They just had to wait until Maze was well enough to travel.
Meg squeezed toothpaste onto her new brush and attacked her teeth with smooth, swift movements. She was deep in thought about all she’d learned of herself and her “family” when a thought struck her: How did she know how to brush her teeth? There was something there—something about muscle memories. Maybe her mind was erased, but her body remembered how to accomplish the tasks she used to do all the time, like brush her teeth. She grabbed a pencil and looked for a piece of paper on which to write. The back of the tissue box was going to have to suffice. She jotted down her thought, “muscle memories,” sighed deeply and set the box down.
Barely able to keep her eyes open for the few steps it would take for her to make it to the bed, she crawled onto it from the foot, and slipped up to lay her throbbing head on the cool pillow. Her whole body shuddered with exhaustion when she forced herself to reach over and grab the cool sheet and toss it over her bare legs.
A soft tapping came at her closed door. Meg debated ignoring it and pretending to have already drifted off to sleep, but it came again a little more urgently this time.
“Who’s there?” she called just loud enough she hoped to be heard through the door.
“Meggie?” a little voice called back.
“Danny, are you okay?” She was up and out of the bed as fast as her legs could carry her. She opened the door to see the big blue eyes of her baby brother. His curls were scattered bed-head style around the crown of his round head looking decidedly like a halo.
“I can’t sleep,” he whispered, holding his favorite little pillow up to his cheek and nuzzling it like the lovey it was.
“Oh, I’m sorry little man. Are you thirsty? Do you want me to get you a drink?”
She watched his curls rock adorably as he nodded yes. She swept him up in her arms and perched him on her hip as she walked to the kitchen. “Let’s see what Mom has in here.” She opened the fridge and the bluish light spilled over the face of her little brother making his skin glow porcelain perfect. “We have apple juice, milk or orange juice. What sounds good?”
“Water.”
“You want water? Just water? Okay sweetie.” Meg reached to the drying rack where several of his sippy cups were left from the dishes Farrow and Sloan took care of earlier that evening. She walked back to the fridge, opened a bottle of water, filled his cup and started walking back to his room as she screwed the cap on.
Meg couldn’t stop herself from yawning deeply. “Do you want me to lie down with you for a while?” she offered just as much for her own exhaustion as his.
The little boy was already gulping the water, but managed to take a moment to say, “Uh-huh.”
“Okay little man. Maybe we’ll both get a better night sleep if we’re snuggled together for a while.” She plopped the toddler onto his small bed and watched the cartoon characters on his pajamas wiggle as he squirmed up the bed to climb under the covers and snuggle into his lovey.
He sighed as deeply as his little body could. His eyelids drooped heavily over his blue eyes. Meg smiled through her fatigue, took his sippy cup and set it on the side table before collapsing into bed beside the warm, sweet little body of the baby brother her heart seemed to remember even if her head didn’t.
An hour later, Meg woke with a gasp. Panicked she felt the bed for Danny. Finding him sound asleep, heavy and toasty right where she’d left him had her holding her chest, willing her heart to calm down.
Just a bad dream, she thought. He’s fine; Danny’s fine.
As much as she wanted to lie back down and hug the toddler to her, she worried she may start thrashing in her sleep and didn’t want to disturb him. Rubbing her eyes, she quietly slipped out from under Danny’s race car comforter and felt her way back through the house to her own bed.
She shivered as she tried to warm up the too cool blankets waiting for her there.
Her head swam with images until dreams began coming at her hard and fast—disconnected, disjointed flashes interrupted by shadows.
Her lungs burned with the acidic stench of sulfur. Each step of her bare feet pounding into the graveled ground jarred her with pain, her tense jaw vibrating with the impact. She felt herself yanked back by her long hair hard enough to lose chunks of hair with scalp still attached to them. Her screams were trapped deep in her throat, but her eyes darted wildly, desperate for freedom from the vice holding her back.
She reached behind her to dig her nails into the burning fist locked and tangled in her remaining hair. A knife. A knife was in her hand now and she held it to the back of her head slicing, yanking and sheering her locks off just to be free of her captor.