I was fifteen when my parents sold my soul. 

The apartment adorned with lavish light fixtures that glinsed like jewels, the late nights spent packing suitcases for spur of the moment trips to France or Greece, the luxury clothing that could make you forget that you loathe yourself - it was too much for them to give up. It would be more than giving up possessions, it would be giving up a lifestyle - their life. 

The business that used to be able to do more than just keep their heads above water was tanking. Even though it wouldn't send them back into a van - with seats that's leather was so torn it would catch on clothing - their faces paled at the thought of losing a single crumb of what they had accumulated. It would be a surrender. It would mean all their hard work was for nothing. 

My younger self had the nerve to smile when she crept down the carpeted hallway and overheard that they'd have to get normal 9 to 5 jobs. Those didn't give parents an excuse to ignore their child. I was already thinking of the first things I'd give away when we had to downsize for a smaller place. I kept that hopeful smile from Manhattan, New York to the suburbs of Maine. My new mantra was “Things are going to change” and for the first few months I was able to believe it. I believed it until my parents coaxed me into the car and took me down to the docks.  

A gigantic cargo ship waited for us. It was an unfeeling shade of gray with a crimson red stripe near the bow that looked like a streak of blood. There wasn't anything out of place about it from its standard crates of cargo down to the men directing a crane. This was because the majority of the behemoth was unseen. All of its complexity and inner workings were under the deck. 

"Why are we here?" I had asked, stiff as my fathers hand nudged me up the ramp.

"We don't have to lose everything, Dovie," my mother purred. She was clutching her luxury handbag so tightly her knuckles went white. "You can save us." 

Just like that, she had my allegiance. There was nothing anyone could tell me to get me to see that I was being tugged by the strings of a child's adoration. I would ignore the strangeness of a perfectly law abiding company having a hidden laboratory. I would be cooperative as they talked with the doctors and scientists. I wouldn't cry as I spent nearly every moment of free time I possessed tied to an icy chair, throwing up the poison forced inside me, or being watched through a two way mirror. 

My parents said my sacrifice was saving us. They said they were proud of me because of what I was doing. They loved me because of it. 

That was enough. 

Years later, I walk onto the ship, going through the neat pathway through the cargo’s center. The giant boxes are stacked to the sides like the parting of the Red Sea. The smell of rust only assaults my nose while I descend down the first flight of stairs. Then comes the smell of clorox and sanitation products strong enough to make you reach for a surgical mask. The dim lanterns turn into fluorescent blocks of light and the moist air of the sea peels away to a stuffy, dry stillness. 

“Name?” 

Smith is standing against the steel door with a deadpan expression. His tiny eyes are like a raven’s with their all encompassing pupils. I can easily picture his sharp nose extending into a beak. 

“Dovie Scarlet,” I say, though he knows my name. I hold up the ID they printed for me and he nods, buzzing me in. 

I bet his job as door man makes him feel oh so important. What a loser. 

There are two security guards waiting for me on the other side. They pat me down like I might have a bomb on me and since I’m tired today I refrain from winking at the one with the buzzcut when he pats around my butt. 

It's the little things that help one cope with routine humiliation. You try not to take things seriously. You try to make it a joke until you can't. When you can't, you pretend it isn't there. 

The hallway is narrow so that the doctor attending to me has to step ahead of me because we can’t fit side by side. She doesn’t say anything but rather gestures to the room that resembles an office and waits outside for me to change into the hospital gown. 

I think about all the homework I have waiting for me when I get home and the finals coming up while she performs the physical. I get so lost in planning out how I’ll manage to stay on top of my work that I initially don’t hear her when she starts running down the list of questions she asks nearly every visit. 

Her tone is nasally like she doesn’t get enough oxygen to her head. She clicks her pen, waiting. “Have you experienced any nausea or vomiting in the last 24 hours?” 

I let out a heavy sigh. “No.” 

Twenty questions later I find myself deeper in the labyrinth - perhaps at the heart of it. The room is circular and padded like I imagine it would be in an old fashioned asylum. The researchers have me stand atop of a platform eight feet in the air with a cushioned surface below me. There’s only one other person in the room with me but I can feel about five other pairs of eyes watching. They're behind glass and after two years of this, I’ve figured out who’s behind it calling all of the shots. 

I’ve only seen him a handful of times. His silhouette casts upon the wall like a skeleton. His cheeks are hollow and the joints in his fingers petroid from them, reminding me of a claw from those arcade games. His pinky finger is missing, bit off by a former subject - or that’s what Researcher Hansen told me. Perhaps the trauma of it keeps him behind the glass barrier. His beard is like a permanent shadow along his face and his eyes are always narrowed at whatever he’s observing. When he walks it’s like he’s hovering above the floor, completely unaffected by the rocking of the ship. 

The few times he’s been in my sight he never locked eyes with me, not out of shame for what he does but like I wasn’t even there. Even when my parents were signing the documents and nondisclosures, he never addressed me. Yet, there he is watching me while I can’t see him. It makes goosebumps crawl up my arms like spiders. 

“Okay, the subject is ready for trial one,” the researcher speaks into the tape recorder. “Jump.” 

I bend my knees, thinking of the agony I was in just a few days ago. The sensation of flames licking my back caused white blotches to fill my vision. It made me think that a pair of wings might burst out of them at any second. Coupled with the stabbing knife against the front of my skull, I knew something was horribly wrong. Part of me wants this trial to be it. Maybe if this works they’ll stop injecting me with new poisonous concoctions. Or maybe they’ll cut me open to examine how they got it to work.

My feet are about to leave the platform when a monstrous howl cuts through the atmosphere. It rises from below me, growing more demanding as it goes. The sound that follows it makes me shiver. It’s the sound of a child crying. 

The researcher turns her head to the two way glass. 

A voice comes over the intercom. “Continue.” 

I only participate in these trials part time. When I stay overnight it’s because whatever they put in me has made me sick and if a real hospital got hold of me they’d put together that something strange is going on. Whenever I stay, I hear noises like that one. I tell myself that I imagined it but I can’t continue lying to myself after this. There are others on this ship, others that are much younger than I. 

The floor below me sways a little and it’s not only because we are on the water. 

“Jump.” 

My feet are glued to the platform. My legs are filled with iron and my mouth is full of cotton. 

“Jump.” 

I squeeze my eyes shut. 

There’s nothing I can do for them. There’s nothing I can do for myself. 

All I see are innocent faces with wide eyes pooling with tears. Like me, their parents have traded them off without a care. They must sense that betrayal. If they've even been through a fraction of what I have on this ship . . .  

“Jump!” 

My feet leave the ground and for one moment I’m suspended in the air. 

The next I am falling. 

I hit the cushion on my stomach. All the air is knocked out of me. 

The researcher’s face contorts, red creeping up from her chest to her neck. She huffs at me and then gazes back at the glass. “She might be doing it wrong.” 

“Doing it wrong?” I don’t realize I’m the one speaking until I am standing up and jabbing a finger in her face. “Why don’t you let me jump from someplace higher? Like a cliff? Or maybe try your magic serum on a pig because the only way I’ll start flying is if they do it first!” 

She brings her hand across my face. I fall back. 

The same spine tingling voice comes over the intercom. “Have the subject try again.” 

+++

“I’m so going to flunk this English quiz!” 

The door flies open, the chimes crashing together to announce my arrival at the diner. The smell of fries and cigars immediately smack my nose, seeping into the seams of my jean jacket. The scent will linger there until I put it to wash but I don’t mind. In fact, I’m growing to wish the smell was available as a perfume. 

"And why's that, Dove?" Charlie doesn't bother to spare a glance in my direction, eyes glued to his cell phone while swiping at the screen. Tasty! it exclaims, as the animated candies rearrange. Of course he’s playing Candy Crush during his shift. 

“Because I thought it was on Romeo and Juliet but actually it's on Macbeth and I've only read that one twice." 

He grabs the coffee pot and pours me a cup, still not meeting my eyes. 

"Nothing some caffeine can't solve, right?" 

I roll my eyes. "Can you sound more monotone?" 

"I can try." 

Charlie's aunt pokes her head up from the kitchen window, her braids tied back and under a net. She’s the kind of beautiful I wish I was - natural and charming. I’m stuck with tameless curls and wide set eyes the color of the night. 

"Hey, kiddo! You want anything to go with that coffee?" 

"Don't feed the pigeons, Lizzie. They'll keep coming back." Finally sparing me a glance, Charlie smirks. The action displays the dimple on his left cheek. "And about the quiz, you'll ace it. You always do. Now, quit your whining - I find your overachiever attitude annoying." 

"There it is! The nicest jerk in town." It’s the reaction that I patiently wait for. Oftentimes I’m obnoxious on purpose just to get him to drop the robot demeanor and give me something. 

"This thing we got going on -" he motions to the space between us, "doesn't mean I like you." 

I scoff. He’s been claiming he doesn’t like me for years while simultaneously sticking to me like peanut butter does to the roof of your mouth. 

Placing my notebook on the desk, I shuffle through a few pages of notes. His eyes widen when he sees my pencil case equipped with five different highlighter colors come out as well. 

“So, I was thinking -”  Charlie says, placing his phone down between us. 

“That’s dangerous. You should probably stop.” 

I squint at him as he turns his phone so it isn’t upside down anymore. On it is a picture of a figure in a hoodie and a mask. It’s taken out of a news article and the headline reads “Most recent sighting of The Beast: Wanted for the Disappearances of Several Criminals.” 

“Not doing it.” 

He pouts, the bottom of his heart shaped lips extending dramatically. “Draw him for me. I want to make a new poster -” 

“I am not going to help you make a superhero poster for a wanted criminal! There are no vigilante’s in real life, just law breakers.” 

He deflates, knowing I’ve got him. 

“Besides, we should be prioritizing that poster for the Youth Service next week. Before we create propaganda for the promotion of criminals, that is.”  

“Fine, I won’t treat the criminal like a superhero.” He slides his phone into his pocket and gestures to the school supplies in front of me. “I guess we can actually study. Nerd.” 

I smile, feeling my muscles loosen with the assurance that I will get my school work done. If I don’t get into a good college I won’t be able to escape my parents' grip so easily. When I turn eighteen, all the papers they signed for me become worthless scribbles and when that happens I need a getaway plan. It’s either college or joining the Air Force. If the researchers are successful, I may be a prime candidate for the latter. 

“There you go with that cheshire cat grin.” He wrinkles his nose and I smile harder so that all my teeth are on display.  “Tone it down or I’ll be sick . . . Or blind.” 

As we go through the material, I feel a sharp prick probe under the skin of my forehead. I ignore it for as long as I can but the prick turns into a punch and then a stab. I imagine it slicing away at my brain tissue, ripping and tearing at the tender pink until warm, red liquid squirts out and drips down my cranial bones. 

It’s starting again. 

On cue, warmth radiates from my spine like someone has stuck a heater underneath my skin. Right now, it doesn’t burn but I know it will. It will grow in heat until I’m certain my flesh is sizzling and bubbling. 

I tell Charlie I need a break and lay my head on the cool of the counter. 

Slice. 

Sizzle. 

“Migraines again?”  His voice sounds like it’s coming from the end of a subway tunnel. For all he knows the pain is as simple as that. If only he knew. If only I could tell him. I whimper out a reply that sounds like the howl that ascended from the bottom of the ship. “I’ll ask my aunt if she has any pain killers on her.” 

Nausea rushes over me like a tidal wave, swallowing my chest whole. I know what happens next. It's a routine. I’ll find my way home and then my parents will throw me in the car to hand me back to the researchers to fix. They’ll lock me in a cell-like room for the night and watch with their notepads in hand as I scream until my throat is raw or until I pass out. 

Rinse and repeat.