Page 1 of Enter if you Dare: Part Three

Cave

What lives in you but is not you?

Rises when you fall,

Speaks when you are silent.

Walks when you cannot?

What wears your face but answers to no one?

Everything is white and I hate it; white is not safe. Everything’s white in the place they put you when you’re broken and they want to fix you. Except they don’t fix you; they just make you easier to manage. White smells like the chemicals that try to hide death.

My arms won’t move, which drags something in me to the surface, something I thought I buried deep enough that it could never get back out.

Apparently, nothing is ever hidden enough.

Don’t pull. If you make a noise, they’ll come.

I know that voice; it’s mine, but it isn’t. It’s the voice inside me—the one that kept me alive in the place I refuse to remember. I had to stay small and quiet to make them forget I was even there.

But I’m not small anymore, so I pull at my arms and though the machine beside me starts screaming, I don’t stop. I need my arm back—both of them—I need to be able to move. I can’t move. I have to move; my people are not here, and I need to find them. The machine won’t stop screaming, and I need to leave.

The door opens, and three men in white coats stop in the doorway while they work out the best way to deal with me. One of them talks but I don’t listen. There’s no point; it’s always the same. Be calm, breathe—but I do not want to fucking breathe, I want to leave.

My left wrist moves differently to my right, and I learned a long time ago that restraints are not foolproof. If you know what you’re doing, you can get yourself free.

While the men in white coats watch me, I carefully wiggle one of my wrists. Pain slices through me from the burns, but no amount of pain will stop me. My internal laughter rises as the rail comes away from the bed, and all three men take a step back when I rise to my feet. Though I’m still attached to the bed, it won’t be for long; someone needs to learn to use handcuffs when dealing with people like me. They thought they could hold me, but they can’t.

Finally, one of the men moves forward and reaches for me before I can get my other wrist free. I grab his forearm and use his own momentum against him, twisting hard and sending him sideways into an equipment tray. He hits the stand, tries to grab hold, but instead ends up taking it down with him in a crash of tangled limbs.

The second comes at me, and as I rip my arm from its current restraint, his fingers close around my wrist, trying to let my size trip me up. Instead, I let him pull me, stepping into him and using the momentum he built dragging me backward to drive me into his body. He hits the wall so hard his gasp for air echoes as he slides down to the floor.

The third man is smart. He doesn’t grab me; instead, he goes for the door and makes a call on his radio. I don’t stop him as he retreats—I need to get out of the door too.

I move through the opening and into the long corridor, where I hurry faster. I keep close to the wall, reading what is ahead of me. People stare and someone screams, but I ignore them all. I don’t have time for them, as I have no idea where I’m going—all I know is I can’t stay here.

Heavy footsteps come from both directions, and I keep moving because stopping is not an option. They will surround me, and I won’t be held accountable for my actions if that happens. I turn a corner and see a window to the outside, with trees and a parking lot.

The memory hits me hard and fast.

There were bars on the windows, and I was small enough that someone needed to lift me to see through them. A nurse—one who was nice to me—held me up and told me I would be out there eventually. No matter what anyone else said, she knew I had a good heart.

“You’ll go home one day.”

I didn’t know what home was back then. My father didn’t want me after my mom died, and especially after my sister died too. He thought I was crazy.

I know what home is now; it’s the smell of the dirt and corn, and the sound of Noa filling the silence so there is no room left to be afraid. It’s Cipher at his workbench and the way he understands broken things, and Valli looking at me and not seeing me as the Scarecrow, but as Cave, the man hidden underneath.

I want to go home.

My anger spirals with that thought, filling my chest, throat, and hands. I am no longer small. I am not that little boy anymore.

Putting my hand flat against the window, I listen as the footsteps close in, coming from both directions, and then I turn to face what is coming. That part of me will never change, the part that needs to face the fear head-on.

They fan out, two on my left, two to my right, and two directly ahead, moving as if they have done this before. But so have I, and now I’m a lot bigger than I was back then.

The one on my far left moves first, and I shift before he reaches me, turning my body so my back stays against the window, so no one can get behind me. He tries to close the gap from the side, but I catch his wrist as he reaches me, using his momentum to push him into the path of the one coming from my right. They both crash sideways into a wall.