Ghost Hand (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 13, Escape from Umlot

None of the clothes in Mrs. Campbell's bag had ever been mine. There was the shirt on top, which had been Emma's, and the rest of the clothes were blatantly new and obviously hand-picked with my darkly unique fashion sense in mind. The tags had all been cut off, but everything still had its in-store smell and neatly-on-display creases. At the bottom of the bag there was even a pair of new sneakers, some black army-style lace-up boots, and a smaller plastic bag full of panties and several bras.

After the underwear, I slipped on a pair of black skinny jeans and a dark t-shirt. I started to put on the boots, but there was something stuffed inside the right one. I reached in and pulled out a pair of black, elbow-length leather gloves. My eyes prickled with tears as I imagined Emma picking them out for me. The gloves went on, then a black hooded sweatshirt over everything to complete my ensemble. The simple act of getting dressed had revealed how sore my body was, and I was a little out of breath.

I wadded up the hospital gown and crammed it into the bottom of the clothes bag. I couldn't get the bracelet off without a pair of scissors, so I tucked it inside my sweatshirt sleeve. One last look in the mirror to pull the hood up over my head and around my face, and I was ready to go. I turned off the bathroom light, slipped back out to the dim hospital room, and set the bag of clothes next to the bed.

"Going somewhere?" a voice behind me asked softly.

I spun, arms raised, hands out, poised in some instinctual posture of defense.

Marcus sat in the chair near the end of the bed, his legs sprawled out casually in front of him as if he were just another friendly hospital visitor. He was dressed all in black, just like I was.

"How the hell did you get in here?" I demanded. "You scared the shit out of me."

"Calm down," he said, holding his hands out in a gesture of peace. "You're the one who opened the window for me."

"What are you talking about?" I snapped. "I didn't open it for you. I opened it for me."

"Oh," he said, sounding surprised. "I thought you saw me out there. You looked right at me."

"That is really creepy. You've been out there perving me, just waiting for me to open my window so you could climb in?"

"I wasn't perving," he said, indignation in his voice.

"Really? Then what were you doing?"

"Gee, I don't know. Worrying about you. Hoping you were safe. Making sure CAMFers didn't come take you away."

That stopped me in my tracks. He'd been out there worrying about me?

"I like your new gloves," he said, ruining the compliment by adding, "You must go through a lot of them."

"Only recently," I said. Was he trying to charm me?

"You still haven't told me where you're going dressed like some emo ninja," he said, eyeing my outfit again and raising one of his dark eyebrows.

"I always dress like this," I snapped. "And no, I haven't told you where I'm going." Anger suddenly welled up in me. If he'd wanted to keep me safe, he could have told me something useful in the cemetery. "Why should I tell you anything? You didn't bother telling me the CAMFers would burn down my house with me in it!"

"Hey, I tried to warn you."

"Oh my God! You call that warning me? You followed me around, made vague threats, and insisted I come with you to who-knows-where. Why didn't you just say, 'They're going to burn your house down,'? I probably would have paid attention to that."