by Angel Lawson
That was when I broke, when he used the word ’we’. My resolve snapped. I had little doubt that I needed Cole to get out of here, and Cole needed to be smarter for that to happen. Playing Chloe’s games might be the only way to make that happen.
He spotted the shift in my demeanor as I stood and said, in a surprisingly low and lucid voice, “Play her game with me and help me get strong again. Help yourself.”
It was twisted, but the rumbling in my stomach betrayed the bigger picture. I wouldn’t survive if I starved. I wouldn’t escape without his help. He dropped my hands and stood in front of me, beckoning me to take a swing. For a brief second it was like we were captured and held in Erwin’s lab all those months ago. That was when he first told me who he was and how he fit into my life. That day, we became a team who didn’t fully trust one another but needed the other to survive.
We were still that team.
“Sorry-not-sorry about this,” I said, faking to my left before spinning and kicking him as hard as I could in the balls.
That night, food waited for me back in my room.
Game on.
Chapter Two
The training went on like that for months. Daily beatings. Small victories—like keeping my friends and family away from the violence. But the morning after my most recent training session with Cole, I’m stiff and sore. The pain in my side aches. Cole got more than one jab near my already-tender ribs, and it would suck if I’m bleeding internally. Of course, I don’t think I’m getting out of this life that easily.
I’m still lying on the bed when my door unlocks and the tray of food comes sliding in. I glance down at the mash of oats, a single fried egg, and several strips of jerky. My mouth waters but the pain is worse. When the guard returns, he finds the food uneaten and me holding my side on the bed.
“Get up,” the Hybrid says. “Use the bathroom now, or not at all.”
The Hybrids have no room for human error, simply because they’re not human. Their empathy is overridden by a short fuse and damaged cerebral cortex. So even though it hurts like hell, I haul myself off the bed.
“I’m up,” I announce through gritted teeth.
The trip to the bathroom is excruciating and I hear the impatience of my guard in the hall. I finally emerge and head to get my job for the day. I yank the slip of paper off the wall. Perfect, cell cleaning. My favorite job.
Yes, there are other prisoners here. My sister being one, as well as Avi and the Mennonite kids. I know little of what they do and never see them. We’re kept on different schedules. Sometimes I hear their voices in the hall and the longing for family and friends grows unbearable. Most of the time, though, it’s like we’re ghosts haunting the same building.
The one peek I have into their lives is when I’m assigned to clean their rooms. The space is as impersonal as my own, but I get a glimpse into the books they’re reading or the clothes provided by the guards. Jane has a lab coat that hangs on the back of her door. It doesn’t surprise me Chloe has her working on a project. No, I’m not surprised, but I am a little scared.
Avi, my sister’s scientific partner, occupies the third room. He tended to read up to three books at once, spanning cheesy-looking science-fiction novels to medical books. But there’s always the same dog-eared survival guide tucked under his pillow.
I’m well aware that the task of cleaning my friends’ cells is another attempt to crack me. It’s a simple reminder that I’m not in here alone. That my actions can and will have an effect on others.
The job today nearly breaks me. The pain in my ribs burns until I think I may pass out. I struggle through, but it takes me twice as long to complete the simplest task. I’m coated in sweat by the time the guard tells me I’m done—that my lunch is back in the room. Food is the last thing I want.
My afternoon uniform waits on the bed.
“There’s no way I can put that on,” I declare to the guard in the hall. He looks surprised to hear me speak. Normally I just do what I’m told, trying to keep a low profile. But today I know the energy alone to put on the stretchy, tight pants is more than I have.
“Then you’ll go to training in the clothes you’re wearing.” I hear the skepticism in the guard’s voice. He doesn’t believe I’m truly injured. Either that or he doesn’t care.
“Fine,” I say, gripping my side. Heat rolls off the bruise.
Cole waits in the room. Same position as usual, but today there’s agitation in his face. Clock or no clock, he knows I’m late. He enjoys our training sessions, or whatever the hell they really are.
I don’t know where he sleeps or eats. I do know he wears chains to and from this building. He’s not a free man or an active member of Chloe’s army. Our interactions may be the only ones he has all day.
The door slams behind me and the bolt slides shut. I reach for the wall to steady my feet. He assesses me from across the room, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re not dressed.”
“No.”
“And you’re favoring your left side.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” He waits a beat and then walks over. I’ve nowhere to run, other than pressing my back against the wall. “Just take it easy on me today, okay? I’ll be ready to play Chloe’s games tomorrow.”
He says nothing in return but invades my space, reaching for the hand holding my side. Clammy sweat drips down my back and I grit my teeth when he lifts the hem of my shirt. His dark eyes widen when he sees the bruise. I glance down and see the purple, mottled skin.
“It’s fine,” I lie.
His jaw tightens and I really have no idea what he’ll do. Take advantage? Give me a pass? Cole’s behaviors are erratic and disturbing. I never know who will wait for me when I enter this room. Sometimes I spot traces of the sweet boy I unknowingly crushed at my father’s lab in North Carolina. Other times there’s nothing but a cold-blooded psychopath. The man in front of me at the moment is quiet, but something brews underneath. He drops the shirt and I flinch, afraid of any sudden movement.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says in a low voice.
“You beat the crap out of me every day. I’ve adjusted to the pain.” I avoid his stare. “I’m not a whiner.”
“This isn’t whining. You’re injured. I should have known.”
I look up at him and try to figure out what this means. Is it possible that he holds back during our matches? I know he has empathy. It’s the curse of mixing the EVI-1 vaccine with EVI-2, the chemical soup in their bodies that make them a hybrid of a Hybrid. Or a Mutt, as we call them. The Mutt can feel the human connection, but Cole? His sister has systematically tortured that out of him. His feelings for me are scrambled. A poisonous mixture of blame and betrayal fed to him on a steady diet.
“No one in here cares if I’m injured, Cole. You know that better than anyone else.”
I wobble on my feet and his hands move to my elbows. He helps me slide to the ground where I land uncomfortably and wince. To my surprise, he squats in front of me.
“Why do you think she makes us do this?” he says.
“What? Fight one another?”
He nods.
“I think,” I say, trying to judge his temperament while also glancing quickly at the two-way mirror. Usually if he has a line between his eyes it means he’s thinking and not just running on adrenaline and action. The line is there but another, vague emotion lurks in his eyes. “I think your sister knows we are dangerous together. That our bond goes beyond genetic modification and war zones. Keeping us apart isn’t enough for her. She wants to break us both.”
His hands push into his hair, forcing it up in a curly mess. “She told me you’d try to blame her for your deceit.”
“There’s enough blame in this world to go around, Cole. None of us are innocent.” I take a deep breath, sure that I’m close to passing out. “We used to care for one another. We made promises to each other—to keep
each other safe.”
He looks at me accusingly, lips curled. “That was before you left me for him.”
Him.
“No,” I whisper, know this is more of Chloe’s lies. “You sent Wyatt to me. To warn me. You knew Chloe needed to be stopped.”
He blinks. “Because I loved you.”
I don’t know if he understands what that word means. “You wanted to do the right thing. It doesn’t matter. Wyatt’s dead. We’re prisoners. The world is still occupied by rabid monsters and your sister is a sociopath.”
We stare at one another. His mind fluctuates between lucid and unstable. What Chloe does to him when he’s away from me is a mystery but it can’t be good. I reach my hand out to him and he looks at it, like he’s determining if it’s real. Slowly he wraps his hand around mine and when he looks back up his eyes are cold and calculating. He stands, jerking me with him, and I rise to my feet with a pain-filled cry.
“No!” I grip my side but it feels like my ribs have broken in two and pain sears through my body. My cries don’t stop when Cole slams me hard against the padded wall. My head cracks and my teeth rattle together and I fall to my knees. The last thing I see is his foot aiming at my injured side and the feeling of the impact—like a grenade exploded against my ribs. I blink, trying to see his face, trying to understand, but my vision blurs and the world goes black.
Chapter Three
I wake, for the first time in months, in a different bed. Daylight glares into the room and when I try to shade my eyes, my hands don’t move. I squirm but regret that immediately, feeling the sharp, familiar pain in my side. I hear a scratching sound and twist my head toward the direction of the noise, blinking several times, wondering if I’m in a dream.
Jane sits at a desk nearby, pencil working out some problem on a notepad. She’s thin and pale but her dark hair looks tidy, tied back in a modest ponytail. I’d guess she looks like she’s aged three years in the few months we’ve been separated.
“Jane?” I ask when I realize she may actually be here. My voice comes out dry and raw. She looks up from the notepad on her lap and jumps out of her seat. I explode in a series of dry coughs, fighting to stop before I pass out from the pain.
“Alexandra!” She rushes toward me with a small cup of water. I strain to lift my head with my wrists bound, but she presses a gentle hand behind my neck. “Here, drink this.”
“Thank you,” I gasp, feeling half the water dribble down my chin. It’s not the only water on my face. Tears stream uncontrollably down my cheeks. “It’s so good to see you.”
She leans over and gives me the first hug we’ve shared in years. Her elbow digs into my sore ribs but I don’t care. It just feels good to have someone to cling to, even if it’s awkward and uncomfortable. I take a sharp breath and she pulls away quickly, wiping the tears off her own face.
We smile at one another, a little embarrassed at the overt display of emotion. It took the end of civilization to make us appreciate one another.
“I’d release your arms but I’m under instruction to keep you bound at all times,” she says. She does fold up a small blanket and position it under my head so I can see better. “I don’t want to give them any excuse to take you out of here.”
“I figured, although I’m shocked they even brought me to get help. Where are we anyway?” I ask.
“In my lab.”
“You have a lab?”
“Well, I call it that. It’s the college infirmary with an adequate microscope collection I swiped from the biology department and everything I could use from the chemistry labs.”
“So you’ve made yourself at home.” I laugh, then grimace, immediately regretting it. “So what’s the status on my ribs?”
“Healing. It will take a while for them to feel better. I don’t think there was any major internal bleeding.” She scrunches her nose and presses against the bandaged area. “Obviously it’s still tender. You’ll need to be cautious for a while.”
“I don’t have a lot of control over my life lately. Like I said, I’m surprised the guards brought me here.”
“He didn’t give them much choice,” she says, offering me another sip of water. This time I manage to keep most of it in my mouth.
“He?”
“Cole,” she says. “To be honest, I was a little alarmed when I first saw him running down the sidewalk. A chill ran down my spine. I thought we were under attack but then I saw you in his arms.” She brushes a stray hair off my forehead. “It’s the first time I’d seen him since we got here. Or you, for that matter. They do a thorough job of keeping us all separated.”
“Cole brought me here?” I ask, not understanding. He’d been the one to do this to me. To knock me unconscious.
“He was frantic—well, I assume that was the emotion. With the Mutts it can be hard to tell, you know. The adrenaline mixed with the impulse control makes reading their emotions a challenge. But he brought you straight to me, like he knew I was up here.”
Jane rambles on about cerebral cortexes and frontal lobes, she mentions my concussion, but I can’t figure out how and why Cole got me out of the security office. The whole thing makes my head hurt worse than it already does and Jane finally stops. “I’m sorry. I work all by myself now. I never see anyone. It’s weird having someone to talk to.”
I flex my fingers as she links hers with them. “I understand. I’ve been lonely too.”
She looks to the side, toward the door and whispers, “What are we going to do?”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say, feeling stronger than I have in months.
“Rest.” She pops a pill in my mouth and gives me another sip of water. The medicine goes down quickly and I relax into the pillow. She’s right. I need to rest. I need to preserve my energy, because now that I’m out of that room there’s no way in hell I’m going back.
Chapter Four
I’m given four days to recover. Jane says that Hybrid officials have come by while I’m asleep to check my wounds and get a status update. The good news is that my injury is bad enough to warrant recuperation. The bad news is that on the final day, I’m a slobbering mess. I don’t want to go back to being alone again.
I sleep through most of our time together but on the last day I wake up early to the smell of pork and eggs. I shift up as much as possible, my hands are still bound. “Is that bacon and eggs?”
“Yes.” She smiles and holds up a piece of greasy, reddish meat.
“How did you manage that?” My stomach rumbles in delight.
“I helped the kitchen deal with some vermin issues. My chemistry degree is coming more in handy than I ever would have suspected. They repaid me with bacon.”
That’s the thing about my sister. She didn’t become the ‘The Director’ of PharmaCorp by chance. She’s good at her job. Not just a brilliant scientist, but she has a touch of the right kind of leadership that inspires people, even while those of us close to her are aware of her flaws.
She places a piece of bacon in my mouth and I savor the salty taste. I’m fed like an invalid, which I’m not, I’m just a prisoner. Tiny things like keeping me bound or forcing me to rely on others is just another trick Chloe uses to keep me off balance. I know it’s an attempt to break my spirit, but despite the pain and injury, I’m rejuvenated just by being with my sister.
“It’s Monday,” she says. “The day they have their weekly briefings. The entire army goes to the gymnasium to listen to Chloe speak.”
“How do you know this?”
“I was invited once to explain the project I’m working on. It’s a two-fold process. Chloe likes to show the soldiers what happens to traitors as well as keep them confident that I’m still around working for the army.”
“What are you working on?” That’s the loaded question I’ve been too afraid or too tired to ask over the last few days. Not because I don’t trust my sister. I think she learned her lesson creating the world-altering E-TR virus in the first place. In her own twisted
way, she meant to take down the bad guys and better society. I’m afraid because Jane’s science is too good. She’s shown what can happen when it’s in the wrong hands.
“As you know, with Dad’s help, I created the original vaccine to the E-TR virus after society fell. The original, which worked well in its limited role as a military bio-weapon, resulted in creating an uncontrollable epidemic infecting an enormous number of the population. The infected, or ‘Eaters’ as the media dubbed them, succumbed to a parasite that entered the brain and triggered high levels of aggression, adrenaline, and rage. Empathy and impulse control were completely erased. The parasite also ignited a ravenous urge to spread the virus, and the quickest, easiest way was and is through oral transmission—or simply biting.”
I nod, not sure why we need to go over every step, but it’s nice to hear her voice so I don’t argue.
“I developed the working vaccine, EVI-1, which allowed uninfected persons to survive infection from a bite. But I saw something in the original virus that piqued my interest. I was sure I was on the right path—I just needed to refine my technique and the science behind it. The virus worked at removing much of the dangerous population from society but it went too far. I needed a combat unit to clear the Eaters so we could live peacefully. That’s when I created the EVI-2 injections.”
“Which are less vaccine but more biological manipulation that turned out badly,” I say, barely able to restrain myself.
“Yes, you’re right. I was prideful and believed I had the solution to global terrorism. I thought I had the answer to fixing what I messed up.” She looks at me with more shame than I thought she could muster. “I was wrong on both counts. The first EVI-2 injection was given to Chloe. It was a slight variation on the original virus, eliminating the need for cannibalism. It allowed for intelligent thought, enhanced abilities, and most importantly a controllable psyche. I thought she would be the first lieutenant in my growing army. Instead, due to my lack of understanding of the cravings, Chloe didn’t have the need to spread the virus. She had the need to spread her control and vision via an army with or without me.”