No Time To Bleed

“Antoinette, come on!” Kyle was leaning over the roof’s edge, grappling for the large space from us to his sister.

We’d just gotten onto the roof.

The whole thing gave me a sticking sense of déjà vu from when we’d escaped the school and that had ended pretty badly.

Afternoon clung into the air, sticking to our skin and bodies in the damp.

Antoinette was on a glass roof, feet dangling over and just sitting.

“Why?”

“Because it’s not safe and one of those guards could see you!” he hissed.

She barely turned her eyes back to us. “Hey Jasmine.”

“Hey.” I murmured back.

“Antoinette, why the hell do you always have to be so difficult?!” Kyle seemed to be freaking out, reaching for her.

“You’re so stupid, Kyle.” She lit another cigarette and the breeze swept by.

The clouds were a stormy gray in the sky, something was coming.

“Why?” he pouted.

The gravel pressed into our feet and vents whizzed nearby. We’d climbed up here through the vents.

“Because you never listen to me and I’m always right.” Her voice sounded hurt, near tears.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

The air brushed the silky black strands of hair from her shoulders.

Her eyes moved to me, appreciative at least that I was here. “Those guards are bad.”

“Bad how? What are you talking about?”

Her hands went besides her, pressing against the glass. “They work for the CEO of whoever’s here and they do whatever he says. He does experiments on people.”

“You said all this before though. Come on. Just get from over there before we get in
trouble!” Kyle rambled on.

I had to say I was beginning to get annoyed with him as well. He obviously never listened.

“Kyle, would you listen to her?! She’s trying to say something!” I hissed at him.

Kyle scowled at me, then resumed frowning at his sister.

“What’s wrong, Antoinette? You can tell us.” I urged her on.

Her chin quivered and shook, the embers of the cigarette moving in the air past her lips. “I can’t. They told me not to.”

“You’re always opinionated every other time.” Kyle grumbled.

“Would you shut up?! Seriously, your sister is on a roof practically crying and you won’t shut up!” I blared at him.

Kyle snorted. “Well, you know what? I came here to help, but you don’t seem to need it. Too busy being a bitch.”

My jaw practically dropped then, I wanted to tackle him as he walked away, but Antoinette needed help.

“Is he always so two faced?”

“Pretty much. Sweet one second and completely a jackass the other.”

My heart was racing. “So, what’s wrong? Do I have to climb over there to talk to you.”

She half smiled. “I’d appreciate it.”

Spare droplets began to fall from the sky as I cracked my legs over the edge of the airport’s roof and waddled over to the clear glass.

I maneuvered my sneakers correctly and gently placed myself next to her.

She turned to me, flicking the cigarette away. “You’re face looks prettier than before. You’re healed.”

My skin burned a little bit in embarrassment as I giggled.

The bruising and colors had progressively faded away since the week we’d been here.

A week since the battle on the highway had gone down.

A week since Eli had died and we’d left his body burning.

I swallowed the tears away and looked to her.

“So, what’s wrong?”

“You ever have that feeling like your life turned out like nothing that you ever wanted? Like it’s meaningless?”

I nodded. “A lot of the times.”

“Do you know how much worse that gets when you find out you can’t trust people?” A tear slid away down her brown cheek, voice cracking as well.

“What’d they do to you? Did they hurt you?”

“Hey! Let go of me!” Kyle’s voice screamed.

A door went open with a bang and our heads whipped around. Men with guns came out and one of them had their hands shoved into Kyle’s back collar.

“I told you we’d get in trouble.” He complained.

“Shut up!” The guard yanked on Kyle’s collar. “What the hell are you kids doing up here?”

There had to be at least four of them: tall, burly, in cut black uniforms, and automatic guns in theirs hands.

I wondered if they knew how to shoot them.

“Don’t worry about them. Let’s get them inside before it starts pouring rain.”

The wetness began to pour and crackles of lightning went off in the distance.

Antoinette was the last to climb over the barrier to the regular roof and the guards pushed us roughly through the doors.

“I bet we could have some fun with these kids. They’d do good in the Level C.”

One of them licked their lips and grinned at me. My stomach turned and we descended down concrete steps.

What the hell was Level C?

We were marched out the bottom of the stairwell and near a plane’s waiting lobby, a deserted area of the airport.

“What do we do with this bunch?” They asked.

The leader of them spoke. “Drop them off at their hotel rooms.”

And that’s what they did.

_ _ _ _

“Bryce, told me about what happened with the roof situation yesterday.”

Alex was hovering behind me. I was clutching the tray in my hand.

These type of talks usually came around meal time.

I was unusually tired this morning, didn’t know why though. The bags were heavy under my eyes.

People were staring at me too.

“Who’s Bryce?” I asked him, dropping an orange onto my plastic tray.

His hair was extra messy today, strands of black moving across his forehead and ears. “Look we need to talk. We’ve wasted time since we’ve been here. Clarissa’s probably being held up somewhere.”

“Is that all you’re worried about?” I snapped at him.

His face fell and I felt guilty.

“Why are you being so rude?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes out of his view. “I don’t know. It’s just… things are weird here. Nothing like I imagined.”

It’d been 8 days since we’d gotten here and Alex was beginning to make a very serious point.

We had no idea where Clarissa or Ryant or Max were.

Kevin for one was usually running around and pulling pranks. He happened to get along with the guards very well.

He held chocolate milk in hand as he followed me to a table. “Well, what’s wrong? You can tell me.”

We sat down to a two person table, knees nearly touching and the plastic silverware between us.

People here were so mild mannered, way too passive for anything safe to be happening all the time.

Even Antoinette had been quiet since the roof yesterday.

I was whispering now, leaning towards him. “I don’t like how the guards watch us all the time. It’s weird.”

His blue eyes bored into mine under flakes of black hair.

I tried to breath right.

“Isn’t that what I’ve been saying since we’ve gotten here? That we need to get a move on things? Get out of this place?”

My fork mashed into my food: the warm eggs and bacon.

Everything was so good here on the surface.

“I know…” I finally looked to him. “I’m sorry.”

The side of his lips went up into a lopsided smile, revealing the dimples there. “Wow, is that actually an apology from Jasmine Rushman.”

My eyes narrowed. “I never told you my last name.”

He laughed. “Well, when you fight zombies with someone, you learn a few things.”

We stared at each other for a while, just sitting there over our food.

He almost seemed peaceful just sitting there with me.

It made me feel even worse for flaking on him since we’d gotten here.

“Okay, what’s up, Love Birds?” Cece came squeezing over, a chair mashed between me and Alex.

Her eyes flickered to me devilishly.

“What? I don’t get a response to that! That was a quality joke?!”

We all ignored her, except for Alex. He sipped some of his milk.

“So, what was the deal with you and that girl yesterday?”

Cece shrugged. “She claimed I had a superiority complex. I claimed she was mentally disabled. She tried to basically insult me because I didn’t bow down to her tortured soul.”

That got a chuckle out of Alex considering he didn’t exactly like Antoinette.

“And Jesse came to talk to you?” I asked her next.

Her eyebrows went together. “Jesse? He never talked to me...”

“Doesn’t surprise me. I heard weird things about that guy.” Alex filled in.

I began to shake my head, going to defend him. “Jesse’s a nice guy and Antoinette’s always been nice to me.”

“Well, you don’t always see everything.” Cece returned. “I’ve been asking around, seeing if people had any grudges against Lexicon running this place, and guess what I’ve found out?”

Alex and I both shook our heads.

“Nothing. No one has said one bad word about this place and I know from personal experience how bad silence can be.”

More and more things twisted inside me. The things that Brett Wiggins had threatened me with and I realized I’d become his puppet through the time I’d been here.

I hadn’t really done anything since I’d been here.

“I’ve gotta tell you guys something.” I exhaled, still not having touched my eggs. “It’s about why people are so quiet here.”

They both turned to me, worried.

“What?”

“What is it?”

I suddenly felt watched, like the surrounding area of where we were eating was bugged with microphones.

The guards had to be watching as well.

“I’ll tell you guys later.”

And I knew I would.

I owed them that.