Defect

by Kerekes, Ryann

  “Yeah,” I agree weakly.

  Once it’s clear I’m through, we stare at each other a few minutes longer, and she shifts uneasily. I can tell she won’t risk keeping me here, not wanting to get in trouble with Will. And I don’t blame her.

  We go back to the bunker, and Sam calls Will over the intercom while I sink down into the sofa to wait. She goes back to join the game of cards she left. A few minutes later, Will enters the door to the bunker again. Being off my feet for the first time in hours has made me realize how tired I am. I blink slowly, taking in the sight of him. He’s looking straight at me, watching me like I’m a real person and not a criminal. He walks closer.

  “I have to take you back now.”

  I nod and stand up – the height difference between us is exaggerated with him this close. My head doesn’t even clear his chin. He steps back, as if realizing for the first time how close we’re standing. He nods once toward Sam, thanking her silently. He turns for the door, confident that I’ll follow him back to the hospital wing. Which, of course I do.

  Chapter 5

  When I wake in the morning, my jaw is sore. I remember the violent hit from Kane and shudder. I‘d never been struck before, and I was more shocked than anything at the time. But now my body is feeling its effects. When I got back to the hospital last night, the nurse on duty gave me a quick dose of medicine, and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

  The sun is high in the sky, so I know it’s late morning. My daily cup of broth sits cold on the table beside my bed, and my feet have been unshackled. I’ve never slept through the morning visit from the nurse before, so it’s a testament to how exhausting yesterday’s testing proved to be. The one bright spot was Sam. Though I knew it’d be difficult, I hoped I could be given a chance to become a soldier. Surely anything was better than living in a drugged stupor. I would just need to find a way to avoid becoming Kane’s target.

  I drink the cold broth and feel Willow watching me.

  “Where were you?” She eyes me accusingly.

  I can still smell the chlorine on my skin and know it would be no use lying to her. “They took me for testing.” I leave out the parts where they tried to drown me and about seeing how the soldiers lived. Meeting Will and Sam had started to change my mind ever so slightly about this place – but Willow couldn’t know that. She has no chance of getting out.

  The cat I’ve seen wandering, Tuesday, she’s called, hops up onto my lap, kneading my stomach with her paws. I never understood why cats did this. I watch her work with a smirk on my face. Willow clears her throat and when I look over at her, I swear I catch a bit of jealousy on her face.

  Before I have time to process what it means, the door swings open. It’s time for the next dosage. A nurse I haven’t seen before begins making her rounds, going from bed to bed with a tray of syringes. When she reaches my bed, she grabs my wrist to verify. “5491, you’re to report to the lab for testing.”

  I nod and pull the blankets from my legs. I breathe a sigh of relief at not being stuck with a needle again, but begin to worry that I’ll have to spend the day with Kane.

  “I’ll walk you there as soon as I’m through.”

  She goes to Willow’s bed next. I feel bad that Willow didn’t have the opportunity to pretend she was still sleeping, since we’d been sitting up talking. She presses the needle to Willow’s arm, and I wince. I carry Tuesday to Willow’s bed and tuck her in safely by her side. I stand there, smoothing my hand over Tuesday’s fur and Willow’s hair, until the nurse is ready to escort me down the hall, and Willow’s eyes begin falling closed.

  Just before I turn to follow the nurse from the room, Willow grabs my hand. “Be careful, Eve.” Her voice is thick and groggy.

  I nod and squeeze her hand.

  ***

  The nurse brings me to the lab I was in yesterday, disappearing as soon as I’m in front of the door. I enter to a confused looking Dr. Nolan and stand beside the data terminal I was stationed at yesterday. “So, how’d I do, Doc?”

  He looks up, and his eyes narrow, like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to solve.

  “Well,” he draws out the word, “that’s the thing.” He sets down the papers he’s been reading. “Didn’t really learn much.” He releases a deep sigh. “O’Donovan’s not happy with me. But the thing is – your brain just seems to work differently.”

  I consider his words, but they have no meaning. I know I am painfully normal, that’s the main thing about me. I’ve never stood out in any way, from smarts, to looks, to personality, to athleticism. I’ve always been average – at best. “So, what are we going to do today? More tests?”

  He pats the stool across from him. “Come sit down.”

  I climb onto the stool.

  “How much do you know about your father?”

  His question knocks me back; it was not at all what I was expecting. “Hardly anything. My mother didn’t talk about him much, and I’ve never met him.”

  At this, his mouth quirks.

  I’m feeling brave, and so I ask, “What do you know about my father?”

  His smile falters and his Adam’s apple bobs, like I’ve somehow made him nervous. “That’s not … I can’t.”

  “You know something.” I look him straight in the eye, refusing to back down.

  “Eve.”

  “Please. I need to know.”

  He presses the intercom button. “She’s all yours.”

  “What about my tests today? Won’t O’Donovan be expecting a report?” I don’t give two shits about the tests. I just want to stay with him longer, and see if I can get him to tell me what he knows about my father.

  He stands and straightens the papers on his desk. “You passed all your tests today,” he says firmly. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Now go.”

  The door clicks open, and I whip around, relieved to see Will instead of Kane. My tongue goes to the swollen part of my bottom lip and lingers there.

  Will does not look happy to see me. He waits by the door, and after a second, I hurry over to him. He’s not someone you want to keep waiting.

  We walk down the hall in silence for a few minutes. Once again, he walks ahead, leading the way, knowing I’ll follow like a well-trained dog. “Where’s Kane?”

  “You’ll be with me today.” I’m not sure how, but I can tell he’s smiling. “That okay?” He says it like I have choices here.

  “Whatever.” I do my best to sound indifferent.

  He leads me back to the gymnasium, but instead of scanning his finger on the sensor to go inside, he hesitates by the door. Then he turns to face me. “Actually, let’s go outside. We’ll start with a run today.”

  He goes past the door and steps up an inclined hallway that leads to an exterior door. He places his finger over the sensor and pushes it open. The sunlight is disorienting – I haven’t seen it directly in so long it stings my eyes and makes them water, but I stare up into it and let the warmth wash over me.

  “Take one lap,” Will nods his chin toward the worn path around the edge of the fence. The other side of the fence looks so far away; I can barely make it out.

  Without waiting for another prompt, I start off for the path that’s been worn down by the many feet that have treaded along it before me. The thin canvas shoes I’m wearing aren’t designed for running, but I don’t care. It feels good to be outside, and to be doing something as common as going for a jog.

  Will surprises me by falling into step beside me. His glances down and sets his watch. I feel a sudden twinge, remembering Kane doing the same thing yesterday right before he tossed me into the pool, but let it go.

  I fall into a steady rhythm, setting my own pace. I know I’ll never keep up with Will, so I don’t even try. I have no one to impress here. My stride is slow and even, but without breakfast, and weakened by the medication, I’m not sure how long I can keep it up.

  The path around the perimeter of the yard is big – at least a mile around. Within minutes, I’m ou
t of breath. I work to convince myself it’s more mental than anything else, and I tell my legs to keep going, my arms to keep pumping, my breathing to stay even. I have this strange sense of disappointing Will if I stop to walk. He jogs beside me, looking straight ahead as if this is the most leisurely of strolls he’s ever been on. We’re jogging so slow, I can tell he’s almost bored – this is no challenge for his long legs – I’m sure they itch to run faster, push farther, but he stays quiets and lets me set our pace.

  After a little while, we approach a spilt in the path, the left side strips some distance off the run, and it’s smooth and flat. The right side adds an additional loop to catch back up with the main path, and it’s bumpy and uneven. My mind says go to the left, but then at the last second, my body turns onto the more difficult trail on the right.

  My pace doesn’t slow as I navigate the dips and potholes. I side step rocks and stray branches, pushing myself forward. Almost there, I repeat to myself over and over. My lungs are now burning, my feet blindly stumbling over the uneven terrain.

  After a few minutes, Will stops and presses the button on his watch. I look up – we’re back in front of the door we started from. “An eleven minute mile,” he says, not indicating whether I passed or failed another one of their stupid tests.

  I rest my hands on my knees, sucking in deep breaths, trying to slow my heart. It doesn’t feel healthy to have it pounding so hard. My braid has come loose, and stray hairs stick to my forehead and neck.

  When I straighten up, Will is watching me. He hasn’t even broken a sweat, and his breathing has already returned to normal. My stomach does a little flip; I don’t like being scrutinized by him. Though he’s done nothing yet to make me fearful – he’s a leader here and I’m sure he’s only waiting for me to do or say the wrong thing.

  “Why’d you take the harder path?” he asks.

  “Huh?”

  He points back sternly to where the paths split, his face a hard mask. “Most people go to the left there – you didn’t. Why?”

  I consider my split second choice out on the trail. When my eyes move over the rough terrain on the path I chose, suddenly I know why I did it. “My mother always said there will be two paths in life.” I push my hair back from my face, gaining confidence as I talk. “The easy, smooth path and the hard, muddy path. She used to say when you take the hard path, you’re building up strength the entire way.”

  His eyes narrow, taking in the meaning of my words. And suddenly I’m worried I’ve said too much. Normal mothers don’t talk like this – they don’t tell their daughters to build up strength – because there should be nothing within the safety of our city that would cause you to need it.

  “I mean – I just wanted to see if I could do it,” I say.

  He looks me over. This wasn’t the right thing to say either. Crap. I press my lips together.

  “I’m taking you back Come on.”

  I follow Will back inside, wondering why he and Dr. Nolan seem to have given up on me early today.

  Kane is waiting for us, leaning against the wall, like he has all the time in the world to torture me. “O’Donovan says it’s time for her to meet Reggie.” He smiles.

  Will clenches his fists, veins throbbing against his forearms. I can tell he’s not happy, but he can’t do anything to overrule O’Donovan. I have no idea who Reggie is. But I soon learn.

  Kane hauls me by the arm to a room just down the hall. The nameplate on the door reads THE REGULATOR. He opens the door and pushes me toward the exam table that takes up most of the small room.

  “Lie down,” he orders.

  Will has followed us inside, but as I climb up onto the table, he decides against staying and turns to leave. Once the door closes, leaving Kane and I alone, my heart begins to race.

  Kane fastens a strap across my forehead, pinning my head against the table. Then he slides restraints over my wrists and ankles. I hate how weak I feel, unable to protect myself from him in any way. Reggie turns out to be their pet name for the psychological testing machine he hooks me up to. After attaching electrodes to my temples, he presses a button, and a monitor lowers from the ceiling toward me, stopping about a foot in front of my face.

  Kane clicks on the power, and horrible images blast down on me. Images I don’t even understand, but they make my blood curdle. I twist my head to the side and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to forget. But Kane’s fist in my stomach gets my attention. “Open them,” he barks. I gasp for breath, and the screen assaults my senses again. The images flash so fast, they barely register, but the effect is no less haunting. Close up images of a human body decaying, mounds of snakes curling all over each other, then an up close shot of a man and a woman … I close my eyes again, my cheeks flooding with heat. Kane laughs, but before he can hit me again, I open my eyes. “You liked that last one, didn’t you?” I can hear the twisted smile on his face. I want to punch him in his stupid mouth. The images flash and invade every part of me. I’m held captive by them. I watch until I’m numb and shaking with rage.

  As quickly as the images started, the screen goes black.

  “What the fuck?” Kane says. I look around and notice the whole room has gotten dark. I hear him flip the light switch back and forth, but nothing happens. “Don’t move,” he says to me, before turning to leave. Even he catches the irony in that statement and I hear him chuckle on his way out of the room.

  A few seconds later, the door opens, but the footsteps are too soft to belong to Kane. I’m still shaking with fear, lying strapped to a table in the darkened room. In the fading light from the hallway, someone tall with broad shoulders steps past me. Just as the door shuts, blocking out all light, I think it must be Will, though I didn’t get a good look at him. He doesn’t say anything, he just moves quietly through the room as though he knows just what he’s after. He passes the table and I crane my head to see what he’s doing. He stoops down near the data terminal. I hear something snap. He leaves just as quietly as he entered.

  A second later, the lights flick back on. Then Kane is back, grinning at me like a damn fool. “Little technical difficulty. But now, back to the show.” He cues up the video again, but the machine grunts and ejects the card. “What the hell?” Kane picks up the scan card. He’s holding it in two pieces. He looks from me – still strapped down on the table – to the data terminal, trying to figure out how in the world this happened. My face gives nothing away.

  Chapter 6

  Life does not put things in front of you that you are unable to handle.

  – Unknown

  I’m awoken in the night to a needle in my arm. I get the same rush of being forced into consciousness – a shot of adrenaline – just like after the mindscan. I gasp for breath and sit up in the bed, trying to see who’s there. It’s O’Donovan and one of the night nurses. She unshackles me, and he hauls me to my feet.

  I hurry behind him, though I have no idea what’s going on. My arms ache from all the recent shots. Shades of purple and green decorate the crooks of my elbows.

  After winding through the hallways, he leads me outside to the open area where I ran with Will yesterday. When my eyes adjust to the moonlight, I see a group of guards-in-training standing in the field. I recognize a few faces from the bunker, including Sam’s. Kane’s there, too. And though I scan the crowd for Will, I don’t see him.

  The field has been set up with a series of obstacles, and people mill around nervously, as if waiting for something to begin. There’s a thirty-foot rope wall to scale at the start, then log hurdles, deep mud bogs in the center of the field and a trench where flames leap up into the air. My eyes can’t make out the whole course in the darkness, but I do take note of a space squared off with ropes at the end and wonder what it’s for.

  “You’ve done well in your tests this week I’m told.” O’Donovan watches my expression as I take in my surroundings. “So I thought it was time to try you at something a little more … advanced.” He smirks around the word advanced.
He means brutal. “You’ll join our soldiers at the starting line and complete the obstacle course.”

  My first impulse is to not cooperate. If I resist, they can’t use me as a pawn in their games. I know I have something they want and – though I don’t know what it is – I have the sense to guard it.

  Kane steps from the shadows, and that’s all the motivation I need. I involuntarily move toward the starting line, just wanting to be away from him. He smiles a sick, sardonic smile, proud of the fear he’s instilled in me.

  I line up with the others and spot Sam near the back. “What are you doing here?” She looks worried, like I have no chance of surviving this course.

  I shrug. “Any tips?”

  She digs one toe into the dirt behind her, ready to spring forward when we hear the gun blast. Looking straight ahead, she says, “Pace yourself. Don’t get swept up by the crowd. And in the ring – keep your hands up – protect your face.”

  The gun fires, and the group springs forward, breaking into a sprint. They’re scrambling over logs, splashing through the mud, shoving each other aside to get ahead. I realize we’re being timed and there’s some unknown incentive to do well. I jog after them, trying to remember Sam’s words. I don’t want to push myself too hard at the beginning, it’s a long race with lots of obstacles, and I’ll need my strength to make it through. I get to the first mud pit, and without thinking, I clamber through it.

  The mud engulfs my feet, and I sink up to my ankles, making each step difficult as I pull myself free from the suction the mud creates. It gets deeper and deeper as I wade across. I sink up to my thighs, my chest. It’s cold and thick, but strangely refreshing and helps to wake me up to what I’m actually doing. I quickly learn it’s best to go as fast as you can through the mud so you don’t have the chance to sink. I abandon my strategy of going slow to pace myself. I pick my feet up and jog faster through the mud before it has the chance to pull me under.