“Okay, then.” She took a step back. “Get some sleep.”
She turned to leave but before she could shut the door, Angus was on his feet. “Do I get to see her?”
The doctor’s back was to him and she turned slowly. “I might be able to make that happen, but are you sure you want to?”
“No.” He shook his head. “But I gotta.”
She nodded as if she understood, but Angus couldn’t see how.
“I’m not sure when it will be,” she said, “but I’ll make it happen.”
The doctor left him then, the door clicking behind her and the lights going out a second later and plunging him into darkness. Angus sank onto the couch, knowing he would never be able to sleep. He was a father. It didn’t seem real. Then again, none of this did.
It took the doctor a while to make good on her promise, how long Angus didn’t know for sure, but long enough that he started to wonder if she had forgotten. He didn’t see her at all between the time she came to tell him that the baby had been born and the night she arrived in his cell holding the child.
She came in the middle of the night yet again. The hall was dark and Angus was asleep, but was jerked back to consciousness when the lights suddenly turned on, flooding his world with brightness. His eyes still hadn’t adjusted when the door clicked open and he didn’t move from his position on the bed, knowing what was about to happen and still uncertain as to whether or not he wanted it to. He had a daughter in this very building and meeting her seemed like a necessity almost as vital as his need for air, but he had no doubt that the encounter would be bittersweet.
The baby, like him, was a prisoner. Even worse, she would never taste freedom. Would never know that there was a world outside this building or that people could be good. She’d never understand what love was, something Angus had only had a vague idea of himself until this damn virus hit, but something that he was now achingly aware of.
The doctor walked through the door with a bundle wrapped in a pink blanket. The color shocked Angus more than anything because he couldn’t imagine anyone in this God forsaken building having the forethought to get a blanket that gave the baby any kind of identity. She was, after all, being called Test Subject 06. But clearly, someone out there cared. Someone associated with these people had a heart. Someone, hopefully the person who was charged with taking care of his child, was concerned with her wellbeing.
The doctor stopped halfway to the bed and Angus found himself on his feet. He crossed the room to her, his eyes on the child as he moved. Her face, smooth and flawless and totally serene, peeked out of the blanket. She was so fresh. So beautiful and undamaged by this world that the knowledge of what she would soon endure made him sick.
“This her?” he asked even though he knew it was. For some reason though, he wanted confirmation that the perfect little thing in the doctor’s arms was his blood.
“Yes.”
She held the child out and Angus took her, awed by how small and warm she was. His arms seemed to swallow her whole. She was tiny. Were all newborn babies this tiny? He’d never held one before, but he felt like he could crush her with one hand if he wanted to. He felt like a beast or a monster. He felt like he had destroyed this child’s life by allowing her to exist in the first place.
“She’s small,” he said, his eyes on the face of the sleeping child.
“She was seven pounds when she was born.”
He nodded, and then found himself crossing the room to the couch. The doctor didn’t follow him and he was glad. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to hold his daughter and weep for everything they had both lost. He wanted to have time to sort through the feelings inside him.
His emotions were at war with one another. Part of him wanted to kill this baby right here and now, that way he could save her from what was to come, but another part wanted her to grow. That part of him wanted to see what she could become. Wanted to hope that she could have a life one day that was bigger than these walls.
“She still don’t got a name?” he asked as he shifted the baby in his arms. She let out a little sound that made his heart constrict, but didn’t wake.
“No.”
He looked up and focused on Dr. Helton for the first time, looking her over. She was back to looking like the woman he’d first met here in his cell. The cold, clinical doctor who showed no emotion. Her hair was slicked back as usual, and she’d lost what little bit of weight she’d gained during her pregnancy. But he had an odd sense that she was putting on an act. The way she held herself, keeping a distance from him and the baby, made it seem like she was trying to hold up an invisible wall that was threatening to crumble down around her.
“Who’s takin’ care of her?”
“Helen.”
Angus had met the woman once. Thin, late thirties, with skin so worn and wrinkled that at first glance she looked at least ten years older. Her voice was gravelly, the calling card of a chain smoker, but her blue eyes had been oddly kind. She’d come in to draw blood not too long after he’d first woken from his coma, but had seemed oddly unsettled by the whole thing. She’d taken his blood, her eyes darting back and forth between him and the guards at his back over and over again, and when she had the vials she’d come for, she had run from the room. He only saw her through the window after that, and then she stopped coming to the observation hall completely.
“Helen takin’ good care of her?”
“She is.” Dr. Helton crossed her arms as if the conversation made her uncomfortable.
“Good,” he said, then went back to staring at the baby.
There were other questions he wanted to ask, questions about what they had in store for his daughter and if they had started their sick experiments already, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Instead, he focused on his baby and let the silence surround them.
They stayed that way for nearly an hour. The doctor standing in the middle of the room, not daring to leave him but also not willing to come any closer, while Angus held his daughter. The baby never woke, but she made soft sounds in her sleep that drew tears to his eyes.
He fell in love during that hour, fell harder than he had ever thought possible. The little thing in his arms couldn’t weigh more than fifteen pounds, but she had somehow stolen his heart. He’d loved other people. Darla had managed to work her way inside him and he would have given his life for Axl gladly. Even Vivian, who he’d hated when she’d first dropped into their lives, became someone important to him. Hadley, Rambo, Winston, the doc, Al. Those people had become oddly important after the virus hit, and they had all been family to him. But the baby was something different. The ache inside him was new and painfully sweet. It gnawed at him. Made him sick at the thought of any harm coming to her.
Before long the doctor said it was time to go. Dr. Helton avoided his gaze when he handed the child back to her, but it didn’t matter. He only had eyes for the baby.
“Can you bring her again?” he asked, hating that he needed to see her, but knowing that he did.
The doctor met his gaze, which seemed to take her a lot of effort. “Why?”
“She’s my daughter.”
The doctor opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. She swallowed before she started again. “It will be a while.”
He nodded. “Whenever. I just gotta see her.”
Dr. Helton nodded as she turned away, her eyes down and focused on the baby in her arms. He watched her walk out of the room, staring at the door long after it had closed. Wondering what she was thinking and what had gone so wrong in her life that she’d turned into this twisted version of a human being. It had to have been something major. Angus understood what it was like to have a shitty childhood, and even though he had done his fair share of horrible things, he never would have stooped to something like this.
After they had gone, leaving Angus once again alone, he found it impossible to sleep. Instead, he lay awake all night, staring up into the darkness as he tried to figure out w
hat he could do to save his baby from this life. He knew it was a waste of time, he was no more in control of what was happening than she was, but he couldn’t make himself stop thinking about it. Couldn’t force his brain to shut off. There had to be a way. He’d give anything—his life, his soul, the souls of every person in this building—to save his daughter from what was going to happen to her.
He fell asleep shortly before dawn with the knowledge that he was powerless to do a thing.
Dr. Helton
After the baby was born, Dr. Helton threw herself into her work with a vigor even she had never experienced before, but she steered clear of Angus’s cell. Even when she learned that Al and Lila were expecting a second child she didn’t go to him. It made her feel guilty, as much as she hated to admit it to herself, but she knew that she had to keep her distance as much as possible or it would be the end of everything.
The child, Test Subject 06, had done something to her, but she knew that it wasn’t really about the girl. It was about Angus, about the time they’d spent together creating the child, about how he’d reacted when he’d found out and how he had looked at her when he’d held their baby in his arms. Dr. Helton had grown up with loving parents, something that people who knew her now would probably scoff at, but it was still a bond she had never understood. Even as a girl she’d felt a distance from her parents that she couldn’t explain, and she was completely certain that she had never actually loved another human being. Felt attachment, yes, but not love. Not the all-consuming, burning need other people felt.
She knew what that feeling looked like thanks to the weekly transcripts of Angus’s family. They were people who loved. Vivian and Axl, Lila and Al. They had something she’d only read about in books and had doubted was actually real until now, but reading about the private conversations these people had late at night when they thought no one was listening made her wonder. There was affection in everything, joy and happiness even in simple conversations. Laughter. And the sex. Jane would never admit to anyone how many times she scanned the words these couples whispered to one another in their intimate moments. Even to her it felt voyeuristic, but it had nothing to do with trying to grab a cheap thrill or two. It was about trying to understand what it meant and felt like to give yourself to another person so completely, to trust them with every thought in your head, to lay yourself bare in front of them, completely believing that they would take whatever you had to offer and look at it as a gift rather than a burden.
Now, staring at the most recent transcripts, she knew that if she wanted to keep her promise to Angus she would have to go to him. There was news, big news that she knew he’d want to hear, but news that might not be happy considering he knew what was happening inside this building.
VIVIAN: AXL, WAKE UP.
AXL: (SOUNDING GROGGY.) LILA HAVE THE BABY?
VIVIAN: A GIRL.
AXL: GOOD. (A YAWN.) COME HERE. I’M TOO BEAT TO GET UP.
VIVIAN: THANKS FOR WATCHING ALL THE KIDS. IT WAS A BIG HELP.
AXL: TWO KIDS IS A LOT, YOU KNOW THAT?
(A PAUSE.)
VIVIAN: TOO MUCH?
AXL: (SOUNDING SLEEPY.) WHAT?
VIVIAN: ARE YOU SAYING THAT TWO KIDS IS TOO MUCH?
AXL: NO. JUST A LOT.
VIVIAN: GOOD. I WOULDN’T WANT YOU TO CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT HAVING A BABY.
(ANOTHER PAUSE.)
AXL: WHY’S THAT?
VIVIAN: BECAUSE I’M PREGNANT.
(MOVEMENT.)
AXL: YOU SURE?
VIVIAN: VERY SURE.
(KISSING.)
AXL: I LOVE YOU. (MUFFLED.)
(MORE KISSING.)
Vivian was finally pregnant. Dr. Helton had known that they were trying, but it had been so long that she was starting to wonder—just as they were—if there might be a problem. But it had happened and now she knew that she not only needed to tell Star, but Angus as well.
She’d promised him she would, but the thought of going to him after all these months made her uneasy. Getting him out of her system was tough. Impossible, really, because she still considered going to him every night when she laid down to go to sleep. Thought about how it had felt the last time she’d been there, before he’d remembered what a monster she was and had lashed out at her. How gentle his touch had been, how thoroughly he had caressed and kissed her body. How she had wanted it to last forever.
As much as she dreaded the thought of going to him and having to once again walk away, she knew that she couldn’t go back on her promise. It wasn’t right, and she had already wronged this man in more ways than she could count. She owed him that much at least.
So Dr. Helton went to see him, only she didn’t sneak into his room late at night as she had before, but went in the middle of the day when the observation wing was buzzing with activity. There were so many witnesses around that she knew she wouldn’t be able to give into the temptation his presence brought her.
He was on the bed reading, stretched out and lying on his back, making her remember how she had climbed on top of him, naked and needy. How he’d looked up at her with eyes that were a mixture of anger and desire. Just as he was now.
She made sure the door was securely shut behind her before she said, “I have some news.”
Angus didn’t lower the book and he didn’t say a word, he just stared.
“About your family.” She thought that maybe he hadn’t remembered the request he’d made and had no clue why she was there, but he just nodded like he wanted her to go on. “Lila and Al had another baby, a girl, and Vivian is pregnant.”
He lowered the book. “Shit.”
She knew what he was thinking because she had thought the same thing when she’d read the transcript: this child would have James blood. It could be immune.
“Yes,” was all she said.
Angus let out a deep sigh. “That it?”
“Yes.”
“What about my girl? How’s she doin’?”
“She’s healthy. That’s all I can tell you because I haven’t seen her.” She didn’t mention that she was avoiding the child, but he had to know. “If there’s an issue I’ll be told.”
Angus snorted. “You’re like a fuckin’ robot.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
He lifted his book and his eyes returned to the page, but she could tell he wasn’t reading it. He just wanted her to leave and this was his way of telling her to go to hell. She was starting to wonder if she wasn’t, in fact, in hell. Or at the very least, purgatory.
“I’ll tell you if anything else happens.”
He nodded once and she turned away, hating the pain in her gut that was desperately trying to claw it’s way to her heart. She hadn’t used that organ for anything but pumping blood through her body for so long that she’d forgotten what it felt like to really feel. It was horrible.
Joshua
Joshua couldn’t believe it had been nearly two years since they’d arrived in New Atlanta. Two years. For him, leaving Colorado had been both heartbreaking and liberating at the same time. It was there that he’d fallen in love for the first time, only it had been with a woman who was totally incapable of loving him back, and he’d felt like he was leaving a part of him behind when they’d left.
Before the virus struck, Joshua had never really had time for love or relationships. No, that wasn’t exactly true. It was more like he’d never had the confidence for them. He had always been the gangly kid, towering over his classmates from an early age, and had lacked the confidence to really put himself out there. Yes, he’d dated in high school, but it had been a girl he’d known since the age of five and she had made the first move. They had only been twelve when they’d gotten together, just kids, but they’d dated all the way through high school. He’d trusted her with every fiber of his being right up until the moment he discovered that she’d been cheating on him. A lot.
It had devastated him, but he’d told himself it was a good thing. He was smart and driven and had plan
s to be a doctor, so putting love and relationships behind had felt like a sensible thing to do. But that betrayal had torn away at his ability to give himself completely to another person. Had made him feel like he didn’t deserve happiness the way other people did. Had made him feel like he’d always be alone.
In college he’d focused on his studies, and then his career, putting everything he had into becoming the best doctor he could be. He’d felt at home in his job, not awkward and out-of-place the way he’d felt most of his life up until then. When something went wrong he knew how to respond and what to do to make it better. He was cool in a crisis, barely blinking when someone came in, bleeding and nearly broken. He’d found his place in the world.
Then the virus came and that feeling of helplessness returned, only this time stronger than ever. Even years later he could remember how it had felt to have patient after patient die right in front of him. How he hadn’t been able to do a thing to save them or even to relieve their pain. He’d felt powerless. Useless. Like he’d wasted his life by studying medicine in the first place. He’d hated himself.
The feeling had only grown after meeting Vivian, Axl, and Angus, because things had only gotten worse. They’d looked to him as some kind of hero, a doctor in the midst of the worst medical crisis the world had ever seen, but weeks on the road had led to death and sickness, and even when he’d managed to save someone it had felt more like the luck of the draw than anything he’d really done.
He’d been lost back then, but so had Anne. After little Jake had died—the child she’d adopted as her own after the virus had killed his parents—she’d turned to Joshua for comfort. He’d needed it, so he’d allowed it to happen, fooling himself into thinking that her kisses were more than just her way of trying to forget the pain. Making himself believe that the love he felt was reciprocal.
It hadn’t been, and he now knew that even if he had stayed in Colorado, he and Anne wouldn’t have ended up together. That didn’t mean thinking about how it had played out didn’t hurt. It did, but ultimately it had been worth the pain because it brought him to where he was now.
Twisted World Series Box Set | Books 1-3 & Novella Page 55