Sorry, I should not post things at 2 am.
Chapter 7
“Before I met you, my Mom barely talked to me.” Cyrus said, right after he pulled the hatch door closed. The inside was white, and closed with just the pull of a handle, and an electric lock. Then, he yanked Janie’s hands behind her back and slapped a pair of cold, steel handcuffs to her wrists.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Janie asked, wondering if she still had time to change her mind. She wasn’t expecting handcuffs, and didn’t really have time to fight back. She was so sure that she’d be able to beat him.
“She doesn’t like anyone that isn’t family.” He said, watching Janie trying to break the handcuff chain. “You can’t break that. It’s steel.”
“How do you know I can’t? I could be a super hero.”
“But you’re not. You’re- “
“You don’t know, do you? Steel could be like butter to me.”
“But you’re still in handcuffs.”
“Shut up.”
“You can’t get out, can you?”
“Maybe I don’t want to get out.”
“What do you know about my Mom?” Cyrus asked, finally. He’d been curious about it for months.
“She’s your Mom, why don’t you ask her?”
“She won’t talk about anything before she met my Dad, only that she’s from Georgia.”
“She doesn’t have a southern accent.”
“No. The country. She escaped, then met my Dad”
“I don’t know anything, Cyrus. I met her when you introduced us, and she asked me to call her Deda.” Janie thought back to her last conversation with Elene. “She said ‘Cheven erti ojakhi vart’ to me. Do you know what that means?”
“...She considers you family. That’s why we belong together. She doesn’t like anyone but the kids, but she loves you.”
“I don’t belong with you.”
“Yes you do! I’m going to give you the world.”
“Embarrassing me in public is not going to help you do that. Why did you do it in a store full of people?” asked Janie “There’s no way to explain it.”
“You shouted ‘Time Machine’ on my street.” Cyrus shot back
“That’s a little different than holding up a store and kidnapping your girlfriend with a primitive time machine!” The room they fought in was tiny, with white walls broken only by the hatch.
“You’re still my girlfriend?” asked Cyrus, grinning.
“No.” She said, firmly “We’re broken up. Treating me badly and destroying the world are turnoffs. Major turnoffs.”
“You’ll change your mind, and that store was nowhere near full.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Maybe my Mom will talk some sense into you.”
“Is she here too?”
“I’m going to get her after we make a few adjustments.” Cyrus pushed a button, and led Janie into an even smaller white room
“Why are you obsessed with having your Mom here?”
“Because you can’t cook.” He said “And I want to show her that she’s wrong.”
“I can cook!” Janie shouted “Just not... everything. Or- why should it matter? I never said I wanted to be your cook or maid.”
“What are we going to eat? TV dinners?”
“We are not together anymore! If we were, you’re supposed to be this rich person that can change time and space, so why not hire a chef, or a maid?”
“You don’t want a chef or maid!”
“Lazy people hire help like that. Do I look lazy?”
“You look hot.”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” exclaimed Cyrus “You are going to stay in here, until you come to your senses.”
“You mean until I’m insane, because I’d have to be crazy to stay with you.”
“You boarded the ship.” Cyrus said, before stepping out of the room. He pressed the wall and a hidden doorway closed. Janie tried banging her shoulder against the wall, then backed up against it, before realizing that she could not get out that way.
# # #
“Let me out!” Janie shouted, as Cyrus walked away “You can’t keep me here!”
Except, he did manage to keep her there. Janie alternated between demanding release and shouting insults for fifteen minutes, before a wave of exhaustion hit her. She stopped yelling and tried to sit down comfortably, but found that hard to do with the handcuffs.
The room was big enough for a metal bench that doubled as a cot and a seat, and half a piece of plywood attached to the wall with hinges that served as a desk. Not much else fit in the room, other than a few pictures on the wall, and a small box on the ‘desk’.
She called for Cyrus again, before realizing that he wasn’t coming. She was trapped, and panic overwhelmed her for what seemed like hours, until something clicked inside of her head.
“You can’t keep me here.” She said, much more quietly this time, as she lowered her arms enough to step through them so that her handcuffed hands were in front of her. “Do you hear me, Cyrus? Not in a million years! But you have a time machine, so that doesn’t matter.”
After sitting on the edge of the bench, she managed to use her bound hands to remove her badge, which had been so carefully pinned to her shirt before her shift at work. Now, she was able to put it in her mouth, crouch over, and use the pin to pick the lock. It took only a second to find the pin and release it.
“I’m going to make you pay when I get out!” She called, carefully placing the cuffs on the desk, so he wouldn’t know that she was now free.
She didn’t know how she knew what to do; only that she’d done it more than once before. The memories seemed just out of reach, which seemed to be the way that most things were for Janie.
# # #
Another wave of exhaustion hit her, and she lay back on the metal bench, only to discover that metal was hard and unforgiving. It was also cold. The tiny room- cell, is more like it, was the opposite of comfortable.
Between the uncomfortable cot, the blindingly bright white light, and the just out of reach memories, she could not sleep. Instead, she looked two feet over at the desk. The pictures that almost covered the wall were of Cyrus, Cyrus and Janie, and Cyrus and his friends. Most were of Cyrus and Janie, in what were supposed to be much happier times. They weren’t happier, however. In each of the photographs, she could see that something was off in each of them.
The box was full of clothes. Janie’s clothes. They were various items that she’d left at Cyrus’, or that he’d taken from the apartment. A few books sat on the desk, as well as an apple and a can of her favorite soda.
“I need more than an apple to eat!” She called, somewhat annoyed. Maybe she wanted pizza, or a salad. Or maybe, she wanted to be out of that tiny room. She knew Cyrus probably hadn’t thought about that, and was actually surprised that he remembered to put things that she would like in the room.
The waves of exhaustion were now one big wave, and she tried to lie on the cot again. All that did was annoy her to the point of sitting up once more. If he was trying to become an expert at torture, Janie thought that he was successful.
Then, she saw the box in the corner. Made of ugly, white, plastic, it was shoved under the desk and a green LED flashed in a pattern. One, one two, one two three. Janie watched it over and over again, until finally she got up from the cot and crawled towards it. The cover did not come off as easily as she expected, but after a few moments of fiddling she found where it latched to its base.
Inside of the box was a mess of wires and three metallic cylinders. Each had a glowing, green LED attached to it. Without thinking, she ripped the wires up and tossed them to the side.
# # #
The door opened easily when she felt along where Cyrus pressed the wall earlier. A white hallway was all that she could see, so Janie turned left. There were more white walls, with no markings to help her place where she was. She frowned, and told herself that she would not be spending very much time on the ship.
“Took you long enough” Cyrus said when she walked into a relatively large room, after her making another left turn. Jake and Sean sat at an old, brown, card table covered with papers, wires and tools, while Cyrus stood nearby.
“What?” She asked, in disbelief
“We all thought you would escape sooner.”
“You wanted me to escape?”
“Janie, you’re almost as smart as I am, I couldn’t make it easy for you.”
“What kind of sick game is this?” Janie glared at Cyrus, ready to fight if it came to it.
“This is my time machine, and my rules.” He said, staring at her “Sit down and listen.”
“No. I’m not going to listen; I’m going to keep talking. Talking and talking and talking and talking until you give up this ridiculous plan.”
“If you don’t shut up, I will lock you in that room again and this time I won’t turn the leechbox off.”
“Leechbox?”
“Did you see the white box in the corner? There are three cells inside of it, and you managed to charge all of them so leaving it one would have been a waste of energy.”
“Charge what?” she asked slowly, not revealing what she’d done to the box. “How do I ‘charge’ anything?”
“You had a strange gadget in your bag one night, so I took it apart and discovered that it somehow stopped the machine from working. After a couple of weeks I managed to reengineer it so it stored the energy instead of stopping it.”
“What device?”
“You would know more than me.”
“I’ve got memory problems.” Janie said, annoyed “How does it work?”
“It sucks energy from you.” Added Cyrus “Which charge the batteries, and those are helping power the ship.”
“Is that why I’ve been so tired?”
“Give it a few hours.” Cyrus said, unconcerned “Jake, try four cells this time.”
“Cy, are you sure-” he asked
“Yes. She’s going to be fine. We need her here, with us. I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“I never said that! Four cells might be too much. Three slowed her down, didn’t it?”
“If she gets too tired we can cut the leechbox off. We created it, didn’t we?”
“What?” Janie asked “Don’t use that thing on me! How long have you been doing it?”
“Months.” Sean said, in a low voice
“You all let him do this to me? Guys!”
“It’s not hurting you.” Sean added
Janie stared at the three guys for a moment, before taking a deep breath and sitting down at the table. If she could get them to let her go, maybe Nina would be able to get them to a safe spot before Cyrus could hurt anyone. “I’ve got more tech at home. Let me get it, and we can fix the machine.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the machine.” Cyrus said. “We don’t need any more tech.”
“Then why are you stuck?” She asked, unsure of how she knew that detail.
“We’re not stuck, we’re taking a break.” Cyrus pulled up another chair, and sat beside Janie “Shut up and help us.”
# # #
“I’ll help.” Janie said, after a few moments. The three guys all high-fived each other and the mood in the room quickly changed.
“You were right man, she’s going to help.” Grinned Jake “We’re a team now.”
“The Time Gods.” Sean said
“No, that doesn’t sound right.”
“We need a name, Jake.”
“Our names. Scientists don’t come up with team names. Geeks and comic book characters have team names.”
“And elementary schools” Janie offered
“Do you want to be an elementary school?” Asked Jake.
“Sean, Jake, Cyrus and Janie does not sound like a good team.” Pouted Sean
“My name is first.” Cyrus began “And we use our last names. The Donnegan discovery does have a nice ring to it.”
“You’re leaving us out?” Jake yelled “We have done ALL of this together. If you leave us out I’m taking my research and doing this on my own.”
Janie put her head in her hands as she listened to the three argue. She tried to think about things that would make her happy, and Lynn and Nina came to mind. Janie wanted to be with them, not with the three guys who were currently play wrestling in the room.
She wanted her daughter’s father, whoever he was. She wanted her life and family back, before Cyrus was even in her radar.
“What’s wrong, Janie?” Asked Jake, looking over at her and realizing she was upset.
“I miss my family, and I’m never going to see them again because I’ll be trapped here forever.”
“No you won’t. We stopped to make adjustments.” Jake said, sitting next to her and patting her on the back “We’re all going back home once we secure a place in history.”
“We made you a costume.” Sean added, helpfully
“A costume?”
Sean reached into a box, and pulled out a dress and cape. “We have tights somewhere, but Cyrus said they weren’t your size. You‘re going to need them because we’ll be working.”
Janie stared at the tiny dress and the flimsy cape, and wanted to burst into tears. “Do you have costumes too?”
“We’ve got fedoras and suits.”
“...Shouldn’t I have a cocktail dress?”
“I told you!” Exclaimed Jake “But you insisted that she look like a superhero.”
“Guys, we’ve got a dress for her. We needed it for the casino trip.”
“What’s she going to wear to the casino? It can’t be the same thing.” Complained Sean
“We’ll pick up something.” Cyrus said, sighing
“I want to go home.” Janie said, quietly “I need to see my daughter, and Nina-”
“Why didn’t you tell us about your kid?” Asked Cyrus, cutting her off.
“Because I, uh, had her when I was young! I grew up too hard and too fast on the mean streets of Harlem! And um, had to fight tooth and nail... to keep her safe and fed. Nina, she came along and gave me a chance and we’ve been friends ever since, but I thought you all would judge me. She deserves more than that. That little girl is, all that kept me alive one winter. I sold whatever I could to keep us alive, and finally, we were down to matches, but it was so cold that I had to use them to make fire! When the last match burned, I decided to end it all and let the state take care of my little girl. Then... she. Found more matches! And she said, um. Mommy, don’t give up. We are. Always going to be there for each other. So I threw the poison to the side and hugged her. Then I met you, Cyrus, and your friends. Would you accept my illegitimate child? Would you turn your nose up at my past? So my double life started, and now I’m here, thinking you’ll boot me out into nothing. Let me say goodbye to her, please.”
The story wasn’t true. Janie wasn’t sure where it came from, but it sounded good. It was one of the best lies she could ever remember telling.
“What kind of poison?” Asked Sean, after a moment “And can’t you pick up a free match book just about anywhere?”
“Um...”
“Don’t ask her!” Jake said “It’s not polite. She just poured her heart out to us.”
“We won’t judge you, Janie.” Cyrus smiled at her “We’re here to support you. You’re one of us.”
“Did you meet us right after that or-”
“Sean!” Cyrus exclaimed “Put a pizza in the oven and shut up!”
“You never said anything about me cooking.” He protested
“Janie can’t cook so someone has to.”
“I’m not doing it next time.” Sean said, as he stomped out of the room
“Thank you for not judging me.” Janie said, finally “Does this change anything?”
“No.” Cyrus assured, which was not the answer that Janie wanted “You’re always going to be one of us... but you still have to stay on the ship, and I’m going to have to lock you in your room until I know that you won’t try to escape.”
“I understand.” She said, even though she didn’t. She’d have to find another way.
“Before I met you, my Mom barely talked to me.” Cyrus said, right after he pulled the hatch door closed. The inside was white, and closed with just the pull of a handle, and an electric lock. Then, he yanked Janie’s hands behind her back and slapped a pair of cold, steel handcuffs to her wrists.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Janie asked, wondering if she still had time to change her mind. She wasn’t expecting handcuffs, and didn’t really have time to fight back. She was so sure that she’d be able to beat him.
“She doesn’t like anyone that isn’t family.” He said, watching Janie trying to break the handcuff chain. “You can’t break that. It’s steel.”
“How do you know I can’t? I could be a super hero.”
“But you’re not. You’re- “
“You don’t know, do you? Steel could be like butter to me.”
“But you’re still in handcuffs.”
“Shut up.”
“You can’t get out, can you?”
“Maybe I don’t want to get out.”
“What do you know about my Mom?” Cyrus asked, finally. He’d been curious about it for months.
“She’s your Mom, why don’t you ask her?”
“She won’t talk about anything before she met my Dad, only that she’s from Georgia.”
“She doesn’t have a southern accent.”
“No. The country. She escaped, then met my Dad”
“I don’t know anything, Cyrus. I met her when you introduced us, and she asked me to call her Deda.” Janie thought back to her last conversation with Elene. “She said ‘Cheven erti ojakhi vart’ to me. Do you know what that means?”
“...She considers you family. That’s why we belong together. She doesn’t like anyone but the kids, but she loves you.”
“I don’t belong with you.”
“Yes you do! I’m going to give you the world.”
“Embarrassing me in public is not going to help you do that. Why did you do it in a store full of people?” asked Janie “There’s no way to explain it.”
“You shouted ‘Time Machine’ on my street.” Cyrus shot back
“That’s a little different than holding up a store and kidnapping your girlfriend with a primitive time machine!” The room they fought in was tiny, with white walls broken only by the hatch.
“You’re still my girlfriend?” asked Cyrus, grinning.
“No.” She said, firmly “We’re broken up. Treating me badly and destroying the world are turnoffs. Major turnoffs.”
“You’ll change your mind, and that store was nowhere near full.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Maybe my Mom will talk some sense into you.”
“Is she here too?”
“I’m going to get her after we make a few adjustments.” Cyrus pushed a button, and led Janie into an even smaller white room
“Why are you obsessed with having your Mom here?”
“Because you can’t cook.” He said “And I want to show her that she’s wrong.”
“I can cook!” Janie shouted “Just not... everything. Or- why should it matter? I never said I wanted to be your cook or maid.”
“What are we going to eat? TV dinners?”
“We are not together anymore! If we were, you’re supposed to be this rich person that can change time and space, so why not hire a chef, or a maid?”
“You don’t want a chef or maid!”
“Lazy people hire help like that. Do I look lazy?”
“You look hot.”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” exclaimed Cyrus “You are going to stay in here, until you come to your senses.”
“You mean until I’m insane, because I’d have to be crazy to stay with you.”
“You boarded the ship.” Cyrus said, before stepping out of the room. He pressed the wall and a hidden doorway closed. Janie tried banging her shoulder against the wall, then backed up against it, before realizing that she could not get out that way.
# # #
“Let me out!” Janie shouted, as Cyrus walked away “You can’t keep me here!”
Except, he did manage to keep her there. Janie alternated between demanding release and shouting insults for fifteen minutes, before a wave of exhaustion hit her. She stopped yelling and tried to sit down comfortably, but found that hard to do with the handcuffs.
The room was big enough for a metal bench that doubled as a cot and a seat, and half a piece of plywood attached to the wall with hinges that served as a desk. Not much else fit in the room, other than a few pictures on the wall, and a small box on the ‘desk’.
She called for Cyrus again, before realizing that he wasn’t coming. She was trapped, and panic overwhelmed her for what seemed like hours, until something clicked inside of her head.
“You can’t keep me here.” She said, much more quietly this time, as she lowered her arms enough to step through them so that her handcuffed hands were in front of her. “Do you hear me, Cyrus? Not in a million years! But you have a time machine, so that doesn’t matter.”
After sitting on the edge of the bench, she managed to use her bound hands to remove her badge, which had been so carefully pinned to her shirt before her shift at work. Now, she was able to put it in her mouth, crouch over, and use the pin to pick the lock. It took only a second to find the pin and release it.
“I’m going to make you pay when I get out!” She called, carefully placing the cuffs on the desk, so he wouldn’t know that she was now free.
She didn’t know how she knew what to do; only that she’d done it more than once before. The memories seemed just out of reach, which seemed to be the way that most things were for Janie.
# # #
Another wave of exhaustion hit her, and she lay back on the metal bench, only to discover that metal was hard and unforgiving. It was also cold. The tiny room- cell, is more like it, was the opposite of comfortable.
Between the uncomfortable cot, the blindingly bright white light, and the just out of reach memories, she could not sleep. Instead, she looked two feet over at the desk. The pictures that almost covered the wall were of Cyrus, Cyrus and Janie, and Cyrus and his friends. Most were of Cyrus and Janie, in what were supposed to be much happier times. They weren’t happier, however. In each of the photographs, she could see that something was off in each of them.
The box was full of clothes. Janie’s clothes. They were various items that she’d left at Cyrus’, or that he’d taken from the apartment. A few books sat on the desk, as well as an apple and a can of her favorite soda.
“I need more than an apple to eat!” She called, somewhat annoyed. Maybe she wanted pizza, or a salad. Or maybe, she wanted to be out of that tiny room. She knew Cyrus probably hadn’t thought about that, and was actually surprised that he remembered to put things that she would like in the room.
The waves of exhaustion were now one big wave, and she tried to lie on the cot again. All that did was annoy her to the point of sitting up once more. If he was trying to become an expert at torture, Janie thought that he was successful.
Then, she saw the box in the corner. Made of ugly, white, plastic, it was shoved under the desk and a green LED flashed in a pattern. One, one two, one two three. Janie watched it over and over again, until finally she got up from the cot and crawled towards it. The cover did not come off as easily as she expected, but after a few moments of fiddling she found where it latched to its base.
Inside of the box was a mess of wires and three metallic cylinders. Each had a glowing, green LED attached to it. Without thinking, she ripped the wires up and tossed them to the side.
# # #
The door opened easily when she felt along where Cyrus pressed the wall earlier. A white hallway was all that she could see, so Janie turned left. There were more white walls, with no markings to help her place where she was. She frowned, and told herself that she would not be spending very much time on the ship.
“Took you long enough” Cyrus said when she walked into a relatively large room, after her making another left turn. Jake and Sean sat at an old, brown, card table covered with papers, wires and tools, while Cyrus stood nearby.
“What?” She asked, in disbelief
“We all thought you would escape sooner.”
“You wanted me to escape?”
“Janie, you’re almost as smart as I am, I couldn’t make it easy for you.”
“What kind of sick game is this?” Janie glared at Cyrus, ready to fight if it came to it.
“This is my time machine, and my rules.” He said, staring at her “Sit down and listen.”
“No. I’m not going to listen; I’m going to keep talking. Talking and talking and talking and talking until you give up this ridiculous plan.”
“If you don’t shut up, I will lock you in that room again and this time I won’t turn the leechbox off.”
“Leechbox?”
“Did you see the white box in the corner? There are three cells inside of it, and you managed to charge all of them so leaving it one would have been a waste of energy.”
“Charge what?” she asked slowly, not revealing what she’d done to the box. “How do I ‘charge’ anything?”
“You had a strange gadget in your bag one night, so I took it apart and discovered that it somehow stopped the machine from working. After a couple of weeks I managed to reengineer it so it stored the energy instead of stopping it.”
“What device?”
“You would know more than me.”
“I’ve got memory problems.” Janie said, annoyed “How does it work?”
“It sucks energy from you.” Added Cyrus “Which charge the batteries, and those are helping power the ship.”
“Is that why I’ve been so tired?”
“Give it a few hours.” Cyrus said, unconcerned “Jake, try four cells this time.”
“Cy, are you sure-” he asked
“Yes. She’s going to be fine. We need her here, with us. I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“I never said that! Four cells might be too much. Three slowed her down, didn’t it?”
“If she gets too tired we can cut the leechbox off. We created it, didn’t we?”
“What?” Janie asked “Don’t use that thing on me! How long have you been doing it?”
“Months.” Sean said, in a low voice
“You all let him do this to me? Guys!”
“It’s not hurting you.” Sean added
Janie stared at the three guys for a moment, before taking a deep breath and sitting down at the table. If she could get them to let her go, maybe Nina would be able to get them to a safe spot before Cyrus could hurt anyone. “I’ve got more tech at home. Let me get it, and we can fix the machine.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the machine.” Cyrus said. “We don’t need any more tech.”
“Then why are you stuck?” She asked, unsure of how she knew that detail.
“We’re not stuck, we’re taking a break.” Cyrus pulled up another chair, and sat beside Janie “Shut up and help us.”
# # #
“I’ll help.” Janie said, after a few moments. The three guys all high-fived each other and the mood in the room quickly changed.
“You were right man, she’s going to help.” Grinned Jake “We’re a team now.”
“The Time Gods.” Sean said
“No, that doesn’t sound right.”
“We need a name, Jake.”
“Our names. Scientists don’t come up with team names. Geeks and comic book characters have team names.”
“And elementary schools” Janie offered
“Do you want to be an elementary school?” Asked Jake.
“Sean, Jake, Cyrus and Janie does not sound like a good team.” Pouted Sean
“My name is first.” Cyrus began “And we use our last names. The Donnegan discovery does have a nice ring to it.”
“You’re leaving us out?” Jake yelled “We have done ALL of this together. If you leave us out I’m taking my research and doing this on my own.”
Janie put her head in her hands as she listened to the three argue. She tried to think about things that would make her happy, and Lynn and Nina came to mind. Janie wanted to be with them, not with the three guys who were currently play wrestling in the room.
She wanted her daughter’s father, whoever he was. She wanted her life and family back, before Cyrus was even in her radar.
“What’s wrong, Janie?” Asked Jake, looking over at her and realizing she was upset.
“I miss my family, and I’m never going to see them again because I’ll be trapped here forever.”
“No you won’t. We stopped to make adjustments.” Jake said, sitting next to her and patting her on the back “We’re all going back home once we secure a place in history.”
“We made you a costume.” Sean added, helpfully
“A costume?”
Sean reached into a box, and pulled out a dress and cape. “We have tights somewhere, but Cyrus said they weren’t your size. You‘re going to need them because we’ll be working.”
Janie stared at the tiny dress and the flimsy cape, and wanted to burst into tears. “Do you have costumes too?”
“We’ve got fedoras and suits.”
“...Shouldn’t I have a cocktail dress?”
“I told you!” Exclaimed Jake “But you insisted that she look like a superhero.”
“Guys, we’ve got a dress for her. We needed it for the casino trip.”
“What’s she going to wear to the casino? It can’t be the same thing.” Complained Sean
“We’ll pick up something.” Cyrus said, sighing
“I want to go home.” Janie said, quietly “I need to see my daughter, and Nina-”
“Why didn’t you tell us about your kid?” Asked Cyrus, cutting her off.
“Because I, uh, had her when I was young! I grew up too hard and too fast on the mean streets of Harlem! And um, had to fight tooth and nail... to keep her safe and fed. Nina, she came along and gave me a chance and we’ve been friends ever since, but I thought you all would judge me. She deserves more than that. That little girl is, all that kept me alive one winter. I sold whatever I could to keep us alive, and finally, we were down to matches, but it was so cold that I had to use them to make fire! When the last match burned, I decided to end it all and let the state take care of my little girl. Then... she. Found more matches! And she said, um. Mommy, don’t give up. We are. Always going to be there for each other. So I threw the poison to the side and hugged her. Then I met you, Cyrus, and your friends. Would you accept my illegitimate child? Would you turn your nose up at my past? So my double life started, and now I’m here, thinking you’ll boot me out into nothing. Let me say goodbye to her, please.”
The story wasn’t true. Janie wasn’t sure where it came from, but it sounded good. It was one of the best lies she could ever remember telling.
“What kind of poison?” Asked Sean, after a moment “And can’t you pick up a free match book just about anywhere?”
“Um...”
“Don’t ask her!” Jake said “It’s not polite. She just poured her heart out to us.”
“We won’t judge you, Janie.” Cyrus smiled at her “We’re here to support you. You’re one of us.”
“Did you meet us right after that or-”
“Sean!” Cyrus exclaimed “Put a pizza in the oven and shut up!”
“You never said anything about me cooking.” He protested
“Janie can’t cook so someone has to.”
“I’m not doing it next time.” Sean said, as he stomped out of the room
“Thank you for not judging me.” Janie said, finally “Does this change anything?”
“No.” Cyrus assured, which was not the answer that Janie wanted “You’re always going to be one of us... but you still have to stay on the ship, and I’m going to have to lock you in your room until I know that you won’t try to escape.”
“I understand.” She said, even though she didn’t. She’d have to find another way.