A Place Where There Is No Darkness

Sixteen

As I came out of the shower, wrapped in a towel and minding my own business, I got the shock of my life.

I screamed.

Mitchell leapt up from the bed where he had been sitting, waiting for me.

“Hey, hey, calm down. It’s just me.”

I looked at him sharply. “I don’t care who it is! I get out of the shower and there you are! I’m not even dressed!”

“Yeah, we really have to stop meeting like this.”

“No, no, stop! Don’t joke about this! Not–“ My voice broke and to my utter horror I felt tears burn in my eyes. The words were quiet and weak and small as I said, “Not about this.”

“I’m sorry.” He looked like he wanted to come closer, but didn’t know if it was appropriate. I knew it wasn’t. I shook my head weakly and lowered my gaze, and he stayed where he was.

“I really didn’t know this would freak you out so much.”

I laughed humourlessly. “How naked does a girl have to be to be allowed to freak out in the presence of another man?”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I–“ He cleared his throat, looked down, clearly ashamed. “I’ll just go then.”

He was about to shut the door when I called, “Wait!”

The door stopped, but his face didn’t reappear. I levelled my gaze on the crack between wood and wall and decided to talk to that. It would definitely be easier. “Can you just … could you maybe wait till I get dressed? And then come in?”

“Of course.”

I quickly shuffled over to my dresser and pulled on a pair of tights and my favourite black T-shirt. My towel landed on the bed.

“Okay, I’m ready!”

He walked back in, slowly, tentatively, as if he was trying really hard not to spook me again. I knew what I had to do, then. I didn’t like it – I hated it –, but so much depended on it. Mitchell had to know the plan. And if anyone was listening – which they were –, well, the conversation had to be believable. I couldn’t just start talking about something else.

So this was going down. It was.

I stepped to my desk and pulled out pen and paper. I scribbled a quick note. Mitchell watched me with a worried frown the whole time.

People are listening. Ask me if I want to talk about it.

His eyebrows rose in confusion, but he apparently decided to humour me. “Do you – do you wanna talk about it?”

I shook my head, slipping into my role, as I leant back down to write on the paper. I pushed a pencil in his direction absent-mindedly and he accepted it, bending over the paper right next to me.

“Not really. There are some things that I want to stay private, you know.”

I have a plan. For today.

“It might help you.”

What plan?

I sighed, rolled my eyes. “Help me with what? My trauma?”

We’re going to run.

He looked shocked and I worried that he was going to blurt something stupid, but instead he held his ground, letting his voice come out natural as he said, “Talking has always helped me. And believe me, I have had to talk about a lot of things.”

Why would we run? We still don’t have any evidence.

“So, what, you’ve had a shitty life so far? Join the club, pal.”

Look, you’re going to have to kill someone soon. This has been going downhill since the moment we stepped through those doors. And now it’s hit rock bottom. I’m telling you. We have to go.

“This isn’t about me, Ella.” His voice was stern, but I saw the battle in his eyes. He wasn’t sure what to do – trust me, a criminal he hardly even knew, or carry out his mission and risk disaster.

Okay, he wrote finally and I echoed his word in the real world.

“Okay,” I said, sighing as if defeated. As if the whole conversation hadn’t been headed this way. “What do you wanna know?”

“Why were you so scared earlier when I barged in on you?”

Where and when?, were his next written words.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there aren’t that many girls around here.”

Today. Five.

“I’ve noticed.”

How?

Now we were getting to the hard part. He wouldn’t like this. I didn’t necessarily like it either. “And there are a lot of men.”

Orwell has this tradition. Whenever someone fails him, he makes a spectacle out of it. For everyone to see.

“Yeah …?” He sounded unsure now and I didn’t exactly know whether his head was in the conversation in the room or the one on paper. Both of them were getting more severe and harder to stomach by the second. At least for me.

What kind of spectacle?

“I, uh, I hadn’t yet learned to fight and they knew it.”

A whipping. He’s having one today. At five.

As I looked up at him, at his face, his eyes were steely. His gaze was cold and his jaw was tight. I hadn’t seen him angry before – not really, not angry about anything of actual importance –, but this was it. This right there was the righteous wrath of someone who despised injustice.

(And was I the one who was important enough to warrant such anger? I felt something warm in my chest, but I pushed it down and let it fuel my steely resolve.)

His words were low and deliberate as they fought their way out of his clenched mouth, like a stormy ocean launching itself against the pillars.

“And they took advantage?”

He didn’t write anything down. And I didn’t answer. I didn’t think it was necessary – the direction this conversation had taken seemed fairly obvious to me.

Apparently, he wanted to be sure.

“Ella, did they take advantage?”

I cleared my throat. Felt shame creep onto my face, red and hot. I hadn’t expected for it to go so far or for Mitchell to take such an interest.

“They did.”

We were quiet for thirteen seconds, but while my silence was timid and curious, waiting for what was to come next, his was icy. I could feel the chill in the air around us and it took all I had not to shy away.

After thirteen seconds, he picked up the pen with deliberate care, his whole body frozen into a huge cramp.

Who failed him?, he wrote, as if nothing at all had happened. But it had. So much had. I knew he had made some kind of decision – I could see it in his stance and in the way he carried himself – and I could only hope that it wouldn’t interfere with anything I had planned.

I sighed, knowing that this would only distress him further. I wondered at what point I had become so certain of his feelings that I could now undoubtedly predict that he would be bothered if something bad happened to me.

Me.

“What?!” He cried out. I put a warning finger to my lips. This wasn’t the time to get emotional, or loud. Granted, I had laid a lot of heavy stuff on him, but he still had to keep his s**t together. I was doing it, too.

No way, was his written answer.

“So, how was your night?” I asked, trying to keep emotions out of my voice. Trying to lead the way for Mitchell to follow. He was looking at me darkly from under his furrowed brow and I started doubting that I could convince him. Luckily, I had another ace up my sleeve.

It’s the only way. You have to get out when everyone is at the whipping. It’s the easiest time to slip away.

He shook his head and turned his back to me. I wondered, not for the first time, if he would just walk out on me and leave me there, alone and in the dark about what was going on, but then his voice came – strained, but steady.

“My night was fine, thanks. I got to listen in on your mission. So, what, you’re like a computer geek?” He turned back, leant back down over the desk and picked up his pencil again.

I won’t do it.

“I would prefer the term genius, but yeah, close enough.”

You have to. I sent a message to the FBI last night. Wrote it in the dirt. And I signed our names.

“Why the hell would you do that?!” he yelled. I winced, not letting myself get side-tracked. This was way too important. It was more important than the two of us. Bigger than any one person or their interests.

I laughed and it might have come out a little forced, but, really, it was the best I could do. “Do what, exactly? Learn how to use computers? I never had to. I was kinda born with that knowledge.”

So that the FBI would know it was the Elite. And so that you would go along with my plan. I sighed, looking up at him with a hint of pity. I had played him. And he hadn’t deserved that. But I had learned early on that I always had to cover all my bases. People you could trust were few and far between, and even those might have interests that went against your own. It wasn’t safe to live your life believing that others would do what you wanted them to. Not if you didn’t have leverage. It almost never worked out that way.

“What?” Apparently, he was too wound up now to follow the rules of our little game. Well, it didn’t matter. I could do it for the both of us.

“Genius,” I said. “Since I can remember, I’ve known how a computer works. I’ve always understood machines. It’s kinda why the Elite wanted me in the first place.”

Look, you know as well as me that the Elite has agents in the FBI. It’s now only a matter of time before Orwell finds out we’re spies. We have to go. Today.

He looked at me, pained and obviously unhappy with the whole situation, but he schooled his features into something resembling normal. He had made a decision. I could see that he didn’t like it – I didn’t either, so we had one thing in common –, but he said, quiet but stern, “So when did you learn to fight, then?”

What’s the plan?

“Soon after the Elite recruited me.”

You have a guard on you at all times, correct?

“They taught you?”

Yeah. The creepy blonde with the blue eyes. She’s outside the door right now.

“Yeah. They wanted to create the ultimate weapon.”

You think you can knock her out if you need to?

“The ultimate weapon? Do you even hear yourself talk?” His voice sounded amused, but his eyes were anything but.

Yes.

“Hey, that’s what they called it. I was just their experiment. I didn’t get to name myself.”

Good. So here’s the plan. Eight minutes to five, you tell her you wanna go pick up Willy and bring him to the whipping. Then you have to knock her out and take Willy.

“And, did they succeed?”

And we run?

“I think they did. I mean, I can outsmart pretty much anyone – except for some of the masterminds I was in prison with. They are little geniuses of their own. And, well, I can fight really well, so I can also defeat pretty much anyone.”

Yes. But before you do, you also have to find a boy. He’s on cleaning duty today. He’ll probably be in one of the bathrooms, cleaning toilets. His name is Evan.

“Cocky much?”

What’s his deal?

“It’s not cockiness if it’s true.”

He’s just a good kid. I want him out of here before all hell breaks loose. I already told him to expect you.

“Right. Fair enough. You did break out of prison, so I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Okay. So what about you?

“You should. I would hate to damage that handsome face of yours just because I had to show you.”

Evan knows the way to the bank we robbed last night. It’s not that far – 53 minutes’ worth of running, maybe. I suspect that you’ll find the police or even the FBI there when you get there. Or at least a phone. Call them. Tell them where the warehouse is. Let them storm it and lock everyone up.

He sighed. He looked absolutely miserable. “Right.”

It doesn’t really work like that. We have no evidence. The Elite agents will go free in a matter of days and we’re at square one, only now we’ll have the most dangerous criminal organisation of our time chasing us.

I winked. Let me worry about the evidence. You just get Willy, Evan and yourself out.

He laughed. “Now I know why you’re the boss and why so many people listen to you.”

“Because I’m the ultimate weapon?” I teased.

He let his pencil drop onto the desk and snatched up my pen, laying it down too. Then he took my hands and looked me in the eyes. He was sincere now. Open.

“Because you’re awesome.”

I laughed, even though I thought he had maybe meant it seriously. But I couldn’t take such a compliment. I hadn’t, not since I could remember. It was a tad too big.

“Why, thank you.”

He nodded, still completely serious. “I mean it.”

“Right.”

Now he cracked up and grinned a little. “You don’t know how to do this, do you?”

I smiled shily, looking down. Emotions had never been my thing. Ultimate weapons didn’t really need those, and the Elite wasn’t quite the place where feelings could flourish.

He put a light finger under my chin and lifted it gently. “Just smile and say thank you.”

I was already smiling. It was natural and easy and the words came effortlessly over my lips, because they were right.

“Thank you.”

It was for so much more that just the compliment. I hoped he knew that. He was going to save what was most important to me, risking his own life in the process. I knew to value that. A lesser man wouldn’t have done it.

Satisfied, he turned around, took the paper we’d been writing on and scrunched it up into a ball. “And, for the record?” he said, walking over to my own little fireplace and throwing the paper into the flames. I watched it burn, watched the fire eat away at it, grow bigger and stronger, until there was nothing but black, black soot and a solid memory left of our conversation.

“Yeah?”

“You’re quite a decent human being. You know, when you wanna be.”

He didn’t look at me as he strode to the door, exited and closed it softly behind him, but he left a warm image of his chocolate eyes in my mind all the same.