Caim

by T. S. Simons

  Between tears, I lay my head on her sunken stomach, hip bones protruding. She never had the chance to be fat. Jorja's girls flitted into my mind, and I lifted her gown to confirm the pattern of parallel scars crossing her stomach.

  'I have my own war wounds,' I confided, displaying my wrists.

  As I slowed in my storytelling, Cam returned, entered the room silently, standing at the end of the bed while I finished. He looked at me expectantly, sympathy in his eyes. Did I want him to do it?

  I shook my head silently. No. This was mine to do.

  'Goodbye, Kat,' I whispered, choking back the tears. 'For the rest of my life, I will wish I could have done this for you years ago. I'm so sorry for letting you suffer. I love you so very much.'

  Removing the syringe from the cloth pouch in my bag, I uncapped it and slowly injected the clear liquid into her upper arm. The needle slid in like I was inserting it into a tub of butter, with no muscle to offer resistance. Recapping the needle, I replaced it in my bag. I held her hand, memorising her face as her heart rate slowed, and finally stopped. Cam hurriedly switched off and unplugged the monitors as they emitted loud beeps. With my head laid on her sunken chest, I sucked in my top lip and exhaled forcefully, fighting to hold it together. Cam tapped me lightly on the shoulder. We needed to go. I touched my lips to her cold grey forehead in farewell, held my lower lip between my teeth, inhaled and didn't look back.

  Exiting the building and creeping from the lab to the dock passed in a blur. Cam's arm steering me, the only anchor keeping me from drifting. As we neared the dinghy, Illy came out to meet me and held the dome access hatch open. My lip trembling, she could see me fighting to keep control of my emotions, even in the dim starlight. She looked expectantly at Cam, and I sensed him nod beside me. It was done.

  'Let's go,' she mouthed.

  I stared back at the dome, faintly illuminated in the moonlight as Luca paddled. The image of her, dead, permanently etched in my brain. Cam helped me board the Eurydice as Luca lifted the dinghy, securing it in place. My feet shuddered as Illy started the engine, and we putted quietly some way out to sea. After a few minutes, Luca, now at the helm, killed the engine.

  'Ready?'

  Unable to nod, I blinked acquiescence.

  Cam lifted me to my feet, stood behind me, holding me against his chest, his arms securing me in place. The click sounded in the darkness as Luca remote detonated the charge. The white-orange flame flashed for an instant under the dome, illuminating the curvature of the sphere and everything protected within it, and then was extinguished. In the dark, we couldn't see the dust. I trusted Luca had done his job well. The lab was gone, and all the records and samples with it.

  'Thank you,' I mouthed as he leaned in to engulf me in a hug, wedging me between himself and Cam. 'Both of you.' Illy, on my other side, supporting me too. I had the best friends in the world; I had no doubt about that. My husband, Illy, and Luca. They had all accompanied me across the world for a mission involving my sister. But in doing so, they had proven themselves to be my family.

  Luca left us to pilot the Eurydice. Gunning the engine unexpectedly, we sped off through the night. Illy led me to a deck chair and forced me to sit. Cam lowering himself beside me. She handed me a glass of whisky, and I sat on the upper deck, twisting it in my hands, flanked by my friends. It would be a long time until we could stop safely, and we needed to get as much distance between us and Auckland Island as possible while it was still dark. Luca had already plotted a non-direct route in case they had drones with night vision capability.

  Illy looked at me, wanting to ask how I was, but knowing instinctively that there was no adequate answer to that question. I had just killed my sister. To save her from a worse fate, I tried to convince myself. Dying at my hand was preferable to what they had done to her, would have continued to do to her. Better than dying in an explosion. At least this way it was peaceful and calm, and with me holding her hand. But I had done it. Ended it. Killed her.

  Cam was silent, his face twisted and torn. Illy could see it as well. I knocked back the glass in a single gulp.

  'It's late. Let's go to bed,' I announced stonily, standing. Not that I wanted to sleep. But I didn't want to talk either. At least in bed, I could be tortured alone.

  'Honey, I need to tell you something,'

  'I gathered that. You have that look.'

  'I have tortured myself over whether to tell you, but ultimately, we have never kept secrets from each other.' Cam paused, unable to say what was on his mind.

  I waited, unable to ask.

  'While you were… saying goodbye… and I was poking around, I found something.'

  I watched his face contort. 'What?'

  'Her medical records.'

  He handed me the centimetre thick manila folder he had hidden under his shirt. It was warm and smelled of him.

  'The top page,' he whispered, sitting beside me on the edge of the bed, looking at his feet. Ugly feet, he always called them, with his middle toes longer than his big toe—Louis' feet.

  A consent form. For Katrin's body to be used for scientific research.

  'On the back,' he said, slightly louder, as my mouth hung open.

  There were two signatures, neatly printed in blue ink on the bottom of the form. Claira Jorgensen and Magnus Jorgensen. Handwriting I would have recognised anywhere. I barely made it to the bathroom before the vomiting started.

  'I'm so sorry,' Cam whispered as he held back my hair and embraced me as I crumpled onto the floor. 'I wasn't sure whether to tell you or not.'

  'No, you did the right thing.' I wiped my face with the towel he held out to me. 'It is important, I know. It's late. You must be tired, and you need to relieve Luca soon. Let's go to bed.'

  Blackness swallowed me, sucking me down. Forcing my eyes open, I couldn't focus, couldn't see past the end of the bed. Her shadow was lurking, ominously. Judging. How could they? How could they have allowed those monsters to subject her to… that degradation? She was their daughter. Their child. Did they consider her expendable? And if they thought that of Kat, what did they think of me? Jorja had said that the substitutes were only used if the primary candidate refused or died. Most weren't needed. Was this my fault? But what would they have done to her if I had consented? Killed her sooner?

  The steel band squeezed tighter around my chest with the realisation that this situation was indeed my fault. Had I never left August, they would have caught me in their net, the selective breeding program. Had I chosen to stay with Angus, they would have forced me. By refusing to participate, they did the one thing worse than force me. They forced her. An unwilling and unconscious victim. The lowest of the low. My selfishness. My non-compliance had caused them to do this to her. Is that why all those patients were there? As spares, in case something happened to the chosen genome? Many of the spares were alive and living in isolated communities on the mainland. People like Sorcha, a spare for Cam, and Di's cousin, Kendra. But clearly, some were merely genetic material, kept alive, barely. Just in case.

  Five embryos, Jorja had said. Her children. My nieces and nephews. But how could I ever watch them and see anything other than how she had looked tonight, lying there, helpless, hooked up to machines? To breathe for her, to feed her, to keep her alive. But that wasn't living.

  Cam keeps coaxing me to leave the cabin. How can I? How can I let the light shine on my face? She lived alone in that dark, cold cell. One tiny window, high in the wall, her only view of the world, but cruelly, too high to see out of. No one to speak to her, to tell her what was happening. How had they transported her there? Had she been frightened? Still an eighteen-year-old girl trapped in that withered old woman's body. She had never had a serious boyfriend. Never attended university, held down a job or had a family of her own. That weekend, when she had left me, had been only a few weeks after she had finished high school. She never lived to see her grades. Receive the formal letter advising in neat black print that she h
ad been offered a place in her dream architecture degree. So how do I let the light in when she is forever trapped in that permanent state of hell?

  She is here. She keeps crying for me. I can hear her voice in the dark, calling my name. It is a child's voice. Frey-Frey. She called me that when she was tiny, standing in her cot calling to me. She was always there for me when mum and dad weren't. Every afternoon after school. We would walk home from the tram stop, and I would help her with her maths homework. She would tell me about the girls being mean to her, and I would confront them. Intimidate and threaten them. She would confide in me about the boy she liked at the boy's school nearby. He was in the same year level, and the schools met up for co-ed sport one day a week. We would whisper and giggle, looking up his phone number and home address. Once, we even followed him to tennis training and watched, just to see him sprint after the ball in his tight white shorts. She looked up to me, and I let her down in the worst way possible. First in Melbourne, and now, here. Fourteen long years. A single tear ran down my cheek. Is that how long she had been in that room? Her eyes open. Could she see? Did she know what was happening to her? Injecting her. Operating on her to harvest her eggs. How many times had they cut her open? Many, judging by the crosshatching of scars. The thin white lines evidence of their invasion.

  'Honey.' His voice was gentle, laden with concern. But I couldn't open my eyes, focus on him. All I could see was her face behind my eyelids. Her poorly cut, brittle grey hair fanned on the stark white pillow, balding at the back. Calling to me. Begging me to save her.

  'Frey!' More insistent this time. I refused to look at him, knowing that seeing his disgust would destroy me. How could he not be repulsed by me? I had let her down. He had travelled across the world to save his sister. I had let sub-human monsters use mine as a science experiment—a living corpse.

  'This isn't your fault, honey. You didn't do this. You didn't know.'

  A tear leaked from the inside corner of my eye; I felt it run down my nose. Damn. Now he knew I wasn't asleep. I felt him blot it gently with a corner of the sheet. I felt his large mass lie on the bed behind me, holding me, trying to comfort me. Somewhere the logical part of my brain knew he was concerned. Fearful for me. Disgust consumed me for what I had done. Not for ending her life, or what passed as it. But that I had left her there for years. Goodness knows what else they had done to her during that time. What other experiments they had performed.

  An involuntary sob escaped as my chest convulsed, and I felt his arms tighten. He said nothing. He was just… there. The dam walls burst, and the tears poured out. I couldn't ease the stabbing pain in my chest, piercing me as I stared into the gaping black hole that was my life.

  When I woke, he was gone, and I was alone again. I staggered to the bathroom. When I finished, I glanced into the mirror and recoiled at the image staring back at me. Dull, sunken eyes. Greasy, stringy hair so dark it wasn't clear what colour it was. My cheeks hollowed out. I snorted. I wondered if all the guys who had wolf-whistled at me through my life would find this attractive. But Cam would. Cam still loves you. A tiny voice tried to float through the thick muck to the surface. He loves you no matter what you have done. No matter what you look like. If no one else got it, Cam did. He knew what unrelenting grief was. He knew that there were no magic words, no quick fixes. She wasn't better off. It wasn't meant to be, or any other ridiculous expression people tell you in a time of grief to make themselves feel better. Nothing can make you feel better when you suffer such an agonising loss. Pain cannot be overcome. It is just lived through. Cam, who had lost me, then Laetitia, understood. He had stood on the brink of the abyss, twice, but had pulled himself back.

  I lifted my arms to push my hair out of my eyes and traced my fingers abstractedly across the faded mesh of white and purple scars that ran along my inner arms. The web still prominent, even though it had been years since I had inflicted these on myself, trying to escape from being bound and left in a shed. The long purple one, the length of my forearm, even older. As I stared at my arms, the numbness made me hollow. Chilled. I flicked one scar roughly but felt nothing as my fingernail hit the raised tissue. I tried again, harder. Nothing. As the tiny stream of light filtered past the closed curtains, I wondered if it would hurt if I opened one. Would I ever feel again?

  Moving towards the bed in slow motion, I sat on the edge and pulled the swiss army knife from my bag. Sluggishly tracing the sharp tip along one long cut, I stared unblinking as the redness pooled on the surface. Large blobs in places, thin drips in others. I looked abstractedly at the stain, feeling distant. It was like paint smeared across a canvas, the runs uneven. Drips falling where the paint was thickest, running down a wall. I couldn't feel it. I was removed. An onlooker. It wasn't mine. I did it again, following another line, pushing more firmly this time, but still with no feeling. The pattering sound as drips rolled off my arm onto the floor permeated the haze. It sounded like rain, I mused, dazed, the woolly headedness threatening to submerge me. Drown me.

  Amidst the fog, I vaguely heard the cry of alarm as he surveyed the scene and dropped to his knees in front of me. Kneeling in my blood. He looked at my face, his distress palpable. Unable to focus my eyes, mired in grief, I dropped the knife dumbly, and he flicked it under the bed.

  'Your beautiful arms! Freyja, please! Please come back to me. To the kids. They need you. I need you. Honey, I can't lose you. Oh God, Freyja, I love you so much. Do… not… leave… me.'

  Staring down at my arms, unable to focus, unfeeling, I just sat there, disoriented. I wondered if it was possible to stop breathing just by willing it. Closing my eyes and concentrating really hard. Slowing my breath to a complete stop.

  I heard him stand and rummage around in the drawers, clothes being dropped on the floor in his haste. He thrust something under my nose, grabbing my chin forcibly and pressing me to look.

  'Look!' He bellowed at me. 'See what our children did for us. For you!'

  Through the haze, I looked. My vision blurred, but I still recognised the book of drawings they had made of us, our family. Smiling. Happy. Their gift to us as we had left on this voyage. One of Jam. Several of our home on Lewis. The scribbled childish drawing Thorsten had done of our family. The letters from Katrin and Xanthe, in their neatest handwriting, describing how much they loved us and would miss us. Louis' detailed watercolour artwork of our home nestled against the mountainous green and purple backdrop. Thorsten had cried as he handed the book to me, wrapped in recycled brown paper. We had never been away from him before. Going out there, on a boat, for weeks, was beyond his comprehension. Xanthe had been hysterical, her cries echoing around the cabin as Sorcha held her tightly when we pulled away from the dock. I gasped aloud as the pain radiated from my arms and sobbed my heart out as Cam dropped the book and folded me in. He held me against his solid chest, staining him with my blood.

  After an eternity, I pulled back and saw the mess I had made. Really saw. To myself, and to him. Not just the physical mess coating both of us. But his face. He had aged years since we had left. His eyes were sunken, and his skin tinged with the grey of sleeplessness. Even his hair had silver tinges at the temples. He was in agony, tortured.

  'It's alright,' I whispered. 'I'm alright.'

  He studied my face. He knew it wasn't true. I wasn't alright. I knew I never could be again. But he was here, sharing my pain. I watched his face dissolve with relief, knowing that I had stood on the precipice, as he had before me, but hadn't taken that irreversible step. I sat there, dazed and motionless as the blood dried, smeared all over my arms and clothes. Weak and wilted, even breathing was a challenge that exhausted me.

  'Are you okay if I leave you for a minute?' His voice filled with concern.

  I blinked, unconvincingly. He buzzed around filling the bath with boiled, bottled water, never leaving me for more than a few minutes as he carried pots filled with water. Illy and Luca must be helping him, I realised, dazed. He stripped me off, leaving my blo
od-stained clothing in a puddle on the floor, carrying me like a fragile ornament, and laid me in the bath.

  Lovingly, he washed my hair and combed it out. He used a soft cloth to clean my wounds, carefully wiping the cuts. As I soaked, he cleaned the floor and stripped the bed, changing the linen, removing my clothes. I turned over my hands and looked at my fingertips, wrinkled from the water, the whitened whorls and arches protruding.

  As the water cooled, he returned and lifted me out. He sat on the end of the bed, with me across his legs, and dried me, slowly and carefully, watching me cautiously, fearful of speaking. The haze still engulfed me. Cam gently dried my hair, disinfected, and bandaged my arms. Wrapped in a clean towel, he laid me back on the cool bed. The worried look in his eyes made mine fill with tears again. I reached for him, and he collapsed on my chest, holding me as I realised the anxiety he had held in for days.

  'How long?' my voice croaked, rusty from disuse.

  'Six days.'

  A tap sounded at the door, and I strained to focus my exhausted eyes past him to see Illy, standing in the doorway, desperate worry ingrained in her delicate features as she tentatively held a tray of food. She looked at my face, saw me look at her, and it cracked, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.