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Prompt: Forced to Hurt Another
For as long as she lived, Janey Howard knew that she could never forget the feeling of being ripped out of her father’s arms. She would never forget screaming for him…begging him not to let the people dressed in suits take her. She would never forget the pain in her throat that had come after, the word ‘Daddy!’ forced through raw flesh until her voice had been hoarse and all she’d been able to do was cry.
One of the men had pointed a gun at her father to keep him from fighting, and the sight of his face, tear stained and desperate, hands reaching out for her, knees buckled as he’d cried, wasn’t one that ever left her, even after her sobbing mother had taken her into her arms.
“I’m sorry, baby! I’m so sorry! I didn’t have a choice!”
Those were the last words she remembered her mother saying before someone had injected her with something to make her sleep and put her into the pod with her name underneath.
The last word her father had said was her name.
And when her pod had opened six years ago, her mother’s tear stained face had been the only one there.
“Daddy? Where’s Dad?”
The way her mother’s face had crumbled had been answer enough.
There were days that she hated her mother…especially those first few days when they’d moved into an apartment in this underground place that wasn’t really a Vault, according to her mom, but wasn’t a normal house either. It was an apartment underground, her mom had explained when Janey had finally calmed down enough to stop crying and hear what she was saying. The world outside was radioactive and dangerous. But they were safe here with the Enclave.
And in so many ways, life was almost normal. Monday through Friday, she woke up to the alarm clock and got dressed in the same clothes she always wore…some kind of uniform unlike anything she’d worn before the bombs had dropped. She ate breakfast at their little kitchen table and drank a glass of cold milk fresh from the refrigerator. Then she walked out their door and down a long hallway, three lefts and a right, past other apartments and the playground and the door that led to the medical wing to the classroom for the other seventh graders, of which the Institute had seven.
After school, she could go to the library room or the playground or the lobby to watch fish swim in the big fountain. She could run around the track in the gym or take weapons classes for teenagers or join the riflery team or the chess team or the swim club or the running club. There were plenty of activities to choose from. That’s what her mother always said.
“Why don’t you and your friends start a book club?” her mom had asked just that morning. “You love reading.”
And Janey had shaken her head, walking straight to her room.
“Janey,” she’d started.
“I have homework.”
It had been fifty fifty on whether or not she’d get away with that. Sometimes her mom would let it go. Sometimes she’d follow her, demanding to know what was going on. Demanding Janey watch her mouth or show respect or just talk to her.
Please, baby. Just talk to me.
But how could Janey ever make her understand that whatever gift her mother thought this life was, Janey hadn’t wanted it? That she’d wanted her father. She’d wanted her life to continue on the way it had been. Not this.
They got along sometimes though…it wasn’t like she hated her mother. She didn’t. She loved her in a way she didn’t think would ever go away. And her mom had tried to explain so many times.
“I didn’t have a choice. They were going to kill us if I didn’t cooperate. We’re safe now because of them. It was this, or die.”
“Like you let Dad die?”
She wasn’t proud of that question, or how it had made her mother retreat to her room…how she’d holed in up in her bedroom for the rest of the night. But she still thought it some days…still blamed her. Even if she didn’t want to. Even if she thought it might be better if she could just forget.
But how could she ever forget her father?
The other kids her age had both parents here, for the most part. Both of their parents worked for the Enclave, or worked in the building. They hadn’t been torn out of their father’s arms while he’d cried for them. They hadn’t watched a man in a suit hold a gun to their father’s head while they’d screamed.
It was Saturday, so once she finished her homework, she had a whole day to fill…but she couldn’t go outside and there were no pets allowed and the only people she could hang out with were the same ones she’d known for the last five years. She could read a book. Join a club activity. Read another book. Look at the fish. Visit the gardens and maybe volunteer to help like she’d been doing for the last few weeks.
Or she could walk aimlessly and avoid her mother, who she’d been fighting with more and more over the last few months. It felt like she couldn’t help it though…couldn’t leave things alone.
She chose the latter, slipping out of the apartment while her mom put away the allotment of groceries they got every week. Eggs. Milk. Butter. Sausage and Bacon. Some produce, depending on what they were growing. Usually lettuce and spinach. Broccoli sometimes. Apples and bananas most weeks, unless some kind of blight or famine hit. She’d already eaten breakfast, but she was still hungry…maybe she would stop by the gardens after all…grab an apple.
She went to the fountain room first, perching on the ledge and watching the orange and white fish swim around. There were scientists always walking around, most of whom she recognized, a few that she only knew from seeing around every once in a while but didn’t know their names. The ones who weren’t deep in conversation or staring at clipboards nodded and smiled at her and she did her best to smile back. But something was going on…she didn’t know what. Her mom had been talking to one of the scientists, though, and she knew there were less people around than usual. Something about a meeting. Or a conference? An assignment. Whatever it was, it meant less eyes on her.
Once she’d watched the fish for a while, she wandered around the halls, stopping by the playground to watch the little kids play and remembering what it had been like to play outside…to jump from a swing to her father’s waiting arms. To feel the sunshine on her skin and squint up at her dad…to look at his bright smile and feel like she’d never been so safe. She’d never felt so safe since.
Shoving that thought away, she left the playground for the library and stared at the same shelves of books she’d been perusing for years now and remembered her mom taking her to the library and the bookstore, picking for rows and rows of colorful picture books. Picking one at random, she sat and read for a while, discontented and in a bad enough mood that she ducked down in her chair when a girl she knew and was sometimes friends with walked by.
She wanted to go outside. She wanted to go back in time and hold onto her father and fight harder and somehow make her mother see that this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be! She was supposed to be in a regular school! She was supposed to live with her mom and dad and have friends and play outside and go to movies and…
She dropped the book and dropped her head into her hands, sniffing softly and trying to swallow her stupid tears. She didn’t want it getting back to her mom that she’d been crying in the library because then her mom would try to talk to her again and then they’d fight again and she was so tired of fighting with her mom…so tired of crying and locking herself in her room and feeling like a hamster stuck in a cage like the class pet her first grade class had kept, only they’d let the hamster come out sometimes and run around the room and she as stuck. And sometimes it felt like she was going to just start screaming and never stop.
Like right now.
She put the book away and left the library, walking fast and barely looking where she was going. Swimming pool. Playground. Gym. Apartments. The steps that led down to the lower floors. She wanted to see something new! She wanted to go outside! And she wasn’t dumb…she knew that if she even got within a hundred feet of the elevator that led to the upper floors, her mother, her mother’s boss, and her mother’s boss’s boss would all be alerted. But she knew the lower floors weren’t quite so prohibited, so she decided to go for a wander and lie if anyone asked what she was doing.
The stairwell was empty, and before long, it started to get creepy. Skin crawling, she felt her lips twitch into a smile. It was like a movie…like a detective movie or something. She almost never got to watch movies since they didn’t have many, but sometimes her mom would let her have a movie night with a couple of friends, and last time, she’d even let her watch something scary. And for a few days, things had been okay between them. Nice, even. No fighting. No arguments. Not for a little while, at least.
She turned a corner, peeking around it first. Clear. Smiling to herself, she stopped at a door, looked around, then tried the doorknob, just barely turning it, then, when no one showed up to ask exactly what she thought she was doing, she opened it all the way. She wondered if it was a super secret science lab or a library full of forbidden books. But behind the door was just a janitor’s closet with a couple of mops and brooms. Sighing, she shut the door and kept walking. The next door she came to was a science lab, but it was kind of boring inside, with a couple of empty shelves and some discarded beakers. Whatever kind of science lab it was, no one was using it.
She tried another door and found a close. Then a bathroom.
And then the lights went out.
Janey put a hand over her mouth to muffle her scream, looking wildly around and finding no one. The red emergency lights switched on a few seconds later, and she unfroze, pressing her shoulder against the wall as she moved forward. She knew she ought to go back to the stairwell and back to the places she was allowed to be…but she didn’t want to. She wanted to explore. She wanted to…something. Discontented and frustrated, she felt like she just had to to do something.
And just when she’d decided to keep going, she saw the blood on the wall.
Janey's breath caught in her throat, lips pressed together to keep another cry back. There was a door by the bloodstain with the words ‘service entrance’ painted in warning yellow. There were drops of blood on the floor too, some smeared, some perfect little circles, and without even thinking, Janey followed them further down the hall until she reached a metal door. Beside it on the wall was a sign that read ‘specimens.’ And she knew what that word meant in theory, but what kind of specimens did they have in the basement? Like…medical specimens? They talked about medical specimens in science class. Tissue or fluids collected to do some kind of medical testing. Is that what they had in the room?
She opened the door, slipping inside and looking around to make sure no one was in here. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she got in trouble with the scientists but she knew her mom wouldn’t be happy. Still…she wanted to know. She needed to know. There was nothing else to do and she didn’t want to fight with her mom and she couldn’t stand the thought of going back to the library or the playground or the swimming pool. And a trail of blood had led her here like she was in a detective movie. So she walked into the room empty of people but full of equipment. Desks with terminals and clipboards and coffee cups and ashtrays with cigarette butts inside. Microscopes. Hot plates and beakers and miscellaneous parts strewn about.
She bypassed all that, moving towards a window looking into a room with a steel door, a red button on the wall. Sitting on the floor was an old saddle bag…she hadn’t seen one since before the bombs, but she remembered her father placing one over Sugarfoot’s back. She knelt down, fingers brushing the soft leather. Then, opening one of the pockets, she glanced through the things inside. A metal bottle. A box of bullets. A stimpack. And an inhaler with medicine inside.
“You doing okay over there?”
Her head jerked up at the voice, deep and rough and striking something inside of her, and she jumped to her feet, staring through the window. There was a ghoul in one corner, head resting on the wall, his eyes on the woman sitting in the opposite corner. She’d seen pictures of ghouls before in school. Her teacher had explained what they were and what had happened to them…what her mother’s company had done to them. How they lost their minds and turned into monsters.
The woman in the other corner seemed normal though. She was dressed in a ripped flannel shirt, blood soaking a place low on her side where she kept a hand pressed to it.
“I’m okay,” she told him, smile faint. “You?”
“Just fine, sweetheart.” That voice again. That voice…she knew it. She knew it like she knew her own. Like she knew her mothers. Even after so many years…
“Then why am I sitting over here?” the woman asked.
“Becuase I said so.”
The woman rolled her eyes.
“How bad?” he asked.
“Um…I think it’s okay.”
He glanced her way, clenching his jaw, teeth bared for a second. “Fuck…”
“I’m fine.”
“I’ve got a Stimpack in my goddamn bag…”
A moment of silence, during which Janey stared at the ghoul and tried so hard to see through the scars and the sunken eyes, willing him to speak. Every few seconds, he shuddered like he was hurting, breathing slowly and deliberately.
“You need it, don’t you?” the woman asked, breaking the silence.
He grunted, then jerked like his muscles were seizing, and the woman sat up, eyes wide.
“Cooper?”
“Stay over there, Luce.”
“But…”
“Just…do it. Alright? Don’t come over here.” He shuddered, teeth gritted.
“Cooper,” she whispered again, tears on her cheeks, but Janey was frozen in place because…
She’d been right. She’d been right! She knew that voice!
“Sweetheart, you’ve got to be quiet, alright. Stay still. I’m…” He dropped his head back against the wall, making a noise that chilled her to the bone. “Lucy…I’m…fuck…”
Lucy dropped her head against her knees, shoulders shaking.
“Stay away from me and stay still…ah…”
“I’m going to try the lock again, okay? I’m…” She started to push herself to her feet, a hand on the wall, then slid down and hissed, pushing her hand back against her side. “Dang it…”
He was watching her, looking so sad before he shuddered again, teeth clenched. “No…no, no, no…not now. Not now…Lucy, stay still. Don’t get up.”
She knew that voice.
She was staring in the window and they’d both looked her way but neither had seen her. But she could see them…could see the woman he’d called Lucy.
The man she’d called Cooper.
Cooper was her daddy’s name.
That was her daddy’s voice.
“Just…I can try the door,” Lucy whispered, shaking her head and watching him bare his teeth like he was hurting, snarling like a dog. “Cooper…your name is Cooper,” she told him, wiping a hand over her face. “Your name is Cooper!”
“Quiet,” he hissed, shuddering. “If I turn…”
“You aren’t going to turn! Your name is Cooper! I’m Lucy!”
“It’s been too long…fuck…”
“Your name is Cooper!”
He clenched his fists at his sides, shaking hard, head smacking into the wall. “My name is Cooper…”
“I’ll try the door. I’ll get your inhaler!”
Janey looked down at the inhaler in her hand.
“My name is Cooper. Cooper Howard…” He pressed both hands to the sides of his head and Janey slammed her hand against the red button labeled ‘Open.’
Lucy’s head snapped up.
Her dad (because he had to be that was his voice and that was the outfit she’d last seen him in, with the blue shirt, filthy now. She’d had a matching one.) snarled and sprang at her, hands on her throat, teeth gnashing at her, and her back hit the wall hard, head bouncing, the inhaler falling from her hand and rolling away. It was only her hand on his forehead, the other on his chest, both brought up on instinct, holding him at bay.
“No…” she squeaked. “No…no!”
“Cooper!” Lucy screamed, scrambling to her feet and grabbing the inhaler, foot slipping in her own blood. “Cooper, stop! Please!” She grabbed his arm and he turned and gnashed his teeth at her, an arm swiping and throwing Lucy across the room. She landed in a heap but got right back up, face twisted with determination.
But he was so strong and Janey couldn’t hold him back for long. He was snapping his teeth at her like an angry dog and she was so scared but he had to stop! She’d finally found him! “Daddy!”
He froze, that wild animal look in his eyes receding as his whole body jerked to a stop.
“Daddy! Please…please,” she whispered, too scared to speak any louder. “It’s me! It’s Janey!”
“Janey…” he rasped, shaking his head, fingers loosening around her arms, and in the next second, the woman he’d called Lucy grabbed Janey and forced herself between them, one arm out, the other pushing the mouthpiece against his lips. He scrambled to grab it, squeezing the bulb and inhaling deep, his whole body relaxing. Only then did Janey take a breath.
Lucy rested her head against his shoulder for just a second, his hand coming up to cup the back of her head, and then she moved aside.
“Janey?” he whispered again, absently dropping the inhaler. “Janey?”
“Daddy?”
He stumbled the three steps it took to get to her and she threw her arms around him, and it was the same, somehow…that same smell and the feeling of safety and love and she couldn’t speak for crying, clutching the back of his tattered jacket in a death grip.
“Janey…baby…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
She shook her head. She didn’t want him to be sorry. This felt like a dream, like it couldn’t possibly be happening, and she never wanted to wake up.
“I love you. God…I love you so much. I’ve been looking for you…” He pulled back just enough to look at her, sunken eyes studying her face as he cupped her cheeks in his rough hands. “You’re so big, baby…you’re all grown up…” His smile trembled and tears fell from his eyes but he didn’t look away. “How long have you been awake?”
“Almost six years,” she told him through a shaky smile.
“Six years…you have to tell me everything. I can’t believe I missed six years…Janey…” He held her again and she buried her face in his shoulder, breathing him in. “You’re thirteen?”
She nodded.
“I love you so much. Janey…” He rocked her like he used to when she was little, and she cried so hard it shook her whole body but she couldn’t stop. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
“Is this real?” she whispered, sure this had to be some kind of dream. How could he be here?
“Yeah, baby, it’s real. I’m here.”
“Why were you locked up? How did you get here?”
“I’ve been looking for you. I finally found this place.” He pulled back, cupping her face in his hands again and stroking her hair. “Janey…I can’t believe it…”
She brought her hands up, touching his cheeks hesitantly, but he leaned his face into her hands, closing his eyes and smiling. He didn’t have a nose and his eyes were sunken and it was scary…but he was her dad. “Are you okay?” she asked, knowing the words were inadequate but not knowing how else to phrase it.
“I’m okay, honey.”
She turned to the other lady, Lucy, and frowned. “Is she okay?”
He turned and squeezed her shoulders before moving over to Lucy’s side. She was leaning against the wall, looking pale and sick, the blood still soaking her shirt.
“Lucy? Hey…look at me,” he ordered, and Janey turned and ran through the open door, grabbing the saddle bag and the backpack and dragging them both inside.
“Here. StimPack,” she told him, holding out the little syringe, and he took it with a grateful smile, sticking it into Lucy’s side. She winced, gripping his arm.
“Ow…”
“Well somebody went and got themselves shot,” he told her, smile shaky.
She rested a hand on his arm and took slow, steady breaths, color starting to return to her cheeks.
“Are you okay?” Jamey asked, arms wrapped around herself.
Lucy nodded, her whole face going soft. “I’m okay. It’s so good to meet you, Janey.”
“You too.” She wasn’t sure exactly who Lucy was, but her dad cared a lot about her so she guessed it didn’t matter.
The slam on the door made them all jump, and Janey spun, breath catching in her throat. The door was shut. Why was the door shut? “Hey!” she cried, staring at the window, but it was only a mirror on this side, and all she could see was her own face. She ran to the door instead, grabbing the metal handle and shoving it, but it stuck fast. “Hey!” she screamed again, back away from the door, pulse pounding in her ears. They’d locked her in. Why?
She backed away, turning to her dad, sure, somehow, that he could get them out. Never mind he’d been locked in here too.
Her dad put an arm around her, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. “It’s okay, honey. They’ll let you out.”
“No! They have to let you out too!” She moved to the mirror and banged her fist against it. “Let us out! He’s my dad!”
Her dad put the saddle bag over his shoulder and stuck something in his boot, while Lucy put her backpack on her back, a small gun stuck in the holster at her hip. Janey tried not to stare at it as her dad put both hands on her shoulder, gently pulling her away from the mirror.
“You’re okay,” he murmured.
“You can see in from there,” she told him, pointing to the mirrored glass, and he nodded.
“So they’ll know you’re in here.”
“But…they have to let you out! I want to come with you! Or you can stay here!”
He pressed a kiss to her hair, squeezing her in a tight hug. “Don’t worry, baby. It’s going to be okay. Some friends of ours are trying to get in too.”
“The power just went out.”
“Yeah, that’s probably why.”
“What are your friends going to do?”
“They were helping me try to find you.”
She smiled a little. “I found you first.”
“Yeah, you did.” Her dad cupped her cheek in his rough hand, smiling and running his thumb under her eye. “I love you so much. I can’t believe you’re here.”
“But what if they don’t let us out?”
“Of course they’re going to let you out, baby.”
“But what about you!” She finally had her dad back. She couldn’t lose him now.
“It’s gonna be okay. Don’t worry.”
The door opened then, and she stiffened, watching her mother appear, two guards behind her. Janey grabbed her dad’s jacket, face hidden in his shirt. She wasn’t letting go this time. Not again! Never again.
“Janey…” her mom started and she shook her head.
“No…no!”
Her dad put himself between her and her mom, one arm still around her.
“Barb,” he greeted, moving to stand in front of her.
Her mom sighed. “Hey, Coop.”
“This is Lucy MacLean,” he introduced like they’d just seen each other the day before and he was introducing her to a colleague…or a friend. Or something more.
“MacLean?” her mom asked, and from around her dad’s arm, she could see her mom’s brows raise. “As in, Hank MacLean?”
“My father,” Lucy told her.
“Hm. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lucy.” Then, turning back to her father, “what are you doing here, Coop?”
He huffed. “The same thing I’ve been doing for two hundred goddamn years. Looking for my daughter.”
“Well, as you see, your daughter is safe. Janey, come here.”
“No!” she snapped, grabbing the back of her dad’s coat and shaking her head, tears running down her face.
“Janey…”
“I think it’s about time we revisit our custody agreement,” her dad said, voice hard. “You ain’t taking her again, Barb.”
“So what? You want to take her out into the wasteland with you? And what? She quits school while you play house with your little girlfriend here?”
Her dad didn’t rise to the bait, lowering his voice instead while Janey thought about the word ‘girlfriend.’ Is that what Lucy was? “You aren’t taking my little girl away. Not again.”
“Why don’t we sit down and talk about this,” Lucy put in, a hand on Janey’s shoulder.
“Please, Mom.” Janey stepped around her dad but kept her arms wrapped around his. “Please…please!” Tears ran down her cheeks again, breath hitching, as she met her mother’s tortured gaze. “Don’t make him go. Mommy, please!”
Her mom’s chin dropped to her chest. She let out a long breath, looking tortured.
“Please,” she whispered, throat aching from crying so hard.
Her dad rubbed her back with his free hand.
And then her mom waved a hand to the guards who turned and left without a word.
“Alright. We can talk in my apartment upstairs.”
Janey let out a breath and her dad squeezed her, kissing her hair again. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay, baby. Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”
And for the first time since she’d woken up, Janey felt hope.