Paserelle Prison

Author's Note: Just so there's no confusion with the title, Paserelle Prison means Masqueraded Prison in French. This chapter's title (chapter 10) is in French because a new girl is introduced in this story but that's all I'm going to reveal. I hope that helps. Thank you so much for following me this far! I LOVE getting reviews and comments from all of you.

"Spencer, please. I promise I'll go back to ABA. I'll even eat three meals a day if you want!" I know that sounds like the normal amount, but I've been sticking with one and sometimes two.

"I'm so sorry, kiddo." Spencer keeps saying that over and over again. To be honest, it's getting really annoying. I'm half tempted to just shout, "I know you're sorry! Say something else and give it a rest, will ya?" Yeah, but I won't. No need to add fuel to the already burning flames.

"Spence…"

Spencer takes one last look at me before placing a hand on the taxi cab he's about to climb into. I still cringe at the sight of yellow. "I'll be back tomorrow to see how you're doing, ok?"

No. This can't be happening. He really is leaving? No, no, no! He can't be because that would mean…

Ana.

Was.

Wrong.

"You can't leave me here!" I scream at him, the tears that I've back for the entire flight here streaming down my face. "PLEASE!"

Spencer threw one arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. I inhaled the strong scent of his cologne and wished more than anything else in the world that things could stay this way forever. Unmoving, unchanging, him never leaving. His tears mixing with mine as we both just stood there sobbing, him enveloping me in a warm embrace. But all things must come to an end.

"Come back! COME BACK!" I angrily struggle against the nurse that holds me back. Spencer kisses me once more on my forehead before the taxi cab speeds off again, probably to his hotel. He'll be on his way to Seattle again tomorrow…. without me.

"NO! GET OFF OF ME, LET GO!" I'm howling my indignation but it's no use.

The nurse shouts something out and soon two more descend on me like vultures circling overhead, waiting for me to die so they can pick my bones clean….

My brain goes into overdrive, kicking, screaming at the top of my lungs, thrashing wildly against the two pairs of arms that are trying desperately to hold me down. Wait a minute. Two? I thought there were three.

I soon find the answer to my unspoken question. The third nurse turns around to face me and gripped firmly in her hands is a long, wicked sharp needle that looks like it could go straight through me.

I'm screaming and wrestling against the other two as the nurse grabs my right arm with her icy cold hands, her long fingernails digging into the skin that just barely covers my beautiful bones.

She stabs the needle in my forearm then and a pain like I've never known races through my veins. What have they done to me? Oh, I'm going to die here…. right now, this is it, this is it.

My mind slows down and my vision goes fuzzy and, just like last time, the awful nothingness buries me from all angles.

Ana.

Was.

Wrong.

Those words echoe through my skull and penetrate my rib cage, my heart. Oh, everything I've ever known is gone. Sam. Freddie. Spencer. Jenny. I'd even wish for Sara Goldman now. But there is nothing. Nothing but those evil nurses in their crisp white uniforms. Spencer has left me here to die.

I can either allow them to fatten me up like a pig slated for slaughter, or I can slowly rot away with time. Either way, I have lost, Ana has lost, and there is no way out.

"Carly?" Someone is calling my name.

"Spencer?" My words are slurred and I don't recognize my own voice.

"No, this is Hazel. You're safe now, sweetie."

I blink. Oh, right. It all comes flooding back to me in that instant. I'm in St. Louis, Missouri. This is Castlewood. The anorexia treatment facility I'll be spending the next two and a half months in. Good thing school ended last week for summer vacation.

"You killed me." I mumble sleepily. But even as I say the words, injecting as much ice into them as I can, I know it's not true. I'm obviously alive… but where?

My eyes fly open and I immediately see a young Japanese woman with flowing jet black hair and big almond shaped eyes the color of hazelnut coffee. Yeah, must be where her name came from.

"Where am I?" I look around the room and see nothing but shades of white except for the tray next to my bed containing a few razor sharp and sci-fi looking instruments. The kind used for operating on a patient, or maybe a mad scientist. "WHERE-"

"Calm down, Carly. You're safe. We had to give you something to make you sleep because you were kicking up quite a commotion. Are you feeling better?"

"No thanks to you." I snarl.

Hazel sighs. "Come on, then. I'll show you to your room."

I have no choice but to follow her since my alternative is staying in that room with those horrible torture devices. Which one would you pick? That's what I thought.

"You'll have two roommates who I think you will get along very well with. Their names are Isabella Prentiss, an American like you, and also Joy Ducleaux, a French girl who uh, speaks no English unfortunately."

I gawk at her in disbelief. "I don't speak French! How am I supposed to talk to her?"

Hazel's eyes laughed at me, but not like Ana's had when we would sit and look at magazines together of those skinny models that looked like mere skeletons with a thin covering of skin and Ana would always comment on how unlike them I was.

Hazel was different, kind and generous. She was thin herself, but not supermodel thin. Just thin enough for it to be a normal and healthy weight. Mine evidently wasn't.

I had come to believe over these last few weeks based on what I saw in the mirror-and what Ana told me- that I was now skinny like her. It was wonderful, all my hard work paying off. But I had never been more tired, never been quicker to faint. That happened all the time now. My hair wasn't falling out as much because of that doctor after my latest fainting episode, but my fingernails had an unnatural bluish tint to them. I was constantly reapplying nail polish to keep that covered up.

"Don't worry. Isabella speaks fluent French. She's offered to help you, be a kind of tutor."

I groan reluctantly. More schoolwork.

"Here we are." Hazel pushes open the door that leads into a small but cozy looking room. The walls are painted bright red and the floor is a kind of mosaic tile. Pretty, but odd.

"Why is it-"

"It has been scientifically proven that red helps to stimulate eating." Hazel interrupts, guessing what I'm going to say before I can finish. Huh. I guess a lot of people ask that at first.

"Bella!" Hazel calls out. "Carly is finally here. I want you to get her up to speed on all of the basics. Maybe show her what her daily schedule will look like." Hazel suggests as a girl with red hair walks over to us casually. And no, not natural colored red hair. Red like a red velvet cupcake.

I gaped at her but she just laughed amusedly. "Yeah, it's pretty crazy, right? My mom made me dye it this color."

I gasped. "Your mom did?"

Bella shrugged self-consciously. "Yeah, she found out that red makes people wanna eat more-her eyes flickered to the paint on the walls-and she… well, she tricked me. She told me we were going to go see a movie but instead we wound up at the salon and before I knew it, my sandy brown hair was history."

"Uh, ok." I say stupidly. I just can't believe a mother would do that just because she wanted to cure her daughter of her anorexia. Talk about taking it to the extreme.

Hazel chuckled. "I never get tired of hearing that story. Anyway, I'll leave you alone with your new roommates. Lunch is in exactly five minutes, so don't be late. Remember what happened last time?" Hazel warned mysteriously before ominously pulling the door shut behind her.

I felt my eyebrows furrow. "What happened last time?"

Bella grabbed my wrist and pulled me further into the room. "Never mind that. You don't wanna know."

She led me over to the far side of the room on the left side where two bunk beds were positioned. "You'll have to sleep on the bottom bunk", she told me with a wily grin. "The top one is mine."

I slung my suitcase onto the bed, listening to Bella's promises to help me unpack later. I noticed how everything was made of glass so we couldn't hide anything. Can you say paranoid?

"Uh, hey, Joy? I'm Carly, from iCarly, and I just wanted to say hi." My eyes landed on Joy, the French girl. She was sitting at one of the three desks in the corner of the room, drawing. Were the French artists? Images of the Eiffel Tower flashed through my mind.

Joy looked up and grinned. Her long brown hair, darker than even mine, was pulled back into a tight bun atop her head. "J'aime iCarly! Ravi de vous rencontrer." She stuck out one manicured hand (French manicured, of course) for me to shake. I think.

"Um, what?" I looked cluelessly at Bella for answers. "What did she say?" I was terrified it was going to be something about how she thought iCarly was lame or worse, that I was lame.

"J'aime iCarly means that she loves iCarly. And Ravi de vous rencontrer means Nice to meet you." Bella's voice took on an awkward imitation of a French accent that was far from Joy's but I loved it anyway.

Then, to Joy, I replied, "Thank you so much. We love getting comments from fans."

Joy beamed at me before going back to whatever she was sketching in her pink spiral notebook.

"Wait a minute. Can Joy understand English?" I asked Bella as we opened the dresser drawers and began unpacking my things.

Bella nodded her confirmation. "Yes, but she can't speak it. I know it seems kinda weird, but just go with it."

Okaaay. Sure. A foreign language barrier was bad enough. I didn't need an entire country hating me. Ok, I know, I know. France wouldn't make me a public enemy if I didn't get along with Joy, but that didn't stop me from imagining myself being kicked out of a French restaurant while I was eating a croissant.

Not that I would ever even dream about touching a croissant. Too many carbs! Bread has so much fat in it, it's almost funny. Almost.

"Did Hazel say that lunch was starting soon?" I shuddered at the thought. "They actually make us eat here?"

Bella nodded grimly. "It's worse than that. It's not just breakfast, lunch, and dinner." She had been kneeling on her hands and knees like me, but now she got up and walked over to the wall near the door. There was a sheet of paper tacked to it, a list, that I had missed when I'd first come in.

Bella tapped it gently with one finger. It had every day of the week on it, divided up into columns. "This is our daily schedule. See? We start out with breakfast every morning at 7 in the morning to 7:30. Then we have Core Group." She paused for a moment. "Have you ever-"

I nodded. "Yes, ABA for a couple months."

Bella nodded sympathetically. "Core Group is like that. And then there's this thing called Blind Weighing. They make us turn around so we can't see the scale while they weigh us. It's really annoying because you never know if you've gained a hundred pounds or just one." She laughed. I didn't find it as funny.

"What's next?" I'm curious to see everything I'll be up against.

Bella didn't need to look at the list, but she did anyway before answering, "Snack break." Then, to my horrified face, she added, "Get used to it. There's three snack breaks every day. You'll be eating at least four meals per day.

"At least?" I squeaked. So much for one or two. "Can't I just not eat the snacks they offer us?"

The answer is written all over Bella's face:

N.

O.