Imprisoned
Authors: Christine Kersey
Tags: #YA dystopian, #YA, #parallel universe, #dystopian, #suspense, #Suspense & Thrillers, #alternate reality
Imprisoned
Parallel Trilogy, Book 2
Christine Kersey
Also by Christine Kersey
He Loves Me Not (Lily’s Story, Book 1)
Don’t Look Back (Lily’s Story, Book 2)
Gone (Parallel Trilogy, Book 1)
If you would like to be notified when a new book by Christine Kersey comes out, click on this
link
to go to Christine’s blog, then enter your email address in the top right corner to follow Christine’s blog.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
I felt bruises forming on my upper arms as the Enforcers squeezed my flesh and dragged me into the building. Maybe they were irritated that I had tried to escape and had nearly gotten away from them. Hansen, the one I’d kneed in the groin, squeezed particularly hard. Complaining wouldn’t do any good, plus I didn’t want them to get the satisfaction of knowing I was in pain, so I kept quiet.
But that wasn’t the only reason. My lip was swollen from when I was body slammed to the ground and I knew my words would be unintelligible, which would make me the object of ridicule. My face ached where it had smashed into the ground. Even though I’d been lucky enough to be on grass at the time, it had still felt like crashing into concrete when Dimples had taken me down. I didn’t know his real name and hoped I wouldn’t be around long enough to find out.
My plan had been, and still was, to get back to the tunnel that had brought me to this world. Picturing the hut where I’d spent the night when I’d run away, I desperately wished I’d turned around and gone back home the moment I’d seen it. Even though I’d been lost in the woods by then, it would have been far better for me to wander around in the snowstorm looking for my house than to end up in this insane world where it was illegal to be overweight.
I still couldn’t believe that I was a prisoner at a F.A.T. center—Federally Assisted Thinning, like they were just interested in helping me. My crime? Being a few pounds overweight. Oh yeah, and I’d “distributed” cookies to my friends at school. You’d think the cookies were laced with drugs or something for how seriously this crime was being taken.
And it was mostly thanks to Lori, my recent nemesis. It’s true that I’d never been great at making friends, but in less than two weeks I’d met Lori and she had become my enemy. All over a boy. A boy I was certain I’d never see again.
Holding back a sigh, I walked down the hallway with an Enforcer on either side of me. I felt sorry for myself, but more than that, I was scared. I didn’t know what was going to happen next and I didn’t know how I was going to get out of here in time to make my way back to the tunnel that I fervently hoped would take me home. To my real home. The one where people could eat what they wanted. And if they were overweight,
they
could choose to stay that way or choose to lose weight. No one was dragged out of their home, locked up like a criminal, and forced to lose weight.
We entered a small room where a woman sat behind a desk.
“Can we leave her with you, Tammy?” Dimples asked.
Tammy smiled at him. “Sure.” She glanced at me, then back at Dimples. “What’s with her face?”
“She’s a runner.”
She shook her head at me, then focused her attention back on Dimples. “You know what to do, then.”
The pair of Enforcers led me to a chair near Tammy’s desk and sat me down. I didn’t resist, knowing it would be futile. Hansen knelt and chained my right ankle to the chair—which was bolted to the floor—then his gaze met mine and he glared at me. I had a feeling that if the two of us had been alone he would have enjoyed hitting me. Hard.
I hoped I wouldn’t see him again after this.
He stood. “Thanks, Tammy.”
She smiled at him. “See ya, hon.”
The Enforcers left and I looked at Tammy, wondering if I would find someone who would be nice to me.
Any pretense of friendliness vanished as she looked at me. “Name?”
“Morgan.” I barely managed to utter the word, overwhelmed by what was happening, not to mention my swollen mouth.
“Speak up.”
I cleared my throat and repeated my name.
The woman typed on her keyboard. “Last name?”
“Campbell.”
“Date of birth?”
I told her and watched as she typed it in. She asked for my address and the name of my parents. The fact that she asked gave me hope that someone would notify Mom. Then she stopped asking me questions but kept typing, ignoring me. After a few minutes I gathered the courage to speak. “What’s going to happen to me?”
She stopped typing and looked at me, clearly annoyed that I had disturbed her. “Right now you need to sit there and be quiet. Someone will be here in a while to finish processing you.”
I felt so helpless and alone. “Can I call my mom?”
She frowned. “No phone calls allowed.”
“I thought when someone was arrested they got to make one phone call.”
“Since when?” She seemed sincere in her question.
Obviously the rules in this world were different. “Never mind,” I muttered.
“I have work to do, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t interrupt me.” Without waiting for me to respond, she focused back on her computer screen.
Thoughts tumbled around in my head as I imagined what would happen next. Fear coursed through me at the unknown and I began to shiver. With my hands bound behind my back and my ankle shackled to the chair, there was nothing I could do but endure. I slowed my breathing, not wanting to hyperventilate like I had in the back of the Enforcers’ car, and forced myself to calm down.
Trying to distract myself from my situation, my gaze wandered around the room. A large poster was tacked to the wall, and when I read the boldly written words—
A healthy me is a healthy world
—I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to shut out the reality of where I was and what had happened.
Ten minutes later the door to the room opened. By then I had settled down, but when I saw a new Enforcer walk in, adrenalin surged through me. He glanced at the chain around my ankle then looked at Tammy. “A runner, huh?”
“So I hear.” She sounded bored as she stood and handed him a plastic card.
“Thanks.” He slipped the card into his shirt pocket, then knelt next to my chair and undid the chain. He gripped my arm and forced me to stand. “Come with me.”
As if I had a choice.
He led me through the door and back into the hall. We turned the corner and went into a room that looked like an exam room. He freed my wrists and I massaged them, enjoying the illusion of freedom.
He pointed to a gown folded neatly on the examination table. “Put that on. The doctor will be here pretty soon.”
I glanced at the gown, then back at him.
“I’ll be outside. “ He left and I heard a key turn in the lock and realized I was trapped. I frantically looked around the small room for some means of escape. There were no windows and the only way out was through the door. There was nowhere for me to go.
My gaze settled on the gown again. I had no intention of putting it on. Instead I walked over to a cabinet, hoping there might be something I could use as a weapon. It was locked. So were all the drawers.
This must be the room where they take the runners, I thought, wishing I hadn’t tried to escape. All it had gotten me was a fat lip and fewer opportunities to get away, now that they were watching me more closely. Of course I had no basis for comparison. They probably watched all of their prisoners closely.
When I heard the lock disengaging, my attention snapped to the door. Hurrying over to the exam table, I stood next to it, my gaze riveted on the door. A moment later it opened. The Enforcer who had brought me in held it open for a petite woman with caring eyes. As soon as she entered he closed the door behind her, leaving the two of us alone.
“I’m Dr. Bradley.” She smiled at me. “And you’re Morgan, correct?”
I nodded.
She stepped to a slim monitor and waved a plastic card in front of a reader, then placed it in her pocket. I wondered if it was the card Tammy had given the Enforcer. She studied the screen a moment—I couldn’t see what it said from where I stood—then she turned back to me, her gaze briefly looking at the gown, then resting on me.
“I . . . I didn’t want to put it on.”
“I see that.” She smiled. “That’s okay. You’ll want to take your shoes off though. Every little bit helps, as everyone says.”
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, although I had an idea. I took my shoes off, then stood there.
“Please step on the scale.” She motioned to a scale in the corner of the room.
It was different than the one we had at home. Even so, I’d come to hate that device as it had loudly proclaimed my weight the few times I’d gotten on it. It was much more interested in those numbers than I was. Maybe I should have cared more. Maybe then I wouldn’t be here now. I stepped on the scale, but it remained silent.
Dr. Bradley looked at the numbers. “You can step off now.”
I did as I was told and watched as she went back to her computer and typed something.
“How long am I going to be here?” Uncertainty filled my voice.
“Please have a seat, Morgan.” She motioned to the exam table.
I sat on the white paper, my feet dangling.
Dr. Bradley stepped toward me, her face thoughtful. “You need to lose twenty pounds before we can release you.”
Twenty pounds?
I’d never lost that much weight before. In fact, I’d always avoided dieting of any kind. “How long will that take?”
“We want you to do it in a healthy way. This isn’t about punishment, it’s about learning a healthy lifestyle.”
“How long?”
“From my experience, I’d guess about ten weeks.”
Ten weeks?
That would put me past the time I needed to get to the tunnel. When I’d left my world it had been November tenth, but in this world it was mid-September. I wasn’t exactly sure how moving from my world to this one had worked, but I felt certain that if I didn’t get to the tunnel by November tenth, I would miss my chance to get home. “What if I work extra hard and lose it faster?”
“Well.” She hesitated. “That’s not ideal. If you try to starve yourself to lose it faster, then when you go back to your normal eating habits you’ll gain it all back and find yourself back here again.”
You wanna bet? I thought, picturing the tunnel that would take me home.
She must have seen something in my face because she placed her hand on my knee and her voice softened. “But Morgan, you must know that you’re not leaving in ten weeks.”
“What? Why not?”
“Your file says you were distributing high calorie food to minors on school property. You know that’s an automatic six months.”
The blood drained from my face. “What about a trial? What about being innocent until proven guilty?”
She smiled indulgently. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” She paused as she looked at me. “Now, let’s take care of that lip.”
In a daze, I sat on the exam table as she cleaned the blood from my mouth and made sure I didn’t need stitches, then placed a cold pack against my lip. “Hold that there, Morgan.”
I did as she asked, my mind jumping frantically from one thought to another.
She turned away and got something out of a drawer, then gently grabbed the arm that wasn’t holding the compress. I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing. Suddenly something sharp jabbed into my upper arm. “Ouch!”