Trapped (A Ticci Toby Story)

Chapter 18- A Long Life

I was far away, deep within my mind.
In a memory,
A small hand shrouded in warm sunlight.
Sally.
She holds a flower between her fingers.
An orange flower with pointed, delicate petals.
"These weren't here during the winter." she was saying. She lifts a finger and brushes the petals softly, "But neither were you." She smiles up at me and my chest swells with love. "After the snow melts, they come from nowhere, but... They don't stay very long."
Her green eyes flick up to me through her lashes, her rose petal lips pressed into a frown.
"I mean... You'll stay though. I know you will because slendy made Tim and Brian look after you.... So we can be friends." she takes a slow deep breath and studies me for a long moment.
"But I don't know why... You're the proxie. Your like a puppy without a mother. Your scared of everything... And your not like Tim or Brian." she thought out loud. She scoffes, shaking her head.
At the time, I didn't care about her words, filled with meaning and warning.
It was all simpler then.
I was only mesmerised by how her small fingers brushed petals so delicately even when her frustration grew. She didn't make the petals fall apart like the many things have done in my clumsy hands.
I take in her movements, studying them intently.
She sees me watching her and she brings the flower up to her nose and smells it.
"Here." she brings the flower up to me and I lean away from it.
The orange color to close to quickly to my eyes.
But it was different,
Stimulating.
Unlike other vibrant colors I've seen in my environment, the bright orange of the flower didn't overwhelm me.
Not in the way the TV did or the bright green of Ben's clothes.
Or the sunlight that bounced of the front door when it was opened.
This color was warm and welcoming.
I breathe, my breath tickling the petals before I leaned forward and mimiced Sally's previous actions.
I remember how sweet the smell tasted on my tongue.
It was bliss.
My shoulders relax and I shove my nose into it, trying to hold onto the happiness it made me feel.
I lower my head and take in the senses around me.
The warmth inside me,
The sound of swaying leaves,
The bright glow of sunlight behind my closed eyes.
I was happy here and I didn't know if I ever wanted to leave.

So I clung to it.
Held it tightly between my finger tips until I was somewhere else.
Somewhere familiar, yet so foreign.
"Toby." A soft voice pulled me from my absence.
My eyes are already open, and a bright light is pulled away from my gaze.
For a moment,
just a moment,
I didn't recognize the person leaning over me.
I am staring at the stars that stained my vision when he speaks again.
"Toby,"
He leans over me and I see the glisten of blood around his concerned eyes.
"Hoodie." I chocked out. "Your face is bleeding."
Relief visually crossed his features and he leans back with a steadying breath.
"I'm alright." his eyes continue searching me, softening with guilt.
He touches the corner of my swollen eye.
I don't feel it.
"This shouldn't of happened to you.  You shouldn't have been away from us for this long." his voice tightens with frustration and back to guilt.
"I'm so sorry."
"It doesn't hurt me." I hear myself saying in a slow and sluggish voice.
"I know." he whispers. He looks somewhere behind him and back to me before saying; "You didn't wake up when I called you."
"I was dreaming."
"A good dream, I hope."
"It was." I feel my eyes falling shut. I could still see the bright color swaying softly behind closed eyes.
"Do you remember what you were dreaming about?" He asks and patiently waits for me to respond when I try swallow down the dryness in my throat.
"...... Flowers."
He asks with light skepticism, "Flowers?".
"Yes. The one's by the grove."
"The ones you said you like because they are the reason orange is your--
"favorite color."
"favorite color..."
I finish with him at the same time.
He hesitates.
The silence weighs heavily on me, but I dont open my eyes.
I don't fight the waves of sleep that lap at my mind.
".....Are you alright?" he finally asks.
"Just tired."
"I.... might be able to convince Tim to let you rest a little longer--"
"No," I shake my head, remembering the blood on his face. I cling to that to keep myself awake. "Why are you bleeding? You look like you were jumped by a psychopath."
I roll to my side and pick myself up with my good arm.
He shifts back, giving me room to move.
"Something like that." He said softly as he watches me.
My head snaps up to him.
Was he serious?
The slight tilt of his head and a unimpressed stare told me he wasn't serious.
"Oh.. " I groan and let myself fall back the ground.
My head spins again,
And again,
And again,
With each movement I make.
I was so tired of the motion.
I give up on trying to get up and drop my head back onto the thick carpet.
"So your not going to tell me what happened." I mumble.
"No." He agreed.
"Why?"
"It's not what is important right now."
"It's not?"
"No."
I pause a moment, waiting for him to elaborate, but he watches me expectantly.
He wants to see me get up.
I know that, but that wasn't going to happen right now.
I lift my head slightly to press my cheek against the ground and squeeze my eyes shut tightly.
"It's not?" I say again.
He sees past my attempt to stall and annoy him and scolds me tightly.
"Toby."
"Alright!" I snap.
Just then a hear a soft sound from the other side of the room.
A soft, sleep weighted, moan.
My heart flutters and I pull myself up to search for her in the darkness.
"Jane?"
Hoodie puts a hand firmly on my shoulder to hold me in place and I search the rows of book shelves for her.
"Is she-where is she?" I my words stumble over each other.
"She's resting." he nods in the direction of a large plaster tree.
I find her,
Past hoodie's blood drenched shoulder, I see her frail shape curled in a large beanbag, the boys held tightly against her in her arms.
He followed my gaze over his shoulder and back to me.
"What is your relationship with this girl?" he asks after a brief moment of silence.
I only shrug.
A knee jerk response for a question I didn't know the answer to myself.
How I felt and what I wanted,
They didn't belong together.
I wanted to lay near her, place my head over her chest and I wanted to hold her and get lost in her heartbeat, her breaths, everything that meant she was alive and beg her to forgive me for losing my false sense of control of the situation we were put in.
I wanted to hear her say that she was okay, that they were okay.
"We're going to be alright."
I wanted to share the kisses we shared in the darkness, deepen them in ways that made our breaths grow heavy.
I wanted to feel the things I've never felt before.
The things she only made me feel.
But I couldn't tell him that.
Of course I couldn't.
"Is she okay?" I ask shakily.
Hoodie pauses a moment, examining my question before he answers carefully.
"She's going to be fine."
"Yeah?" I breathe.
Emotions swelled within me.
Love,
Hope,
Pride,
Relief.
Hoodie shifted and I see him pull something from his jacket pocket.
He shines the light on it, reading its lable.
I recognized it.
It was the bottle of pills Masky gave me earlier.
"Here. We will leave within the hour. We gave you time to rest, but the sun will be up soon and I don't want to be here when this place opens." he pours out two pills on his gloved hand and I take them.
I put them in my mouth while he unscrews my canteen.
He watches me intently when I take it, but he doesn't say anything until I finish swallowing down the liquid.
"What's wrong with your arm? I don't remember you being right handed."
I look down at my arm resting limply across my lap.
I had grown so used to its disability that I haven't realized how dependent I've grown to my right arm.
"Tom broke it awhile back. It still works." I lift my arm and show him the two fingers that I was able to bend.
He take my arm and pulls my sleeve up, exposing my pale skin underneath.
I watched his expression closely as he examined the unnatural knot on the side of my wrist and the miscellaneous cuts and bruises.
But it was guarded.
I tried to ignore the disappointment I felt for his cool expression.
I had hoped to see something,
Anger, frustration, sadness--anything that showed he cared about what Tom did to me.
To verify that my hatred for Tom was justified.
But he doesn't.
He touches my finger and tells me to bring it to my tumb and I listen.
He goes through each of my fingers and I follow the task to the best of my ability.
When he is done he pulls my sleeve back into place and says;
"Is there anything else I need to know about?"
Annoyed, I look away from him.
"I'll let you know when I can figure that out for myself."
I doubt the remark went over his head, but he doesn't respond to it.
"We'll let you wake the others. Tim and I are gathering things we might need for the journey. Do you need help getting to your feet?"
Yes.
"No."
He hesitates at the bitterness in my voice, but again he chooses to ignore it.
"I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you. It's time to say your goodbyes. They aren't making this journey with us."
I feel my emotions grown numb.
My expression hidden behind a facade of indifference.
His words didn't surprise me.
I knew I've heard them discuss this somewhere in my consciousness.
Now I know it wasn't a dream.
They didn't belong with me.
I could argue that they would be safe with me, that I can't bare the thought of not knowing where they are, but I couldn't imagine seeing my world through their eyes.
Trapped again into secrecy in a world they wouldn't understand.
When Jane's brother is still alive out there.
Not when Marco has a father and a cluster of adoring siblings waiting for him to come home.
When Sam is too young to understand what happened to him in those walls.
I've heard their stories of their loved ones, and I wasn't going to take them away from those they care about.
I swallow down a rock in my throat and nod.
For awhile I don't move.
Even when hoodie disappear somewhere near by.
I can't find the strength to make this my reality.
I can't.
But the storm outside has subsided and I was running out of time.
I knew the proxies won't wait for denial forever.
I was going to say goodbye.
I don't remember exactly when I found the strength to climb to my feet and cross the space between us.
But as I near them, I see Sam's fingers in his mouth and his curly dark locks over his eyes.
I see his arm resting across the side of Marco's face and his head resting on Jane's belly.
I see Marco spread out on his back and jane holding his head against her.
I ached to join them.
Hold them to me the way I had done every day in that cell.
But instead I kneel beside her and place a hand on her frail arm.
"Jane." my voice comes out as a hoarse whisper.
The quiet sound causes her to startle awake.
She flinches and I ache with understanding for her.
"T-Toby." she whispers uneasily and maneuvers out from under the sleeping children.
"I thought--"
She pulls me again her and clings to me.
I bury my face in her neck and tighten my hold on her to stop the tears that threaten to come at her touch.
"Thank you--" she whispers over and over again.
And I can't speak.
It hurts.
"Jane," I force myself to speak through the strain in my heart. "I...." my voice falters.
I see Marco behind her, his mouth stretched wide open in a yawn.
The sun will rise soon and he will have to face another day of trials.
He doesn't know what's coming in just a few hours.
Once we leave him with the public, he will be bombarded with questions he won't understand from the media, statements, investigations, and tests before he could even see his family again.
I wished I could shelter him from that.
I force myself to look away from him.
"We need... I can't." I try to say.
"I know." Jane whispers.
She brushes a tear from her cheek and gives me a sad smile that speaks a million words. "Brian already told me. We'll tell them when the time comes."
I opened my mouth to thank her, but her eyes flick up to something behind me and I turn to find masky standing only an arm reach away from me.
"Are you ready?" he asks her and I look to the ground, trying to ignore the waves of anxiety that crashed down on me.
I didn't hear him come up to me.
"Y-yes." Jane stammered.
She turns to the boys and notices Sam's bare feet.
She reaches over Marco's head and grabs a small pare of blue and red shoes that Masky had found for Sam hours ago. 
She hurries to slip them on him while Sam lays their sleepily, not offering any help.
"J-just a moment." Jane said to masky apologetically.
Masky gave me a impatient look and turned to leave.
I rolled my eyes behind his back and lowered myself to the floor.
"Your starting to look like me." I nod towards her bandaged arm.
Her hand lifts to her face and hovers over a large patch on her cheek before she drops it to untie Sam's white shoe laces.
"I suppose I am." she mumbles. I wait for her to say more, but she doesn't.
So I ask; "what did he do to you?"
"Who?"
"Tom."
She pauses for a moment and looks at me. Confusion passing across her soft features before she resolved.
"Tom didn't do anything to me." she said softly. "I'm okay."
"Then what happened to you?"
I tried not to feel the pang of annoyance of being lied too, but I had no proof this was the case.
She's never lied to me before.
Her eyes flick up to me breaifly and she doesn't speak.
I am about to push when she says; "I saw what you did to Cheryl."
"I...." I shake my head. "I had too. I didn't have a choice."
"I know." Her voice quivers. "You told me about this. I shouldn't be so surprised that you could do something like this, but christ." She quickly wipes away a tear and shakes her head.
"What are you talking abou?"
"When Cheryl locked us in together. You told me about your brothers-and you. I-I thought you were using a metaphor, but you weren't, were you?"
I shake my head.
She takes a shaky breath and looks over her shoulder at the proxies on the other side of the room.
"They've killed people." She whispers.
I nodded.
I knew what was happening here. I knew her panic better than her smile, but this wasn't something I can comfort her for.
This was just the way it was.
"They won't hurt you."
She pulls her gaze from them and back to me.
Her green-gray eyes glossy.
"I know. I trust you... And Brian, but it's the other one who scares me. T-Tim."
Masky? How could anyone be scared of him.
I look at him, confused.
He is discussing something with hoodie by the back door of the building.
His voice is stern and deep with obvious signs of stress and lack of sleep.
I try to see him through her eyes.
He is bigger, not the size of Tom, but stronger. The gun and the knife, hidden dormant in their holsters at his sides, but they were no less threatening that the hands that use them.
His eyes are hardened and emotionless to those who can't see through them.
Each life lost was his call, his responsibility, regardless of who did the deed.
Anyone can sense he was dangerous.
I could say 'his bark is worse than his bite' but I knew that was a lie.
"He won't hurt you. He's too smart to do anything like that."
"What do you mean?"
It was the only thing that made sense.
The reason he would do all of this instead of leaving them behind.
"He knows I care about you... A lot. And he wouldn't do anything to hurt me. So... If anything, he's the safest person you'll ever be around. I mean even if Tom--"
"You care about me a lot?" She asks.
My heart stutters a bit in my chest because I wasn't prepared for her to realize what I just said before I did.
I wanted to deflect it, undermine my statement, but when I see her expression, lips slightly parted, her cheeks pink, and her eyes wide with hope.
I felt helpless.
In the cellar,
I had to love her, but I didn't have a choice.
The way we acted towards each other was a way to stay on cheryl's good side.
The difference between life and death.
Cleverly seduced.
I was afraid to feel the love I grew for her.
I was afraid of the pain I would fall to if she was taken away from me.
I didn't know if the love I felt was a product of gross manipulation used to control me or true.
But now that we are free and she is safe, I was willing to allow myself to feel for her.
Truly feel.
And I did love her.
I loved her.
Everything she was.
Selfless and caring.
She loved with everything she had and saw the best in everyone regardless of what was happening to her.
She was strong in her own way, ways I could never amount too.
I loved her in ways that made me feel weak.
So I tell her.
My heart beating rapidly, and my words breathless.
"I love you."
She gasps back a small sound and crawls over Sam and she is hugging me.
I hold her against me tightly, burying my face against her soft skin. The words are spilling from my lips rapidly, trying to make up for what I deprived myself for so long.
"I love you. I love you so much."
I repeat the words over and over again until her lips are on mine and I'm feeling breathless.
Her lips on mine, sucking, tasting, feeling the love I carried for her, felt so right.
I stand up on my knees and tangle my hands in her hair, deeping the kiss.
I feel her hands on my shoulders as she tries to pull me closer to her.
The feel of her,
The smell of her,
The taste--
"What are you doing?" We quickly pull away from each other to see Marco watching us, overly expressed confusion on his face.
I share a glance with Jane.
"Er....um."
"We were...um."
"I thought only mommy's and daddy's can do that." He blinks.
"They can." Jane says quickly.
"They can?" I ask.
"look we really should get going." Jane quickly changes the subject. "Are you ready?"
"Ready!" He cherps excitedly and runs past us.
Sam, on the other hand, whimpered and buried his face back into the beanbag he slept in.
It was almost as if he knew what was going to happen.
My heart ached for him but I knew the bitter sweet relief that waited for him after his trials.
He will be reunited with his family,
Away from here.
Safe.
This is what he needed.
I kneeled down and scooped him up in my arms. He shifted until he was resting naturally on my hip, with his head resting on my shoulder.
I closed my eyes and placed my forehead on top of his tangled waves.
"Just a little longer." I whispered to him.