When Brian awoke, he was back in the same room, along with another person in another stretcher, whom he couldn't see. He surprised to see that he wasn't tied down to the stretcher, but when he tried to move, he couldn't. Brian groaned with exhaustion, then gave up. He looked down and saw that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Worried, he looked harder, and saw that his stomach had turned red, and was possibly bleeding. It throbbed, Brian could see, but he couldn't feel it.
Brian put his head back down on the stretcher and felt something wet. Blood, he knew that it was blood.
' I have to get out of here before they kill me!' he thought. 'Leighanne will never know, the government will cover it up. In fact they probably already have...' he sighed and closed his eyes.
A man in white came over to Brian and shook him a bit. Brian opened his eyes slowly, but he didn't even want to look at the man. The man spoke, but the words were so slurred together to Brian, it was like listening to a person talk from underwater.
What he said mustn't have mattered, because a few seconds later, Brian was hoisted onto the man's shoulders. The man pried the floorboard open, and Brian could see a trap door.
'Oh great, another secret lab,' he thought, 'even more pins and needles.' He closed his eyes, feeling the motion of the man. 'AJ was right, rocking motions do make you sleepy. Except I'm sick, and this isn't a car, and I don't know where I'm going.'
A few minutes later, the man stopped, and took a key out of his pocket. Clumsily, he fit it into the lock and turned the key. When the door opened, Brian saw another corridor. Wherever the man was taking him, Robyn’d surely catch him. He remembered Ash telling him that, as if she was standing there and telling him again.
The man laid Brian down on the ground then started bolting up the door. Brian searched the ceiling for cameras, and found none. He felt a dry cough in his throat again, and hoped the man would go away if he coughed. The cough was weak, and Brian couldn't hear it. But the man did. He turned around and looked down at Brian. The man had the most sympathetic look on his face, which shocked Brian. Brian started to cough again, this time louder and much harder, but because he couldn't hear it, he didn't think it was that bad.
In an instant, the man was on his knees and sitting Brian up. Brian could the warm blood that he was coughing up fall down his chin. The man said something that Brian couldn't make out, then took him in his arms. He ran down the hallway, then stopped at the first door. Brian had stopped coughing, but the man still frantically tried to get the door open.
When he finally managed to do so, he carried Brian inside and took off his gas mask. It was a girl. Brian was so shocked that he nearly choked on his spit.
She said something to him, then placed him on a bed in the dark room. More people surrounded him and took off their masks.
At first, Brian couldn't see them because their faces were dark. But when his eyes adjusted, he saw that it was the Backstreet Boys and everyone else who had been captured. He was so happy to see them, but when he tried to speak, no words came out.
Nick touched his shoulder and said something, then shook his head. Brian groaned and shut his eyes. He couldn't understand them, but he wouldn't dare touch his ears. He had learned so much about being scared the past two days.
Moments later, Brian fell asleep. He was still so exhausted from all the worry and the sick feelings he had. The people in the room meanwhile surveyed the situation and planned their attack.
************************************************
“Okay, let me get this straight,” Kevin studied the girl curiously, “ you say that you’re Samantha, Jansin’s sister, who is supposed to be dead, but isn’t, and now you’ve come back somehow to save us and your brother from certain doom. Correct?”
“Yes… sort of. Now’s really not a good time to discuss this.”
“I hate to sound so rude, since you are our rescuer and all, but now is the perfect time to discuss this.” Howie folded his arms across his chest.
“Look what they did to poor Rok!” Nick and Tommy still knelt by his bedside. The others shifted uncomfortably in the large room. AJ sat in the back with his mom and Charn, while everyone else gathered around Samantha.
“Where should I start? This is such a long story…”
“From the beginning, if you can, please.” Kevin answered quietly.
“Okay. Well, when I was five, my family was going through a tough time. My dad had just been fired, and my parents both felt that the love that they once felt for each other had deteriorated. But, since they didn’t have enough money, they postponed the divorce.
My mom got a job as a waitress in a kinky restaurant, while my dad sat at home all day. I don’t know if any of this is really true, I’ve only read about my parents from the books in this place, so there’s a possibility that these are all lies. I’ll get to the good stuff in a sec, but this is just how it starts.
So all this time, my mom got angrier and angrier towards my dad, because he refused to do anything, and the house was always a sty. At this point, I was six years old, and I can still remember pieces of this. My poor mom would come home in tears every day because of some pervert in the restaurant. This became a terrible problem, eventually leading to rape. But my dad was still stubborn and refused to do anything about it.
About a week after that, my mom went to the doctor because she had been feeling very strange lately, and especially nauseous. The doctor concluded that she was pregnant.
She knew that she couldn’t afford the baby, but hoped to find a better job. As far as I know, she didn’t have much schooling, and was mostly turned down.
My mom was forced to take me with her to her job interviews, because she didn’t trust my dad with me. I watched her get turned down each time. Somehow I understood the situation she was in at my young age, so I always tried to be the best kid possible.
Nine months later, our house had no power and it was the middle of winter. My dad had long since left my mother, but they still were legally married. We both went for a cold walk in the snow, because my mom had hurt about a job offering and rushed to it. Of course we were turned down.
On our way back to the house, I happened to look in a store window, and gazed upon the most beautiful doll I had ever seen. My mother smiled, but couldn’t offer more, other than to go inside the door to have a look at it. I had missed two Christmas’s so far, but this was the first time a possession had such an impact on me.
We went inside the store, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. The doll was even better since the last time I looked at it. Its face and hands were made of porcelain, and its features were so realistic. She looked like the sister I never had. Of course, you guys would never know what it feels like to see the most beautiful doll your eyes have ever gazed upon. I mean, you would call that gay now, right? Well, think of it this way, it was like a Ninja Turtle that talks and walks like the real thing.”
“Oh, yeah, “ Nick smiled, “that would’ve been so cool.”
Samantha grinned. “See what I mean?”
“Anyway, I was so busy scrutinizing this doll, that I didn’t notice the store manager creep up behind me.
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ she had asked me. I only nodded ferociously, because I couldn’t take my eyes from that doll.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said, her eyes gleaming, ‘how about I give her to you for free?’
My mom and I looked at her as if she were mad.
‘Of course, there’s a small price to pay, but it isn’t with money, and it’s the decent thing to do. I see that you’re pregnant.’ She pointed to my mom, ‘ is it a boy or girl?’
‘ It’s a boy…’
‘Perfect! I’ll give you the doll if your boy works for me in the shop when he gets older. I’ll come by and remind you in a couple of years.’
My mom accepted graciously. We took the doll home and had the first Christmas in two years. But before we left that store, I happened to look back on the store manager’s nametag. Her name was Robyn.”
Chapter 14
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