Page 13 of Ramshackle
I’d like to see him do what I have over and over again andnotcollapse into a heap afterward.
I wait until I’m back in my cage and Holt leaves before I grab the alarm clock I’d requested and set an alarm for an hour from now. I’ll give myself one hour to get some energy back. Then I’ll eat and go searching for clues of my past.
If I wait until I have a night where I’m not too tired, I think I’ll never get there. I need to just do it. If I’m on an island with Gordon, odds are that my file will be around here somewhere, too. And that just might have information about my parents.
First, sleep. Then, answers.
The library is on the third floor at the very end of the right wing, but it takes up almost two-thirds of this side. After a quick meal in the dining hall, I ask the staff for its location and then muster up enough energy to make it there.
There are books of all kinds here. Fiction and non-fiction alike. I’m wondering who all these books are for and why they have so many of them on such a small island, when I’m reminded of something Gordon told me earlier.
New “guests” would be arriving this week. And this place is nothing, if not a larger version, of what I’d experienced on the island growing up. An overwhelming building with all the entertainment and activities one could think of within your reach. It’s hard to think of this place as a prison when it’s made to seem like a paradise.
I frown at that stark reminder and keep walking beyond the aisles of bookcases organized by genre until I reach the back of the library. There’s a sign for the restroom right in the middle, but I see other doors further down one side and wander to those.
The words on the glass window readRecords Room.
Perfect.
I try the handle and the dooropens. A mistake, or do they really not care if anyone snoops around in here?
Or there’s nothing important stored inside.
The room is a simple rectangle with filing cabinets lining the three walls and making up aisles down the middle.
Of course, none of them are labeled with anything as simple as letters of the alphabet. They each have numbers on them that are five digits long and mean absolutely nothing to me. So, I start with the cabinet closest to me and start flicking through files for a name or picture that looks familiar.
I’m sure I’m in here for hours by the time I make it through a single row with nothing to show for it. Well, not nothing. My legs are shaking with weariness, and I know I’m not going to be able to stay awake much longer. I’ll have to pick up where I leave off tomorrow and keep going.
Even though that’s what I tell myself, I still open the next drawer and start checking each file.
I freeze, my fingers pincered open on a file when I see a picture of a girl who looks startlingly like me. Her eyes are a bit bigger, her smile less jaded than mine, and her nose and ears aren’t quite the same, but there’s no mistaking the resemblance.
I yank the folder from the drawer and flip to the first page.
Merina Laivins.
Discovered by Gifted Enterprise when she was seventeen and a senior in high school. She destroyed a parking garage while at the mall with her friends. Two of her three friends died, and the third wound up in a coma.
I stare horrified at the newspaper article about the parking garage that’s nothing but rubble in the image.
The next pages look more like medical records once she’s under GE’s care. There are psych notes discussing her progress in controlling her gift and her desire to do anything GE asks. She doesn’t want to return to her old life out of shame and guilt for what happened over a misunderstanding.
Her gift was apparently explosions emitted from her body and a high level of heat resistance. She was a walking bomb whocould detonate and then walk away without a scratch on her. The heat and energy radiating from her immediately after she went off kept any harm from coming to her like a protective shield until it eventually faded.
More medical records go over her vitals repeatedly, which I swiftly page through until I get back to a training report of her progress.
Training Note 985:
Subject unable to continue beyond two hours of training today. She reports increased tiredness.
Training Note 988:
Training session canceled today due to subject’s tiredness and mild nausea. It is my recommendation that a slowed training schedule be implemented over the next few months to prioritize the subject’s health. She has shown greater control over her gift and at this point is no longer considered a threat to GE.
Medical Note:
1. Viability scan completed. Fetus has normal heart rhythm and measures at 9 weeks.
