Chapter 8 #2
They return to the base hours later. Both the back seat of the car and small trunk are stuffed full of bags.
After being dragged around the mall for hours by Matt, who was clearly enjoying himself far more than Liz, she spotted a tattoo shop and bolted in.
After hours in the chair, she was done, finally ready to go home.
When they pull into the parking lot, Liz lets out a breath of relief, happy to finally be back.
Pretending to be friendly with someone she cannot stand has her mentally drained.
Matt insists on helping her carry everything back to her room, even though she is sick of making small talk, she agrees and thanks him with a smile, hoping and praying he doesn't try to stay.
Fumbling with the bags hanging from her arm and the keys in her hand, Liz finally gets the knob to turn and kicks her door open, dropping the bags the moment she is inside.
Matt chuckles, bringing in the rest of her things and tossing them onto the couch.
This is her best opportunity to get rid of him.
“Thank you,” she says, a little too sweetly, adding, “And thank you for today. I guess you’re not as bad as I thought.”
“I knew you would like me once you opened up a bit.” He smiles, making his dimples pop. “Do you want some help putting away this stuff?” he asks, peering into one of her bags. “Like I said, I have nothing going on for the rest of the night.”
“I think I can handle it,” Liz says from her spot in the kitchen, pulling all her groceries out and placing them on the table.
“I’m pretty tired, probably just going to put the food away and get some sleep.
” Liz watches his reaction carefully, his shoulders slum and he stops walking toward her.
“I’m not great at things like this…the whole friend thing.
I never have been, so I’m sorry if this isn’t what you were hoping for,” she admits.
“You don’t seem to have a problem being friends with Mikey, you two are inseparable,” he remarks.
“Mikey is different. He has been there through it all, and he has never once sexualized me or made me feel uncomfortable. He never wanted anything more than a genuine friendship, and you can’t even begin to imagine what had to happen for us to be at this point,” she snaps, slamming her bread onto the counter.
“Seems more like a guy waiting around for you to get over your infatuation with his uninterested friend so he can fuck you.”
Her head whips around so fast it makes her dizzy, just in time to see him throw his hands over his face and look up to the ceiling, clearly regretting his choices.
“That was stupid. I’m sorry. After spending the day with you, I’m a little jealous of the relationship you two have.
” He drops his hands, turning to her with big, sad eyes.
“I think you should go. I will see you at the gym tomorrow.” She snips, turning back to her task at hand.
She holds it together for a count of ten after the door clicks closed before she rips a pillow from the couch, stuffs her face into it, and screams until her throat burns.
When the anger subsides, Liz gets to work on unpacking the rest of her bags, placing each item as she goes.
A plush, charcoal grey rug gets unrolled and pulled to sit under the front legs of the small couch, carefully placing the coffee table back in the center.
A white throw blanket covered in small black bows is placed on the back of the couch, with matching throw pillows on each side.
The coffee table gets topped with a black porcelain tray which winds up holding a set of two candles and a small vase of white flowers.
Taking more bags from where they are haphazardly strewn across the floor, Liz marches into Mikey’s room, dumping the bags on the floor, and getting to work.
His bedding is stripped and replaced with pink and white checkered sheets, and topped with a white comforter covered in hand drawn style pink daisies and small pastel strawberries mixed in.
After swapping out the pillow cases and putting them back, Liz places a plush, furry pink pillow on top with a teddy bear sitting front and center.
While she lucked out on finding a princess canopy for the bunk, she did find pink cherry blossom string lights that she hangs around the perimeter of the bed.
Satisfied, she balls up the old bedding and shoves it in the closet, making a mental note to deal with it in the morning.
By the time she is done, the clock reads 2:24 a.m. Unable and unwilling to do any further decorating, Liz crawls into bed, staring at the photo of her clinging to Riley, until she can’t hold her eyes open any longer.
That night, Liz dreams of being back in her cell. She knows she is not there––huddling in the corner, arm chained to the ground, gently rocking herself back and forth. Liz tells herself over and over again it isn’t real. But if it’s not real, why does it feel like it is?
The same sharp bite of pain as the metal cuffs cut into her raw wrists.
The crumbling concrete floor freezing beneath her nearly naked body as blood slowly trickles from her freshly cut leg.
Reaching for the cut, she remembers doing it once before, but it’s not a cut.
It’s a small lump. The tracker, that was when they put it in her, the blood coming from the sheer size of the needle.
She takes a deep breath, trying to get her bearings, but the smell of urine mixed with blood has her gagging. She wonders what the point of knowing she’s in a dream is when she can’t change anything.
Footsteps echo in the distance, moving closer to her cell. Every hair on her body stands on end. Her heart rate picks up and she breaks out in a cold sweat.
She hoped to never hear those footsteps again in her life.
He was coming for her. She screams in frustration, wondering how she remembers this day but does not remember him coming to her cell.
Gunshots ring out in the distance, and the men in the halls start screaming at each other, yelling that he is there.
It’s not right. She got sedated and stabbed in the leg, she never knew what happened in the time between that and when she came to.
Everything begins blending together. One moment Dmitri was screaming at his men about getting chirinda ready, and the next, Riley is in front of her.
She springs to her feet, yanking as hard as she can on the chain holding her in place.
She cannot ’stop the tears from flowing, telling him how happy she is to see him.
He steps over and crouches down, like he can’t even see she is standing in front of him.
She begs him to look up, to talk to her, and cries that she needs to see him.
Her cries only grow louder as he starts to fade away, the walls around them morphing to a deep, endless black.
She screams until her voice breaks, begging him not to leave her, crying pleas that never make it to his ears.
Her eyes snap open, face wet with tears shed while asleep.
Peering around the dark room, she wishes she could go back in, just to see him for a moment longer. She lies there, unmoving, wondering why her subconscious would force her to relive that day, more importantly, why it would make her remember that day wrong.
It hits her then, what if her mind wasn’t remembering wrong, but showing her what she heard while drugged?
She leaps from the bed, sprinting into the kitchen to grab the notebook she’s been using to write down all the strange things about Matt.
Scribbling down every detail, circling chirinda until a hole nearly forms in the paper.
The word was so out of place in her dream, she needs to ask Alex about it when they get back.
She just has to endure four more days until then.