The Blood Pawn

by Nicole Tillman

  “This is the dormitory,” the bald guard says. He ushers us inside with a wave of his arm. “Grab a bunk and keep it. This is where you'll be when you're not training. But remember, this is not a slumber party, folks. There will be no fighting within these walls. No destruction of the bunks or lockers; they're all government property. And there will be no, I repeat NO inappropriate physical contact whatsoever.”

  Someone behind me chuckles and the guard narrows his eyes. “Meaning keep it in your pants. You need to be more concerned with the cold bodies outside these gates than the warm bodies within them. Understand?”

  A few nods. A few muted replies.

  “If you have any personal possessions with you, leave them in your lockers and meet me back in this hall in two minutes. Go.”

  We spread out in the room and it smells faintly of mildew and rust. I make my way to the locker in the far corner and it opens with a creak. The only things I have to put in my locker are the two things I don't want to part with, but I have to.

  I unclasp the necklace, slip the photograph out of my pocket, and drop them both in the bag my mother gave me before laying it on the top shelf. Hopefully, no one will bother them.

  When I turn back to leave, a tall girl with long curly locks stands behind me smiling.

  “Martina Garcia,” she says, extending her hand.

  I grip her a little harder than I normally would, but I don't want to seem weak.

  “Maya Winters.”

  “Where you from, Maya?” she asks.

  “Indianapolis.” She steers us toward the door and I follow. “You?”

  “Tallahassee.”

  Outside in the hall, I lower my voice as we fall in line with the rest of the group.

  “And where are we now?” I ask. “Any idea?”

  “Hmm... no, but hold on.”

  She waves her hand in the air, and I try to think of a way to stop her from drawing attention to herself, but I figure I want an answer to my question more than I want to keep her out of trouble.

  “Excuse me, sir? Guard man?”

  The guard glances over his shoulder. He doesn't seem the slightest bit amused. “What?”

  “If you don't mind me asking, where are we?”

  “D.C.” He motions for us to follow him down the hall.

  “Thank you, sir,” she says, saluting him.

  If she doesn't get chewed out by the end of the day, it will be a miracle.

  They lead us down a stairwell, and when we reach what I assume is the ground floor, we step out into a hall that isn't quite so depressing.

  Down here, the concrete is painted white. Signs hang next to each door we pass, telling what's behind them. Bright red fire extinguishers sit bolted to the walls, and instead of bare light bulbs, the lights above our heads are fluorescent bulbs built into the ceiling. The place reeks of antiseptic and order, but it's much better than the mildew and dispiriting air upstairs.

  Once again, we come to a halt as a group and our guard/tour guides point to a set of sliding glass doors.

  “This is the laboratory,” the short, stocky guard says. “This is where you'll be spending the afternoon.”

  “Doing what?” a tall blonde asks from the front.

  The guard cracks his knuckles as he stares her down.

  “Doing whatever they tell you to do.”

  Okay then...

  The second we step inside the laboratory, we're led to beds hidden behind thick, white curtains. It doesn't look so much like a lab as it does a hospital, and that makes me more apprehensive than I felt waking up in a metal chair after being drugged.

  The staff milling around are beds is nice enough; all pleasant smiles and tired eyes, but they do very little talking. I know I'll never get answers from them. Although, at this point, I can't even remember what questions I wanted to ask.

  My limbs are heavy with unease as I remove my clothes, bag them up, and slip into the paper gown I'm given. I'm reminded of the time I had to have surgery on my arm and that, of course, brings forth memories of my parents. It hasn't even been a full two days since I've been gone, but already I feel like they're on a completely different planet. They might as well be, since I don't know if I'll ever see them again.

  Laying back in the bed, I weave my fingers together and glance around the room as I await further instruction. Aside from the white curtains and bed, the only other things in the small space are a rolling stool, a tray holding an assortment of syringes and vials, and a digital clock that reads 00:12:02.

  When I look closer, I realize it's not a clock. Clocks don't count backward.

  By the time a nurse joins me, the countdown reads 00:08:48.

  “Maya Winters?” asks a woman who vaguely resembles my mother.

  When I nod, she sits down on the rolling stool and surfs over to the bed.

  “My name is Paula. I'll be administering your vaccine today.”

  “Vaccine?” I ask.

  Unlike most kids my age, I don't hate shots. Needles don't freak me out. But what's inside them sometimes gives me the creeps. Who wants live viruses or chemically engineered bacteria swimming through your blood stream? Not me.

  “Mm-hmm.” She reaches for a vial on the tray. “This little beauty here will keep you from getting infected if you're ever bitten.”

  I feel my face pale. “Bitten?”

  She nods. “It's what we call the second coming.”

  “The second coming?” I'm full of questions, which is good since she's an open book.

  “The virus was initially introduced through some kind of contaminant. Either food or drinking water or something you consume,” she explains. “After those people were infected, they went on a little gnawing spree. People that were bitten but left alive... eventually were no longer alive.”

  I point a shaking finger to the vial of clear liquid.

  “And whatever is in that keeps me from being... turned?”

  “Yes, ma'am,” she beams. “I just need to get some blood from you today. Just two little vials. Once that's done you get a tiny prick on the shoulder and you're done.”

  Paula is open and kind, and I hope to God there are more people like her in this building.

  She ties a tourniquet around my arm and readies her needle.

  “What's with the countdown?”

  I look back to the 'clock'.

  00:04:28

  “That,” she says, never looking up, “is there to make sure that every patient gets the vaccine at the same time.”

  “So, when it reaches zero?”

  “I'll give you the shot, and everyone around you will get the shot. Think of it as synchronizing your watches. We'll know when the vaccine was administered to everyone, down to the second.”

  “So, if something goes wrong with all of us at the same time, you'll know it's the vaccines fault.”

  She tilts her head back and forth, considering. “Yes and no. Each person's body metabolizes things at a different rate. So the person on the other side of this curtain may create an immunity to the virus hours or even days before you do.”

  “Uh-huh.” My head already hurts from all the medical jargon, but I only have three minutes left.

  “Afterward, you'll go to observation for twelve hours.”

  “Observation? That doesn't sound pleasant.”

  She frowns. “It's not. But it's not supposed to be.”

  “Great,” I grumble.

  Paula rolls back in her chair and hands my vials of blood to someone on the other side of the curtain. When she rolls back, she's wearing an encouraging smile, but the tightness around her eyes is hard to miss.

  “Okay, now it's just time to wait.”

  Wait.

  Sure.

  That's something every seventeen-year-old girl is good at doing.

  00:01:51

  “It says in your chart you don't have any known allergies?”

  If this is her version of small talk, she sucks at it. She's just giving me new things to
worry about.

  “No. I'm not allergic to anything.”

  00:01:02

  “Good deal. So, I'm assuming you haven't been ranked yet since you don't have a mark?”

  “A mark?” My voice cracks at what that could mean. “What mark?”

  00:00:50

  “You'll be marked with your rank once it's assigned. This is the first go-round with this program, so I wasn't sure when that was happening.”

  Am I supposed to know this? I'm not so sure. Everyone seems to be keeping a tight lid on everything they say or do.

  00:00:43

  “Will this hurt?”

  Paula's face scrunches up, hinting that she's about to tell a hard truth instead of an easy lie.

  “It will. It burns pretty bad.”

  00:00:29

  Okay. I always thought I was the kind of person who prefers honesty over sugar coating, but right now I'm not so sure. Every cell in my body has turned its face toward the syringe in her hand and they're all holding a collective breath. My muscles turn to stone as the seconds tick away.

  “I'm scared.”

  It's not an admission I should make, but Paula takes my hand anyway and squeezes.

  “You'll be fine, Maya. A few minutes of discomfort is a small price to pay for what you get to do. This is a solid program led by some amazing individuals.” She chuckles. “In all honesty, I'm a little jealous.

  Jealous?

  Of me?

  The girl about to get injected with lava?

  “I'm gonna need my hand back, sweetie.”

  Oh. Right. The one I'm crushing. Whoops.

  “Here we go.”

  She grips the syringe with one hand and my shoulder with the other.

  00:00:03

  “Three, two, one...”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Paula wasn't lying.

  It hurts like hell – ACTUAL Hell – burning through my veins. I can feel it moving through my body, singeing my vessels, coating my platelets. But she didn't lie when she told me it wouldn't last long. By the time the countdown clock begins counting forwards and lands on 00:02:44, the pain was gone completely, a few tears the only reminder of what had been.

  Still donning our fashionable paper gowns, the sixteen of us are led back up the stairs by a group of nurses, or scientists, or whatever they are. Bypassing the dormitory, we keep going until we come upon a door marked CONTAINMENT. They stop, type in a code, and stand aside as we silently made our way inside.

  The scene before us makes my stomach clench even harder, knowing how the next twelve hours are going to go. More bare bulbs cast shadows along the concrete walls. On one side of the room stands one huge glass box the size of my old living room. Inside the bizarre contraption are rows of metal and canvas cots. They stand only a foot off the floor and look aged and weathered.

  In the corner, a white curtain hangs from the glass ceiling. It's pulled back to reveal the gleaming porcelain of a toilet.

  Fantastic. I've always wanted to pee in a room filled with fifteen strangers.

  On the other side of the room are three more glass boxes, these ones only the size of a small walk-in closet. No cots. Just a concrete slab the length of a bed and a metal toilet without a lid. Again, no windows. No warmth. Just mildew and a chill that gives me goosebumps. Compared to these, the other glass room is a five-star resort.

  Martina lays a hand on my shoulder from behind, and I fight to contain a yelp. She's a freaking ninja.

  “What do you think this room was used for? You know, before?”

  “I'm sure I don't want to know,” I answer.

  And that's the God's honest truth. If this isn't the first time these rooms are being put to use, I don't want to know what they once housed.

  “In you go,” Paula chirps softly, opening the door to the large glass box.

  Even though terror boils to life in my gut and I want nothing more than to run and run until I find the exit that leads me out of this hellhole, I walk forward with the group. Like a herd of cows being led to slaughter, one by one, we enter and claim a cot. I make a note to never, ever complain about the beds in the dormitory.

  “We have to stay in here for twelve hours?” a tall blonde girl complains. “This isn't humane!”

  A male nurse much older than the rest of his staff steps forward and presses a button, closing the door.

  “It may not be humane, but it's for your own protection.”

  “Protection from what?” she asks, raising her hands with a huff.

  Lips pursed, refusing to speak another word, he turns his back on us, as do the rest of the nurses. All but Paula. She finds a squeaky folding chair propped up against the wall and brings it right up to our door. All sixteen of our eyes watch as she settles in and pulls a rolled up crossword puzzle book from her pocket.

  “Might as well get comfortable,” she says, removing a pen from behind her ear. “The hours will pass much faster if you sleep.”

  Sleep. Like any of us can freaking sleep.

  All around me, boys stretch out onto their cots with yawns. Some of the girls follow suit, choosing instead to curl up into balls and bury their heads into the canvas.

  Apparently, some of us can sleep.

  It would be the ideal time to get to know some of the other people we'll be working with, but no one seems to be in the mood for small talk. So I find a cot of my own and take a seat. My stomach growls, and I wish I had something to eat. Not because I want a full belly, but because I don't want the others to have to hear the gurgling of my gut as it pleads for food.

  “Hey, Maya.”

  I turn to look at Martina, whose cot sits beside mine.

  “What?”

  “Think they'll bring us something to drink if we ask?”

  I feign disbelief as I roll my eyes, even though I was just thinking the same thing.

  “I doubt it. This doesn't seem like the kind of place that caters to its prisoners.”

  “Pfft, prisoners,” she scoffs. “This isn't that bad. I don't see any metal bars, do you?”

  “No.” I look around. “I see bulletproof walls and a lock on the door we couldn't hack if we tried.”

  Her face falls, but in an instant, she's pulling her shoulders back and shaking her head.

  “Just think of it as a vacation before training begins. Get some shut-eye and tomorrow we'll start fresh, ready to kick some backside.”

  Kick some backside? Is she for real?

  “Sure,” I say. “I'll get right on that.”

  Even though my words are dripping with sarcasm, I do actually lay back. However, the instant my head hits the rough canvas, I long for a pillow. Nothing fancy like memory foam, but just enough padding to where my head isn't lower than my stomach. I already feel like puking, I don't need gravity helping me along.

  Squirming around onto my side, I fold my arms around my chest and hugged myself. My eyes roam around the room, taking in all the different faces and builds of these strangers. Most look to be between sixteen and twenty, and I wonder who the bright jerkwad is that insisted they recruit teenagers for the cause.

  As I continue to look around the room at all the scared faces, a chill tip-toes up my spine and I began to shake. The temperature drops, and I feel my fingers and toes begin to tingle. My shoulders tensed, and the arms cradling my chest harden as the muscles go rigid.

  What the hell?

  This isn't right.

  It hurts. My whole body hurts.

  “Nurse! Nurse, help!”

  Martina's voice sounds distant, but even through the fog of pain I can hear her words clear and concise. Metal creaks against concrete, and I look down. Fear zaps me into high alert as I watch my skin turn gray. Red welts begin to bubble down my exposed arms and legs, and the violent thrashing of my entire body shakes the cot beneath me.

  “She's seizing!”

  “Get away from her!”

  What's happening?

  Red lights flash throughout the room and a blaring al
arm assaults my eardrums. The air shifts as everyone around me scatters and presses their backs against the glass to get as far away from me as humanly possible.

  I don't blame them.

  I want away from myself as well.

  I want the pain to stop. I need the anger and the panic to subside.

  Make it stop.

  Please, make it stop!

  My ability to speak is gone. All I can do is thrash and drool and stare ahead blankly as the nurses rush back into the room. They carry me, cot and all, out the door.

  Down the hall we run, everyone at my sides cursing or yelling orders. One male nurse holds a walkie-talkie in his hands, rambling off a stream of acronyms and numbers I don't understand.

  Just say it. Tell me what's wrong!

  We shoot through the double doors and we're back in the lab. I continue to shake. I still can't speak.

  “Restraints!”

  Men and women who are much stronger than they look pry my body apart until my back hits the cot. They lift me up, switching me to the hospital bed I was on before.

  “Cuff her. Hands and feet.”

  Cuff me? Why? What are you doing!

  I blink against the bright lights, relieved I now have control over my eyelids, but the rest of my body continues to thrash.

  They move my gown away to attach monitors and cuffs and inject more syringes of unidentifiable liquids. Leather cuffs cut off the circulation at my wrists and ankles.

  Make it stop.

  I can't take this.

  Just tell me I'm going to be okay.

  The beeping of my heart beat on a monitor meets my ears, and I know something is very, very wrong. It doesn't sound like a heart at all, but hummingbird wings. It's thrumming, not beating. It's so hard and heavy I can't count each individual beat. My jaw unhinges from where it was clenched, and I try to push out words before I can't anymore.

  “Help,” I manage to grind out. “St- stop it.”

  “Maya!” Paula leans in to where I can see her. “I need to know what you're feeling right now. Does it hurt?”

  I nod with vigor.

  “What else? What else are you feeling?” Her voice is urgent and clipped.

  “Cold,” I stutter. “I'm cold.”