Gah! I am so late on updating this time around! It's been majorly busy lately-and not just the lazy procrastinator type busy, the I'm-leaving-the-country-twice-in-the-next-three-weeks kind of busy. (Yeah, you guys might be waiting a while for an update after next week...) Anyways, here's the next chapter!


7 – Ella the Brave

As it turns out, cleaning up after the scientists became an everyday activity. It was weird; after the first two days, once Dr. Brailes figured I knew what I was doing, I wasn't even supervised or anything. They just took me (and the other girls they'd picked to clean up) to my designated hallway, and then a couple of guards would pace up and down the main hallway until we were all done. It seemed like security was a bit lax, if you asked me. But then, it's not like they were supervising dangerous criminals or anything, just half a dozen teenage guinea pigs from the suburbs. If they actually thought that I could escape or do any real damage, they wouldn't be letting me do this.

Either way, I liked the time away from the barracks. Other than to receive their daily shots and check-ups, none of the other girls ever got to leave our holding area. It was nice not to feel cooped up, to have some time to yourself to sort out your own thoughts. That's why I tried really hard to look healthy whenever the guard came and took me to clean—some of the other cleaning girls had been swapped out when they were too sickly to help (Anna lost her spot to a girl in the barrack right of ours), and I didn't want anyone else getting dibs on my job.

I noticed some interesting things those first few days of cleaning duty. One, there are boys being kept somewhere else in the facility. It was on the third day of cleaning that there was a big commotion down the hallway, coming from hall opposite the one we take to get to and from our barracks. One of the guards watching over us had left to investigate the problem, and a few minutes later a couple of black-eyed, bloody-nosed boys, about my age or older, were marched down the hallway with their arms pinned behind their backs, down another doorway towards what seemed to be the place where all the doctors hung out or worked when they weren't testing us. The guard that was helping watch over us before returned to his post and resumed pacing back and forth down the main hall, only this time I noticed there was a long, ugly, red scratch that stretched across his right cheek. Those boys must've tried fighting the guards and lost—but not without making their mark, apparently.

The second thing I realized is that the facility was understaffed—I saw maybe a dozen or so different doctors pass by as they went about their business, and if they were split up between four hundred different kids (there are ten girls' barracks with about twenty girls each, and I'm guessing there's the same number of guys) then they're assigned to a good thirty kids each. On top of that, there never seems to be more than five guards at a time on duty. Were there more employees somewhere else in the building, or was this place functioning on a skeleton crew?

Fact number three I found out, which was the fact that intrigued me the most, was that whatever had been in that cage I cleaned was now back in room 142, the door securely locked. It was a pretty thick door, so I couldn't pick up much, but sometimes when I stopped and placed my ear against it I thought I could hear something (or was it someone?) moving around in there. My curiosity was piqued, and I was dying to know what was being kept in there. I had to be careful not to spend too much time in front of the door, though, or else the guard would notice I was up to something.

Other than that, those first few days of cleaning duty passed by without incident. Everyone in my barrack was starting to feel better, and so we passed time by playing board games the guards gave us or by gathering in the isle between the rows of bunks and just talking with each other. It almost like a never-ending sleep-over, in a weird, captive prisoner sort of way. Like on day four of cleaning duty, when I came back to find everyone sitting together and gossiping about boys.

"...and he wouldn't let me get farther than three feet away from him!" Anna laughed as she told the story, "And I mean, it was summer camp, so it's not like it was easy to avoid him. I had to start eating my meals behind the mess hall so he wouldn't find me!" Then everyone noticed me and turned to invite me to join.

"There you are," Megan replied with a grin. "Care to share a story?"

"Not much to share, I'm afraid," I shrugged, taking a seat between her and Rachel. I'd gone with dates to the movies and to dances and stuff, but I'd never had a serious boyfriend.

"Aw, come on," Anna prodded, the other girls egging along with her, "You must at least have a crush on someone."

I squirmed uncomfortably. The part of me that was trying to keep my connection to the Flock a secret was telling me not to let anything out, to keep Iggy and the others to myself like I'd done so far. The girl part of me, however... "Well, there's this one guy I really like," I admitted.

"Oooh, description?" Megan asked, wiggling her eyebrows at me.

I grinned, calling up an image of Iggy to the front of my mind. "He's a blonde, with blue eyes and a killer smile. He's super tall and thin, but he's also really strong, and probably the smartest person I know—he can even make his own explosives from scratch." I froze up for a moment. He makes his own explosives? Stupid, stupid, stupid! You've said too much!

To my relief, however, Anna started laughing, and the others quickly joined in. "Your boyfriend blows things up?"

"Ha!" was my light-hearted reply, "I wish he was my boyfriend."

"Then why don't you ask him out?" a girl named Heidi asked.

I sighed, my mood dampening slightly. "It's more complicated than that."

"But Ella," Cara, another girl, pointed out, "aren't these things usually complicated?"

"Yeah, but this is super-complicated, like you couldn't imagine."

The other girls frowned sympathetically, and Cara said, "So he doesn't like you back at all?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so. I mean, we're pretty good friends and everything, but he's just way out of my league, you know? He's so smart and handsome and talented and..." and he has wings and helped save the world, I finished silently. "I just don't think he likes me that way. I'm more of a kid sister to him, I guess."

The girls erupted into a chorus of 'awww's and 'no way!'s as they attempted to make me feel better. "Ella, this boy must be blind if he can't see what an amazing catch you are," Anna told me. (I managed to stifle a giggle.)

"Definitely," Megan agreed, "And who knows? Maybe deep down he really does like you back."

"Maybe," I replied uncertainly.

"And even if he doesn't like you," Anna continued, "it's his loss. You're awesome, Ella—you're the one who's been working so hard to keep everyone sane this entire time. I mean, if not for your nagging and pep talking, we'd all be curled up on our bunks feeling sorry for ourselves."

"You're just so... so strong," Cammie, a quieter gal, added timidly, "I wish I could be as brave as you are."

I smiled sadly. "Trust me, I'm not brave." Not compared to Max, anyways.

But all the other girls disagreed, and wouldn't let up on the doting until they were sure their message has gotten across. "Sorry, Ella," Megan replied, beaming, "you've just been voted the year's bravest prisoner—whether you like it or not."

"Thanks guys," I told them all, feeling more than a little relieved when the conversation finally moved on to something else. Still, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of confidence growing inside. Maybe I wasn't totally useless after all.


The next day I got my shots and check-up and then got down to cleaning just like I always had before. This time, however, the door to room 142 seemed to be glaring at me like never before, taunting me, daring me to try and open it. Forget about it, a tiny voice in the back of my head told me, you're never going to get it open. As I swept the hallway floor, however, the girls' exhortation from the day before stuck in my head, and I couldn't help but wonder if maybe there was a way to get that door unlocked.

After a few minutes of internal wrestling, I finally put down my broom and dustpan and went to give the door a closer look. I glanced at the end of the hall to make sure the guards weren't watching, and then gingerly I grasped the doorknob and tried to give it a turn. Locked, just as I thought. I exhaled, and brushed at the leaves of the potted plant that were tickling my arm.

Wait, potted plant? I looked over at the sickly little shrub sitting to the left of the doorway, and an odd thought occurred to me. They couldn't be stupid enough to... could they? I grasped the plastic planter and lifted the tree. Oh my word, they are stupid enough to hide a key under a flowerpot! Suddenly I felt exposed, like the guards were going to come charging down here and drag me away for being nosy. I quickly replaced the flowerpot and went back to my sweeping, shifting my anxious gaze between the end of the hall and the base of the potted plant.

No way, I told myself, It's not worth getting in trouble over. But that didn't stop me from subconsciously timing how many seconds I had between guards as they paced up and down the hallway. (Five seconds minimum. Also, the second guard who passed always took a longer glance at me than first one did.)

So when the second guard had gone by, against my better judgment, I abandoned my broom again, tilted the planter back, and slid the key out from under it. I was quietly panicking as my mental timer counted down from five, and I shoved the key into the lock and turned it before I could talk myself out of it. The knob turned easily this time, and opened the door and slipped in before anyone could see what I was doing. I eased the door shut behind me, being careful not to let it slam. Hopefully, if the guard noticed I wasn't in the hall anymore, he'd assume I'd gone into one of the other rooms to grab something or to do some more cleaning.

Finally I turned my attention to the huddled figure who was crammed into the corner of the cage I had cleaned out—it was a girl, probably around my age, and the roof wasn't nearly high enough for her to sit comfortably, so she sat with her head tucked up against her knees and her arms encircling her legs. She didn't look tense or scared, though; she must've been resting, or maybe just thinking. I couldn't see her face, but she wore clothes like mine and had short, brownish hair that reached a bit below her chin.

When I realized she wasn't going to respond to my arrival, I spoke, "Um, hello?"

"What do you want," a muffled voice replied curtly, still not moving a muscle.

"Um," I began, "Well, I'm being held captive here too, and I wanted to see who—" then she shifted her position and turned to face me, and I gasped, suddenly lost for words.

"Really, now?" She replied with a sarcastic smile, "You sure don't look like you're in a cage."

I blinked hard a couple of times, as if I was afraid I was seeing things. "Max? You're here too?"