by Katie French
Doc walks past the guards with a nod and heads our way. When he reaches us, he squats down in front of Nada, one palm to the concrete floor. Nada looks around nervously.
“It’s okay,” Doc says, his face soothing in its calmness. “They know it’s you. There’ll be no further punishment other than powder duty. And I’ll try to get that down to a week, max.”
Nada licks her busted lip. “So, I did this to myself for no reason?”
Doc shakes his head in frustration. He glances around the cafeteria to make sure there are no guards nearby and speaks in hushed tones. “I never told you to bust up your own face. What I did tell you was not to run, but you did it anyway. What d’you want me to do, Nada? Anyone else, they’d just take you out back and shoot you.”
There’s anger in his voice and a flush in his cheeks. Nada glowers from her place on the floor and they’re silent for a while. Finally, Doc seems to remember I’m there. He looks me over, a frown creasing his brow.
“You all right?” he asks.
I scoff. “Beaten bloody, thanks, but maybe that’s what passes for a warm welcome ’round here.”
Doc puts on an apologetic look that I am sure is for show. “I had to,” he whispers, looking around again. “They can’t think I’m favoring you. We took so long in that office there was no other option.”
“How about,” I say leaning in, “you took your sweet-ass time? How about you weren’t feeling well?” My spit flies in his face, but I don’t care. “No, you go with beating. Thanks,” I hiss, “for the help.”
His eyes flood with shame, but I don’t feel sorry for him. A guard swaggers our way and Doc pretends to wipe something off his boot. When the guard is gone, his wet eyes search my face. Is he crying? I refuse to get all sappy for his obviously fake display of affection.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
I don’t say anything. Instead, I fold my arms over my chest like a barrier.
“What’s your name?” he repeats.
“Riley,” I hiss.
“I owe you a favor, Riley. Use it wisely. It’s a very valuable commodity around here.” He swallows hard. “Deal?”
I stare at his smooth, pale face. He looks genuinely sorry for what was done to me. I still don’t trust him, but what choice do I have?
“Be ready to pay up when I ask.”
He nods and there’s a hint of a smile. If I weren’t so mad at him, I’d think he was handsome. Not gorgeous like Clay, but almost…pretty. I stare down at my slop and wait for Doc to slink away.
There’s shuffling near the door and Doc stiffens. All heads turn. Chairs squawk against the concrete as everyone stands. Nada grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet.
“Get up!” she shrieks. “Hurry.”
“What?” I say, stumbling up. My spoon clatters to the floor. The room falls deathly silent. There’s a pounding in my chest, but I don’t know why. “What’s happening?” I whisper to Nada.
“It’s Lord Merek,” Nada says, her face white with fear. “He’s coming.”
Chapter 7
Clay
My brain wakes, but my body don’t. For a moment that seems to stretch for eternity, I think I’m dead. Dead and gone to meet my pa wherever the end of the path may go. But then there are sounds and smells that seem…familiar. Where was I before I fell asleep? An image of that woman, smilin’ dangerously with a needle in her hand, comes swimmin’ to focus. Goddamn Nessa. She was gonna operate on me. The thought sends a wave of alarm blastin’ through my brain. My eyes flicker open.
A ceiling of white plaster, cracked and hastily repaired, floats above me. The room is small and hot; a monitor is beepin’ beside me. One fluorescent bulb flickers on the ceiling, givin’ the room an artificial glow. Slowly, I tilt my head. The door across from me is closed. Locked, too, by the look of it. I’m lyin’ in a bed and hooked up to a couple of hospital monitors and a bag of fluid on a silver pole. Other than that, the room is completely bare. No windows. No furniture. I’ve got no way of knowing where I am, how long I’ve been out, or what’s happened to me.
I really could kill Nessa. Squeeze her pale neck with my bare hands.
Speakin’ of hands, fresh pain pulses from my injured one. I try to flex it and more pain springs up, new and raw. What’d she do? I try to look, but can’t sit up. Something’s strapped across my chest, arms, and legs.
A metallic sound at the door. A lock tumbles open and the door swings wide. My body tenses as a figure pushes its way into my room. Tuggin’ against the straps, I keep my eye on the person backin’ into my room. A wide round rump, clad in a pink skirt, wiggles through the door and drags in a cart. The wheels squeal over the tile. The smell of food wafts in, too, meat so aromatic my mouth starts to water.
A teenage girl with curly, blonde pigtails and dimpled cheeks turns around. Young and fresh like she’s never been outside. It takes me a beat, but then I recognize her.
“I know you. You’re…” I study her round, dimpled face.
“I’m late,” she says. Her expression is both intense and kind of…vacant.
I try again. “You were at the Breeder’s hospital. You knew my girl, Riley.”
Her eyes bug even wider if that’s possible—round, wet orbs like a crazed owl. She shakes her head in rapid little twitches and doesn’t answer me, diggin’ around her cart and takin’ foil off the dishes. God, I want that food. Still, if it’s from my mother, I shouldn’t eat it. Could be poison.
She cuts a hunk of meat into bite-sized pieces with a serrated knife I’d die to get my hands on.
“What was your name?” I try to smile, to lean over and get her attention. “Betty?”
Her head continues to twitch. “Betsy,” she mutters. Her chunky arms swing with every cut. Under her breath, she sings, “Betsy Wetsy puddin’ pie.”
“Right. Betsy. You were tight with Riley at the hospital. We thought you was dead, but here you are. Remember me? Clay?”
Betsy stops cuttin’ and stands there for a sec, her hands on the metal cart. A strange huffin’ sound comes from her nostrils and her chest rises and falls like she’s hyperventilating.
“Didn’t mean to upset y—”
“You never mean to upset me,” she squeals, high-pitched. “You never mean it.” She slams the knife down with a bang.
I pull back. “Betsy, I don’t know what I said…” I trail off. Her chest rises and falls in those huffy breaths again. She must be a few cattle shy of a full herd.
“You have to eat,” she says, her voice shrill like a pouty child. She stabs a chunk of meat and rams the fork at my face. I snap open my mouth just in time for her to shove the meat halfway down my throat. I gag and sputter, but she doesn’t notice. She stabs another hunk of meat.
I chew and swallow quickly, barely able to taste the beef. And it’s a good thing, too, because another chunk of meat comes rammin’ at my face, her meaty arm tremblin’ and her face tight as wire.
When I’ve choked down half the steak with barely a breath between bites, Betsy picks up a cloth napkin and wipes my mouth. This time her face takes on the serene quality of a mother tendin’ a child. Her eyes get a faraway look in them, and she hums a lullaby with pursed lips. Now that she’s calmed down, my eyes flick to the knife balanced on the edge of the tray.
“Betsy,” I say softly.
She doesn’t seem to notice. She hums and wipes my chin and neck with the napkin.
“Betsy,” I say louder.
Her hand stops, the hummin’ too. Her eyes focus on my face and the smile falls.
“What?” She throws the napkin on the tray, both hands plunge to her round hips, and she frowns at me.
“These straps are awful tight,” I say, my tone as childlike as possible. “They hurt.”
She blinks rapidly and I’m reminded once again that I’m not dealin’ with a normal person. What’s happened to her since we left her at the Breeder’s hospital? There’s no telling what my mad scientist mother did to her for helpin�
� us escape. She looks healthy, with doughy fat roundin’ out her figure and her curls neatly brushed. I didn’t know her well, but it seems like my mother did something to her brain. Something awful.
Betsy pushes a breath though her nose. She’s been starin’ at me for a full minute. She leans over me, her full weight on my chest, her flushed face only inches from mine. Blonde curls tickle my cheeks. Her breath, which smells like bread and sugar, pulses against my chin.
I press my head back into the pillow. “What’re you…?” Her hands slide down my chest, my arms. Is she gonna undo me? I nod, my eyes locked with hers. Then her fingers circle my biceps and begin to squeeze. Wet lips press onto my own.
I’m so shocked I can barely move as her tongue pokes between my lips, an unwanted probe. Her body is heavy on my chest, her lips clamped against my own. I twist my head back and forth and manage to dislodge her sucker mouth from mine.
“I can’t,” I say.
She lurches back and scrambles off me. She stands for a moment, hands clutched to her chest. One hand wanders up to her red lips. The wide-eyed look is back, the shocked look of someone goosed in the arse or bit by a snake.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t do that to Riley.”
“Never, never, never,” she mumbles, throwin’ things onto the cart. She shoves it toward the door.
“Betsy,” I call.
She whirls around and pins me with her crazy stare. “What?”
“Can you help me? My mother— I think she plans on doin’ something awful to me. Please.”
Betsy blinks like a broken machine trying to function with rusted parts. She opens her mouth to speak, stops, and opens it again.
Finally she locks me with a serious gaze. “Whatever your mother was going to do to you has already been done.”
Time passes. Hours probably, maybe a whole day. No one comes. The beef Betsy shoved in my gob fills my stomach for a while, but that soon grows empty. I figure the bag on the pole is pumpin’ some kind of nutrients in me ’cause I don’t feel thirsty or all that hungry, either. For hours I need to piss something awful. When I finally let loose, there’s no warm puddle around my arse. Instead yellow urine runs from a tube that snakes from under the blanket into a bag by the side of the bed. The thought of a tube shoved into my pecker makes me blanch. The thought of my mother doin’ it makes me want to vomit.
Goddamn Nessa.
I faze in and out of consciousness even though I don’t wanna miss someone comin’ in. My lids are heavy and I wonder if it’s from the liquid runnin’ into my veins. When I’m not asleep, I think about how they dragged Riley away. How she begged me to fight and I didn’t. If those were our last moments together—me givin’ in and handin’ her over to God knows who—I could strangle myself with my piss tube. Why didn’t I fight when I had the chance? Sure, we were outnumbered and outgunned. Sure, we’d probably be dead right now, but I’d promised her it would be okay. I’m supposed to be the man. I’m supposed to take care of her. Anger pulses at my throat until I think I could scream. Maybe I should. Maybe someone would come, even if it was a guard. Even if it’s Betsy with her fumblin’ hands and suction cup mouth. Being here is messin’ with my head.
When the lock tumbles again, Nessa walks through the door, lookin’ fresh in a white lab coat and a slicked-back bun. Her face curls into that dangerous smile when she sees me.
“Up, I see.” She pushes buttons on the monitor above my head. “How’s the patient feeling?”
“Let me outta here, you maniac.” I lean up against my bonds. “Let me up so I can strangle you.”
“Feeling well, then?” she asks, amused. Her hands curl around the piss bag and she examines it.
“Why am I here? What’d you do to me?” I hiss. My anger’s bigger than ever. I wanna throw myself against the bonds, but I know this would please her immensely. “Why won’t you let me up?”
“If you struggle,” she says, droppin’ the urine bag, “I’ll sedate you again.”
I lie back on the bed, seething. “If you sedate me again, I’ll kill you.”
“Clay,” she says, “You’ve threatened to kill me multiple times in the last twenty-four hours. Do I look scared, darling?”
I narrow my eyes.
“Now, listen.” She clasps her hands behind her back, smug and superior. “I want us to start over. I’ve even given you a gift to prove I’m sorry for how things have developed. If you’ll calm down, I’ll show you.”
I frown.
She walks over and tugs back the blanket on my chest, revealin’ my light-blue hospital gown. The strap across my chest and the other one across my arms are yellow and very tight. She pulls the blanket back further and reveals my injured right hand, now bandaged in white gauze.
Panic blares in my head again at the sight of my freshly bandaged hand. “What’d you do to me?”
“Don’t try to move it right now. It’s still healing.” She leans down and looks at the bandage. “I’m going to undo the strap on your arm to show you something. If you try to hurt me,”—she points to the open door— “Michael, will stop you. It won’t be nice. Understand?”
I nod, desperate to see what she did to my hand. If she’s mangled it or made it even more useless, I don’t know what I’ll do. Sure, it couldn’t grip and was clunky and slow, but at least I could hold my pecker or shave my chin. She undoes the strap on my arm and begins to unwrap the gauze.
When all five of my digits appear beneath the gauze wrap, relief trickles in. They’re all intact. My palm appears.
Where the hole used to be a neat cut now resides, crisscrossed with black stitches. The hole is gone.
“It’s not just cosmetic,” she says, her mouth pursed into a smile. “It’ll function almost like it did before…when it heals. You have some permanent nerve damage and scar tissue, numbness, but thankfully it was a small-caliber bullet. You’ll have your hand back, Clay. You might be able to shoot from the hip again.”
I stare into her face. “You… fixed me? Why?”
She begins wrappin’ my hand back up with a strange tenderness. “I can’t have my baby all banged up.” When her eyes find mine, they are soft, almost vulnerable. “I told you I wanted to say sorry. For all that I’ve done.”
I look down at my hand and back up to her face. “Bring me Riley and then we’ll talk.”
She frowns. There’s hate in her eyes. “That girl only wants to separate us.”
I shake my head. “No deal, then. I’m still plannin’ to kill you.”
I mean it, too. Hand or no hand. This woman is a danger to our world.
“What about the boy? I can arrange a visit with him.”
I swallow, thinkin’ of poor Ethan. “Bring him,” I say, tryin’ not to betray emotion.
She purses red lips. “I’ll have Betsy bring you to see him this afternoon.”
“What’s wrong with that girl?” I ask.
Nessa sighs. “I’m afraid she’s a little off.”
I study her face for the lie that must be lurkin’ there, but her expression is a stone wall. “I figured you fiddled with her brain.”
Nessa looks hurt. “You think I messed with that poor child’s head? Clay, have you such little regard for your mother?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation.
She lays a hand on my cheek. I flinch. “My smart, distrustful son. I know I have to earn your trust.”
I keep my body rigid until she backs away. She walks to the doorway, but lingers there, watching me. I feel her eyes fumblin’ on me like Betsy’s hands.
“You look like your father when I met him,” she says, her voice wistful. “So handsome.” She sighs again, strides out the door and shuts it behind her. Then there’s nothing but me, my thoughts, and my mother’s lingerin’ perfume to pass the hours.
“Up, sleepy head,” a voice says.
I crack open dry, crusty eyes to find Betsy sitting at my bedside. Her forehead’s damp and matching sweat rings circle both armpits, but
at least she’s smiling.
“I’m awake,” I mumble, trying to shake the fog from my head. Why am I so groggy and thick-headed? Nessa’s druggin’ me. The first thing I need to do is get off the I.V.
When I look over, though, the I.V.’s gone, along with the catheter and the straps. I sit up, flexin’ my muscles. They feel thin and weak. All of me feels weak as a starved horse. I look down at my bandaged hand and begin to tear off the gauze.
“Oh,” Betsy moans, hands at her cheeks. “You shouldn’t be doing that. Never, never, never.” She reaches one pudgy hand out to stop me, but I bat it away. “Oh,” she moans again. “Michael!”
Heavy footsteps thud into the room. I whirl around, risin’ to meet Michael as he strides in. He’s one of the soldiers I saw trainin’ in the field—sand-colored uniform, buzzed haircut, heavy eyebrows, no-nonsense face. There’s a side arm in a holster under his left arm. My eyes flick to it.
“Uh-uh, mama’s boy.” His voice is gruff and humorless. He leans in so I can see the hunk of green stuck between his two front teeth. “You wanna go in a wheel chair, strapped in?”
I lock my jaw. “Do what you hafta do, army boy.”
“No, no, no.” Betsy steps between us and tugs on her pigtails angrily. “This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. You two can’t fight.” She turns wide eyes on me. “Clay will be a good baby. Won’t you, Clay?”
I glance at her face and note the crazy lingerin’ there. “I wanna see Ethan.”
“Then be a good boy,” Betsy says, tuggin’ both pigtails. She tucks the end of one in her mouth and watches me.
“I’ll comply if meathead gets outta my face.” I glare at Michael.
Michael’s face burns red and nostrils flare. “You don’t give orders—”
“It’s fine. It’s just peachy.” Betsy sings, takin’ my hand. I stagger up, fightin’ off the light-headedness, and follow her to the door.