The Pain Colony

by Shanon Hunt

  Was it the guy from the bar? Luke? His toneless instructions were alarming, and she rose on one elbow, barely able to hold herself in that position. She could only see his profile. His hair was short now, almost military style, and he’d shaved the stubble.

  “What’s going on?” Her throat was dry and her voice sounded croaky, as if she’d been asleep for days.

  She squinted into the sunlit front seat and saw two figures. Luke was driving and didn’t answer.

  It was the second man in the passenger’s seat who spoke. “Go ahead and take the Advil. Drink some water. You’re probably quite dehydrated.” Neither he nor Luke looked back at her.

  She was in fact very thirsty. She drained a full bottle of water and washed down two Advil, then slid back down on the seat. The rocking motion of the truck and the gentle hum of the engine were so soothing. She closed her eyes and fell back to sleep.

  She woke some time later with a start. Her head was clear, and she sat up, concerned. “Where am I? Luke, what’s happening?”

  Out the window, familiar rows of cornstalks whizzed past. She had to be somewhere in the Midwest. Was she going home? Was he taking her to South Carolina?

  Luke responded without looking back. “I apologize for the awkward situation. You’ll be in our custody for the next several days. We’ve been instructed to transport you to a new location.”

  “What are you talking about? What happened?”

  Neither Luke nor his partner answered.

  “What the hell is going on?” She scooted forward on the seat.

  Luke nodded to his colleague, who removed his seatbelt and turned to face her.

  “Ms. Stevens, your presence has been requested by our employer, and we’ll be your escorts for the next several days. It’s our goal to make this a comfortable trip for you; however, if you say or do anything that impedes our ability to complete our assignment, we’re prepared to make your time with us considerably less comfortable.”

  The coldness of his voice made the hair stand up on the nape of her neck. She leaned away, sensing danger. Her eyes darted to the door handle.

  “I wouldn’t try that if I were you.” Luke met her eyes in the rearview mirror. His voice was calm and emotionless. “We’re driving fifty-five miles an hour, and it’s awfully quiet out here. Even if you survived the jump, there’s nowhere to go.”

  “I don’t understand.” She felt breathless.

  The colleague pulled out a phone and made a call. “Sir, Ms. Stevens is awake.”

  He turned and handed the phone to her, but she didn’t get a good grip on it and it bounced off her knee to the floor and jittered away under the seat.

  She felt the car slow slightly as she leaned down to reach under the seat for the phone. Luke turned to look at her, as his colleague moved to his knees, facing backward.

  She didn’t have time to think. Instead of picking up the phone, she pulled the door handle. Then, grabbing the headrest in front of her, she tucked her legs underneath herself and kicked the door open. Still hanging onto the headrest, she scooted to the edge of the seat and prepared to lunge for the opening.

  But Luke was a step ahead of her. He cranked the wheel, causing the car to swerve dangerously and the car door to swing back into her. Her reflexes weren’t quick enough, and she heard the chilling sound of bones crunching as the door slammed against her left foot. She fell back onto the seat, breathless and mesmerized by how quickly her foot turned grotesquely purple, swelling right over the top of her Rothy’s flat. She could only whimper.

  Luke pulled to the side of the road. “Get the towel!”

  Her whimpers had become cries by the time a towel smothered her, and she breathed in the sweet, coppery taste of what she knew was chloroform. She thrashed but was immobilized by Luke’s knees on either side of her head, breathing hard and fast, clawing at his back and bucking her hips and twisting her torso without success.

  Luke’s partner apparently found the phone. “I’m sorry, sir. Ms. Stevens will need to be anesthetized. I’ll provide a status this evening.”

  She fought for a full six minutes until finally her strength left her and her body went limp.

  Chapter 65

  Layla woke to voices outside her room. She wasn’t in her bed; she was in the infirmary. The dull thrumming between her ears reminded her that she’d had an accident. Did she fall?

  “Then there’s no sense in her staying in the program,” Brother James’s voice was sharp. “We’re wasting time. And you know he’s getting anxious to implant the proband embryo.”

  “What you should be concerned about is her readiness,” Dr. Jeremy said. “She’s right on the cusp of the weight requirement for a carrier, but she fluctuates quite a bit. I can’t in good faith recommend progressing at this point.”

  “That’s not your decision,” Brother James snapped.

  “It damn well better be. You’re no longer thinking objectively, James. She is a trainee, and she has a long way to go.”

  “I am the only one in this facility who knows her. I brought her here. I fostered her growth from the start. I’ll decide when she’s ready.”

  The door opened, and Dr. Jeremy stomped into the room, his face flushed with anger. He seemed surprised to see her looking back at him. “Ah, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” she murmured, looking past him for Brother James. To her disappointment, he seemed to be gone.

  Dr. Jeremy picked up her chart. “Your vitals look fine. You took quite a blow to your head, but we saw no sign of bleeding or swelling from your CT and MRI scan. You’re extremely lucky.” He closed his chart and looked at her reproachfully. “I won’t insult your intelligence by recapping how you landed in my infirmary. But I will tell you—”

  “Dr. Jeremy, I’m so—”

  “Don’t talk, and don’t apologize. Listen.”

  She startled at his tone. He’d never spoken one angry word to her before.

  “The Colony has made an enormous investment in you, Layla. You may not realize this, but your progression to purification requires hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention the time and effort of dozens of people and the hundreds who support the entire infrastructure of the Colony. When you put yourself in danger, you not only waste our time and money, but you impede our ability to accomplish our objectives. You need to remember this isn’t about you, it’s about the vision and work of the Colony. If you ignore Dimitri again, I’ll stop your training and you’ll go back to induction. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded, too ashamed to speak.

  He didn’t bother to soften the closing of the door, and it echoed in the small, sterile exam room.

  “Father, please forgive me,” she whispered in the silence. But the plea felt empty. Could the Father even hear her? Was he like a god or a just a normal person? Brother James seemed to talk to him all the time. In fact, Brother James talked with everyone and seemed to know everything about the Colony.

  And everything about her.

  Her face felt hot. Without another thought, she quickly dressed in the standard-issue linens and slides she found in the closet and snuck out of the infirmary, as quickly as her weak legs would move.

  Brother James was all the way across the courtyard when she called out to him.

  He spun around at her voice and retraced his path. “What are you doing out here? You should be resting.”

  She stood defiantly. “I’d like to speak with you.”

  He waited.

  “What did you mean when you said you brought me here?”

  He looked startled.

  “I heard you tell Dr. Jeremy, ‘I brought her here. I fostered her growth.’ What did you mean? Did you find me that night in the city, when I was all beat up? Were you in the van?”

  “Listen, you’ve had a really rough day. I’m going to walk you—”

  “Brother James, please. I just want to know the truth. I have to know what I was like when you found me. What did I say? Di
d I tell you what happened? Did I mention my family or anything?” She desperately searched his face. “Please. If you know something about my poisoned life, something that might help me remember who I was—”

  Brother James pressed a finger to her lips. She froze.

  “I have an idea.”

  He turned toward the path and gestured for her to follow. They walked slowly and wordlessly, but her thoughts were racing. Why had he never told her he was the one who found her? Why was everything such a secret here?

  They arrived at the garden, her favorite place in the whole Colony, and she felt some tension release. The garden had way of washing away her anxiety.

  But instead of sitting on the bench, he took her hand and pulled her close to the flower bushes. “Have you ever wondered how we created such a beautiful garden here at the Colony? With colors so incredibly vibrant, the flowers so big and lush?”

  “Well, no, I guess not.” She shrugged. “I just assumed that’s what the earth produced.”

  “No way, not flowers like those. Look at them. Each of those rose blooms must be, what, six or eight inches in diameter? Bigger than the earth can produce on its own. And look at the colors. Blue isn’t a natural rose color. It looks like it’s been painted, doesn’t it? And think about how long they last. Have you ever seen one of our roses wilt and die?”

  She hadn’t even considered it until now. She shook her head.

  “The roses are special here at the Colony. Just like our people. The roses are pure.”

  She stepped closer to the rose bush and looked carefully at a plump blue blossom. “Really?”

  “Really. Come on. There’s more.”

  He held her hand and led her through the rose bushes down a path Layla had never noticed before. His large hand over hers felt so good. So protective.

  “Where are we going?”

  “There.” He pointed to an enormous glass building still quite a way ahead of them.

  After several minutes of walking, which was enough to remind her how uncomfortable slides were, they reached the door. To her dismay, Brother James let go of her hand to open the door and usher her inside.

  An onslaught of humidity made her suck in her breath.

  “Sorry, I should have warned you. We keep the greenhouse quite warm and humid. It helps the plants.”

  He flipped on a light, and she stood paralyzed by what she saw. The greenhouse was bigger than any building she’d seen on campus, probably four times the size of the cafeteria. The walls and dome ceiling were all glass, glistening with condensation now that the sun had gone down and the air outside had cooled. Along the walls stood rows and rows of planters. There must have been a hundred of them, filled with all different types of flowers, plants, and even fruit trees. Planters hung from irrigation pipes between the rows. The colors were amazing, more colors than she even knew existed.

  “Wow,” She breathed, as if speaking louder would break the spell. Without asking permission, she moved down the center aisle, taking in each planter as she walked. “Are all these plants and flowers pure like the roses?”

  He hung back, leaning against the door. “Mm-hmm. We’re always learning new things and making changes to their genetic structure to see how they adapt. Sometimes we get something totally unexpected and wonderful, like that one on your left.”

  Huge blue and magenta chrysanthemum blooms tumbled from the large planter on her left. She’d never seen anything like them.

  “They’re beautiful,” she cooed.

  “But wait.”

  He turned off the light. The greenhouse went dark, but the chrysanthemums remained brightly lit, luminous.

  “They glow in the dark! Oh my god!”

  Brother James drew closer. “The earth produces magnificent things, Layla. The world is full of beauty, even outside our walls at the Colony. But the earth has also produced poisonous things. Poisonous people, poisonous plants, even poisonous air and water in some places. They make the world uglier, less desirable to live in, even unsafe.” He leaned down and cupped a chrysanthemum in his hands. “Imagine if we could take all the beautiful flowers in this greenhouse and spread them through the Colony. After they began to grow and spread on their own, we could plant them outside our Colony, across the whole earth. What if we could keep spreading such beauty until there wasn’t any more room for poisonous, ugly plants to grow? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Wouldn’t you want to be part of that?”

  “I would very much want to be part of that.” Her eyes locked on his, and she couldn’t turn away. God, he was so beautiful and so pure. He was perfect. All she wanted was to be with him forever and spend the rest of her life planting beautiful, magical flowers all over the world.

  He smiled. “The Father doesn’t create beauty. He looks for it, and when he finds it, he takes the beauty that the earth has created—even in the poisoned world, and he makes it better. The flowers are pure. They’re better, but they were beautiful already. They just needed to be taken from the poisoned world and cultivated. Just like you.”

  He swept a lock of hair from her face and kissed her forehead. Whether he meant it to be sensual, she didn’t know, but it sent a tingle through her whole body that lingered in her groin. For the first time, she felt something more than devotion and admiration for him.

  “As usual, you’ve distracted me from my schedule,” he said. “I have to go. But I have one more thing to tell you before I do.”

  He took her hand and led her out of the greenhouse, latching the door behind him. She followed compliantly, still reeling from the kiss.

  “I spoke with the Father earlier today about you.”

  She skipped a step to catch up.

  “He’s so proud of who you’ve become here at the Colony. He believes you have so much to offer as a pure—so much so that he’s ordered your purification procedure.”

  She stared at him with wide eyes. “I’m going to be pure?”

  “You’ll be the fastest trainee to become pure in the history of the Colony.”

  “Oh my god.” She swiveled to one side, then the other, wanting to tell someone. Since Brother James was the only one around, she told him.

  “Oh my god, Brother James, I’m going to be pure.”

  Chapter 66

  “Allison Stevens?” Garcia whispered. “The girl I talked to on Karen Richmond’s phone?”

  Malloy had spent half the night trying to connect the dots between Wang and Allison Stevens. He sat back in his chair and exhaled, waiting for Garcia to catch up with his conclusions.

  “Impossible,” Garcia said, his voice filled with conviction. “Not fucking possible.”

  Garcia believed he was a flawless judge of character, and his record was impressive. Put Garcia in a room of a hundred scum-sucking thugs, and he could sniff out the perp. Didn’t even matter what the crime was. But just like him, Garcia was too close to this case. His judgment was clouded.

  “Bureau’s been on her tail for weeks. They found a knife covered in blood under her bed mattress. Got confirmation this morning. Wang’s DNA, her prints.”

  Garcia just stood against the wall, shaking his head. Malloy could see him trying to reconcile his first impression of Allison Stevens with the news that she was wanted for questioning in the death of Wang but was now missing in action. As they now understood the situation, her relationship to the fugitive CEO of Quandary Therapeutics, Austin Harris, who was charged with fraud, was more than professional. She’d been his mistress. The situation certainly bore all the signs of complicity, if not conspiracy. And now murder.

  “Then why did she call Karen’s phone? Why did she confess all that shit to me?”

  “I don’t know. It isn’t our problem anymore.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. We’re missing something.”

  “I’m going to New Jersey to attend Wang’s funeral.” It flew out of Malloy’s mouth like someone else had said it. He hadn’t been planning to go, hadn’t even considered it. But for some reason it felt
like the right thing to do now.

  “We have things to do,” Garcia said to the floor. “Listen, boss, she sent me something. A video. They gave the LXR drug to chimpanzees—”

  Malloy gripped the edge of his desk. “We’re done here.” Garcia clenched his jaw, and he softened his voice. “With Wang’s death, this is no longer a drug case. The bureau will be more than dedicated to finding Allison Stevens and her boss. They’ll get to the bottom of it. And …” He paused to rub his dry, tired eyes. “Nothing we do is going to bring Tyler back. I let this case get too personal. There’s a real drug problem out there we’ve been ignoring.”

  “What about the eight—”

  Malloy wouldn’t let him finish. “Goddammit, it cost the life of a good agent. I’m going to New Jersey to pay my respects and to apologize in person to Wang’s family. I owe that to them.”

  “Boss, you got nothing to apologize for. We all know the risks and what we signed up for. Wang did, too.”

  Malloy was done talking. He opened a search window and typed PHX to EWR. He didn’t know if Wang’s funeral was his true motivation. Maybe he was really just in need of an escape. Someplace far enough away that he could think. Remind himself of his values, and dig deep to forgive himself for failing Tyler.

  For the first time in weeks, the heaviness in his chest finally lifted.

  Chapter 67

  Allison’s arms were numb again, but she didn’t bother to roll over and she certainly wouldn’t sit up. They’d driven for two days, Luke and the other man alternating the driving as she’d drifted in and out of sleep. They’d stopped on only a couple of occasions for fuel and food and parked once on a quiet back road for a few hours of sleep.

  The pain in her foot, which she assumed was broken by the look of it, wasn’t much more than a dull throb, but her head pounded, and she ran her tongue over her dry, cracked lips. The cooler on the backseat floor next to her offered snacks, water, and Advil, but she made no effort to open a bottle of water. She had no appetite for food or drink, and she wasn’t about to suffer another assisted bathroom break in the woods.