Life First: (Dystopian series, book 1)

by RJ Crayton

  Albert nods his head, then shoots a sympathetic look my way, as if staring at an indigent child. He returns his gaze to Dr. Winters. “While pregnancy psychosis usually emerges later, isn’t there typically some inciting incident that triggers symptoms?”

  Dr. Winters crosses her legs, then looks at the jury studiously. “Yes, of course. In many cases, the trigger is the impending birth. Sometimes it’s a bout with premature labor.”

  “Could a trigger be learning you’d been marked?”

  “Certainly. In most pregnant women, they would know that they were pregnant and could not participate. But, Ms. Reed is so early on, that she would not have known that and been very stressed by the marking. That, I’m certain, was the inciting incident for Ms. Reed.”

  Uncle Albert tells the judge he is finished and resumes his seat next to me. It sure does sound convincing. At least for this brief period before Bickers stands to dismantle Dr. Winters’ testimony.

  Dr. Winters cannot cite a single case of pregnancy psychosis in any woman at this stage of pregnancy. This is expected, though, I think. But, it is only the beginning of Bickers’ cross.

  “Have you ever seen a case of pregnancy psychosis like this before?”

  Dr. Winters answers, “No.”

  “When diagnosing pregnancy psychosis, is there a checklist of symptoms you go through to make the diagnosis?”

  “Yes,” the doctor replies.

  “And how did Ms. Reed do on the checklist?”

  “She had many of the symptoms, enough to justify the diagnosis,” the doctor says, slightly defensive.

  “Isn’t it true she had fewer than half the symptoms on the checklist?” Bickers asks.

  “Yes,” the doctor says, quickly adding. “But she had the most significant symptoms.”

  Bickers glares at her a moment, then asks: “If so few of Ms. Reed’s symptoms actually meld with the standard pregnancy psychosis definition, isn’t it possible she doesn’t have pregnancy psychosis?”

  “Yes.”

  On that damning note, Bickers returns to his seat.

  Chapter 27: Night at Last

  I am glad when the shift-change rolls around. Luke takes his place in the doorway and smiles at me. That simple act sends my heart soaring after the day I’ve had. Luke says, “Hello,” and I respond in kind. The exchange is only two words, but it is enough. Enough to make the whole rest of the day, the hearing, melt away. I am certain I will be fine until lights out, when Luke will next speak to me.

  When the lights go out, Luke walks over to my block and asks me to scoot over. I do. He puts his arms around me, and squeezes gently. “How are you feeling?”

  I smile, though he can’t see it in this dark abyss. “Good. Me and the little guy are feeling much less nauseated today.”

  Luke kisses the peach fuzz on my head. “Your dad said it was rough going but he thought overall, Judge Harrell did a good job.”

  “Yeah, he did,” I say, wearily. “But, I don’t want to talk about the hearing, if it’s OK.”

  He seems a little surprised, his body stiffening ever so slightly, but then he relaxes again. “That’s cool. What do you want to chat about tonight?”

  “How about being Mrs. Lucas Jeremiah Geary?” I snuggle into him.

  “See, this is the reaction, I was hoping for the first time I asked.”

  “Well, I may be a little slow, but I’ll make up for lost time,” I say, turning to kiss him on his chin. “Do you know, are the marriage laws very different in Peoria?”

  He takes a moment of thought before answering. “I think they’re about the same. So long as we’re not brother and sister. And preferably not first cousins, though I think first cousins can get a waiver depending on genetic testing.”

  “Well, we’re not first cousins, so it doesn’t matter.” I grope in the dark to find his hand. There it is. I scoop it in mine, and hold it. “As long as we get married and get to spend our lives together.”

  “Yeah,” he says, wistful.

  Marriage to Luke would be great, even in Peoria. I know I can’t stay in FoSS even if Uncle Albert gets me cleared, which I am not sure he can do. I won’t stay in this country and wait to be marked again, or wait for Luke to be marked. We have to leave. I try not to think about what will happen if Uncle Albert can’t win the case. About being stuck here forever.

  So my thoughts are only about leaving here, going to Peoria, and getting married. The only downside is that my father won’t be there. This past year, it seemed all his friends’ daughters were getting married. He’d come back from the ceremonies with some pronouncement about how my wedding would be different or similar. “You know, Kelsey,” he’d say, “when you get married, we’ll have a much classier shebang than that.” After one of his friends arrived by horse drawn carriage to walk his daughter down the aisle, my father decided that was what he’d like to do when I got married. I feel bad that he’ll miss this day he’s so been looking forward to.

  “You think my father will be able to come see us in Peoria?”

  “Where’d that come from?” Luke asks, giving me another gentle squeeze.

  “I just thought maybe he could come for the wedding. I’d hate for him to miss it.”

  “Maybe,” he says, rubbing my arm lightly. “Dr. Grant is able to make the trips. But, first things first. We gotta get you outta here. Either Judge Harrell will do it the legal way, or we’ll fall back on the contingency plan.”

  My heart skips a beat, and I bolt upright, breaking free from the arm Luke had wrapped around me, though still clinging tight to the hand I am holding. “What contingency plan?”

  He chuckles. “Breaking you out.”

  “You said nobody’s ever broken out of a holding facility before.”

  “No one ever has,” he agrees. “But no one’s ever loved anyone as much as I love you.”

  The bravado is sweet, but it is also insane. “Are you suffering from pregnancy psychosis?”

  He laughs. “Of course not. But, your father and I have been doing a little strategizing.” That startles me. Luke and my father getting along, even strategizing together — that is something new, and, for lack of a better word, weird. “We have one advantage this time that we didn’t have before. No LMS broadcasting your location. They’re not going to replace it until after Dr. Grant has done his procedure.”

  I involuntarily shudder when he says it. Luke feels it and pauses.

  “I’m sorry, Kelsey, I shouldn’t have said it that way. Dr. Grant is not going to operate on you. It’s not gonna happen. I won’t let it happen, and he won’t either. OK? I just meant, that for now, Dr. Grant has convinced them it would be more effective to wait until he does his procedure to replace the LMS.”

  I take a deep breath. “But he won’t do it?” I ask this more to convince myself than anything else.

  “No, Kelsey he won’t. Trust me.”

  “I do,” I say. “With my life.” He gives me a reassuring squeeze, and I nestle back into his arms. “So, you were saying you had a plan to break me outta here?”

  “Yeah, sort of. We looked into getting you out of here, and there are a few security holes we can exploit with success, but I think the logistics of it might be too difficult to pull off. So, your father and I were thinking we could take you from Dr. Grant’s lab, instead. We could send you over the night before the scheduled procedure, then get you out. The security is very lax at that place, and without the LMS, there’d be no indication you were gone.”

  I take a moment to take it in. That plan seems OK, but there is one problem. “Won’t we have the same problem as before. Of getting to the border before they initiate a search.”

  “Nope,” Luke says, confidently. “We’re gonna fly.”

  “Nighttime flight is prohibited,” I say, instinctively.

  “For passenger planes. We’ll be on a medical supply plane. They’re allowed to do overnight runs, so as not to congest the air during the day.”

  Part of me doesn’
t want to hear anymore, doesn’t want to get my hopes up that I can get out of this place, get to Peoria, and keep my kidney. Even if it does mean flying, which I hate. I can withstand a little takeoff anxiety if it means I can have everything I want, plus a baby too. I don’t want to hope that the seemingly impossible might come true. But, the other part of me wants to hope, wants to believe in Luke’s plan with all my heart. “When do you think you would get me out?”

  “If they find you guilty, and the judge orders the procedure, we’d probably wait two weeks.”

  The idea of being free of this place makes me smile, makes my heart do somersaults. But I wonder if Luke is being overly optimistic about this. “Do you really think it will work?”

  He doesn’t answer right away, taking a long inhale before he speaks. “I think it will, Kelsey.” He kisses my forehead. “The key this time is going to be that we won’t have to try to deal with the security here. Only at the lab. And with Dr. Grant on our side, it’ll be perfectly possible.”

  Perfectly possible. I hope so. I hope Dr. Grant will be a better savior for me than he was for my mother.

  Chapter 28: Emmie

  In the morning, before lights come on, Luke wakes me. I am groggy and still feel like a lead weight, unable to lift myself off my bed block. Luke waits for me to get my bearings and appear lucid.

  “I’m sorry to wake you, Kelse,” he whispers.

  I smile, though he can’t see me in this darkness. He is kneeling in front of my block, and I can feel his warm breath on my face. It is nice having him so near. Slowly I sit up, and stretch. Sensing my movement, he find his way next to me on the bed block and embraces me.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “I always sleep well when you’re with me,” I say. It is true. I am so glad he is here with me at night. I don’t think he can ever understand just how grateful I am. He is a bit of sanity in an otherwise insane place.

  “I’m glad,” he says, pausing. “I’m sorry I woke you. I just wanted to tell you something. I meant to mention it last night, but the time just didn’t seem right.”

  I tense. The time didn’t seem right? It has to be something bad. He rubs my right arm and speaks softly. “Relax,” he says, clearly feeling my tension. “It’s not bad.” He pauses. “Not too bad, at least.”

  “What?” I says.

  “Emmie wants to see you.”

  I wait for more. How could that be bad? I still wait. There is nothing more. “Well, of course,” I say. “I’d love to see her.”

  Luke is shaking his head. I can feel the rhythm of it as he holds me, and I imagine what he might actually look like, the way his hair would bobble ever so slightly as he swung his head sided to side. Stern no, or lighthearted expression, I wonder. “She can’t come,” he says, sounding regretful. “It was hard enough for your dad to get me in here without arousing suspicion. Having my sister show up to see you would be living a little too dangerously, don’t you think?”

  I nod. And of course he can’t see me, but I’m sure he feels the movement. “Yeah, too dangerous.” I wish it weren’t. I like Emmie. Not just because she is Luke’s favorite family member, but because she is a nice lady. She has a good heart, is honest and fun. In some ways, she is a female version of Luke.

  “So,” Luke says, breaking my train of thought. “Emmie understands why she can’t come, but she still wanted to — er — communicate with you.”

  “Communicate how?”

  “She wrote you a letter.”

  I pull away from him, startled by the news. I want to see his expression, but of course, I can’t. “Where is it?” I ask impatiently. “Give it to me.”

  “I don’t have it,” he says, grabbing hold of my hand. “I’d have a hard time explaining why I was passing you that note. Albert’s bringing it today. It will be part of some documents he wants you to review before your hearing.”

  I lean back into him. Albert will bring it. Everyone is now doing wrong on my behalf. I feel more guilt. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I wish everyone didn’t have to try so hard to help me because I decided to flee. If I’d gone in for the transplant like I was asked, I wouldn’t even be in this position. They would have said I didn’t need to do it. But, instead, I’d left, tried a grand escape, and now Albert is being complicit in giving me contraband papers. I sigh.

  “What’s wrong, Kelsey?”

  I think about saying “nothing.” I would have before we made our pact. But, I promised to be honest with Luke. “I just wish I hadn’t been so principled. Wish I’d gone in for my transplant. Then Emmie wouldn’t be passing me notes surreptitiously through my attorney, and heck, I wouldn’t even need an attorney, and you wouldn’t be sitting in here in the dark where I can’t see you. Instead, we’d be planning our wedding and thinking about baby names.”

  He leans in and kisses my neck. His hair tickles my face, then he pats his hand along my body until he finds my hand. He wraps his fingers around mine. “I meant what I said, Kelsey,” he says. “I should never have asked you to go in and have the surgery. I love you for who you are, and you did the right thing.”

  “It doesn’t feel like the right thing,” I say.

  He gives a humph. “I suppose it doesn’t,” he says. “But, it’s not because it wasn’t the right thing. It’s because it didn’t get the result you wanted. You wanted to be in Peoria and not face the prospect of giving up your kidney. Just because this isn’t that result doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. And, it may still work out. That’s why I’m here, and Albert is here, and I think, what Emmie wanted to remind you.”

  He kisses the back of my head. It tickles a little. I’ve never felt his lips on that part of my skull before. Not with so little hair, at least. This hair prickling kiss sends a warm trill all the way to my toes. Despite the pleasantness of this new sensation, I will definitely not keep this hairdo if I get outta this place.

  We sit a few minutes more, then Luke kisses my peach-fuzz head again. “It’s almost time, sweetie. I have to get up.” I scoot away from Luke. He stands and heads back to his station. I lay my head back down. About five minutes later, the lights spark to life. We are prisoner and guard again, and it feels rather lonely. I hope Luke is right. I hope I have done the right thing, even though everything feels wrong.

  * * *

  When Luke leaves, I feel again like a normal inmate: scared. Scared that I will be here forever. Scared that I will soon wake up and find out it is my last day on earth — that they are going to send me to an eternal sleep so that someone else might live. Scared that I will never see Luke again, and our baby will be taken from me.

  I try to put the fear out of my mind. It is easy to do at night, with Luke by my side. But, during the day, when I am here alone, when Albert isn’t prepping me, when I don’t have something tangible and distracting to think about, I feel the fear, and know I won’t last long if I am sentenced here permanently. I don’t think my sanity will remain intact for more than a day.

  I look up at the clock, trying to distract myself from these thoughts. It is 8:11, and Albert isn’t due until 9. We will have all morning to get ready, and the hearing will resume following lunch. It seems like an odd schedule, but it is designed to give the jury the occasional half-day of rest. It is good for us, as it allows more prep time.

  While waiting for Albert, I try to focus on something other than this place, something tangible. I think about Emmie. She is tall and trim, with jet-black hair. Her eyes are the same intense blue as Luke’s. And they both have a thin layer of brown freckles on their noses and cheeks. In many ways, she resembles him. Not just in the overt ways that a person who happens to see a picture of them together might notice. But, in the small ways that families often resemble each other. In the way I probably resemble my father. It isn’t so much about looking physically alike, as it is the whole package. They have a similar gait, loose and free-flowing, as if they don’t have a care in the world. They bite their lips the same way when they are tens
e. And when they have a joke to tell, some secret funny thing, they both get a crooked half-smile that makes you want to know exactly what is on their minds.

  I’ve only met Emmie a few times. But our first meeting was momentous — at least for me. I was more nervous about meeting her than anyone else in Luke’s life. She is ten years older than Luke, and more like a mother to him than a sister. With their own mother descended into madness and a father always working — at a place he hated, no less — Emmie was the family caregiver. She took care of herself, of Luke, and of his older brother Chase. Luke thinks the world of her. She is the reason Luke began working for Dr. Grant. And when we met, she was the person whose opinion he valued most. So, I was nervous beyond belief.

  Yet, I shouldn’t have been. Emmie loves Luke with all her heart, and she would have loved anyone Luke introduced to her. To be honest, he’d said as much, but of course I worried I would be the one person Emmie wouldn’t like. That I’d make such a bad impression, she’d break her longstanding tradition of accepting Luke’s friends and say I wasn’t worthy. I suppose everyone has such fears when meeting their significant other’s family.

  But Emmie put me at ease. She and her husband, Greg, were both funny and kind. After dinner, I offered to help in the kitchen, but Luke and Greg suggested Emmie and I relax a bit while they did the dishes. The two of us decided this was a splendid idea and adjourned to the living room. Emmie and Greg had a small Cape Cod style house in Takoma Park, MD. It was sparsely decorated but still felt homey.

  We were about to sit, when Emmie stopped suddenly and motioned upstairs. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

  I followed her out of the living room, up a staircase and onto an upper floor landing. The ceiling was low there, and we had to crouch a little to keep from banging our heads. Three doors flanked the tiny landing. The open one directly in front of us was a bathroom, and the two on each side were bedrooms. Emmie turned to the right and entered a small room with a sloped ceiling. It, too, was sparsely furnished: a rocking chair, a dresser, and a chest clustered near the window. Emmie sat on top of the chest and motioned for me to sit across from her in the rocking chair.