PART 12: TURKISH DELIGHT

Raja hummed a tune, while setting the table. She was so careless with the plates, hopping through the cafeteria and nearly juggling with them, that the others were afraid she could break something any second.

The others would be the whole tribe save Dart, Iz, Zion, Kita and Kera.

"Hey er, Raja, don't break anything, will ya? What are you so happy about this morning, anyway? I don't see plenty of reason to be happy. Did you forget that a member of our tribe has been kidnapped and we don't know where she is?"Scott reminded her with a slightly disgusted glare.

Raja's whole face fell, and her excitement was gone right away. Right, how could she forget that? Kita had disappeared, kidnapped, maybe even –no, don't think it!- …dead, and her she was, The Happy Queen of Fairyland.

She tried to take on a more stoic attitude while setting the rest of the table. But is was hard for her. She just couldn't help it, she WAS happy. The others weren't, obviously, and they didn't know where Kita was… they probably expected her to feel guilty about being happy at a time like this.

Raja hated to admit it (so she only admitted it to herself) that worries about Kita didn't overweigh her good mood. Raja had been one of the last people to join the tribe of the Argonauts, and she hadn't known Kita for so long… She didn't know the mysterious girl whatsoever. Kita always kept her distance, but she was always staring at people, trying to figure them out.

Who knows where she could be now, Raja told herself. You should be feeling guilty about being happy now! But… I just can't help the fact that I don't seem to miss Kita all that much. It's horrible of me, I know…

Kera entered the cafeteria with a scowl that said: "Back off, or you're dead meat."

"Hey, Kera. Had a fun night?"Randy, who still assumed Kera instead of Iz was the girl that Zion had gotten into his bed, asked. She gave him a glare –if looks could kill, he would've burned to ashes instantly- and just told him coldly: "Shut. Up," before taking her seat.

Jax let his head sink lower between his shoulders. It was the same situation as last night. That same terrible atmosphere, that told him there was going to be a fight again. He didn't like the looks on their faces, their voices. They could all be so hateful, so cold, and he hated it. Made him feel so awkward and… not at home.

"Well, anyway… Is it time for breakfast yet! I'm starving. Hm, where's the rest of the gang?"Randy asked.

"Dart had to take care of something,"Raja said. Randy was amazed by the fact that her smile didn't split her face in two.

"Zion and Iz probably wouldn't wanna see eachother, hm?"Justine asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Wouldn't be to sure about that,"Kera muttered.

Randy, who was sitting next to hear, was the only one that could hear what she said. It made him think. Last night, in Zions room… If not Kera… "Wouldn't be to sure about that"? Naw… that couldn't be… Er, right?

"Well, then maybe we should just start eating,"Justine said, shrugging her shoulders.

"You know, it astonishes me how you can pretend like nothing happened. How can you all be so cheerful, when a member of our tribe is missing?! God, it's like no one cares!"Scott yelled suddenly. He got of his chair, nearly knocking it over, and left the room.

"Er… are we gonna repeat last night's scenario?"Justine asked frowning.

"Hopefully not,"Kera growled, and she too got up and left the cafeteria.

This was what Jax had been afraid of. All those people; their hate was just hanging in the air, so thick, it could be cut with a knife. Cut with a knife… this made Jax think of other things again.

He shook his head. That was going to have to wait. Right now, all he could in this chaotic place was to flee into a quiet corner of his mind, pretending to be a braindead zombie, pretending he didn't hear or see anything but his imaginations… while the pressure of social life was building up. When did something as simple and trivial as 'breakfast' became so hard.

*

At the Mall, breakfast didn't go very smooth either.

"I can't believe it… This is all my fault; I should've never let her go out on her own. I should've known better, it was nearly dark,"Salene said, close to tears.

"Salene, it's not your fault. Cloe would've gone out anyway, with or without your permission,"Amber said gently.

"I know… But what if something happens to her?"Salene asked.

Ebony shrugged her shoulders. "Girls her age start to like going to parties at night. What is everyone getting so worked up about?"she said careless.

"She said she was going for a walk! Walks don't take all night!"Salene snapped, wondering how Ebony could remain so careless.

"I'm sure she'll come back… when she's hungry,"Lex said.

"How can you pretend like nothing happened? Those people who were here the other day… The Argonauts –a member of their tribe disappeared as well, right? What if they got kidnapped? Both those girls. What if they've been taken by some psychopath…,"Salene said.

"Maybe we should contact that tribe. The Argonauts,"Amber said. "We might be able to help eachother."

*

As soon as everybody had stopped eating, Raja started humming again. There was no one to stop her this time. The only ones left in the cafeteria were herself, her little boy and Jax, who had a weird zombie-look in his eyes. Daydreaming again. He could be distant like that some times, in his own little world, Raja had noticed. She had also noticed that he didn't like it when you disturbed him at a time like that.

So she just did the dishes, not asking Jax what his plans for today were or why he did't leave the cafeteria, even though he had finished eating. Well… for as far as he had eaten, because he had hardly touched the food on his plate. He had pricked it with his fork a few times, then went back to sitting silent with that weird glassy look in his eyes.

Raja was worried about him, but she didn't want to risk getting him annoyed by disturbing him.

When she finished the washing-up, she took her son of the chair. He started to struggle, saying: "Wa-we walk self!" giving her that 'and that's the final word'-look only little children can give you.

Raja laughed and put him on the floor. "I'd say it's time for a bath, mister,"she told him. Aaron took benefit of walking by himself by running from his mother as soon as she said this. "Hey, you…,"Raja said, chasing the toddler in his own speed as he tried to run on his crooked, chubby legs. It was turned into a game, with Raja following him around in circles, until Aaron walked out of the cafeteria, and Raja chased him down the hallway.

And Jax was alone in the cafeteria again.

That was nice. No one around, peace and quiet. Then why did he have to do it now? Why did he find himself getting up, walking to a kitchendrawer and getting a potatoe-peeling knife out?

He could control himself. If he really honestly tried, maybe. But, then he would have to feel like this all day. So empty, so feelingless, so weird, like he just wanted to scream. Loud. It was always such a strange feeling, and he didn't know if he would ever be able to explain it to someone who hadn't experienced it. It felt like he was losing himself, but not in that nice way, like when he was daydreaming. All he knew was that for some strange reason, inflicting pain on himself actually helped.

He could do as Zion told him ages ago, put the knife down and go to someone who he could talk to. Raja could still be heard in the hallway, playing with her son, laughing and being happy. But… did he want that? Did he actually wanted to kick this habit, and then feel like this all day? No, not really.

Jax sank down to the floor, pulling up his sleeve. Lots of fresh cuts. It had gotten worse since he came here. Well, no surprise, everything had gotten worse since they came here. They should've just stayed where they were.

Jax put the knife against his pale skin, pushed the sharp edge into the flesh and let it slide down. Blood formed small bubbles at the corners of the cut. Little, tiny bubbles and streams. Jax started to wonder for some reason, what a fountain of blood would look like. That's what you got when you hit an artery, right? Like those right underneath the thin skin of your wrists.

The door swinged open. Quickly, Jax pulled his sleeve down and put the knife his pocket.

He got up, glad that the counter of the cafeteria had hidden him from whoever opened the door.

"Jax? What ya doing there?"a surprised voice asked.

Jax saw a big-eyed Trojan standing in the dooropening.

"Nothing. What are you doing here?"Jax asked right away.

Trojan rolled his eyes and picked a stuffed bunny of a chair. "Aaron forgot this and so Raja send me to get it… You okay, dude?"Trojan asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?"Jax asked, shrugging his shoulders, trying to imitate Trojans cool, tough, careless attitude. He left the cafeteria as soon as possible, before Trojan could ask him any more questions. He hated to be asked if he was okay.

Trojan watched him go slightly puzzled, then rememberd his promise about giving Aaron that stupid, stuffed bunny. He was about to leave the cafeteria, when he saw something on the floor by the counter. He pulled up an eyebrow, and looked a little closer. A small gathering of crimsonred, wet dots on the floor. Blood.

*

Raja let out a sigh and let her hands go through the water.
'Everyone is in a foul mood today, Aaron,'she said, while washing the little boy. Aaron hit the surface of the water with one of his little hands, as always amazed and baffled by the sound and the fun splash it caused. His thin, blonde, wet hair was standing up straight, making him look like a baby-punker. He looked up at his young mother with wondering, green eyes.
'But nothing ever gets you down, huh my little man?'Raja said, rubbing her nose against that of her babyboy. Aaron giggled. 'I love you so much, Aaron. If I ever lost my little baby, I wouldn't know what to do.'

*

Trojan was slightly -well okay, very- freaked out by his discovery. The blood on the floor looked so... fresh. Maybe Raja had accidently cut herself in the fingers while preparing breakfast. But her hands had looked fine and surely, cutting yourself in the fingers didn't leave all that blood.
An incoherent circle of big red dots. Not that much, but enough to make you think some strange things.
Like what, Trojan? his mind asked him.
Like- I don't know.
Trojan took a cloth and cleaned it off the floor, because... Blood starts drying up within fifteem minutes, right? He had learned that little fact in biology class, long before the virus. Heh, strange, he never learned anything about viruses in biology class...
But to get back to the subject: this blood hadn't by long dried up, so... so why was he paying so much attention to this?
Because! Because it was strange... Right? Automatically Trojan thought of who had been here in the past fifteen minutes, and his brain filtered out a name immediately: Jax.

*

The dark dream, the sea of onyx silk that was Iz's hair, was spread out over Zions chest like a protective blanket. One of her little, white hands with the slender fingers was laying on one of his shoulders limply. Her sweet breath in a rhytm that told him she was sleeping. He wondered what she would be dreaming about.
Then Zion noticed that the sunlight had floated over the entire city, and that it would probably be late. Maybe breakfast had already been served. The Argonauts must've been pretty nervous, after last night's fight, that looked like it would make the tribe fall apart. Instead Iz and Zion ended up in bed together. Rather strange... and it was rather unfair to leave the others out in the blue like this.
Oh well. Later.
Zion kissed Iz's head, and this touch was enough to make the girl wake up with a groan that made her reluctantness to do so clear.
'Is it morning already?'she asked in her morning-voice.
'Er... sorta passed morning, I think,'Zion said relaxed, looking out of the window. Yeah, way past morning, and he really should be doing better things right now. But everything seemed so small and insignificant, things of another dreamworld. He didn't think he had ever feeled as relaxed as now.
Iz flew of his chest with a gasp and looked outside. 'Oh, we probably missed breakfast. And I'm hungry... And- Kita! We have to look for Kita!'she said.
This made Zion sit up straight in bed as well. Oh my God, did he just... did he just forget about Kita? How could he have been so irresponsible? He jumped out of bed and into his clothes, determined to organize a searchparty right away-
'Fearless Leader, you're wearing your shirt inside-out,'Iz calmly pointed out the fact. Zion looked at it, thought about correcting it, but then shrugged his shoulders with an exasperated groan and left the room.
Iz was left alone in the room. She looked at the dooropening Zion had just walked through with big eyes. Zion was now probably rallying the Argonauts and getting ready to turn the whole city upside down in an attempt to find Kita.
Iz nodded. Good. She realised again that she would never want to have the job of leader, and all the stress involved. She was a basically stressless person, and on this morning, she too had never felt more relaxed in her life... hard to imagine a humanbeing like that.
Iz didn't even worry about Kita. Sure, the disappeared girl was in her throughts, but now she had that funny feeling that, for some reason, everything would be okay. Saying that helped, and in a way made sense too: Everything would be okay.

*

The blood: it made Trojan suspicious. It was fresh, and to the best of his knowledge the only one that had been in the cafeteria the past fifteen minutes had been Jax. Everyone would have to admit something was not right about that.
Could've been an accident, but... What had Jax been doing there anyway? I mean, didn't the guy hate to be in the cafeteria? He had went straight to his room right after every meal, and he didn't come down for any other reason. The first day he hadn't even come down for food.
And when Trojan had walked into the cafeteria, Jax been sitting behind the counter, all alone. Then he had looked up, startled, and all of the sudden he was very fast to leave. It was all sort of strange.
Trojan lingered in the doorway on the first floor, where they all had their bedrooms. He looked at the doors, not knowing what to do yet. But in the end he figured... maybe people like Jax need someone to talk to as well?

*

Kera and Justine, formed into a team by Zion, had gone out to 'investigate' what appeared to be known in this city as Sector 10.

Justine let out an exasperated sigh. "Just wandering around the city doesn't work, you know,"she said to her teammate. "We should go to the kind of places where all the low-lives hang out, and ask there. I'm sure they would know something about the psycho that kidnapped Kita."

Kera pulled up an eyebrow. "How do you know for sure that she's been kidnapped?"she asked Justine.

"Well, let's face it: it's either that or she's gotten killed,"Justine said with a rather careless tone in her voice. "Cats like to be on their own. But even for Kita, staying away this long without leaving any message, is sort of weird. So I'm figuring: someone did something to her."

"Maybe she just wanted to leave the tribe, this place,"Kera said, staring ahead. "I would."

"Damn, what's your problem this morning? The whole time you've been so… Oh wait, is this about Zion boinking Iz?"Justine asked, again in that cheery, careless voice.

Kera turned her look to Justine with a snap. "He didn't do that,"she growled. The girl that was usually so relaxed, looked like she was about to punch Justine in the face.

"Well… Randy says differently, judging from what he heard last night. And the two of them weren't at breakfast this morning. Rather weird couple… but in a way, they do fit together-" Kera grit her teeth "-heh, and those two have been needing to get some for ages. And now you're depressed because it wasn't you that spent the night in the room of the great Zion… Ohoohoohoohoo, sucks to be you,"Justine sang.

"Shut up,"Kera growled, shooting Justine a particularly dangerous glare that the other girl didn't seem to notice.

"Honey, don't feel too bad about it,"Justine said. "In complete contrast with what you've believed for the past, er, years, Zion's not the only guy on the planet. So Iz just grabbed her chance a little sooner –there's more to life, ya know."

That was the final straw. Kera looked like she was ready to start a fight and test all her kickboxing-skills on Justine, when all of the sudden their attention was drawn to something different.

A girl with a head full of bleached knots seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"What's up with people appearing out of nowhere here the entire time?"Justine sighed annoyed, and she was going to ignore this person, if it hadn't been for knot-girl saying: "I heard you talking about Kita. Are you Argonauts?"

"Yeah. Who the hell wants to know?"Justine said in the inpolite, nasty tone that just seemed to fit her.

"My name's Amber, of the Mallrats, and I need your help."

*

Trojan was about to knock on Jax's door, but for some reason he just kept pulling his hand back. This was stupid. What was he supposed to say? "Hey Jax, I found blood on the floor and I think it's yours"? Ridiculous. He could just imagine Jax saying: "Oh, thanks for telling me, I had been looking for that for a while."

So maybe Jax had a nosebleed, or tripped over something, or whatever. No big deal, right? What was so important about this? Why did he have to go to Jax's room because of this?

Because… Because.

What, that's everything, just because? No, not just because, you know why, don't ya Trojan? I'm your mind, I know your secrets. Poor Jax, nothing should ever happen to him, he's so… beautiful. Well, apart from that black eye you gave him.

Trojan fully remembered that night all of the sudden, and why he had been so angry at Jax. Not just because Jax had been spying on him and Kita.

Trojan shook his head, as if he was trying to shake something out. Then he clenched his hands into fists and walked away from Jax's door. Jax, sitting in his room, and looking at his cuts with a sort of pleased regret and morbid fascination, had never even noticed he had been there.

*

Kita screamed. She didn't stop screaming, not anymore. She didn't care what it would cause. The screaming was the only thing that gave her a bit of control, that made her real. So much pain, her whole body ached and burned and hurt. He loved her, loved to hurt her that was, in whatever way possible.

"Oh, little pet, little… little bítch!"he hissed at her from out of the dark, like snakes crawling in her bed at night. She screamed again, even though she knew he didn't like it and would get angry at her again. But there was never anything specific necessary for him to get angry, to cause her pain.

Screaming gave Kita control; the guy that held her needed control too. Sociopathic as he was, he believed to be above these creatures. They were just objects –mere pets or dolls to him. The girls. The girls he had never been able to control were now his objects and he could do whatever he liked to them.

Kita had been made blind again. And she wasn't able to hear the only kind voice here –weepy, but kind- that of Cloe, anymore. Cloe had at least provided the slightest bit of comfort, but Kita didn't know where the other girl was, what he had done to her, what he was doing to Kita herself. Kita didn't realize where she was anymore.

She was lost in what was undoubtly his dream, but her greatest nightmare. A hell on earth. This could only be Hell, and she was being punished by HIM, for her sins. And the worst punishment was that she couldn't see anything. Not the slightest bit of security.

Kita started to slip away. The small periods of time between the pain, she lay wherever she was like a zombie, staring into the abyss, trying to think herself into a feelingless ragdoll. And the pain itself made her go insane. She felt it was too much, more than a young human mind could put up with, and she was losing herself.

From time to time she did think she heard Cloe's voice. "Kita? Kita, say something!", but that voice seemed to come from far away. It seemed so unreal, compared to the pain, and the darkness made her doubt everything.

"Is it day already?"she asked.

"I think so,"that voice that could be identified as Cloe's told her.

"Hm-mmm,"Kita nodded and she let herself slip away into a dreamless sleep, which she hoped would last eternally.

*

Another day had passed and the Argonaut-tribe had gathered at dinner. Justine had told about Amber, and the girl of their tribe named Cloe, that had also disappeared. The Mallrats and the Argonauts could help eachother on their search.

"Well, that's something,"Zion sighed hopefully, while trying hard to feel sorry for the girl named Cloe at the same time. "Any of you discovered anything else?"

They all shook their heads one by one. No clues whatsoever. Whoever had taken Kita, did the job well. It almost seemed like they were never going to find her.

*

"What are you doing with me?"Iz asked. Zion looked her in the azure-blue eyes amazed, catching her look of blissful innocence. She had come with him after dinner. Zion had finally noticed Kera's jealous glares. He always had the idea Kera fancied him. Well, he couldn't do anything about the fact that he didn't like her, right? About the fact that he liked Iz. The Iz who was sitting on the edge of his bed, cool and gleaming in the light of the moon that shot through the windowglass. The Iz that looked at him with her knowing girl-eyes that weren't of this world and asked him: "What are you doing with me?"

"Loving you,"he simply said and he pulled her closer, her warm, soft body with the sweet fragrance. She looked at him again, alien eyes lined with black. She really did have alien eyes, and he meant that in the nicest possible way. Something about her was a total mystery; simply not of this earth. He wondered where she was, what she learned, who her parents were, who she was. At the same time he was so delighted not knowing.

He didn't want to unveil the mystery yet. He wanted to keep her immortal for a while.

*

Jax sat in his room and wondered what was going to happen. What would happen tomorrow, the day after that? An endless strain, every day so long, so long it seemed eternal. He didn't know what to do. Did he really want to face another day? It all made him so terribly tired. He just wanted to sleep.

Wasn't much he would miss about this world anyway. Except for Turkish Delight. He really liked Turkish Delight. One of the few things he didn't eat with a vague feeling of nausea.

And Trojan he would miss too, ofcourse. But he would have to face the fact that nobody was going to miss him. His mind kept telling him that, at least. And if nobody was going to miss him… then what was the point of it all, really?