Jack looks puzzled for a second. Then comprehension dawns on his features. “For Tinsley?”
“Yeah. Instead of bashing him on the head, which will make it obvious that he was attacked and set the guards on high-alert, I think we should go for something a little more subtle. Something that will necessitate a bunch of tests and keep Herrington and his staff busy a lot longer than simple blunt force trauma.”
“What do you have in mind?” Jack asks, with a glance at the door to the medical office suite.
I shrug. “Whatever will knock him out and keep the doc guessing.”
“Well, a simple tox screen will tell them what you gave him, but each possible toxin has to be tested for specifically, so that should buy you an hour or so.”
“So, can you get ahold of something?”
“I can if you can provide a distraction for a few minutes. But they’ll figure out I was involved when they think to check the footage.”
I shrug. “That just means you have to come with us.”
Jack takes a deep breath. “I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you were trouble.”
I laugh. “My father said the same thing.”
Jack smiles. “Okay, Trouble, go make a scene so I can steal a syringe. We need to get moving if we’re going to catch Tinsley before he leaves the storage closet.”
I thank him one more time, then I turn and push my cart across the long main floor, around the grid of hospital beds. As I get to the open door into the suite of offices used by Herrington and his main floor staff, I fake a little stumble. Then I give the cart a small shove, as if I grabbed at it too eagerly, to maintain my balance. When it rolls away, I collapse to the floor on my knees, crying out in actual pain.
The impact jarred me all the way up both legs and into my spine.
“Hey!” Emily-the-intern shouts as she comes running from the office. Over her shoulder, I can see that Tara, the Administrative Coordinator, is away from her desk. Probably at lunch. “Are you okay?”
One of the nurses follows Emily onto the main floor, and as near as I can tell, the office suite is now empty. Just as I’d thought—a skeleton crew, during lunch.
“Yeah, I just… I got dizzy for a second there.” I try to stand, but the nurse stops me with one hand on my arm as she kneels at my side.
“Just hold still.” She pulls a pen light from her pocket and shines it into my eyes. A blur of movement behind her tells me that Jack is sneaking into the offices.
“That’s the second time.” Emily frowns down at me as the nurse assesses the state of my pupils. “Should we call Dr. Borden?”
How does she know about my first—actually my only—dizzy spell? And why would she ask about Dr. Borden, rather than Dr. Herrington? Does she know I saw Borden a few days ago?
“No. I’m fine. Really. I just need to sit here for a minute.”
“I really think we should call Dr. Borden,” Emily insists, and panic flutters in my chest.
“No need. I promise I’ll go see her after lunch. Okay?”
“Her pupils are fine,” the nurse says to Emily. Then she turns back to me. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”
“No, just my knees,” I assure her.
“Did you have breakfast this morning?” Emily asks, and over her shoulder, I see Jack sneak back onto the main floor with a nod at me.
“No, I didn’t. That must be it.”
When it becomes clear that I’m going to stand, in spite of their objections, the nurse helps me to my feet. “I want you to grab something to eat, then go lie down,” she insists, and her concern catches me a little off-guard. Outside of my visit with Borden, I’ve never seen the staff show concern for an inmate. “You can finish your work this afternoon, and I’m sure Jack would be willing to lend a hand.”
“Of course,” Jack says, as if he was standing right there behind them the whole time.
“Okay. I’ll head straight to the cafeteria. Thanks.” I give the nurse a wide-eyed, innocent look—which is probably belied by the fact that I’m wearing prison-issued clothing. Then I push my cart up against the nearest wall and make my way toward the exit.
Jack catches up with me as the door slides open to admit me into the hall. “Got it?” I whisper.
“Yup. You’re not much of an actress,” he adds as we head for the cafeteria, and before I can elbow him, he gives me a shrug and a smile. “But they seemed to buy it.”
“Probably because I saw Dr. Borden the other day for an actual dizzy spell. Though I’m not sure how or why they know that.” Or why they care.
“Whatever the reason, it works.”
“Don’t you think that’s weird, though? I mean, this is prison, and those two just turned their backs to you like it was nothing. You’re a convicted criminal.”
Jack rolls his eyes. “So are you. They’re not threatened by either of us. By any of us. The inmate workers in zone twelve are all non-violent offenders, and in case you haven’t noticed, none of us are very large.” He sounds a little bitter about that. “And Tinsley and the guards aren’t the only ones who’re armed. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the doctors, nurses, and interns are all carrying laser pistols under their lab coats. And they’re all fingerprint-locked. No one other than the owner can fire them, so trying to take one wouldn’t do any good. The civilians who work here feel pretty secure in their own safety. It’s an entirely different story, in the gen pop zones.”
“Because there are no guards on the ground?”
Jack nods. “It’s a free-for-all, on most of the rest of the planet, because the general population is too dangerous for guards to interact with. Shuttles drop food and supplies, but the prisoners are left to their own devices.”
I shudder at the knowledge that that’s where we’ll be sent, if this goes wrong.
Jack scans the hallway, obviously refocusing on our task. “So, where do Nan and Tinsley—?”
“Up here to the left.” I nod subtly and hope no one notices that we’re bypassing the cafeteria. We round the next corner, and I stop in front of the door to the closet where it’s common knowledge—in my dorm room, anyway—that Officer Tinsley takes up half of Nan’s lunch break most days. “Syringe?” I whisper, and Jack pulls something from his pocket and sets it in my palm. It’s a pneumatic injector, with no needle. “I just press this against his skin and push the button?”
“Yeah. I’d suggest aiming for his neck.”
“I don’t need to hit a vein or anything?”
“Nope.”
“And this will knock him out?”
“In about a second,” Jack whispers. “It’s a sedative. Pre-loaded. They’d only give one of the donors about a third of this, because they’re kept partially under all the time, but I think it’s safe for you to give him the whole thing, since he’s wide awake, and not exactly small.”
“Great. Thanks.” I suck in a deep breath. We can’t afford to loiter in the hallway any longer, so I shove my nerves to the back of my mind and tap the panel next to the door, hoping it won’t squeal as it opens.
It doesn’t.
And just as I expected, there’s Tinsley with his back to us, his head thrown back, eyes closed. Groaning so loud that neither he nor Nan—on her knees in front of him—heard the whisper of the door opening.
I step forward and press the injector against the side of his neck, then I press the button. There’s a hissing sound as the drug is injected.
Tinsley jerks and spins around. “What—?” His fly is open, his engorged cock protruding straight out, shiny with saliva. “Wha—?” His eyes focus on me for a second, then they close as he stumbles to the left. Jack steps forward to catch him beneath both arms before he can crash to the floor.
“What the hell?” Nan stares up at us, eyes wide. Forehead furrowed. She swipes her forearm across her mouth, then pushes herself to her feet as Jack lays Tinsley on the ground. “What the hell, Kat?” she demands.
“We’re getting out of here,”
I whisper, even though we’re alone in the large storage closet. “You’re welcome to come with us. But first we need a favor.”
“What?” she practically screeches, and it’s clear that she’s not asking about the favor. She’s still trying to understand what just happened.
“Nan.” I snap my fingers in front of her face, and her gaze finally focuses on me. “We’re getting out of here with Beau. And with you, Ava, Lara, and Logan, if at all possible. But we need your help.”
“How…how…?” She sounds like she’s in shock. “Beau? The vegetable? You’re going to get us all sent to gen pop. Or killed!” Her voice drops into a terrified whisper. “All for some guy in a coma?”
“He’s not in a coma. None of them are. They’re aware of everything that’s happening to them.” I expect her to be as horrified by that knowledge as I am, but she doesn’t seem to be processing it yet. “We’re going to get Beau off the main floor, but we need you to create a distraction for us. Just wait until we’re gone, then shout for help. Tell whoever comes that Tinsley just passed out, all of a sudden. While Herrington’s busy with him, we’re going to find some place to hide, until Beau’s steady on his feet. Then we’re going to steal a medical ship and run.”
“I’m the distraction?” Nan says, and her gaze is a little clearer now.
“No, Tinsley’s the distraction. When they’re busy with him, you can sneak out and join us. But do not get followed. Or caught. And if you do get caught, don’t rat out the rest of us.”
She scowls at me. “I would never do that. Where will you guys be?”
“We haven’t figured that out yet.” And we’re rapidly running out of time. “We need to find some place where there are no cameras. Where they won’t look for us.”
“They’ll look everywhere,” Nan says. “But I know of a place where they can’t see you on the cameras.”
“Really? Where?”
“Upstairs. The last recovery room on the right. They hardly ever use it, unless the place is at max capacity, and Tinsley rigged the camera to broadcast on a loop. It just shows the empty room. So he and I can…” She shrugs with a glance at the unconscious guard. “That’s where we go if he wants more than a quick blow job.”
“That’s perfect!” For our purposes. For Tinsley’s, it’s disgusting.
Jack nods. “I suspect they’ll rely mostly on camera monitoring upstairs, rather than a full-scale search, because they won’t want the recipients—the clientele—to know there are prisoners on the loose. So yeah. That’s pretty damn perfect.”
“We’ll wait for you there.” I study Nan, trying to assess her composure. “Can you do this?” If not, we’d just have to take her with us now and risk getting caught, dragging Tinsley somewhere he’d be found in the next few minutes.
“Yeah.” Nan frowns. “But I was supposed to get a beer out of this.”
“This beer?” Jack picks up a bottle standing on the floor, near one wall. “Here.” He tosses it to her. “Have at it. Maybe that’ll calm your nerves.”
Nan twists the bottle open and gulps from it. “Thanks.” She takes another drink. “I’d share, but I don’t fucking want to.”
Jack shakes his head with a glance at the prone figure on the floor, whose dick now lies limp against his exposed stomach. “All yours.”
“Just give us a couple of minutes to get back to the main floor before you start screaming, okay?” I say as I step toward the door.
Nan salutes us with her bottle. “Go on. I got this.”
I tap the panel, then peek out as the door slides open. The hallway is empty, so I wave Jack forward and we sneak back toward the main floor through lesser-used back hallways. On the way, Jack stops in front of his dorm room. “Just a sec.” He comes out less than a minute later with a folded bundle of clothes. “Not sure these will fit Beau, but they’re better than wearing a sheet.”
“Good thinking. Thanks.”
We’re just feet from our goal when Nan’s scream echoes toward us from the general direction of the cafeteria. A few seconds later, the door to the main floor slides open and Emily and the nurse race into the hall, headed away from us without even a glance in our direction.
“We have minutes, at best,” Jack says as we sneak back onto the main floor. “I’ll take what I can from the medical suite, and you go get Beau.” He hands me the bundle of clothing, then he heads into the offices, while I wind my way through the grid of hospital beds.
“Beau!” I call in a loud whisper, just in case.
His head turns, and when he sees that I’m alone, he smiles. Then he tries to sit up and almost falls right over.
“Shit!” I race toward him. “Take it slow.” I help him into a sitting position, with the sheet draped over his lap.
“This is bullshit,” he whispers, his voice hoarse with disuse.
“I know.” He’s clearly frustrated with the deterioration of his physical state, even though he’s in much better shape than any of the other donors. “Can you stand up?”
“Yeah, I think—”
“Wait!” I gasp. “You’re still hooked up to…things.”
“You have to turn the monitor off first,” Jack says, making his way toward us. “Otherwise disconnecting him will set off an alarm. Here.” He taps on the monitor a couple of times, and a second later it beeps softly as it powers down. “Hold out your arm.”
I watch while Jake removes Beau’s IV with quick, practiced motions, taping a cotton ball over the puncture in the crook of his elbow.
Beau rips off the blood pressure cuff and starts to stand.
“Um…” I glance down at the blanket covering his crotch, then I nudge the bag hanging by one of the legs of his bed. “Don’t forget the catheter.”
“Fucking hell…” he grumbles.
“I can get that for you,” Jack offers, as if pulling a tube from another man’s penis is something he does on a daily basis. And I guess it probably was, once.
“I’m good.” Beau’s voice sounds stronger with every word he says. “Could you just…turn around.” He’s talking to me, so I politely turn to face the door into the hallway. Even though I’ve already seen everything he has. In fact, I’ve sponge bathed everything he has.
Beau takes a deep breath, and cloth rustles behind me. Then he gasps. Jake fights a smile, and I elbow him.
“I don’t suppose you have any pants,” Beau says, and I take that as the all-clear for me to turn around.
“Oh! Yeah. They may be a little small, but—”
“Anything’s better than a sheet.” He takes the clothes from me and manages to pull the shirt over his head on his own, but I have to help him thread his feet through the legs of the pants, then Jack steadies him while he stands, and I pull the borrowed clothing the rest of the way up.
I was right. They’re too tight. Even after weeks in bed, Beau is much bigger than either Jack or Logan.
“Here.” Jack pulls another pneumatic injector from his pocket. “This will get your blood circulating and help with any vertigo. But then we really have to get moving.” Jack injects Beau’s upper arm, then he and I each take one of our patient’s elbows to help him maintain his balance as he takes his first steps in weeks.
“Wait!” Beau says, before he’s managed to shuffle more than a few feet away from his bed. “We can’t just leave them here like this.” He’s staring around at the room full of hospital beds, as if he’s never truly seen it before. And I guess he hasn’t, really. Little more than the ceiling, anyway.
“What…what do you mean? We can’t take them with us,” I tell him. “Most of them can’t even survive without all those machines.”
“I know.” His gaze meets mine with a grave weight. “Kat, we can’t undo what’s been done to them. But we can make all this stop. We can end the torture for them. We have a responsibility to put them out of their misery.”
9
BEAU
Kat blinks at me. Then comprehension washes over her face and horror is r
eflected back at me. “You want us to kill them? All of them?”
“I want us to let them go,” I insist, flinching at how gruff my voice sounds from lack of use. “You’re right; thanks to the butcher, most of these poor people will never get out of bed again.” I had no clear concept of how bad off they were until I sat up and got my first good look. Until I stood, and my gaze skipped from form to prone, helpless form.
A couple of the bedridden patients have lost entire limbs. Many are missing long patches of skin. They’re all connected to monitors like the one Jack just disconnected me from, but about half of those monitors are further connected to machines that function as mechanical lungs and other vital organs. And beneath the sheets pulled up to their chests, I know there are scars. Lots and lots of surgical scars, some just as fresh as my own. Which I also hadn’t seen until about a minute ago, though I’ve felt the ache acutely, since Kat and Jack stopped the drip that was delivering pain medication along with my sedative.
“This is torture for them, Katerina. Trust me. Actual torture. They’re aware. They know they can’t survive this, and they’re trapped in their own heads, waiting for someone to request the organ that will finally put them out of their misery. I can’t set myself free and leave them here to suffer.”
“It would truly be a mercy,” Jack says, and I have to admit that despite his crush on Kat, he’s not a bad guy. In fact, he’s compassionate and damn useful.
Kat exhales slowly as she glances from him to me. Then from us to the sea of beds all around us. And finally, she nods. “Okay. Dr. Borden said they could be euthanized with one press of a button, but I have no idea how to actually do that.”
“There must be an option on their monitors,” I say, frowning at the one I was just connected to.
“I have an idea,” Jack says. “But we really have to hurry.” With that, he takes off toward a doorway that appears to lead into an office waiting area, leaving Kat to help me walk again, steadying me as my legs take frustratingly short, shuffling steps.
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