Lucie didn't mention anything about Badwater, which means that I wasn't followed during the day. Maybe she had someone on guard near the entrance to the stadium. They would know what times I returned from the city and meeting with KJ. But they might not know who KJ is.
I hope KJ figures out and understands why I'm not there. We’ve made it a habit to meet every other day. Sometimes we'll skip an extra one to throw off anyone that may have been following us. That’s all over now.
With every new passing day, my anxiety builds. I need to tell KJ that I was ordered to stay at the compound. I don't want her to be mad at me or to think that I didn't love her back. On the third day, Paz stopped by to bring some protein pouches and follow up on our previous session. I took the opportunity to ask her about love. I know that I was giving away my relationship with KJ in asking her, but I wanted to understand love more.
After telling me that I was putting KJ at risk, she reassured me that she would not share this conversation. Paz explained how love was an uncontrollable feeling where you focus more on the other person's well-being than your own. You want them near you always and can't imagine a future without them. Love is an energy that pulls two people together so hard that it physically hurts when they are apart. This, she told me, was how she felt about Farouk. It's how I feel about KJ.
That was two days ago. Two days of anxiety and need. Two days of pain in my chest with a want to break all the rules. Two nights of restless sleep and aching tears. As blissful as love can seem, when you can't share it with the person you want, it is the most agonizing thing in the world.
I don't know how much longer I can confine myself to my room, so I resort to the only thing that's made time move a little quicker: sleep. With the amount of rest I've been getting, my energy supply has overflowed, and I'm ready to run for hours. The only blessing I can take away from this isolation, I have returned to my physical and mental peak.
The bed embraces me when I lay back, and I engulf myself in the sheets. My mind works hard to keep me awake, but after a few minutes, the darkness wins.
My dream starts the same as it has been for most nights over the last few weeks. I'm standing on a pulpit in the middle of the stadium's field, and I'm surrounded by hundreds of drones listening to the venom I spit. I don't recognize myself. There is a darkness to me. A darkness in my heart. It's us against the world.
The drones around me cheer and yell with a rabid fanaticism. At this point, I'd be carried away on the shoulders of the drones, but tonight a faint voice in the raucous crowd catches my attention. A few hundred feet away, KJ is pushing her way through the crowd to get to me. I can't make out what she is trying to say, but her look of concern and urgency calls to me.
I step down from the pulpit and force my way through the crowd to her. Every few steps I take, a drone pulls me back, away from her. We inch closer but at a slower pace than I'd want. I hear the rumble first before the ground shakes with violent anger. Every last one of us in that field falls to the ground.
The sky flashes bright red, and I turn my attention to the stadium that surrounds us. In a wave of fire and ash, the walls around us burn up. I run to KJ, pushing my way through the drones that stand from their fallen position. Behind her, the wave of fire scorches every drone it touches.
“80!” she screams as she runs to me. The wave gains on her with each step she takes.
I run as fast as I can, faster than I ever have before. As we are about to reach each other, the wave engulfs her. I reach my hand out to her extended arm, but when I grab it, it turns to ash. The wave pushes past me, leaving a charred field in its wake. I am the only one left on this black and red canvas. The stadium is gone. The drones are gone. KJ is gone.
My mind lingers on this vision of me standing alone for a few more moments before I wake up drenched in my sweat. I have learned through conversations with Paz that my dreams are visual representations of my fears. That does not take away the emotional toll they have on me.
I need to know KJ is safe. I have to see her. I don't care that it hasn't been a week yet. I will go to her today. I need to figure out how to do it without getting caught.
My best chance is going to be right after the drones bring me my food. I know that Farouk has scheduled them to do so every day to make sure that I'm still in my room. If I can somehow switch places with one of them, I could sneak out, but the patch on my eye makes me a dead giveaway. What could I say to them to convince them to lead me out of here?
I sprawl on my bed and run through different ideas, each one worse than the last. I'm on the brink of my best idea when there is a knock on my door. It's too late—I know it's the drones, and I will have to improvise.
When I open the door, the two drones force themselves in and close the door behind them. I jump back
