CHAPTER 33

WELCOME TO THE LEISURE DOME

French

“TAKE THEM ’ROUND BACK.”

The voices were muffled, but I could still make out the words. The box tipped and swayed dangerously. I banged my head twice before the motion stopped, and I was dropped so abruptly the wind was knocked out of my body. The women were conversing as they worked.

“Jesus! Be careful. Don’t be bruising them up.”

“They’re not fruit. And, I mean, does it even matter at this point?”

“Yes, it does, Kelsey. We’re not sadists, for Christ’s sake.”

“We should have asked the men to help.”

“Adelaide, you know we can’t. No one is to know what we’re up to until we can make sure it works. Remember, we don’t need to be building anyone up for yet another letdown.”

“It better work. This morning I found my curling iron in the freezer. So either I’m losing it, or Larry is.”

“Larry didn’t have it to begin with.”

“I heard that, Shirley-Rachel. And you are being very unkind.”

“Well, to be fair, it coulda just as easily have been you. I’d say you and Larry are a matched set.”

“Thank you…wait a minute…”

In between their bits of conversation, I could hear my family. Slopper kept asking “What’s going on?”, Wab swore a blue streak, and the twins called for each other while Miig tried his best to reason with our captors from inside a coffin.

“Hello? I think we can talk this out. There are children here, and we need to consider what this means for all of us, especially them. You don’t seem like the kind of people who would want to harm children.”

“We don’t harm children; we happen to be in the business of saving them. And you? You’re hoarders, keeping all the dreams for yourself. Why even bring up our children?” one woman answered.

Miig was quiet after that, maybe scared for the first time since we’d been hijacked off the train. Once you realized the shapes under the bed were actually monsters and they didn’t speak your language so you couldn’t even reason with them, it was time to panic. We had obviously been grabbed by monsters, even if they did smell like floral perfume and strong soap.

The loud screech of metal and wood. I took a few deep breaths, preparing to spring out, wondering what the others were planning. I was greeted by strong beams of light from flashlights, then arms reaching.

“Let go!’ I squirmed away from one hand, only to be grabbed by another.

“Adelaide, get the needle,” someone shouted. There were more hands, shadows of faces behind the flashlights, then a sharp pinch in my thigh. Then the edges of my vision started to shrink in. There was only one light, and then a face leaning in, all teeth, no smile, a halo of blond curls and the flash of gold earrings.

“Nighty-night.”

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