweetest little voice. I never hear him sing anymore, not even on AIDA when he’s alone. His voice is nice when he does talk, though. Don’t you think he has a pleasant voice?”

“I haven’t heard very much of it,” she said. Accusation crept into her tone.

“You will. He’ll warm up to you. He just needs some time. You must realize that Neil hasn’t really been around a girl, so you’re going to have to nudge him a bit. But he’s a quick learner, so it’s really an ideal situation for you. He’s eager to please you, he just . . . hasn’t quite figured out how.”

Katie gripped her hands, cutting the woman off with a question. “Can't you turn the correction mode off level five?”

“AIDA is synced with Mr. Alcott’s voice. She only responds to him, but I’m sure he’ll take away the restrictions on Neil soon. But much of that will be based on you, Katie. He needs to see that you’re happy living here at the house, and that you’ll not try to run away again.”

Katie bit hard on her tongue, locking her tears back and feeling her nose prick in response.

“Katie,” the woman’s voice became clipped. “You are being offered a life of living in luxury without even having to work for it. Neil works, you’re his companion, and Mr. Alcott and I provide you both with everything you need. That is a generous deal, better than anything you would have ever gotten in your village and certainly better than your alternative. If you would put as much effort into trying to enjoy your circumstances instead of trying to leave them, you could have a very good life here.”

And if she didn’t, she might get a chip too. Katie gagged. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Mr. Alcott asked, surprised.

“Okay.”

 She heard the breath seep through the woman’s lips. She heard material brush with a sudden shift as the woman reached for a hair tie.

“I know what you’re feeling, Katie,” Mrs. Alcott said. “I was chosen, too, for Mr. Alcott. We saw each other, sometimes, at social functions. His parents knew mine. I’d hardly ever spoken to him before we first married. But I made it my business to find all the little things that pleased him, like a little game. It was fun—and now he can’t get along without me. Of course, it’s a little harder for you since you have to please Neil and Rich, but once Rich sees you happy and Neil bonding with you, he’ll relax. That’s all he really wants, you know, for Neil to be happy, because then Neil does his work better.”

“You mean building the worlds on the screens?”

“Um-hum. That is Neil’s job. And your job is to make him happy.”

Making Neil happy. Even if the role was assigned to her, even if she only accepted it for survival, it was no longer a complete fabrication, a tactical maneuver. It was just . . . expected. By everyone.

“Okay,” she said again.

“Good.” Mrs. Alcott reached for her handbag that sat on the vanity. She fished out a bottle and her long fingernails clicked as she opened the bottle and shook a white oval into her palm. “Take this pill to him. And don’t be scared. Neil doesn’t hold grudges.”

She took the pill from the woman’s hand. “But Neil’s not crying anymore.”

“Crying?”

“He told me these stop tears.”

The woman snorted. “These stop pain, dear. That’s the only time Neil cries. Wait until after me and Mr. Alcott have gone and then go find Neil. You won’t be breaking any of AIDA’s rules so don’t worry.”

Katie curled her fingers around the pill, grateful for any excuse to avoid Mr. Alcott. But as she nodded, he stepped into the room giving her a stern stare.

“Mrs. Alcott and I are expected at a conference,” he stated as though she should know what a conference was. “Neil’s correction mode is at three and will stay at three until we return and if both of you have shown exceptionally good behavior, it will be turned down to a two. But I want to be very clear with you that neither AIDA nor myself will protect you from Neil. If I come home and find you strewn in pieces across the kitchen floor . . .” he finished his sentence with a shrug.

“Neil’s not going to hurt you,” Mrs. Alcott said quickly. “He wouldn’t go through all that if he didn’t want you here.”

“AIDA has control over the refrigerator now,” Mr. Alcott went on. “It will unlock for five minutes at noon so you can open it. Only take out one meal for each of you. If you touch it at any other time, it will shock you without the help of a chip.”

“Yes sir,” Katie said.

The man snapped his finger, and his wife took his arm. He sent her a final glare and towed the woman from the room. Katie sat, holding her breath until she heard the front door open, shut, and the mechanical grind of the lock.

She tiptoed down the hallway for the second time that day, finding the bathroom door wide and the couch abandoned. Cast a glance toward the door but continued to the kitchen to put water in the glass. Her journey to the top of the stairs slowed with each step, but she forced herself onto the landing where the sailors continued their vigil on the side of the castle wall. She peeked into Neil’s bedroom, frowning at the empty bed.

But as she turned away, she glimpsed a movement by the lion. Its snarl seemed to be directed toward her, but she forced herself to step inside the room anyway. Neil sat between the lion and the wall, stroking the animal’s back. His eyes rose, his hands slowed, but didn’t halt.

She approached slowly, held the pill out with the water glass.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

His head jerked up, turning fearful eyes toward her. But, safe from AIDA’s curse, she held out her offering.

He winced. Took the pill and glass, but only looked at them.

“Does the lion have a name?” she blurted.

He shook his head.

“Was it . . . alive when you got it?”

His eyebrows tucked, before he shook his head again. He snapped his hand to his mouth, took a quick gulp, and winced again at the swallow.

“We should name it.” Katie sat against the wall, pulling her knees to her chest. “Maybe that’s why he looks so grumpy all the time.”

His mouth twitched, though it was hard to tell if it was a grimace or a grin.

“Can I pet him, too?”

Neil shrugged.

She suppressed a shudder and forced her fingertips across the long fur that circled the creature’s head. Her fingers still tingled from the shock, but the fur added its own sensation, almost disguising the burn that lingered on her skin. There were many things she wanted to say, but she swallowed them. Because now she knew Neil wasn’t the only one with ears in the room.

Novella: Chapter Ten - The Protector

A door slammed. Katie woke at the same time as Neil. Their eyes met, exchanging confusion, realization, then panic, as the voices and tones rose. Shouts and pleas mingled words into nonsensical sentences that jumbled as they carried down the hall.

Neil rolled off the bed, lifting his eyes toward the door. Katie scrambled onto the carpet, her mind supplying only the one clear thought that the door had opened for three seconds, and she’d missed it.

Mrs. Alcott’s pleas grew louder. “...was going so well.”

Neil glanced at the three holes he’d punched into the wall. He grabbed Katie’s hand, dragging her from the room.

As they passed the bathroom door, she cast a worried glance at the message hidden in the mirror. There was no time to erase it now. The Alcott’s met them at the end of the hallway. Mrs. Alcott hovered behind her husband, clutching her purse.

Mr. Alcott didn’t pause his stride until his nose stopped two inches from Neil’s eyes. “You want her or not?”

“Rich...” Mrs. Alcott murmured behind him.

“I can take her right now.”

Neil reached for Katie’s hand, his fingers crushing hers.

Mr. Alcott pointed to the couch and roared, “Sit!”

Katie stepped toward Neil, startling even herself, feeling numbness wash over her as he tugged her to the couch.

Mr. Alcott glared as he held up a folded paper. Katie’s heart slowed like it was being dragged through the mud as he read, “Please help me. I was tricked and locked inside this house. There is a man with me who won’t let me out. I am from the village of Blackwood. My name is Katie Tucker. My sister is Malory Huddleston, wife of Jeremy Huddleston.” He folded the note, eying her. “Congratulations, Katie Tucker. We came to let you out.”

“Rich...” Mr. Alcott tried again.

Neil’s eyes rose. “She’s mine.”

“She betrayed you, son!”

“Gift.”

The silence stiffened the air between them. Rich took a breath. “AIDA, what is Neil’s score for this week?”

A disembodied voice floated from the corner of the room. “Neil’s behavior score has fallen twenty points this week, making his current score a 73.”

“Play all highlights for Neil from this week.”

The screen in the living room flickered to life. Katie stared as Neil’s form appeared on the screen, one angle, one room after another, as though she was looking through eyes stationed at every corner.

A montage of moments flashed by; some she recognized like Neil kicking the bathroom door, slamming her in the entrance, fisting the wall. Some she didn’t: Neil dropping a glass in the kitchen, cursing as a knife slipped, pacing the house as the numbers 11:45 PM flashed onto the screen. Others she didn’t even understand. Moments when he sat with the keyboard in his lap staring at the wall, taking food from the refrigerator, answering Mr. Alcott’s summons on the second shrill ring, red words that read Friday Submission Incomplete.

The callous voice spoke again. “Neil’s emotions peaked at rage, thirty points above the recommended stage. His production fell by 20% with two days of incomplete work. He displayed the beginning stages of bad habits, such as sleep deprivation, tardiness, and work negligence. He engaged in advanced stages of violence. He continues to engage in previous bad behaviors such as eating more than the recommended portions, delayed responses to the telephone, and evading my cameras. This completes my current highlight reel for this week. Do you want me to engage in correction mode?”

“No, AIDA. Do not engage in correction mode.” Mr. Alcott turned stony eyes back onto Neil. “I expect that by this time next week, your score will return to at least a ninety-eight and any correction moments will be accidental.”

Neil swallowed, keeping his attention on the wall ahead. “Yes.”

“This girl is like a pet, Neil. If you insist on keeping her, you are responsible for her. If you can’t keep her under control, she cannot stay.”

Katie gripped her knees, torn between standing to yell and making herself as small as possible. Neil’s eyes turned toward her. Doubt crept into them, but he opened his mouth.

“Before you answer...” Mr. Alcott said quickly, “AIDA, play all highlight moments for Katie this week.”

Now it was Katie on the screen. Yanking on the front door, running to the back, yelling at Neil to open the door, leaving her bed unmade. A shot of the hallway showed her plate sitting untouched outside the bathroom door. A shot of her laughing while working on the models with Neil, which zoomed in as he turned away and her face fell into a forlorn look. Crying into her pillow at night. Ripping that same pillow to create her hiding place.

Were no moments safe from this creature? Katie’s stomach grew tighter and tighter as she watched herself sneaking past Neil with the note. Watched the real Neil’s face empty all color as he witnessed her full betrayal.

She gritted her teeth as AIDA’s voice carried across the speaker: “Katie’s behavior baseline is at an eighty-six according to an average city woman and an eleven according to a laborer. Her emotional level peaked at guilt. Katie displayed undesirable baseline habits such as sloppiness, door slamming, raising her voice, and sporadic meal intakes. She engaged in contradictory behavior such as conflicting statements and displayed physical cues that indicate deception. Reportable behavior includes attempts at breeching the front and back door and attempts to engage with visitors. This completes the highlight reel for Katie for this week. Correction mode is not available for Katie. Do you want me to sync?”

“No,” Mr. Alcott answered.

His voice floated around Katie, sounding distant as though her mind had fled the room that had trapped her body. She heard Mrs. Alcott murmur something.

“AIDA, turn off,” Mr. Alcott said. He waited for a beep before he faced Neil. “We are leaving again today. We came back to handle this, but we have a conference first thing in the morning. If you want Katie, you’re going to have to keep her under control.”

Neil clenched his jaw, looking at the space beyond his father. He gave a grim nod.

“Katie.” Mr. Alcott turned toward her. He held up the paper. “Let me tell you about girls like you. Girls like you who come to the city usually come to work. If you were next door, you’d be doing all the chores, you’d be wearing one outfit every day, and you would never speak to anyone except for ‘yes sir’ or ‘yes ma’am.’ If you did manage to get this letter to the grocery man or break your way out and run to a neighbor’s house, they’d either return you to me or put you to work in their home.”

“But it’s different with us,” Mrs. Alcott spoke up. “You’re not a captive, not really. You’re a companion.”

“We brought you for Neil,” Mr. Alcott said. “You belong to him. If you are good to him, we will be good to you. Make no mistake. You will never be going home, but we can replace you in an instant.”

Head still swimming, Katie sneaked a glance toward Neil, but his eyes were trained on his knees. A wash of cold swept over her head, down her body, leaving even her insides numb as though she’d walked through the rain in the winter. She swallowed, nodded, her throat too tight to speak.

Mr. Alcott frowned but released his glare, turning it back onto his son. “You still want her?”

Neil’s face blanked, though his thumb increased in speed as he rubbed it against his knee. His focus crawled across the empty cushion between them, never quite reaching her leg.

He gave a short nod.

“Are you sure?”

Neil swallowed. His fingers tightened on his knees. He nodded again.

“All right,” Mr. Alcott’s voice rose in a dismissive tone that didn’t cover his displeasure. He glanced at Mrs. Alcott as he dug a black rectangle from his pocket and spoke into it. “Turn on AIDA.”

A beeping sound responded before AIDA spoke, “Hello, Mr. Alcott. How can I serve you?”

“AIDA, engage in correction mode one,” Mr. Alcott spoke.

Neil’s spine straightened as his chin jerked up. He glared toward his father.

“Your mother and I are expected to be on a red-eye flight, which only gives us a few hours to get this under control,” the man said. “Before we go, what do you say?”

Neil swallowed, said nothing.

“Rich,” Mrs. Alcott murmured before she pressed her own lips together and fidgeted with her purse.

Neil’s chest rose with a shallow breath before he replied, “Sorry.” Two syllables, spoken softly, quickly. He blinked. Then jolted, almost jumping in his seat, squeezing his eyes shut.

“AIDA, engage in correction mode two,” Mr. Alcott replied.

A soft whimper followed Neil’s swallow. Mrs. Alcott turned her face to the side, studying the painting to her left. Katie stared, her mind feebly working to make sense of what she was witnessing.

“Again,” Mr. Alcott said.

Neil’s breath picked up. His face flushed from white to red. A slight cough. Then he said, “Sorry.” Again, the brace, again his body hunched forward like an invisible fist hit his middle. His hand clawed the base of his throat like he was tearing something away.

“AIDA, engage in correction mode three.”

The command drained Neil’s air in with a half-whispered, “No.”

“Yes,” Mr. Alcott answered. “Again.”

Again, the word. Again, the reaction, only this time Neil rocked three times after the first jolt. He stayed down for a moment, ribs draped across his knees.

“What are you doing?” Katie sputtered. “Why are you doing that?”

“I don’t know how your world works, Katie,” Mr. Alcott answered, “but here there are consequences for people who fail to perform their roles.”

Consequences she understood, but this was more akin to magic. “How are you doing that?”

Mr. Alcott gave no reply.

Neil sat up again. A tear trailed down the sharp bone of his cheek.

Mr. Alcott waited until it dripped off Neil’s chin before he said, “AIDA, engage in correction mode four.”

“Rich!” Mrs. Alcott scolded. “He won’t be able to speak to Katie.”

Neil’s eyes filled with a fresh flood but dulled like the light fading from a dying animal.

“Neil, take Katie’s hand.”

Neil's forehead bunched into pleading.

“Take her hand, so she understands what her choices are doing to you.”

Neil glared, gave his head a short shake.

Mr. Alcott’s eyebrows climbed. “Should we move on to level five? This isn’t going to stop until you take her hand, but I don’t care what level it happens on. Shake your head again, and we can go all the way to ten if you want.”

“Rich, ten could kill him!” Mrs. Alcott scolded.

Katie grabbed Neil’s hand. He turned a surprised face toward her. Too afraid to speak again, she met his eyes, gave the same sort of half-hearted encouraging nod that Mallory had so often given her.

His hand was hot. It moved in two different directions, his palm trembling and the muscles twitching their own rhythm. In her peripheral vision, she saw Mrs. Alcott’s hand move to her chest.

Neil swallowed, glanced toward the man who towered over them, then looked back at her like he was directing the word toward her. His voice resonated like the deeper tone was still trying to squeeze between his rasps. “I’m sorry.”

Nothing happened.

She stared, blinked twice, and began to speak. The stinging burn hit her fingertips, almost instantly spreading through her body, creating responses she had no control over. Her toes scrunched in her shoes, her fingers curled in themselves, her calf muscles knotted, like her body itself had gripped her. She tried to let go, but her hand was cemented against his. The sensation, though almost instant, seemed to last forever before it released her, only to replace the tightness with stinging heat that knocked her backward.

Freed now, her arms and legs moved on their own accord, all four limbs moving beneath her to crawl backward, over the arm of the couch, until she fell into a curled position on the floor. She stayed on the floor as Mr. Alcott took the level up to five, squeezing her eyes like somehow if she didn’t see a thing happen, it wouldn’t.

Novella: Chapter Nine - The Chance

Katie’s steps betrayed her with a sucking noise as she peeled her sweaty heels from the white stone tile. The LED lights of the clock read 11:29 AM. Her eyes darted toward the couch, glimpsed the man’s chest rising and falling with the slow breath of sleep, then returned to the steel square at the bottom of the front door.

Her fingers tightened against the folded square of paper. She winced as it crinkled. Twelve steps would carry her to the delivery door, their sound covered by the mechanical grind of the gears as the door turned into a shelf and lowered with the bag of groceries. It would deposit them with one parallel turn and push the bag forward as the shelf realigned with the door, sealing the house for another week.

She rehearsed the process as she stepped through the arched entryway, expecting a two second window when she could drop the message onto the moving shelf without it sliding into the grocery sack. Two seconds to tell a stranger that she was here. Two seconds to escape to freedom. And if she failed...

Neil sucked in a sharp breath, his arm jerking above his chest, then slowly lowered it back to his chest. He shifted, rolled his head to one side, fell back into a deep sleep.

Katie swallowed. Hesitated. If this worked, what would happen to—

It doesn’t matter! He made his bed, he lays in it.

The gears buzzed, the door raising to allow the shelf to unfold. A bag appeared, held by dark brown fingertips. She dashed to the door, biting back the urge to yell.

The bag fell with a thud, the shelf groaned as it rose. She heard the shuffle of shoes as the delivery man stepped back. She tossed the paper through the gap. It landed on the far side of the shelf, sliding off into the sunlight just before the top edge blocked her view. The door lowered again, hinges grinding into their locked position. She held her breath, closed her eyes, listened for any movement on the other side of the door.

The shrill scream pierce from the machine on the table. Her muscles seized, shook. Neil groaned, reaching for the talking machine again. Too late to run, Katie snatched the grocery bag, forcing herself onto shaking legs.

“Hello?” Neil’s answer rasped so badly, he had to try a second time. “Hello?”

Mr. Alcott shouted so loudly that Katie could hear bits of words from the entryway.

“Shh!” Neil hissed. He turned his face quickly toward the hallway, glancing toward Katie’s bedroom.

Katie clutched the grocery bag. The note. The note. The grocery man must have seen the note. He could be reading it in his truck right now. Maybe he wouldn’t come himself, but he’d send someone.

Neil stiffened, turning to stare at her.

“I was just...getting the groceries,” she stammered.

His face slacked. His jaw gaped. He slammed the receiver, rose to roar. “What did—?” His shout turned into a choked cough.

“Nothing! I didn’t...”

He surged toward her, grabbing her shoulders, his fingers digging into the soft points beneath her collar bones. He slammed her against the door.

She screamed as loudly as she could. His paw clamped over her mouth, cutting off the sound, rising against her nose so she couldn’t even take a breath.

“Shh!” he hissed, spinning her against his chest. “Shh!”

He lifted her. She kicked the air between his legs, only landing one good blow to his shin. She writhed, finding no more success than the worm on a hook. Past the living room, past the bedrooms, into her room where the city girls smirked from the walls. She felt herself launch, flailed midair, put her arms out to break her fall, and landed so hard that the blanket pooled around her fingers as she slid forward.

Neil spun, gripping his head. He strode to the wall, fisting it in rapid succession, leaving four deep dents.

A second scream clawed its way up Katie’s throat, breaking loose in a hoarse sob.

Neil spun, clamped his hand back over her mouth, pushing the back of her head into the mattress. “Don’t! Shh!”

His hand snaked upward until the edge of his palm blocked her nose and mouth, turning the piercing sound into little more than a bottled-up whimper. The air went back into her lungs, trapped and stale.

Blackness hovered at the edge of her vision, a friend offering to swoop in and carry her into oblivion. She clawed at his arm, trying to pry his grip loose.

He tightened it.

“Shh!” he hissed again.

Tears furrowed into a river that pooled into her hair. She stopped struggling. Nodded.

“No scream,” he said.

She nodded again, as the blackness closed in. He lifted his hand. She gasped, drawing in air, cool, saturated with the sharp tang of all the things she’d never smelled before she stepped into this house. The breath brought its own noise, a stifled sob as her mind flew down the hallway and slammed into the door, still closed, still locked.

Neil sat up, twisting his hand to study the side of his palm where her tears coated the bruise on his smallest finger. He curled his fingers, watching the drop run down his wrist and looked back to her face.

“What—do you—call...?” His question rasped into silence.

She peeked at him. “Tears?”

He blinked. Then backed toward the edge of the bed, unfolded his long legs, and strode out the door.

She sucked in breath after breath, but there was no use running. The doors were locked. She’d starve in the bathroom, couldn’t lock the kitchen. She couldn’t even fight Neil off, which left the man free to do whatever he wanted to her. She rolled onto her side, closing her eyes so she couldn’t see the door, fighting the urge to breathe too much now that she could breathe at all.

Stupid. Stupid for coming here. Stupid for believing even for a moment, that she’d been chosen for a scholarship over the others from her village. Stupid for not questioning why, not running back to Tucker instead of curling compliantly onto a floorboard, stupid for expecting that a random delivery man would become her salvation. Just stupid.

She felt the bed sink in like Neal had crawled back onto it. She scrunched her eyes tighter, feeling her breath quickening. She waited, but he didn’t move again. The smell of water coaxed her to open her eyes, and she saw only a clear glass hovering in front of her face.

“Here,” Neil said.

She pushed herself shakily onto her forearm. He held out the glass in one hand and a small white oval in the other. She wiped her eyes, took the glass, peeking toward the oval.

He swallowed, like he was trying to wet his own throat, then said, “I make those too.”

“Tears?” she asked.

He nodded, then shoved the white oval toward her.

“I don’t know what that is,” she said.

His eyes roved the gift. “Stop tears.”

She sighed, wondering if Neil knew how many stupid lies she’d believed from his parents. If he knew the foolishness of eating something you didn’t know. If it would harm her.

She took the oval.

“Swallow,” he said. “Don’t chew.”

Maybe it would kill her. The thought came with a tinge of hope. She set it onto her tongue, wincing at the taste. Then washed it down with the water.

Satisfied, Neil took away the glass again and lowered himself beside her, watching her face. Feeling defiant, she kept the eye contact, willing him to look away. But he only watched her with the unblinking stare of a cat.

He frowned, like he was searching for words. “You won’t...leave.”

Whatever the white oval was supposed to do, it didn’t dry up her tears. She felt them trickle as she watched Neil. Decided he was killing her and decided she didn’t care. She couldn’t read his thoughts, but she saw their calculation. Then he nodded and closed his eyes. After a moment, his slow breath brushed her face as it smoothed into sleep.

Her thoughts began to wander, the pain in her head dissipating, feeling like she was floating. Then blackness embraced her.

Novella: Chapter Eight - The Plan

"I'll protect you . . . from anything."

His words had echoed through her head, following her into her dreams. She’d woke gasping, afterimages still dancing across the wall: the door, finally yielding to her yank but before she could step out, snakes had begun to slither in. Neil had stomped on their heads, slamming the door again, but his eyes had widened as he turned to her. She’d glance down, finding fangs dug into her arm, ten snakes dangling from her flesh. She’d woken herself shaking her arm and the snakes had vanished. If only the dream had.

She pushed the blankets back and grabbed an unworn dress on the way to the bathroom. The hot water appeared at her summons. If it didn’t come from the swimming water, it had to come from a river or spring outside. She eyed the spout through the swirling steam, imagining crawling through it to freedom.

There were only four meals left, which meant they would eat tonight, breakfast tomorrow, and before noon, someone would be at the door. If anyone came to the outside of the door, she had to make sure she was ready on the inside. She’d torn a page from the dictionary, used her only pencil from home to write a message. The door would open. She'd drop it through. Someone would read it. Someone would help.

But none of her clothing had pockets and there was nothing near the door to conceal a note. Neil could see the door from his usual spot on the couch. He could ruin her entire plan.

Promises of protection didn’t matter when he still wouldn’t open the door for her. Of course, he was going to protect her. Shwas his reward.

She rubbed her eyes, running various scenarios over in her mind and finding problems with all of them. There was no excuse for her to go into the entryway, so she wouldn’t be able to wait in it. But she needed to stay near enough to dart to the little door when it opened.

She stared into the fogging glass walls of the shower, blinking out of her thoughts as faded letters began to form on the glass.

lions.

She stepped from beneath the spray. “Hotter,” she told the pipe. It responded, burning the edges of her toes. Steam rose around her, outlining the message on the glass.

They watch us like the lions.

Her throat made a grunting noise. She stood stunned, before she rubbed out the message, leaped onto the rug she’d slept on two nights before, dried and dressed faster than she ever had on the cold days at home.

She stood clutching the damp towel to her chest.

They watch us...

The sailors standing on the corner of the castle wall: two people watching two people.

She heard the voice start again, the narrator’s voice describing their habits, every hunt analyzed, every roar overheard.

But how? There were no other people in the house, no windows. And if they could somehow see what happened in the bathroom, why had Neil left her a message?

Unless they couldn’t. Was that why Mrs. Alcott had insisted that this was a private room, that only one person could be in this room at a time? Was she the one watching?

Blood began to drain from Katie’s face, but the mirror was too fogged to see her reflection. She saw only the blurred image of a brown-haired girl, wearing the style that was supposed to blend in with the girls at the college. Hair, cut short and colored so she no longer looked like herself.

She swallowed. Brought a shaking finger to the mirror over the sink to write.

Am I allowed to leave?

Her stomach churned what little breakfast she had eaten.

She glanced back to the shower where all evidence of communication had been wiped clean. Lifted her finger again, placing it just beneath the question.

Are YOU allowed to leave?

Panic rose and she pushed it down. Neil had said the doors didn’t open, not that he wouldn’t open them. What if he couldn’t open them? But how could anyone be watching anything that happened in a house with no windows? There was no one here except him and her. He must be lying. But why would he lie?

She shook her head then opened her eyes. The lions. Perhaps the box that summoned the lions could somehow summon them, showing them in the living room. That box was on the wall facing away from the entryway, so no one would be able to see her there. There was nothing in the entryway except two solid walls, the side table, and the door. A human couldn’t see in there from the box. If she asked Neil what he meant, would he get suspicious?

If someone came to rescue her, would they actually be rescuing Neil too?

She shook the thoughts away. Stick to the plan. Neil was a wildcard she couldn’t afford to play. Besides, he’d shown no protest to his captivity—if it was one. Captive or not, he couldn’t witness her slip the note out of the door.

But he’d be in the living room working on the screen unless the delivery came early in the morning while he was asleep. Or unless he was still asleep. She smiled as the missing part of the plan fell into place. If he needed to get his work done and didn’t during the day, he’d just have to stay up late to do it.

She nodded at her mirrored accomplice, a manipulative girl she was recognizing less and less. Then walked down the hall to make their second-to-last meals. They were just about out of coffee as well as food. She emptied the can, washing the grounds down the drain. Brought her Trojan offering to the couch and, as Neil began to eat, she began to pile on the stories of her home.

Neil's eyes traveled between his food and her face, surprise growing into something close to a rapt attention that only faded whenever he glanced at the clock. She nearly lost him, but when he began to fill out colored layers on a screen-tree, she kept the chatter going, finding anything familiar to point out that looked like her world.

Could he add birds to the tree? One time, a bird fell out of its nest and Allison climbed it and got the bird safely inside but fell on the way down and couldn’t move for thirty minutes and they thought she might be paralyzed forever but she wasn’t. And Clark had come along on his horse and given Alison a ride home and let Katie walk beside him and hold the second rein and that’s when they first started talking outside of school.

Her stories came with few pauses and fewer breaths, but it was Neil’s fingers that grew sluggish. She ramped up the stories, until he set the keyboard to the side, pulled up his feet on the cushion, and turned to face her.

Victory. Except her voice began to sound as ragged as his, and when she began croaking, he turned back to the screen.

She swallowed dryly but managed to answer a quick question. “Can we watch the lions?”

He stared and, for a moment, she’d worried she’d given herself away. But his mouth tipped upward, and he pressed the button again. If anyone was watching them, she was the best companion they could have ever picked. She inched closer to Neil, careful not to touch, and forced herself to smile as he brought the horrid creatures to life.