They Are Watching

Chapter Seven

They both separated after the questionnaire was over. 

Adam watched as Terrie dragged her thin frame to the opposite side of the lobby, much like the first night after he tried to thrash the doors. She was balled up, completely wrapped into herself and looking like she was doing her best to ignore the outside world. Even though they both had a boiled egg, fatigue was beginning to take over the more his nervous adrenaline rush subsided. 

He, on the other hand, felt disgusting. Just like a vile human being. Never mind his fatigue and the thumping headache behind his eyes from dehydration.

They were only questions. They didn't make any of what was asked or the answers given real or a possibility. Yet, that’s exactly what it felt like. He didn’t know how much control these people had over his life. How long had they been watching him? Did they know his exact routine? Did they know where each of his family members lived? Did they know his deepest secrets?

He glanced at Terrie again, clearly able to hear her cries from across the wide lobby. It was obvious to him that she was too ashamed to be near him but too scared to leave out of his sight completely.

He didn’t blame her. How could he?

Their answers to that last question were the same.

Yet she moped off as if that was the hardest thing for her to say out loud. 

Maybe it was. He didn’t know her from the next person that existed in his tiny circle. Now he was trapped in a large resort with no access to the outside world with that same stranger.

It didn’t make sense, but he kept getting the feeling that it should. Nothing in the world was that chaotic, there was always a method to the madness. A reason for what seemed like complete upheaval and total disruption.

For as much as he would say there was no reason for why he let his promising life go, for just one more high, there was. There was always a reason for everything. He was loath to admit it, but there was a reason, one he couldn’t fully express, even to his therapist.

So, for as much commotion as this encounter was causing, there had to be a reason WIC was sponsoring this experience.

“Experience?” He straightened up, remembering the number of times someone mentioned the experience they were sure to, “Remember for a lifetime.”

He groaned deep in his throat as he massaged his scalp, “This isn’t over. It may just be beginning.”

Terrie was a quick thinker, and even though she looked like she couldn't be bothered with anything other than her own turmoil, he needed to discuss his epiphany with her. She was bound to enlighten him more with her own thoughts.

As he walked closer to her, he softly called her name, seeing when she heard him over her sniffles, “Terrie, I need to speak with you.”

“About what? How I’m an awful person? I don’t want to hear it,” she gritted her teeth as she spoke, trying to hide the weakness in her voice.

He didn’t get too close, just close enough for her to hear him as he sat across from her on the floor, “If you’re awful, then so am I. And I am by the way. Not as bad as those questions made me seem, but I’m probably not much better either.”

He was beginning to ramble, but he wanted her to be comfortable enough to talk to him. They needed to figure out exactly what kind of predicament they were about to face. If what his own sense was telling him was correct, then they were in for much more of wherever that antagonizing came from.

She peeked at him over her folded arm, eyes glistening with tears that caused her long lashes to clump together. He watched as she dragged her eyes over every inch of his face as if she could sense whether he was telling the truth or misleading her from the variations in his facial features.

He began to grow uncomfortable under her stare, reminding himself that she relied on his bravery for her own, so he forced his back and long neck to remain upright. 

“Your eyes tell on you,” she finally said, voice thick with emotion she wasn’t trying to mask any longer. “They have since the moment you looked at me.”

He looked into her face, hearing the words everyone always told him fall from her lips. He didn’t know why, but when she said it, he heard it differently. It registered in a way he was completely unused to, “And what are they telling you now?”

She dragged a thin finger across her eyebrow, back and forth, messing up the hair there before she moved her hand to her overly pierced ear, “that whatever you need from me, you’re sincere about it.”

He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, visibly deflating in front of her when he’d just told himself to keep up the front, “I’m not gonna sacrifice myself for you,” she boldly said.

“No, no,” he waved his hand in front of her. “I wouldn’t even ask you to do that. I just need to talk.”

“What about?” She squinted at him, nearly closing her already small eyes. “There isn’t much to discuss, is there?”

She was feeling cynical.

“You were eager to figure out our circumstances earlier,” he began to explain. “Always wondering and thinking while I was just, I don’t know. I was thinking, but not very hard.”

He began to feel embarrassed the more he talked, trying to explain his reasoning, “I think I might have figured something out over there and I could use your help brainstorming.”

“Brainstorming?” She scoffed. “Like we’re in elementary school?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “Just like that.”

He looked at her a little harder, wondering why she was seeming so difficult to talk to, “You speculated so much earlier and I was barely of any help. Well now, though it’s a little late, I might have something to offer other than your potential shield for threats.”

“My potential shield? What is that supposed to mean?” She sat up. “You haven’t done anything of consequence since we’ve been here. What’s the purpose of having a man around if he can’t even use any of his strength to break a window? It’s like you’re that big for no reason.”

He could feel himself bristling. This was not where he wanted this conversation to go, “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” she said with an eerie calmness. “You’re obviously not a thinker, which means you’re all muscle. But I have yet to see any of that be useful here. The one thing it could have been used for, which was to break us out of here,” she was beginning to raise her voice. “Made no impact! Not even a dent or scratch in the glass!”

“I get that this situation is difficult but please don’t yell at me,” he said as succinctly as possible, holding his hands up in front of him. His therapist always repeated to him that he must defend himself, so he was trying now even though he would have preferred to have walked away and left well enough alone. 

Instead, he maintained eye contact as if he was negotiating with something feral.

“Why not?” She challenged, rising to a stand and further escalating the sudden tension between them. “What will you do? What can you do to me that you haven’t already admitted to being willing to do?”

He could feel his blood run cold as she threw his answers to the questions in his face, “It’s not like it’ll be a surprise.” 

He was still sitting when she finally stopped talking, head lost in his own world as he tried to remain in control of himself. He was never the violent type. As physically big of a man as he was, he never used his height advantage or his natural muscular build to intimidate others. He was too sensitive, always too feeling and emotional to even think to intimidate. Instead, he’d waste away when aggressively confronted. But he couldn’t do that now. Not now.

He needed to confront her, deescalate the situation when one arose, like his therapist tried to show him, and regain control.

So he forced himself up through the murkiness of his mind to look at her again. She was panting. She was obviously overwhelmed with her situation, just like he was, but becoming cynical was her way of dealing with it.

It wasn’t a very peaceful way to react to hard circumstances, but he couldn’t judge her. Everyone had their vices.

He didn’t have the words to comfort her. He couldn’t even comfort himself. And he wasn’t going to tell her to calm down. She had every reason to be hype at that moment when he was sure she felt like a caged animal. It probably didn’t help that his large body was sitting directly in front of her, further cutting off her space even if he wasn’t super close.

So slowly, he scooted back and moved further to the left so she’d have a wide berth around him if she wanted to walk away. He looked back at her to see she was holding herself, back pressed firmly to the wall as she watched him with tell-tale fear in her expression.

“They said this is an experience we’d remember for a lifetime,” he began, tone as controlled as he could keep it. “So I just wanted to ask you, do you know what kind of company WIC is?”