Sitting off on my left was another girl with styled pecan brown hair. Even though she, too, was dressed like me and the other girl, she held her head with a more arrogant air, her posture firm, but her arms folded under her breasts. I thought I could even make out a small smirk of impatience on her lips. Who were they? Was this concrete building supposed to serve as a classroom? Why was it so poorly lit then? A hailstorm of questions peppered my brain.
“Sit,” my escort ordered, and pushed me toward the empty stool and desk at the center.
“What is going on? Why am I in here? This isn't any school. I'm supposed to be taken to a school. I want to know where I am,” I demanded more loudly, my hands on my hips. My voice echoed in the tomblike building.
“Just sit and shut up,” my escort blared. “The longer you act stupid, the longer this is going to take.”
I looked at the other two, who glared back at me with an expression of annoyance that suggested I was making things harder for them as well. Reluctantly, I did what she said.
“Now what?” I snapped back at her.
She did finally smile.
“Now, it begins,” she said, turned, and walked out of the building, closing the door behind her.
I was right about that door. It sounded like a lid being shut on a coffin.
Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight
Orientation
The moment we were alone, I turned to the girl on my left.
“What is this? Where are we? Why are we in this place?” I asked.
“Why are you asking me? How would I know?” she shot back at me. “What do I look like, information please?”
“Well, you were here before me so I thought you might know more,” I threw back at her with just as unfriendly a tone.
“We got here only a little while before you did,” the second girl said, somewhat softer. I turned to her. “So we don't know any more than you do. I'm Teal Sommers. That's Robin Lyn Taylor. She didn't tell me her name,” Teal added with a smirk. “I heard one of those girls call her that.” She leaned forward to glare past me at Robin Lyn.
“I'm not exactly in a party mood, you know, and I told you, I don't like to be called Robin Lyn. Just call me Robin. You, too,” she ordered me.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said, and Teal laughed.
Robin folded her arms and turned away. “Well, we're here together so I guess we'll have to talk to each other decently. Where y'all from?”
“Where y'all from?” Teal laughed. “I'm from Albany, New York. I was flown in here just a little before y'all were, I think. I'm very unsure about the time. They took my watch.”
“Mine, too,” I said, rubbing my wrist. “And my ring. Why did they do that?”
“Maybe they're jewel thieves. They took Robin's watch, too, right, Robin?”
“Big deal. I stole it. I'll steal another first chance I get,” she said defiantly, looking at the closed door. “I'm supposed to be at a school, a special school. That's what the judge said,” she shouted at the door. “Not some dumpy, smelly building.”
“Judge?” I asked.
She spun her head around to me so fast, I thought it would just keep going in circles on her neck.
“What are you, a scholarship winner or something? Is that why you're here?”
I stared, confused.
“Hardly,” I finally replied. “My uncle and aunt arranged all this without telling me anything about it. I was drugged, kidnapped, and brought here.”
Robin started to laugh and stopped. “Did you say drugged and kidnapped?”
“I know exactly what she means. That's how I felt,” Teal said. “My father arranged for me to be transported here. He was nice enough to tell me I was going to aaspecial school, but my parents didn't even let me take a change of clothing. Daddy had a hired goon bring me to the airport and to the plane. Next thing I knew, I was flying away and no one told me where I was going. They kept the windows shut, too. They gave me something to drink, and before I knew it, I was asleep, so I was drugged, too. When I woke up, I was here and dressed in this rag and these stupid clodhoppers as well as this . . . diaper.”
“I guess I shouldn't have expected anything better from my aunt, but why did your father do that to you?” I asked. Even though I had had some of my things when Daddy brought me to live with Aunt Mae Louise and Uncle Buster, I didn't feel much different except I knew why they'd got rid of me. There was no surprise for me there.
“He was, I guess I can safely say, at the end of his patience with me. I was an embarrassment to my mother, who sits at the head of the social table of high society.”
“What did you do?”
“I robbed a bank,” Teal muttered.
“What?”
“I stole money from Daddy's secret safe, his and my brother Carson's.”
“And your own father sent you away for that?”
“Well, it was a little more, I guess,” Teal admitted.
“I bet,” Robin muttered. “Don't be fooled by her sweet little face.”
I turned to her. “What about you?”
“I didn't rob a bank, but I was part of an armed robbery of a supermarket where I worked,” Robin said, looking ahead. It was as if she were reminding herself and not telling us. “This is supposed to be an alternativeto going to a real jail. My mother darling talked me into it, and like both of you, I was eventually put in a plane and the same things happened to me. I fell asleep and they took my clothing and brought me here.”
She smiled and shook her head and then shouted at the closed door, “They're just trying to frighten us with all this . . . this horror-hotel stuff, but it doesn't scare me! Y'all just wasting your
