The tires squeal.
The doors rattle.
The windows shatter. Shards of glass shower the family inside.
"Get down!" The father shouts. He had only wanted to keep them safe. His last thoughts are of his wife and his daughter, his beautiful daughter. The girl in the rearview mirror is terrified. Her hands shake as they muss up her long hair, the color and shine of it reminding him of obsidian. Under all that hair is a stunning mind, as sharp as a tack, but she's only ten.
He can't believe he did this to his family. He should never have signed up for that stupid experiment.
The man's mind runs through every moment they've ever shared. Watching fireworks together, the three of them stretched out on his Grandmother's blanket in the grass. The first birthday that she could blow out her own candles. The time she won the spelling bee in kindergarten. Her cherubic smile pointed at him when he found her in her mother's heels and makeup.
Bernadette hadn't given a damn that her favorite shade of eyeshadow was smashed to bits or that there was lipstick on her blue pumps. She just started gushing over how gorgeous their baby girl looked.
The last thing he does is look at his girl, his resourceful, wonderful girl. He hopes to God that she will be safe. It's the last thing he will ever think, the thought fading from him as quick as the bullet that rips apart his grey matter.
The woman in the passengers seat stares at their daughter, smiling as brightly as she can. Before she follows in the love of her life's footsteps, she looks at her baby. She gazes into her offspring's icy blues, taking in the curve of her nose and the soft line of her jaw. She tells her one last time that she loves her. She falls forward with the force of the projectile in her skull.
The dark haired youth sits among the slivers of glass, wide eyes darting about the car. A woman in a black suit had done something to her mother and father. They weren't waking up no matter how she screamed for them. The woman has blood spatters upon her white button-down. Her hands reach for the child, coming closer and closer.
Her cries are frenzied, this woman is evil. She hurt her mom and dad. What will she do to the child?
"What do you see, Seven?"
"I see... a key?" The girl hates this room. She hates this place. She wants to go back home.
"Very good. Tell me what it looks like." The old man is sitting across from her. A box rests on the cold metal surface between them.
The girl is hesitant. If she's wrong, bad things happen. If she's right, good things happen. It isn't hard for her to pick the path of obedience. She is alone and she misses her family. They tell her that she never had a family in the first place. They lie to her about all sorts of things, but she knows. She won't say it to anyone, though. It will only lead to bad things.
"It's... shiny. It's really small."
"What else, Seven?"
"It says... it says something on it."
"What does the key say?"
"Um, it says... C-A-S-I-N-O."
"Good. Very good." She's too afraid to ask the man what it means. She doesn't trust him.
He wants her to call him "Papa" instead of "sir." It's something he phrases to her as a request, a favor even. She never has, but she will do what he wants eventually. He knows it, because she is afraid of him, and so she will obey him.
Sooner or later, she will be tame. She's done so well recently that he's given her another gift. Many of his children like different things and he uses that to get what he wants from them. Eight had wanted a mirror. Three wanted a new pair of slippers. Fourteen wished for a Rubik's cube. Eleven likes plush animals.
Seven loves books.
He gives them to her. Pamphlets, manuals, dictionaries, atlases, encyclopedias, novels. Anything that has words on a page is proper motivation for the twelve year old. Today, he chooses to gift her a book about a horse. She has to be able to describe what she sees. Her abilities differ from most of his children. She can't share her sight except through her words.
He never knows how much she cherishes that book.
She has always been the best behaved. He thinks, perhaps, it has to do with her age at the time of her capture. She remembers them still, he knows it and he suspects it's the reason she listens so well. It has only been two years. None of his adult volunteers had ever kept their progeny for as long as Bernadette and Saul.
The other children were taken at a much younger age. They have been well trained. They love him.
They think they love him.
She will too.
The first time she opens it, she is in the Rainbow Room. The books aren't allowed to leave there. She needs to remember that she is on page 87.
She finishes it when she returns for the third time. Many words in it mean nothing to her. She doesn't know what a colt or a filly is, but there is a dictionary she can use in the room.
Colt: noun /koʊlt/
A young, male horse.
Filly: noun /ˈfilē/
1. A young female horse, especially one less than four years old.
2. (Humorous) A lively girl or young woman.
It's the first time she's read such words. Filly. She enjoys this word the most. She doesn't know anymore what her parents had called her, but she thinks they would love this word too. She hopes they would approve if she took it as her name. Such a thing, however, is strictly forbidden in the lab. "You are a number. You are Seven." The old man, Brenner, had taught her that the hard way. She hadn't done anything wrong, hadn't called herself by her name once. She didn't deserve that punishment, but he didn't care.
She loves words with more than one meaning. It means she has to think about context when she's reading, it takes up all her attention. It distracts her from her circumstances.
When she's reading, she isn't in the lab anymore, she is in the meadow with Black Beauty, seeing the world for its beauty. She reads definitions until she can picture it all in her head, best as she can.
The novel is 255 pages long, the longest Seven had read from cover to cover. The second time she reads it is a week later. The third time, she knows what she needs to do with it.
The faculty is soft on her, thinking her weak. It's true, she doesn't have the power to snap a person's neck or start fires. She knows that almost any other subject could end her life without a moment's notice.
But she will have her way. She is not as weak as they think.
Eight wasn't in the Rainbow Room the next time she's brought there. The dark skinned girl had gotten away. Seven saw. Seven watched her leave. She doesn't know what kind of powers the other girl had used, only watching her skeleton run the halls. She doesn't yet know how to look through a wall and not through a person's skin. The finer details are lost to her in her preternatural sight.
Her fellow prisoner stops in the underbelly of the lab. Another four years will pass before she sees the escape route with her naked eye.
The room never changes.
No, that isn't right. She is aware that they go into different rooms, she can see it. They all look the same to her, though. The white tiles, steel furniture and locked doors never change. They always put something on her head when they go here.
She thinks she has been here for too long. She is twelve and she still misses them. She starts to forget what they sound like, but she remembers their faces, she remembers the last things they said to her, but it becomes less and less.
"Get down!"
"I love you, sweetie."
"How many people are in the room?"
She looks again at the wall behind the man. She knows his name now. Brenner is a common topic among the orderlies in the lab. "Four."
"Are they the only things in the room?" he asks. She wants to tell him no more, she won't do it anymore... but she can predict what that would bring.
Punishment used to be a time out or a spanking. Now it's solitary confinement or a beating.
"No, sir. They're holding... things. Black metal things with tubes on them. I don't... know the word." She wants to ask what is in their hands. Apprehension keeps her silent.
"Well done. What they have in their hands are called guns." Of course, Brenner only asker her what he already knew the answers to.
She tries the word on her toungue. "Guns."
He teaches her words. She doesn't know why he won't teach the other subjects these things. She wonders if they don't need to know. She is one of the few that can't move things. She can only see things. She can't share it with anyone without telling them directly.
He wants to know the extent of the girl's power, pushing harder each day. She is different from his other children. For her powers to work, she has to be able to name what she sees. He wishes it wasn't so, but to make use of her, he must teach her. It's risky.
But it is also rewarding. "Yes. They are used to kill."
She is glad that she can learn here, but she hates that he has taught her so much.
The books are her safe place. He tells her she must leave them in the Rainbow Room. They never find the green hardcover. None of the faculty care for the items in the Rainbow Room, none of them catalogue the books. Not one of them checks for the one missing book.
She can't recall what horses look like, not until Brenner presents her with the novel. The front is dark, the color of moss and night. Slivers of gold shine in the fluorescent light of her gilded cage.
He never knows that what he gives her is hope.
She keeps her hope in a secret place, hidden under her mattress. She never touches it for fear they will find it. She wants it to be her secret.
When they come for her again, she goes willingly. Always willing, never forgetting what happened to the family she once had. No matter how blurry their faces are in her memory, no matter how faded they become, the red on the woman's white shirt remains. The splatter of warm liquid remains. The fear remains.
"Alright, Seven," Brenner says, taking his seat across the table. He is less cautious with her than the others. She can't hurt him. She can only see. He thinks he is safe in her presence. She thinks he underestimates her. "Do you see what is in the room behind you?"
She turns around in the chair. "Yes, sir. It is a woman."
"What has she eaten today, Seven?" Brenner never wastes his time with their sessions. He doesn't need to. She has always been terrified of him. For the two years she has been in his care, not once has she acted out.
"What has she..." Seven is confused at first, but then refocuses on the back wall. He stands, watching her eyes glaze over, looking through the solids. "Uh, paper? She ate paper and... something mushy."
"That is called oatmeal. What does the paper say?"
""Meet at our speh-see-all place.""
"The word is "special." Good work, Seven. I think you've earned some more reading material."
Seven never plays with the toys. She doesn't care for them, she only needs to read. Sometimes she thinks she is the only subject that can read. She has never seen another subject pick up a book. Twelve looks at the bookshelf a few times, though.
None of her fellow captives approach her. They don't speak with her. There is one that watches her, Eleven. She hears the orderly, Henry, say it to the younger girl. Eleven is small and, like Seven, she doesn't interact much with the other subjects. He takes her to the checkers table.
She looks back at the page. She always opens it at random, bound to find something new on every sheet
Discern: verb, formal /dɪˈsɜːn/ to see, recognize, or understand something that is not clear
Discernable: adjective, formal /dɪˈsɝː.nə.bəl/ able to be perceived by a sense (such as sight or smell) or by the mind; capable of being-
"Seven." The subject turns her head to the doors. The young man has risen again, standing at her side. "It's time."
"Yes, sir." Seven gently folds the tome closed, placing it reverently on the shelf. She follows Henry out.
"How are you today, Seven?" She doesn't know how to respond at first. He's never asked her this before. She wonders if there is a correct answer.
"I am fine, sir."
"That is good." She breathes out softly, thankful she hasn't earned herself a punishment. "Do you know what we're doing today?"
"No, sir."
"That's alright. We're going to look further today. I want you to look at the Rainbow Room." She does what he asks, always. He sees the fear in her eyes every time. Maybe it's better that she doesn't think fondly of him. "I want you to tell me what the other kids are doing." She goes quiet.
She is looking.
"There... are some grouped up and some by themselves. Two, Three, Four, and Five are sitting together. Fifteen and Seventeen are racing cars. Twelve and Eighteen are doing the maze. Ten is alone, he has the black answer ball. Nine is at the chess board, but he isn't playing with anyone. The others... aren't doing much besides sitting?" She hopes it was good enough.
"Good. Good. How about outside the Rainbow Room?"
"Two people are by the doors. Uh, men. They're both just... standing there. Staring."
"Very nice." Seven is always so quick, their sessions take hardly any time at all. He thinks she does it purposefully, that she's afraid of being alone with him too long.
It is October 1982 when she escapes him. He was too comfortable, lulled by her submissive demeanor. He had underestimated Seven.
She knew he would. She had bet on it.
Seven bet on hope.
The orderly that brings her lunch doesn't feel anything when he drops the tray on Seven's endtable. He thought the girl was becoming more friendly, offering him a hug because she was changing her attitude.
Brenner had shown her how to use her abilities. She had just used them. She toyed with the hope in her palm. How had it been so simple? How had she made it this far with her precious grass colored novel?
The layout of the lab was known to her after she learned to look, really look. She can only see so far. She must be careful. She had seen Eight escape with her vision, all she had to do was follow. She looked at the grate ahead. She hasn't tripped any alarms. She's hesitant to take the last steps, afraid Brenner is on the other side just waiting to pounce on her at her disobedience.
Seven lowers her body. The grate is easily tugged off. It seems this facility is lacking in the maintenance department, screws eroded. The dripping of water hits the pipe's edge. She doesn't think they will make the same mistake twice.
She starts to move, making as little noise as possible. Seven never looks back.
