Chapter 18 – Milly and Peace

Her friends want answers. Milly gives them peace instead.

"Milly, The Quiet Push" 
Chapter 18 – Milly and Peace

         Tasha’s bedroom smelled like vanilla body spray and unwashed laundry.
         Thick and sweet. It sat in the back of Milly’s throat.
         Tasha was pacing. She didn't sit. She moved between the desk and the window like she couldn't decide which wall to hit. Her black ponytail was messy. She looked like she hadn't slept since the shack.
         Every time a car drove past on the street below, she flinched. Her fingers kept twitching toward the pocket of her hoodie.
         Jenna sat on the edge of the bed watching Milly. She wasn't moving. Wasn't twitching. Just still.
         Her blue-black hair fell over her shoulders. Her eyes were fixed on the silver lenses of Milly’s sunglasses.
         "Take them off, Milly," Her voice was quiet. It wasn't a request. It was a challenge.
         Milly didn't move. She leaned against the doorframe. She liked the way the wood felt against her spine. It was solid. It was predictable. "The light is bright in here," Milly said. "I have a headache."
         "The light is off," Jenna said. She pointed to the ceiling fixture. The room was bathed in the gray, flat light of a Tuesday afternoon. "It’s been a week, Milly. You haven't taken them off since the hospital. Not around us."
         "It’s my brand now," She tried to make it sound like a joke. The words came out wrong. Flat where they should have been light.
         Tasha stopped pacing. She turned to look at them. Her face was flushed. Her eyes were frantic. "Who cares about the glasses? My mom thinks I’m having nightmares because of some random base security breach. Your dad is out there telling everyone it was about his job. But those guys... they didn't care about maintenance codes."
         Tasha stepped closer to Milly. She smelled like sweat and fear. "They had zip ties, Milly. They had a floor with a drain in it. You don't do that for a Master Sergeant’s password. You do that for something else."
         Milly felt the pressure building behind her eyes. Familiar. A thumb pressing into the soft part of her brain.
         The weight of the secret. The weight of the lie her father had built for her. He was her shield, but the shield was getting heavy.
         "My dad knows what he's talking about," Her voice was flat. "He’s been in for twenty years. He knows how these people work."
         "No, he doesn't," She stood up from the bed. She walked toward Milly.
         Her movements were slow and deliberate. "He sees what he wants to see. He sees a threat he can put in a file. But we were there. I saw the way that guy looked at you. He wasn't looking at a sergeant's daughter. He was looking at a prize."
         The room felt smaller. The walls seemed to be leaning in. Milly could hear the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. She could hear the muffled sound of a television in the next house. Everything was too loud. Everything was too close.
         "You're being paranoid," She adjusted the bridge of her glasses. "The police are handling it. Detective Warren is on it. We're safe."
         "Safe?" She grabbed Milly's arm. "I can't go to the mall. I can't walk to the bus stop without looking behind me. Every black SUV makes me want to vomit. And you’re just... you’re just standing there. Like nothing happened."
         Tasha grabbed Milly’s arm. Her grip was tight. Her fingernails dug into Milly’s skin through the fabric of her black hoodie. "Tell us the truth, Milly. What did you do in that shack? How did we get out?"
         She looked at Tasha. The reflection of the room in her own lenses. She could see Jenna standing right behind Tasha. Jenna’s face was full of suspicion. Jenna wanted the truth. The truth would destroy everything.
         Milly thought about the black SUV. She thought about the man called Maybe. He had found her. He had told her she was property. Vantage was watching. They were waiting for a crack. They were waiting for her to fail.
         If Tasha kept screaming, someone would hear. If Jenna kept asking questions, she would find the answer. The truth was a monster. Milly was the only one who could keep it in its cage.
         "Let go of me, Tasha.”
         "No! Not until you tell me why the guards just let us walk out. Not until you tell me why I can't remember the last five minutes in that room." She was shaking. Her grip on Milly's arm was too tight, fingers gone white at the knuckle.
         Milly didn't want to do it. She told herself that every time. But as the pain reached its peak, she stopped pushing it back. She was done being the one who hurt. She wanted to be the one who decided when the screaming stopped.
         She reached up. Didn't take the glasses off. Just tilted them down. She let the gray light hit her eyes. The pressure behind them sharpened.
         She looked directly at Tasha.
         "You're tired, Tasha," Milly whispered. The words felt like silk.
         Tasha’s grip loosened. Her fingers slid off Milly’s arm. Her eyes widened. The anger in her face didn't fade. It dissolved. It was like watching ink disappear in a bucket of water.
         The tension left her jaw. Her shoulders dropped. The frantic energy that had been vibrating off her vanished.
         "I am tired," Her voice was heavy. The voice of someone half-asleep.
         "The kidnapping was about my dad," She watched the gold ink swirl in Tasha’s irises. It was beautiful. It was clean.
         "The men wanted his codes. We got lucky because they were amateurs. We escaped because they were careless."
         Tasha nodded. Her head bobbed slowly. "They were amateurs. We got lucky."
         "You feel safe now," Milly said. "You aren't afraid of the cars anymore."
         "Safe," Her eyes were glazed. "Not afraid."
         Milly turned her gaze to Jenna. Jenna was frozen. She was watching Tasha. She was watching the way Tasha’s entire personality had just been rewritten in the span of three sentences. Jenna’s face was pale. Her mouth was slightly open.
         "Milly? What are you doing?"
         The pressure in Milly’s head didn't recede this time. It stayed. A dull, constant throb. The throb said she was still in control. Not a monster.
         "I'm taking care of her, Jenna," She didn't look away. She kept the gold flare steady. "She was hurting. I don't want her to hurt."
         "That’s not... you can't just..." Jenna backed away. She hit the edge of the desk. A lamp rattled. "You're doing the thing. The thing from the library. The thing from the hallway."
         Jenna kept looking. Milly watched her try not to. Her gaze would drop, then come back. It always came back.
         "You want to be safe too, Jenna," Milly said. "You're tired of the questions. You're tired of the secrets. They make your head ache. They make you feel like the world is falling apart."
         Jenna’s hands were shaking. Her eyes dropped to the floor. But the gold was everywhere. The gold was in the corners of her vision. In the air between them.
         "Stop." Weak. Thin. The sound of a person who had already lost the fight.
         "It was about the codes," She pushed the power forward.
         Like licking a battery.
         Electric.
         Life.
         "My dad is a hero. He saved us. We are normal girls. We have normal lives."
         Jenna’s eyes began to glaze. The suspicion that had been etched into her features smoothed out. The wrinkles on her forehead vanished. She looked like a doll. She looked perfect.
         "Normal girls," Her voice was flat. Milly's own words, emptied out.
         "We’re going to have a good time today," She slid her sunglasses back up. The world dimmed. The gold vanished behind the silver lenses. "We’re going to listen to music. We’re going to forget about Vantage. We’re going to forget about the man in the sunglasses."
         The room felt different now. The tension was gone. The heavy, sweet smell of vanilla didn't feel stifling anymore. It felt comforting.
         Tasha sat down on the bed next to Jenna. They looked like they were waiting for a command. They looked like they were waiting for Milly to tell them what to do next.
         Milly stood in the doorway. The room was very quiet.
         She had fixed it.
         But as she looked at her friends, she felt a cold shiver go down her spine. They were sitting there, staring at nothing. Empty. Beautiful, perfect shells.
         The crown was heavy.
         A floorboard creaked in the hallway outside the room. Tasha’s mom was home. Milly heard the jingle of keys. She heard the sound of a heavy bag being dropped on the kitchen table.
         "Girls?" The voice came from the hallway. "Are you in there?"
         "Answer her," Milly whispered.
         "We're in here, Mom!" Tasha's voice came out bright and easy, like nothing. "We're just hanging out!"
         Tasha’s mom appeared in the doorway. She was a tired woman with graying hair and a permanent crease between her eyebrows.
         She looked at the three of them.
         Milly’s sunglasses.
         The way they were sitting on the bed.
         "Everything okay?" she asked. Her eyes moved across all three of them. Slow. Looking for something.
         "Everything is great," She smiled. It was a clean, sharp smile. "We were just talking about the dance next month. Tasha is really excited."
         Tasha’s mom relaxed. The crease between her eyebrows softened. "That’s good. That’s really good. I was worried you were still... you know. Thinking about the incident."
         "The incident was about codes, Mrs. Miller," She kept her voice steady. "It’s over now. We’re moving on."
         Mrs. Miller nodded. She looked relieved. She looked like a woman who had just been given a gift. "I'm glad. You girls stay safe. I'll start on some snacks."
         She turned and walked back toward the kitchen. Milly listened to her footsteps. Light footsteps. Easy ones. Like nothing had happened.
         Milly turned back to her friends. They were still sitting there. They were waiting.
         She walked over to the window. She pulled the curtain back just an inch. The street was quiet. The military base stretched out in every direction. A world of identical boxes and manicured lawns. A world of rank and order.
         A black SUV was parked at the end of the block. It wasn't moving. The windows were tinted so dark they looked like voids. It sat there, a silent shadow in the gray afternoon light.
         Vantage was still watching. They weren't gone. They were just waiting for her to finish what she had started.
         Milly let the curtain fall. The metallic taste was back. The pressure in her head rising again.
         She wasn't just an architect.
         She was a warden now.
         "Milly?" Jenna’s voice was small. "What do we do now?"
         Milly didn't look at her. She didn't want to see the blankness in Jenna’s eyes. She didn't want to see the golden ring that was still fading from her irises.
         "We stay quiet. We stay safe. We stay exactly like this."
         She sat down on the floor, leaned her head against the wall, closed her eyes behind the sunglasses.
         The world was finally quiet. The hum was gone. The screaming had stopped.
         She sat there until her shoulders ached. The floor was cold through her jeans. No one asked if she was okay.
         From the kitchen, she heard the sound of a knife hitting a cutting board. The smell of onions began to drift into the room. A normal smell. A normal sound. But as Milly listened to the rhythm of the blade, she knew the normal was a lie she was telling the world. And she was the only one left who knew the truth.