The Confined

8. Ego (Part 2)

2302. 04. 14 (I asked Violet)

"So I've heard you were hanging out with the new girl," Finn whispered. It was past midnight and we were both lying on our bunks. His was right next to mine so we could hear each other even if we spoke softly.

"Don't people have enough to be talking about, rather than gossiping about Violet?" I rolled my eyes.

"They do. I heard it from Eva. She's probably the only person who cares." I could picture him talking while smiling.

"Oh," I smiled. I felt dumb.

"You're already calling her Violet," he pointed out.

I looked up at the ceiling. It was supposed to be red but in the dark, it just looked pitch black. I tried to picture stars. I'd never seen them before but I'd heard that they looked like jewels scattered across the night sky. I'd seen jewels before; they were on the interviewer's necklaces and rings. They were shiny and big. I pictured big pieces of shiny rock sitting on the night sky. It wasn't as pretty as it sounded.

"Ego, you shouldn't be around her," I heard him say. I opened my eyes and shot upright.

"Why not?"

He looked at me with eyes that pierced through the dark. "Every member of the police is on the lookout for her. She's being watched wherever she is. And being with her, going around with her, will only draw more attention to yourself. They'll think you two are a team. Maybe even a threat."

I didn't have anything to say. I couldn't say that she wasn't dangerous. Just being around her made my emotions explode. I couldn't stand without fighting when I was with her. I had never been like that in my life before. I was standing perfectly still. With her, I was losing my posture.

"What about Eva?" I asked.

"I gave her caution too. She said she's being careful. At least she hasn't got herself into trouble." He was teasing me.

"It's just that I can't keep myself contained when I'm with her. She somehow... provokes me without doing anything," I sighed. I didn't want to get into trouble. Trouble seeps into me.

"She's not to be gone near," Finn said firmly.

"She's not a bad girl," I protested.

"She's risky." He was saying these things to protect me, but it made me feel like a baby.

I grumped and shifted so that I faced the other side. The old man next to my bunk was snoring like a bulldozer. I groaned and put the pillow over my head. Both sides of my bunk were terrible to cope with.

"Ego, I know it's tough for you. Your last job didn't go well. You don't like the system. I get it. We all do because we all live in the same way. We know how you feel. It's just that we have to deal with the system differently. We can't fight back. You know that." His voice was soft like he was soothing a baby to stop whining about lunch.

I sat up again. My feelings were smothering my throat. "Of course I know that. But don't you think at least once in our lives, it will be worth it? Don't you think that it's right for us to at least try once?" For some reason I was almost crying, tears swelling up inside of me. Violet was powerful enough to make me cry by just talking about her.

"No, Ego. Don't go near her anymore," Finn warned.

I breathed heavily and laid down facing the snoring man. His snores weren't as bad as I thought they were.

✡

The sirens blared in the morning. Finn and I rushed out to see what was going on. There went a little girl, zipping past us. She was holding tightly onto her skirt which held bundles of money. She ran right into the bunker next to ours. The police hadn't seen her go in, so they ran past our bunkers thinking she had ran farther on.

When all the police were gone and the sirens weren't blaring anymore, we took a peek. She was hiding under the covers of her older brother (I think his name was Ian). You could make out her silhouette easily, but not with the lights out. It was a matter of time before the police would check the CCTV cameras and find her. I wasn't intending on seeing a little girl get beaten.

"We have to help her," I whispered to Finn when we were sitting in our bunks.

"Ego, are you nuts?" He whispered loudly, like he was yelling while whispering.

"She's going to be beaten to death!" I whisper-yelled back at him. "She can't be caught!"

"What can we do? There's nothing we can do!"

"Of course there's something we can do! THINK! YOU'RE SMARTER THAN ME!"

"NO, I'M NOT!" his voice scraped. "We can't even get to her! We'll be noticed!"

"Well if you're not coming, I'm helping her alone!" I said and stood up. Then I sat back down. What was I going to do?

My mind was buzzing. The only place that didn't have CCTV cameras, or police guarding the entrance, was the woman's public shower room. I heard that it was filthy in there, but it was at least the best shot we had. We needed to get to Violet. Violet could take her there without being noticed.

"I'm going out." I stood up again.

"I'm not." He crossed his legs. He could be really stubborn sometimes.

"Fine," I said and stomped out. If he was going to be like that, so be it.

I will chose justice over being a coward. Maybe I was a better guy than him after all.

✡

I ran to Eva and Violet's bunker. Violet looked stunned to see me in the morning. She probably thought that I wasn't going to visit her bunker anymore.

"What's going on?" She had already read the panic in my face.

"I need your help," I said urgently.

Her right eyebrow lifted. "You do?"

"Now." I told her about the little girl hiding in the bunker next door, and that she needed to be hidden. Violet's eyes had a hint of satisfaction as if she enjoyed watching me go frantic.

"What am I supposed to do then?" she asked.

"Take her to the women's public shower room. Give her some supplies. She's not safe anywhere but there," I replied.

"How? I can't do that without being seen," she rebutted.

"I will take care of that somehow," I said, even though I had no clue what I was going to do.

"You mean we." I twirled to around to see Finn at the doorstep. "We will distract them."

I couldn't help but smile. He would never let me down.

"Do whatever you can to get her there."

She looked at the clock. She was calculating fiercely with her eyes. "Distract them exactly at ten o'clock.

It was nine-thirty right now.

Finn nodded and walked out of the room.

"Good luck," I said. I gave her a pat on the back.

She grabbed my hand when I was about to turn away. "You too." Before I could react, she kissed me on the cheek. If only the situation wasn't like this I would have skyrocketed into the clouds. "One last thing. Does this mean you're in?" She looked eager rather than worried.

"I'm sorry, but hasn't it already started?" I said, and I left her grinning at me. I could almost hear her beautiful voice mocking me.

'I told you so.'

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