Cage

Days ago

I was dragging my father’s body toward the building with the H on it when a bunch of people came out to pull him away from me. They put him on a moving table and drove him inside, and then they pushed me inside too. They separated me from him and brought me into a room with a bed.

I wanted to leave, but my body felt so weak, and I could barely move. The wounds on my body weighed me down, and I wasn’t able to stay upright.

So I lie down anyway, despite my mistrust of this place.

I didn’t know what a hospital was, and I was incredibly confused when they started to tear off my clothes. At first, I was angry because no one should touch me that way except Ella. Until I saw the familiar cotton balls and alcohol being pulled out of a drawer, and I realized they were going to fix my wounds.

They sewed up the open wounds and put on some stinging substance that probably cleans it. Then they wrapped me up and had me put on new blue clothes, which are surprisingly thin.

I was told I needed to stay a day or two to heal, and that if I needed anything, I should call. I had no clue how things worked, so I waited until they came to feed me. After about two days, I felt strong enough to walk again, and I decided it was time to leave.

The nurses were so busy with the other people, and I didn’t want to bother them, so I walked out on my own. I didn’t need help with that, but what I did need help with was finding my father.

But no matter how many times I asked a woman at some desk, she refused to answer. She kept telling me no one with his name was in the hospital, which didn’t make sense. And she kept looking at me like I was asking the strangest thing, so after a while, I just left. Just in time because some beefy dudes were headed my way, probably to throw me out. Not that they would’ve ever won in a fight with me, but I don’t want to hurt anyone if I can avoid it.

Especially since Ella asked me not to injure anyone if I didn’t have to.

And now I’m here, in the middle of some city I don’t know, with so many people, and I don’t even know who to ask for help.

There are too many people, too many noises around me, and I’m panicking. Like I want to get out. I’ve never seen this much before, taken in this much information, and it’s too overwhelming to cope with.

I need to get out of here. Fast.

* * *

I march toward the nearest car I see running and bark at the owner who’s sitting in the driver’s seat playing with a strange device in his hand. “Drive me to Ella,” I growl.

“What?” The guy looks up at me with furrowed brows. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I need Ella,” I say. “You know where?”

“Fuck, dude, what the fuck do you want from me?” the guy snaps, and he tries to slam his door shut, but I keep it open. “Get your hands off my car.”

“No,” I say, bending over to take a good look at him. “Take me out of here.”

“Fuck no. Get a cab, motherfucker.” He slams the door shut.

I jump away from the car as he immediately drives backward, the tires almost running over my feet. Before I can even say a word, he’s already driven the car off the parking lot.

Well, fuck.

Are all people like that?

I hope not.

I try again with someone else, an older lady who’s packing things into the back of her car, and this time, I cut to the point. “I need a ride,” I say.

She turns around, looking confused. “Sorry?”

“Take me out of this city?” I ask.

“Well …” She frowns. “Couldn’t you call a cab for that?”

“Cab?” I repeat. What is that, and why does everyone keep saying it?

“You don’t know what a cab is?” She smiles. “Oh, honey. Where are you from?”

“Red sand.”

“Red sand?” She gives me a funny look. “Well, all right.” She closes the trunk and walks to the front. “I’ll make this my good deed for the day. Get in.”

I nod and immediately walk to the wheel, but she stops me before I get there.

“Whoa, where are you going?”

“Car.” I point at the front seat.

“No, no,” she replies, laughing again. “I’ll drive. It’s my car.”

I shrug, not understanding what the problem is, but all right. I walk around the car and sit down in the other seat. As she perches herself behind the wheel, she says, “But you’d better not try anything with me, or I’ll use my pepper spray on you, got it?” she muses, holding up some kind of can. “I also know three different styles of Kung-Fu, just so you know.”

I don’t know what any of that is, but I don’t care. I’m not looking for trouble.

I hold up my hands. “No fight here.”

“Good,” she says, nodding and then tucking the can into her purse. “Now where do you want to go?”

“Out of this city,” I say.

“But where to?”

I think about it for a second, but then I realize I don’t even know the answer.

Ella never told me where she lived.

The only thing I remember is her talking about the many trees and the green grass and rivers. But when I look around, there are no rivers or green grass. So it has to be somewhere else. Somewhere less hot with much less red sand, probably. She never mentioned any sand.

“Forest,” I say. That’s where I need to be. Somewhere with lots of trees.

“A forest?” She giggles again. “Boy, you don’t make any sense. There are tons of forests, but none of them are in Nevada. You’re outta luck, kid.”

“Nevada?”

“Yeah, the state?” she says. “Gosh, it’s like you crawled out from under a rock or something.”

Maybe. I did come out of the compound in the desert, which was very rocky.

“So what forest do you need to go to? I might be able to help you out if you’re specific.”

I shrug, not knowing the answer to her question.

“Sierra National Forest? Eldorado? Plumas?” She keeps naming stuff I don’t recognize. It’s all names, but nothing comes to mind when I think about them. Ella never said anything except that it might be somewhere close to a creek.

“Creek. Trees,” I add. I definitely remember her saying something about a creek … and some type of tree. A willow. But I don’t know what it looks like.

“A creek? Hmm …” She ponders it for a second. “Well, California has a ton of creeks. Although not all of them have that many trees if you’re talking about a big forest.” She snorts. “Must be somewhere up north.”

She’s probably right, but that doesn’t make it any easier to know where I’m going. Are there so many places in the outside world that even the people living there have no clue where I need to go?

“Tell you what, I’ll just drive you to the border, and then you can find a different ride from Primm. That’s where I’m headed anyway,” she says, starting the engine. “My girls from the bingo club are waiting for me there. We’re gonna up our game a little, try out the slot machines at the casino and maybe even the blackjack table.” She grins, looking my way, as if I’m supposed to know what that means.

She waves. “Ah, forget it.” And then she puts the car in reverse and drives off the parking lot.

* * *

She drives us all the way to Primm as promised where she jumps out of the vehicle to go to the big building, leaving me stranded outside. She invited me to come along with her, said she enjoyed my company, but I don’t want to waste any time in a place I know Ella isn’t going to be.

I have to find her; that’s my number one priority right now.

The old lady gave me a hint, saying I should go to the hotel on the other side of the road and ask for a cab there. They would be able to help me. So I did exactly what she said, but the people at the front desk kept looking at me as if I was some kind of monster.

Maybe it’s because I’m wearing some clothes and shoes the old lady bought for me back in Las Vegas. She kept saying I needed to change because I still had a hospital outfit on, but I didn’t mind. It was nice and breezy. But the old lady wouldn’t take it, so I ended up changing into some bright blue shorts and a pink shirt.

I don’t care what I’m wearing. I just want to get where I need to be.

But boy … people sure are making it difficult.

When I finally get a cab, I hop inside and tell him I need to go to the next nearest town in California because that’s apparently where we are, according to what the old lady said.

We drive all the way to Barstow, but that still doesn’t have trees or rivers, so I tell him to keep driving north, exactly to where the old lady said I should go.

We don’t stop until we get to an area that has more trees and grass in it, but it still doesn’t look like what Ella described. However, the driver refuses to go any farther, so I get out and start walking.

He rolls down the window and shouts something about money at me, but I don’t know what that is, and I don’t have it. So I keep walking until the cab is out of sight and I’m closer to the trees.

I don’t care how far I have to walk or how deep I have to go.

I’ll keep going until I find her.

Until I find my Ella.