Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight, Andrews, C. [classic books for 10 year olds .TXT] 📗

I didn't reply. I went to my cot and fell asleep almost a second after I closed my eyes. I was so deeply asleep so quickly, I thought the poke in my ribs was part of my dream. Finally, I realized it wasn't and awoke.

Gia was at my bedside, her face close to mine. “At least now you know I wasn't lying. There was a Posy.”

She returned to her cot. Mindy watched her and looked at me.

I don't think I had ever really prayed properly in my life. Daddy did his best to teach me religion and took me to church whenever he had an opportunity, but I always had trouble talking to an entity that never spoke back. I used to sit in the church and wait anxiously to hear some great, booming voice come down from the ceiling or out of the altar. When it didn't, I just thought everyone was pretending.

I asked Mama about it once and she told me I was a fool, but my daddy was a bigger fool.

“God talks only to the rich,” she said. “Why you think they're so damn lucky?”

I didn't know what that meant either.

I still didn't really know what it all meant.

But what I did know as I lay there was I was going tofind a way to ask God to help me and get me out of this place.

I wasn't rich, but I had confidence that He would find a way.

But what it would take me a long time to understand was why He chose the way out for me He chose.

Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight

Inward Journey

vJia was certainly different after my basement experience. She seemed less angry, but more depressed. The defiance we had sensed within her when we three had first arrived was gone. She no longer snapped at Teal or Robin, and especially not at me. In fact, I saw her avoiding me. All I had to do was turn her way and she would quickly shift her eyes or look down to avoid mine. It was almost as if she were ashamed of what I knew.

She had less energy, too, worked slower, ate slower, and ate less. Mindy could babble in her ear and she wouldn't turn on her and whip her with any words, any warnings, as she had usually done since the day we had arrived. It was almost as if she were truly shrinking inside herself, disappearing the way her precious Posy had disappeared.

Dr. Foreman looked pleased about all this. I saw thesmile of satisfaction on her lips when she looked at Gia now. It soaked me in a new downpour of rage to know I had been manipulated and used to help bring this about. I was the one who felt guilty now. I felt responsible for the changes in Gia, even though Gia had trapped me in that basement.

No one does anything she really wants to do here, I concluded. It might take some time, more time for one of us than another, but eventually, Dr. Foreman pulls our strings. We move like puppets on a stage she creates.

I think she caught these thoughts in my eyes when she glanced at me and saw how hatefully I was glaring back at her. She didn't cut her face with the sharp, cold smile I expected. Instead, she fixed her gaze on me thoughtfully for a few moments, then turned away slowly and walked off. I can't say I wasn't frightened by that, but my anger disguised it well.

These dark realizations should have left me as depressed and defeated as Gia now was, but instead, it restored my inner fury and strengthened my defiance. Certainly I was afraid of being returned to the Ice Room and having the rats, real or not, running all over me. So, I worked at my chores. I obeyed all the rules. I recited the morning prayer in which we gave thanks to Dr. Foreman. I recited the apologies we were supposed to make to the buddies and to ourselves. I did all I was told to do obediently, but a fire was building inside me. I could feel the heat around my heart. It made me toss and turn at night. It put a little more strength in my walk and it made those mountains in the distance look closer.

Like the cornered rats that filled me with terror, I bared my teeth. I raised my back and I looked for an opportunity to strike out.

Despite what I was sure Dr. Foreman saw in me, she continued to be pleasant, to offer me new privileges, to drive a wedge between me and the others. I knew I couldn't refuse anything, but I believed in my heart that she knew she hadn't defeated me yet. Of course, that frightened me more than anything. She was not going to give up. She had so many other techniques and plans yet to employ. Something new could come from any direction at any time. The expression you 're walking on thin ice never had more meaning for me than it did here. I knew I would in time fall through and she would have me wrapped in something so terrible I would lose my name. I would be erased and re-​created in her image. It gave new meaning to the word clones that Gia had used when she used to talk more angrily about our buddies.

As Dr. Foreman had warned us that first day in the orientation room, she did have godlike powers in her world and we were surely in her world. Her voice cracked like a whip above our heads, even, I noticed, when she spoke to the buddies. They were her girls, but they were almost as afraid of her as we were when they were in her presence.

Only Natani seemed to have a sense of well-​being and peacefulness here. He moved through all this as if he