Finding Home - A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 2) (10 page)

I couldn’t know what his plan was in becoming friends with them, but I was sure he had something up his sleeve. They needed to know what he had done so they could cut ties before it was too late. Before he did something to one of them. He was dangerous. Somehow I had to tell them it was because of him I had been sent away from HOME.

When the four of them finished eating they got up together and walked over to put their trays away. As they walked by Penn and I, Dean quickly glanced our way. It was then I was one hundred percent positive he hadn’t recognized me with my new haircut and color.

My heart sank.

Chapter nine.

That night after Penn and I had changed into our pajamas, I was sitting on my bed studying the maps of the grounds again. All I could think about was Dean, Sienna and Owen. Where in this big building were they? Maybe their room was right next door and I didn’t even know it. What were they doing right now? Were they together?

“Ready for bed?” Penn asked waiting to turn out the light.

“Yeah,” I said closing the binder and placing it on the nightstand. He turned out the light and clumsily made his way to his bed. I could barely see him in the weak glow from the night light. But I could definitely hear him stumbling in the darkness.

“Ouch,” he said at the same time I heard the desk chair skid across the floor.

“Stub your toe?” I asked wondering if he could tell I was smiling.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, his bed creaking as he lowered himself onto it. I heard the blankets rustle as he pulled them up over himself.

The room was absolutely silent. I couldn’t hear anything outside our room either. No one walking around in the halls, no talking or laughing. Just silence. I shivered.

“Are you joining me again tonight?” he asked, his tone neutral. He fit in really well with all the emotionless people here at HOME. I never could tell what Penn was thinking or feeling because he was always so good at being neutral. But the big difference between Penn and the people living here at HOME was that they had been conditioned to be that way. Penn just always had been this way since the day I met him.

I sighed at myself as I got off my bed. It wasn’t like I wanted to sleep in his bed, but I knew if I wanted to get any rest at all, I had to. Being in here was taking its toll on me. I was losing all the confidence and bravery I had accumulated during my time alone. Even back in the cabin I had already started to depend too much on Penn. And the worst thing was, I didn’t even really trust Penn. At least not completely, which may be totally unfair to him as he hadn’t ever done anything to make me think otherwise. Well, except for the whole gun-stealing murdering incident. But he claimed he did that to protect me. Shouldn’t he deserve the benefit of the doubt since he had in fact protected me? I was lucky to not find myself living with the camo-guy as his camo-wife after all. I was here with Penn, depending on him so I could sleep.

Tomorrow I would work on building my confidence and self-reliance back up. I’d start by sleeping in my own bed. Tomorrow. But tonight I’d sleep in Penn’s bed because I was nervous enough about the job I would be assigned. I needed as much sleep as I could get to venture out into HOME on my own. There wouldn’t be anyone watching my back but me.

* * *

I was dressed and ready to go when my job trainer came to pick me up. Penn had already left about an hour earlier. The knock on the door was so light I wasn’t even sure I had heard anything until I opened it and looked out. There stood a slender, younger boy with crooked glasses staring over the thick, rounded frames at me.

“Good morning,” he said forcing a smile that looked more like he was just showing me as many of his teeth as he could.

“Morning,” I said looking up and down the hallway wondering if someone else was going to take me and this kid somewhere.

“I’m Steve,” he said blinking his eyelids after he spoke as if it was punctuation.

“Hi, I’m M—”

“I know, Melaney.”

“Please, just Mel,” I said cocking my head curious to find out where this kid, Steve, was going to take me. What kind of job had they set me up with? Maybe this was some kind of trap and he would lead me right to their dungeon. They decided to send someone that I wouldn’t ever suspect of any ill intent.

“Come with me, Mel,” he said as he turned on his heel and headed down the hall. I had to pick up my pace to keep up with him.

“Where are we going?” I asked carefully. I looked at each door in the hallway wondering if Dean was behind it. Or maybe he was already in the kitchen working at his job.

“The library!” Steve said sounding a teeny bit excited, but of course his expression didn’t change.

He zipped around the halls so quickly it was hard to keep up. But then again I was slower than I should have been because any door that was open along the way I tried to peer inside. One of the rooms had exercise bikes, weights and other training equipment. I spotted Owen inside lifting dumbbells as he watched himself in a mirror. It almost appeared as though his reflection had caught a glimpse of me.

“What room is that?” I asked.

“That’s the gym,” Steve said sniffing.

“Looked kind of small to be a gym.”

“That was just the weight room. There is a basketball court through the big door in there. They have a couple teams in here. There are basketball games you can go to. Do you play?” Steve asked looking at me as he pushed up his glasses.

“No,” I said looking down at his oval face. Were there people here who really had the energy to run around for fun? I definitely was not one of them. I’d save the running for life and death situations.

“Me either,” he said with a weak half-smile. It was as if he was pleased that we had something in common.

Dean worked in the kitchen and Owen could be found in the gym. Those both made sense since Dean knew how to cook and Owen had been into sports back in school. What would they have Sienna doing? And why had I been assigned to the library? It was probably just that Owen and Dean had gotten lucky having been assigned something they actually had interest in. Although Dean hadn’t looked particularly thrilled to be sweeping in the kitchen. He would have much rather been preparing a meal, like his spaghetti. I would have seriously considered killing someone to have a plateful of Dean’s spaghetti. My mouth almost watered at the thought.

Once inside the library, Steve told me what I’d be doing and that he’d give me more things to do as time went on. I’d push a cart of returned books and put them back on the shelf in order, using the system Steve had developed himself. He showed me the cart and there were a lot more returned books stacked up inside than I would have imagined.

“Lots of books,” I said glancing towards Steve while he flipped through a bunch of index cards.

“Lots of voracious readers in here. Do you read?” he asked staring at me while he waited for my answer.

“I do,” I said with mild surprise. I had always liked reading but there wasn’t any way HOME would have known that. It had to be some kind of coincidence. I mean jobs were limited. It wasn’t like they were going to send me over to the main offices to work as a receptionist.

“Great,” Steve said returning to his index cards. “You don’t have to put all the books back today. Take your time and learn the system. That’s more important.”

“OK,” I said pushing the cart over to the shelves.

I had lost track of time as I put the books away. I hadn’t even realized it was lunch time, or that I was hungry until I saw Penn watching me from around the corner. “You are not going to believe this,” he whispered.

“What?” I said thinking he had found out some juicy information about HOME or maybe about one of my friends.

“This place is so evil! I asked someone where I could find you, and they told me you were in the library! Isn’t that just awful?” he teased.

“So very funny,” I said sarcastically pushing the cart into his hip. The paranoid part of me wondered who he asked and who was keeping tabs on me. “Quiet down would you? This is a library.”

“Lunch time.”

“I don’t think my boss will let me go,” I said trying to sound serious as I nodded in Steve’s direction.

Penn leaned to the side and looked around me at Steve standing behind a desk. I had no idea what he was working on but he pushed up his glasses up and dropped the index cards he was holding all over the table. “That’s your boss?”

“Yes, don’t stare! He doesn’t like when people stare.”

“I’m not too worried about mini Harry Potter,” Penn said half smirking.

“You should be. They say he knows magic.”

“Let’s go Rrrrr-Mel,” Penn said catching himself as he almost said my actual name. I shook my head. We had both thought it would be me that would make the first mistake.

I walked over to Steve and asked him if I could head to lunch. He told me I didn’t have to ask and if I was hungry I could just go eat. No one was watching that closely. As long as the work got done, it didn’t matter. But of course I wondered what HOME would do if the work didn’t get done. Like when a person wasn’t doing their job the way they were supposed to.

“See you tomorrow,” he said not bothering to look up.

“Tomorrow? What about the rest of the day?”

“Only need you in the mornings, have a good afternoon!”

Penn and I walked out of the library side by side. I looked up at him, “Do you only have to work half days?”

“No, I have to go back.”

That would mean I’d have to spend the rest of the day by myself. Honestly, I wasn’t thrilled about that.

“What is your job?” I asked wondering if he had been enrolled in the ninja slash gun slinging academy.

“I’m getting trained to work the front door,” he said glancing at me quickly.

“What? They take newbies for that job? You have to be kidding me!” I couldn’t believe it. I would have thought they took reliable people who’d been here awhile for a position like that.

“Guess so, I mean I’m just being trained. It’s not like they are going to let me do it alone or anything,” he said as we turned the corner towards the cafeteria. My shoulder brushed against someone rushing by and I looked over to apologize. My words froze in my throat when I saw it was Owen.

“Sorry,” he mumbled without bothering to look up.

Penn and I both slowed our pace. Owen hadn’t even looked at me. He had been a mere inch or two from me, our bodies had touched, and still he didn’t know it was me. By the time I found my words he was gone.

During lunch, every time I looked over at my friends Penn kicked me under the table. I couldn’t stop looking at them. Now that I had actually touched Owen they seemed even more real, and they were no longer a mirage. I had to figure out a way to talk to them. To let them know it was me, and that I was here. I wanted to ask about Ryan and then get us all out of HOME. As soon as possible.

* * *

With each passing day, however, doubts about the evilness of HOME set in. I started to question myself about why I was so desperate to get out. It hadn’t been at all as bad as I had imagined it would be. What if I had just been wrong? But then I would remember what had happened with Ryan. And the gunshot. I couldn’t let them brainwash me, which is what they must have been doing for me to have even the smallest doubt about this place. Everyone in here was probably being brainwashed. And I wasn’t about to let that happen to me. I just knew there was something bad about this place but I couldn’t quite put my finger on precisely what it was. But I would figure it out. Or maybe if I got Ryan back I wouldn’t even care to figure it out as long as we were all running far, far away from here.

For three days in a row we ate lunch at the same time as Dean, Owen, Sienna and Slade. But it wasn’t until the third day that Dean looked at me and then whispered something to Owen and Sienna before Slade joined them. Their expressions were odd, suspicious even. They still didn’t seem to recognize me at all. Not only that but my presence seemed to be making them uncomfortable… well not my presence so much, but my unrelenting staring.

“They don’t know me any more,” I said to Penn, puffing out my bottom lip.

“It’s probably just your hair,” he said eating a forkful of mush.

“I don’t know,” I said running my fingers through my hair to feel its shortness. “Do I really look that different?”

Penn stared at me as if I was losing my mind. “I have no idea,” he said as he rolled his eyes, “I don’t know what you looked like before the black hair.”

“Oh right,” I sighed.

Penn opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something but he changed his mind. Instead he went back to his meal with a quick glance to make sure I was doing the same.

“I have to figure out a way to let them know it’s me.” But I wasn’t sure if I should. Maybe it would be better to just leave them alone. Even though they didn’t look it, maybe they were happy here. At least content. After all, they hadn’t tried to leave to come find me. Ryan, wherever he was, was probably happy too and me coming here was just going to ruin everything for them. “Or maybe I shouldn’t,” I mumbled with a frown.