by Marks, C. C.
I didn’t give him the chance to prepare for me. I jumped onto his back and threw punch after punch into his sides until my knuckles began to protest in pain. He wrapped his arms over my shoulders in an attempt to flip me over his head, but I clamped my legs around his waist and dug my heels into his upper thighs.
Uncomfortable grunts and groans poured from his mouth, and with great effort, I got my arm around his neck and began to squeeze. It was the last chance I had to bring him down.
My back hit the concrete wall, and all of his weight fell on me. Dazed, my grip loosened enough that he twisted around and pushed me into the wall, his face warped in a sneer, his hands wrapped in my shirt. For a moment, I doubted the smartitude of my actions. Maybe a sneak attack hadn’t been the best course to take.
Then his mouth slid into a grin. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. Finally, you show some life.”
“You’re not mad I jumped you when you weren’t ready?”
“No, but you’re still holding back. Use any means necessary to keep the upper hand in an attack. Gouge eyes, crush windpipes, and if a man is hurting you, hit below the belt.”
“Below the belt? Like his knee?”
He shook his head and stepped back. “Between a man’s legs is highly sensitive. It can put him on the floor in a heartbeat.”
“Huh. I never knew. Can I practice on you?”
“Hell, no! That’s one I’ll ask you to hold back on.”
A sudden sharp pain in my leg made me drop my gaze. Through my sewn pant leg, I could see a spot darkening right where my wound was.
“You’ve torn open your stitches. Come on, let’s get it fixed.”
He opened the door and peeked out carefully. With a wave of his hand he stepped out and I followed, limping slightly. Yet, when I expected him to turn and head for the stairs and in the direction of Dr. Graham, he passed them instead and turned toward the hallway where the Council gathering room was.
“Where are we going?”
“To the closest doctor.”
“Dr. Graham is down here?”
He shook his head sharply and put his finger over his lips before they came upon the guards standing in the hallway ahead of them.
As they passed, Thomas nodded in their direction but didn’t stop to talk. Confused, I continued to follow.
When we turned down a certain hallway, I knew where he was taking me. “Why are we going to Quillen’s room?”
“I told you we’re going to the closest doctor.”
I stopped in the middle of the corridor, disoriented and even more confused. Thomas finally slowed and looked back at me. “He doesn’t practice anymore since he trained Dr. Graham to take his place.”
He waved me forward again, and I eased toward him. “Dr. Graham isn’t a real doctor?”
“Quillen came to the community a couple years ago. He said he was from some city outside the Dead Forest and was searching for something in particular. He offered his services as an educated doctor and said he’d train an apprentice to take his place when he moved on, in exchange for access to the communities’ residents.”
“Access? What kind of access?” We passed the final guards and glided through the door into the council living quarters.
We stopped outside Quillen’s room. Thomas grasped and twisted the doorknob and whispered, “Our blood.”
He walked inside, but I stood in the hallway, finally understanding a term my mother had used when I was younger—flabbergasted.
After a minute, Thomas appeared in the doorframe again and pulled me inside, closing the door behind me. Dazed, I made my way to a chair on the other side of the room. My sister crawled over to me, a huge smile brightened by her two bottom front teeth. They were recent and had caused a few fussy days, but completely normal according to Quillen. His assurances of normal development and behavior took on a whole new meaning now that I knew he was an actual physician.
I picked her up and held her on my lap a few moments before she reached for her toys on the floor and wiggled until I set her down beside them. Less than two hours ago, I’d taken her to eat with me and kept her while I did laundry. Seeing me again, she probably expected to leave the room.
“Charlie’s torn open Dr. Graham’s stitches. Needs a fix.”
“You’ll have to remove your pants, so I can get to your injury.”
I looked up into the kind eyes of Quillen, sure my confusion was etched on my face.
“Do you trust me to stitch your knee?”
“Thomas said you were an educated doctor. Are you?”
“Yes. I attended years of school and practiced medicine in a family practice for most of my middle years. I can assure you, I’m a doctor.”
Something still didn’t make sense to me. “Then why does everyone go to Dr. Graham, or Mr. Graham, or whoever he is?”
“I never planned to stay here, and the community would continue to need medical attention. Dr. Graham was an EMT or emergency medical technician before the infection and acted as the medic here before I arrived. No reason to upset an established, workable system. I began training an apprentice to take either one of our places, just in case, but he chose another path instead.” He paused and looked across the room at Thomas. Something passed between them, but neither said anything. Quillen swung his gaze back to me and continued, “Besides, Dr. Graham is great at what he does.”
“Why do you call him a doctor though? He didn’t earn the title the way you did.”
“It just makes everyone feel better to call him doctor. Now, let’s see about those stitches.”
My cheeks heated as I looked at Thomas. “Dr. Graham…” It still felt awkward calling him a doctor now that I knew the truth. “Dr. Graham just stitched it through the hole in my pant leg. Can’t we just do that?”
Quillen was busy opening packs of medical supplies, so I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me or not, but then he turned toward me and smiled, “We all know your secret here. No reason to be shy.”
The room went silent. No one moved. Both Quillen and Thomas seemed to be waiting for my reaction, but I was speechless. My ears buzzed, and a vein pounded in my head. Finally, I asked, “What secret?”
“You’re name might be Charlie, but you’re not a boy. I know you’re a female.”
Another person knew. How? I did everything to hide my gender. Was it all for nothing? Did everyone know?
I gripped the sides of my chair and glanced quickly in Star’s direction. My concern must have shown on my face. Like the walls were closing in, I felt a need to grab my sister and run. We clearly weren’t safer here any more than we were outside the walls.
“No one else knows.”
“Then, how do both of you know? Is there something written on my forehead?”
Quillen’s shoulders shook in quiet laughter as he shook his head. “No, it’s simpler than that. You don’t remember, but when you came to the community, you slept for hours from pure exhaustion. At the time, Dr. Graham was out treating an injury in the field, so I was the only one here to inspect your mother and you for any signs of infection.
“Your mother was in labor, and I needed an assistant. Thomas, being my first apprentice, was called upon to help. As soon as I realized what we were dealing with, I sent Thomas away, but not before he figured out why I wanted him to leave. Needless to say, you didn’t have any bites or scratches, but your mother wasn’t so fortunate.”
My gaze settled on my hands in my lap. He didn’t have to tell me she was infected when we arrived. I knew all too well because it was my fault.
“I’ll take Star for a walk around the hallways.”
I nodded at Thomas’s offer. Clearly, I needed him out of here for this. He scooped up my sister and headed for the door. Though I didn’t stop him, a curious part of me desired to know why he’d never revealed the truth to the community. I mean, his father was on the Council, yet he’d kept the secret for months. Why?
The door closed behind Thomas, and I tucked away my
questions for now.
“I’m ready when you are.”
Tears on my hands took me by surprise. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. With a quick swipe of my hands, I rose and began to wiggle out of my many layers. Once my knee was exposed, I sat back down and looked up at him expectantly.
He knelt down and got right to work, freeing the pulled stitches from the re-opened gash. After a minute or two, he prepared a hooked needle with a thick, clear thread. His expertise began to show as he pinched the jagged edges of the wound and broke the skin with the needle. I held tightly to the sides of the chair and bit the inside of my lip to keep from crying out.
I needed something to keep my mind off what he was doing. A question I hoped he would answer came to mind. Through gritted teeth, I asked, “Why do you need blood?”
“Who needs blood?”
“Thomas said you traded your services for the community member’s blood? Why?” My voice sounded strained to my ears, but it was better than screaming.
He paused a moment as if thinking through what he would say then lifted his shoulders and continued his stitching motion. “I wanted to see how far the infection reached, and if there were any signs of immunity.”
“You were studying the infection?”
“The best way to do that was to test the blood of those who lived among it inside the Dead Forest.”
“You came here to study the infection? What have you learned?”
Once again he worked silently for a little while, and I figured he wasn’t going to answer me when he spoke quietly, “The human immune system is no match for this virus. It’s only a matter of time until the human race is completely wiped out.”
“That’s…horrible.”
“Yes, except I did find one sample that showed immunity.”
His words sunk in, and I touched his shoulder until he met my gaze. “Someone is immune? Who is it? How is that possible?”
“Star is.” He bent back to his work while I absorbed the meaning of his words. He continued as he tied off the last stitch. “I don’t have anything more than speculation to go on, but I think as the infection took over your mother’s body, rather than doing the same to your sister’s developing one, it mutated or she was able to develop immunity because so little crossed the placenta. Whatever happened, the result was like a vaccine of the disease.”
“What does that mean for the rest of us?” I rose and straightened my clothing as he put his supplies away.
“Nothing yet. The factor of immunity just isn’t clear, other than she seems to have a previously unidentified blood type.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There are four known human blood types—A, B, AB, and O. Your sister doesn’t have any of these, which means, even if we could do a basic blood transfusion for someone who had been bitten or scratched to see if her immunity would help kickstart their own immune system, it would be immediately rejected as a separate invader and sicken or kill the person anyway.” A weary sigh breathed from his lips, expressing his frustration. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Wait. You’ve been using my sister’s blood, too?”
His look was completely flat, unemotional. “It’s necessary. She’s special because she survived, and she’s the key to the rest of us surviving.”
“That’s…wrong. So very wrong. She’s only a baby.”
“She’s our best chance of living, Charlie. Otherwise, the Draghoul win. The human race goes extinct.”
I stared at him in disbelief. He was supposed to be protecting my sister. Instead, he was using her. The horror of what he’d done to Star sat heavy on my chest, and my brain worked hard to assimilate the Quillen I knew with the person kneeling in front of me now.
I had to get out here. I had to get Star out of here. We needed to get away from him right now. “I don’t care. You can’t do that to her anymore. From now on, she’ll be with me all day, every day. We don’t need your help anymore.”
He didn’t try to stop me as I moved around him toward the door. He could have forced me to come back, to bring Star to him because he held my fate in the community in his hands. Yet, he didn’t, and as I stepped out into the hallway, his words followed me.
“You’ll regret it. We’ll all regret it.”
Chapter 9
Keeping Star with me all day was harder than I ever could have imagined. She required constant attention, which was difficult in the fields especially, and now that we were in the midst of harvesting the fields, the work was harder and the pace faster. Yet, the alternative of allowing her to be experimented on screamed unthinkable.
I still couldn’t believe what I’d learned. Quillen had appeared to be harmless and helpful, but the whole time, he’d been using my sister as a pin cushion. Not for the first time, I looked at her arms and saw the damage for myself. All up and down, her skin was marred by needle marks. It was enough to make me want to cry.
“You want some help with her?”
Zeke stopped for a moment to watch as I adjusted the homemade sling I’d managed to piece together with laundry scraps. I couldn’t risk Star crawling into the forest or into the path of a garden tool, so I wore her—literally. It was something I recalled an aunt doing with one of my young cousins long ago when I was five or six, and though it was uncomfortable and she constantly tried to crawl free, it was the best solution I could come up with for now.
“No, I just wish I could put her down for a while.” As if in answer, she reached up and grabbed at my shirt, making pleading fussy sounds, but I just pulled her hand free and began carefully picking the beans off the plants low to the ground.
With a quiet chuckle, he went back to work and so did I. We worked in the sun for a long time before stopping for some water. Off to the side of the field, Peter brought the water bucket around for all to cool off. As usual, he wasn’t nice about it. But, I didn’t bristle at his attitude for once. Now that I knew what I knew about him, I kind of felt sorry for the guy.
“Oh, look who’s on babysitting duty.”
I sipped the water and gave a little to Star. I really didn’t want to discuss it. “Not your concern.”
“It is when it cuts down your work production. What’s the good of having you here if you can’t contribute?”
Okay, maybe he didn’t deserve my sympathy. “I’m doing just fine contributing.”
“Shut-up, Petie. Like he said, it’s none of your business, so stay out of it.” Zeke stepped toe to toe with Peter, forcing him to take several steps back.
“Well, it can’t go on much longer. You just need to leave that baby with Quillen.”
Anger burned under my skin. I wanted to throw out a fist and shut him up with it, but I couldn’t risk harming Star, so I turned away, walking a short distance in the opposite direction.
“You run your mouth too much. One of these days it’s going to get you in trouble.”
“Gee, and who will I get in trouble with? You? What’s Charlie going to do when you’re no longer around to protect him?”
I swiveled around slowly. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t Zeke be around? Where’s he going?”
“You didn’t tell your shadow about the Choosing?”
“Just don’t know when to shut your mouth, do you?” Zeke straightened, chest pushed forward, and stalked toward Peter again. Peter cowered, holding up the drinking cup and bucket as flimsy protection.
Zeke stopped when I laid a restraining hand on his arm. “What’s he talking about?”
He turned his head to the side, so he could see me out of the corner of his eye. “There won’t be a Choosing ceremony this year. I went to the Council and asked to be the Chosen. They agreed, though my uncle tried to argue against it. In the end, they said it was for the best and decided to change the ceremony to a dedication instead.”
“Why did you do that?”
“What do you mean? Why do you think I did it? Other than Thomas, no one’s stronger or faster. Thomas is training now, he’s
smart, and will probably be making decisions for the community someday soon. I’m the only one who can go.”
“Someone else should go. I mean, if the community loses anyone else, it’s no big loss. You’re needed here.”
Peter spoke, his whiny voice grating, “Oh, that’s nice. So, it’s okay to sacrifice someone else.”
One look from Zeke had Peter scrambling on to the next group of workers.
“Why, Zeke? I still don’t get it.”
He dropped his gaze to his boots. “My dad is dying.”
“You said he was sick, but dying?”
“To be honest, since my mother and little sister were put on the other side of the wall, he hasn’t been the same. But, for the past few months, all he does is lie in bed, staring at the wall, muttering to himself. He coughs up blood in long fits and Dr. Graham doesn’t know what to do for him. I even asked Quillen to look at him, but he just shook his head and said he didn’t have any way to treat him here.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He looked up, his gaze focused on the forest. His hands slipped into his pockets. “Quillen said there was a medicine that would end his suffering, but they only have it in the city. That’s why I have to go. I have to bring back that medicine.”
My breathing was clipped and heavy, my chest tight. Again, I was losing someone. And that someone I’d come to care strongly about. I squeezed my arms around my mid-section, hugging Star tightly to me and stared at Zeke’s back. Maybe I even loved him, in a way.
He was the reason my sister and I were protected inside the walls of the community. He’d taken on a nightwatch duty as a consequence for bringing us in. He was the first one to stand up for me then and now. Without Zeke, how would I make it here?
Thomas had all but promised to keep me safe, but I didn’t give my trust easily, and I didn’t feel the same for Thomas as I did for Zeke. Though I understood why he felt compelled to go, I didn’t want to lose Zeke.
“Come on. Let’s get back to work.” He stomped back to his row and picked up where he left off, but I couldn’t just get back to work. Without a thought to the consequences, I trudged from the field, holding my sister tightly, and made my way into the forest.