“If you can’t buy your parents out of the morgue, money isn’t worth a whole lot,” Cynthia said. “None of us are in it for the money.”
Slowly it dawned on Alix what they were saying. The factory was starting to make sense. The kids all living in it. The pizza boxes piled in the corner of the kitchen. She suddenly saw Cynthia in a new light. She thought of the factory’s shower room, and Cynthia’s lockers full of clothes. Armani. Versace. Michael Kors. All that beautiful clothing hung in those banged-up lockers.
Other things started making sense, too: Adam and Tank riding their skateboards in the cavernous, empty factory. The gutter girl, Kook, her face pierced and tatted up in ways that she’d never seen a girl her age modified. And at the center of it all, Moses.
This motley group of teens, living in this factory. Not an adult in sight. No family dinners.
No supervision. Just a bunch of kids, throwing raves and partying. Feeding gourmet cheese to their rats.
“You’re orphans,” Alix said, slowly.
“Told you she was smart,” Moses said to the others.
“You all live here, for real?” Alix asked.
“For now.” Moses shrugged. “We’ve got business, here. Might keep us in town for a little while longer.”
“My dad,” Alix said.
“We like to think of him as the target,” Kook said.
Alix felt light-headed. She wanted air, and there was no way to get out. The room was feeling tighter and tighter. “My dad didn’t kill your families!”
“Nobody’s saying he did,” Cynthia soothed.
“We’re not?” Kook raised her eyebrows. “I thought that was exactly what we were saying.”
Alix felt nauseated. They were all orphans. “My dad didn’t kill your families,” she said again.
Moses said, “Well, me and Cynthia, our parents were Alantia heart attacks. Adam’s aunt was asbestosis. Kook’s parents were a cancer cluster. Tank didn’t have parents, but Azicort did his sister, and then did a pretty good number on him before the doctors figured out what was happening.”
“I—” Alix started, but her throat caught. The room felt smaller and smaller. She couldn’t breathe.
“If you really want to split hairs, I guess your dad didn’t kill our parents directly,” Moses was saying, “but he sure helped the people who did. Every time someone needed protecting, he was there to give them good, profitable advice. Every time. He’s at the center of it. He’s the connection to all of them. He’s the one who helps them get away with it.”
Alix was beginning to feel as if she wasn’t really in her body. Everything felt surreally distant. Blackness pinched the edges of her vision.
Breathe. Just breathe.
She gripped the table, trying to anchor herself. Her father was… what? A criminal? A killer?
She stood abruptly. Swayed. Grabbed a chair for support. Everyone leaped up, ready to block her from escaping.
“I need air,” Alix gasped. “I need…” She started for the kitchen door.
Adam blocked her. “We aren’t done talking.”
Alix looked around desperately. Found Moses. “Please,” she gasped. “I won’t run away. I just… I just… bathroom.”
Cynthia came to her rescue and shoved Adam aside. “Cut it out, Adam. Let her go.”
Adam said something in retort, but Alix wasn’t paying attention. She was already stumbling out into the wide factory expanse. The building loomed around her, huge and empty. She realized she was lost.
“Bathrooms are back over there,” Cynthia said, pointing.
She barely made it. She dashed to the row of sinks and threw up. Cheese sandwich and bile. She gagged again, but nothing else came up except ropes of spit. Alix stared down at the sink, at the contents of her emptied stomach. She ran water, trying to make it go away, trying to not think about the kids in the kitchen. All of them looking at her accusingly. All of them without parents. All of them alone.
Her stomach twisted and she puked again.
When she was finally done, she carefully washed her bile down the sink. She felt numb to the world. Everything still felt distant, as if someone else was performing the task of cleaning up.
Small things. Just focus on small things.
Alix found herself staring into a cracked mirror over the sink. A washed-out face she barely recognized stared back at her. The girl’s hair was tangled from a shower, unbrushed. Deep exhausted circles bruised the skin around her eyes. She didn’t recognize herself.
A cold thought circled in her mind:
Who are you? If everything you know about yourself isn’t true, how do you know who you are?
How do you know what truth is?
How do you know if someone is lying to you?
And then another, colder, thought:
What if everyone is lying to you?
Alix remembered Dad sitting with her, watching TV, making jokes about CEOs who were lighting themselves on fire. Remembered his sneaking another cup of coffee when Mom wasn’t watching. Remembered his bringing her home drunk from a party and never busting her. Just telling her to stay safe, because he loved her and didn’t want her to ever make a permanent mistake.
Who are you if you can’t trust anyone at all?
Alix felt like she was going insane. She couldn’t peel the truth away from the lies. Who could she trust? Moses? Dad? Cynthia?
Cynthia had lied to her for the last eight months. She’d sat beside her in AP Chem, pretending to really care about her. Alix’s eyes narrowed at the thought. That betrayal was something she could hold onto. That was real, at least: Cynthia had been lying to her for the last eight months.
Alix stared at her reflection and watched herself nod deliberately, an acknowledgment of that single fact. She’d been a fool, and Cynthia had used her.
And that led to another thought, an anchor she could hold tight to: You can’t trust any of them. They’re using you.
That thought was followed by another realization. She was alone. Cynthia had followed her across the factory, but had let Alix be alone.
Alix quickly scanned the locker room, looking for an escape. She spied a few windows, high up above the lockers.
As quietly as she could, she dragged a bench over to a window and climbed up. The glass was smudged with grime and dust. She wiped it with the sleeve of Cynthia’s hoodie and peered out.
Bars on the outside. Alix was disappointed, but not surprised. She couldn’t see anyone outside, anyway. She wondered if she broke the window and started shouting if someone might hear her. A last option, she decided. If she started screaming, Cynthia would hear, and everyone else would come running. But still, she needed some way to alert anyone who might be outside.
A note?
Alix craned her neck, trying to see where the factory was. Hunting for landmarks. The factory area had been deserted when they’d arrived at night, and from the lack of sound outside, she didn’t feel particularly hopeful that someone would conveniently wander by to help her out, but still, maybe a note dropped from the window…
But too much time had passed already. Cynthia was sure to check on her any second. Rescue notes and screaming would have to wait. Alix climbed down and carefully dragged the bench back into place. She returned to the sink, drank a little water, and swished her mouth.