Chapter 3
529 Words
My eyes flew open. "What are you doing?!"
The air circulation would be cut off. Charcoal was toxic. I would suffocate to death inside the bunker.
The man just shook his head. "Still won't come out? Stubborn kid." He dusted off his hands and walked away.
I looked to Mom and Dad, hoping they would step in and open the door. But neither of them so much as glanced in my direction, as though the possibility of me dying in here hadn't crossed their minds.
The air was already growing thin.
Vivienne called over cheerfully, "Don't forget, all you have to do is admit you were wrong and you can come right out!"
Looking at that self-satisfied expression on her face, I found myself thinking back to three years ago, when I had first been brought home to the Calloways.
I had still had hope for this family back then. After more than a decade apart, being found and taken back by my biological parents. I had imagined that what waited for me here was warmth and belonging.
What I found instead was endless indifference and slander. All Vivienne had to do was cry, and Mom and Dad would take her side without question. Three years of that, and in their eyes I had become nothing but a liar.
I used to tell myself they were family. That family meant tolerance, meant forgiveness. So I swallowed it, again and again and again. Even in my previous life, starving to death alone in that locked room, my last thought had been one of regret, wishing I had found a way to save them.
Looking back now, how foolish I was.
I closed my eyes and pushed down the dizziness rising in my head.
"Are you really just going to leave me here?" I asked. "Both of you?"
Dad's expression darkened. "Leave you there? All you have to do is say you were wrong. Is that really so hard?"
Mom wrung her hands, her voice pitching upward with something closer to impatience than concern. "Iris, please, just apologize. I saved you the chicken wings you love. Come out and you can have them right now."
I looked at them for a long moment.
If this was the choice they were making, then they had no right to blame me for making the same one three days from now.
I turned and walked into the Control Room, and pressed a button. Within seconds, the charcoal clogging the air vent was pulverized into ash and flushed clean by a burst of water, leaving the duct as clear as it had ever been.
I had studied architectural design. Of course I had accounted for this.
More noise filtered in from outside. I found it grating, and on impulse switched on Silent Mode.
The whole world went quiet.
I walked into the bedroom I had prepared for myself. In the mirror, my eyes were red, but there were no tears.
"You don't owe them anything," I told myself.
I had done everything I could. They were the ones who had cut off their own last chance at survival.
From this point forward, we were done.
- Writer
