by Anne Tibbets
“Wait—how did you know he was involved...?” I asked.
Charle grinned creepily and shrugged.
“Oh, shit.” Ric went to the office window and pulled back the thick velvet curtains. There was nothing but grey murkiness outside. “Come on.” He came away from the window and grabbed my hand.
“Hey!” Charle yelled after us. “Ric! Knock me out!”
We ran down the hall toward the front door.
Out on the gravel drive, Ric let go of my hand just long enough to dig the motorcycle keys from his pocket. It was after sunset, and the grounds lingered someplace between light and dark. The garage door opened by itself, revealing his bike had been knocked over and the tires slashed.
“Charle,” Ric growled. He scanned the garage for another means of transportation.
“Where’s his car?” I asked.
We ran back out into the circular driveway and around the back of the garage, but no other vehicle was there.
Ric swore.
“What do we do?” I asked.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me along. “We run.”
Chapter Seventeen
They were coming for me.
The Bennett estate was huge and private and well protected, which had worked to our benefit as long as we’d wanted to remain inside. But the moment our goal was to escape, the sprawling lawns, maze hedge and numerous guest houses only served as obstacles.
By the time we made it to the back wall, we had been running at a full sprint for ten minutes. Both of us were panting loudly. My throat felt like sandpaper and my legs were so shaky I was having problems keeping up. All I wanted was to find a hole and hide, but I knew that would have been a terrible mistake.
Run.
The back wall had a hidden garden gate locked with an old-fashioned padlock. Ric fumbled with his keys, removed it and opened the gate.
It was darker outside, but the sun still cast a murky hue across the sky. There was just enough light that we could see our way around.
Ric shoved the keys back into his pocket, stepped out the gate, then held his hand out to me. Behind the house was a dirt road and a large open field, full of cows and goats. We crossed the road, then climbed over the chain link fence and ran across the field. I could barely see the outline of a barn in the distance.
“There!” Ric said between huffs.
By the time we got there, we were breathing so hard I was sure we could have been heard all the way back in Central.
Ric threw up the barn door latch and led me inside. It was damp and smelled of manure. A few horses nickered in their stalls at the sight of us.
Ric closed the door and we stood there, panting, trying to catch our breath. A sharp pain stabbed me in the side and I pinched my skin, trying to stop it from spreading.
“We stay here?” I asked between puffs.
“Too close,” he panted, “to the estate.”
I nodded, my throat too dry to speak again.
Ric walked around in the dark, fumbling around. I assumed he was searching for a flashlight or some water. He came back empty-handed. “Water in the stalls is too risky.”
“Ew.”
Ric chuckled, then rested his hands on his hips while he waited for me to stop wheezing. After a minute or two he asked, “You ready?”
I took a moment and steadied myself, then nodded.
He reached over and pulled up the barn door latch.
Once the door opened, it burst from his hand. Auberge guards holding large rifles yelled for us to get down on our knees and lace our hands behind our heads.
I screamed.
Beams from flashlights blinded me and sent my hands to my eyes. When I didn’t immediately comply with their demands, a guard shoved me to the ground. My face hit the dirt and pain shot through my cheek.
“Leave her alone!” Ric shouted.
I could just make out three guards wrestling him to the dirt. One bashed his face with the butt of his rifle.
“No!” I yelped. “Don’t hurt him!”
With my throbbing cheek smashed into the ground, guards yanked my arms behind me and cuffed them tightly. My shoulders strained and a sharp pain shot through them as I was dragged to my feet.
The guards grabbed my arms on either side and stepped forward. They smelled of starch, wool and sweat, and a flash of white sent my mind back to the Line.
I saw the heavy boots, cement floors, and felt the muzzle of their rifles in my back, forcing me into my appointment room. I smelled the musty, suffocating air in my sleep compartment.
But a few feet away, Ric’s cries of pain brought me back to the barn.
I blinked rapidly, trying to see what was happening to him, but he was completely swallowed by guards. “It’s me you want! Let him go!”
The two guards holding each of my arms pulled me along. Across the field on the dirt road, two patrol cars sat with their doors open and lights flashing, but no sirens blared. I struggled to look behind me, but they held tight.
“Ric!”
A shot rang out.
My entire body seized in horror. “No!” I shrieked. “No! No!”
I bucked like a wild beast, but the guards didn’t let go. When I couldn’t get loose, my legs gave way and I crumbled to the ground. The guards balked but did not release me. They dragged me instead, my feet leaving streaks across the grass of the field.
“No! Ric! Ric!”
I could no longer see. I was blinded by tears and sobbing uncontrollably, pulled along like a carcass.
“No!”
Air lurched in my throat, and I choked as it closed. I gasped for air, trying to catch my breath. Nothing came.
I wheezed sharply and screamed at the top of my lungs until there was no air left in me.
At the patrol car, a man in a white coat barked at the guards to put me in the back seat.
I screamed again as they dragged me.
A guard on my left let go of my arm with one hand as he reached for my head, pushing it down into the car. I found my footing and managed to wrench that arm free.
But freedom was fleeting, because before I knew it, I was slammed against the patrol car by two other guards and the man in the white coat was instructing them to hold me still.
The slam had knocked the wind from my chest and silenced my shrieks of protest.
I felt a great pinch on my thigh, and a burning sensation coursed through my blood.
I managed to peep out one more cry before everything went blurry and then black. “Ric...”
* * *
I’m waiting in line in the meal room.
The new girl, who calls herself Peni, is behind me, looking pale.
I want to comfort her, but have nothing to say that will.
We take our bowl of mashed oats and sit at our assigned seats. Peni is next to me.
Despite her pallor, she eats the mush quickly, showing no effect of the grotesque smell that comes from of it, like the rest of us girls do, who wince and force a few handfuls down our throats.
I can’t help myself. I watch her. This new girl is different from the rest.
Eventually, she looks up from her bowl and despite a little dab of mush on the corner of her mouth, she smiles at me.
A smile?
Here?
On the Line?
“Hi!” she says. “I’m Peni. What’s your name?”
“Naya.”
“Nice to meet you,” she says, and eats another heaping handful of mush.
I can’t help staring.
Nice to meet you?
Is she insane?
Doesn’t she know where she is?
She senses me and smiles again. “You going to eat that?”
; I look down at my mush. I’ve eaten maybe two bites. “No.”
“May I have it?”
This girl is nuts. “Sure,” I say.
She reaches over and takes my bowl. I find myself grinning at her and I have no idea why.
“Why are you eating that?” I ask.
The question appears to confuse her. “What do you mean? I’m hungry.”
“So am I but, it’s...it’s gross.”
“It’s not so bad,” she says. “Besides, we need to keep our strength up.”
This stumps me. In my experience, the less energy you have, the better. There is nowhere to exercise. No free time. Nothing but appointments, cold showers and a sleep compartment. What good is energy when there’s nowhere useful to put it?
“Why?” I ask.
Peni’s face scrunches up and she places a hand on my shoulder, leaning in closely so she can whisper. “Don’t tell anybody, but I’m not going to be here that long. My parents just put me in for a little while so they can pay off their debt to Auberge. I’d rather not be here, of course, but I know it’s only temporary. So in the meantime, I want to be sure to stay healthy. You know, for when they come to get me.”
I realize she’s not nuts. She’s innocent. Truly. And naïve. And pure. And maybe more than a little in denial.
I feel sorry for her. Sorrier for her than for all the other girls who are on the Line and know they are here until they die. I have a hard time maintaining eye contact. My sympathy weighs my gaze and drops it to the bowl of mush in front of her. “What if they don’t come for you?” I can’t help asking.
Peni isn’t bothered by the question. “They will.”
“What if they don’t?” I look back at her round and innocent face.
A momentary flash of worry crosses her eyes, but I see she pushes it away quickly, eating another handful of mush and shaking away the tears that threaten to invade.
“Then someone else will,” she says.
“Who?”
Peni shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant. “Family. Friends. I don’t know. But I’m not here forever. I’m not.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so,” Peni says, a hint of anger in her voice. “I say so.”
“Okay.” It comes out with more sarcasm than I intend.
She stands up from the table, looking a little indignant. “Life without hope isn’t worth living, Naya. Remember that.” She walks away, squaring her shoulders and crossing the room to stand in the row of girls waiting to be escorted back to the Line.
Peni smiles and shakes the hand of the girl next to her, who looks like she’s on the verge of collapsing from shock.
I can’t help it.
I grin.
Maybe Peni can’t live without hope.
But I don’t think I can live without her hope, either.
* * *
I awoke to a blinding bright light. I was lying on a bed with wheels, naked under a white scratchy sheet, my legs up in stirrups.
Oh my God.
I’m back.
No, no, no, no!
I tried to get up, but I was strapped down. I yanked at the strips of leather holding my hands to the bed. They didn’t budge. I kicked my feet off the stirrups and pushed my heels into the cart, raising my hips.
Nothing helped.
I sank back down into the gurney as my throat closed and I coughed to force air into my collapsing lungs.
This can’t be happening!
I can’t go back!
I can’t!
I craned my head around the room, trying to find an exit. Was I in the infirmary? The walls weren’t white tiles. In fact, they were stainless steel and polished to a gleaming shine. These were walls I didn’t recognize.
There was a mirror on the other side of the room and a rolling cart full of medical supplies in the corner. I didn’t know where I was. This was someplace new.
Where the hell was I?
I kicked the stirrups in frustration. The fact that I had been in them bothered me. I hoped that whoever had me hadn’t hurt the babies. I instinctively reached for my belly but my restraints prevented my arms from moving. Then, I noticed my gloves were gone, which meant they had my palm prints on file again.
Bad to worse.
From a door in the corner, the doctor from the patrol car entered, the one who’d injected me. He had a tablet stuffed under his arm.
“Where am I?” I demanded.
The doctor approached and stuck his hands into his lab coat pockets. He had a hook nose and beady black eyes that didn’t look into mine.
Like I wasn’t human.
“You’ll be pleased to know your babies are fine,” the doctor said. “We estimate you are at ten weeks.” He had a thick accent I could not place.
“Okay.” I masked my relief. At least there was that.
“In the next few weeks you’ll experience weight gain, an increase in appetite and the nausea will have subsided.”
“Where am I?”
“You are in Auberge headquarters,” he stated matter-of-factly.
Back in Central.
I blinked at the doctor as that sunk in.
It was over.
I’d failed.
I laid my head back down and tried not to show any emotion on my face, but my eyes gave me away. They filled. My lower lip quivered and I pressed my mouth closed to stop from sobbing aloud.
“Someone will be in shortly to expedite your release,” the doctor said.
“My release?” It came out as a whisper.
“From the medical center.”
“Can I leave after that?”
“That’s not up to me, though I’d heard they’re preparing quarters for you here.”
“In Central?”
“In headquarters.”
Then I knew for sure. They were planning to keep me there until I gave birth. I was a prisoner. After that, I’d wager I had little time left to live.
Failure.
Total and complete defeat.
I desperately wanted to be brave and not let the doctor and whoever was watching from behind the mirror in the wall see my fear, but my emotions got the better of me. The room blurred behind my tears and my throat and face ached from holding my sorrow inside. Then my resolve collapsed, and before long, I was crying.
I let the sobs erupt. I choked and heaved and wailed like a child.
I’d lost everything.
What was the point of pretending to be brave anymore?
The same thought kept coming to my mind.
It had all been for nothing.
My retirement from the Line.
The boarding house.
The girl in the restaurant with her brother held captive in the back room.
Shirel.
Little Evie.
The clinic.
The weepy receptionist, Dolore.
Tym.
Sonya.
And Ric.
All for nothing.
They were taking the babies anyway.
My babies...!
I wept for them all. For each life touched and then smashed to oblivion.
For my failings and my wasted efforts.
My shoulders shook and my head throbbed with my wails of unencumbered sorrow.
Remorse.
I wanted to die.
I bellowed in unsupressed agony.
Why hadn’t I seen it coming?
Why hadn’t I stopped it?
This was my fault.
* * *
The doctor appeared physically uncomfortable with my bawling, so he took the tablet from under his arm and pushed a few bu
ttons. Eventually, he approached and unhooked my arm restraints.
I suppose I should have kicked at him, scatched his eyes out, screamed and protested beyond all reason, but I didn’t see the point.
They’d won.
My soul had succumbed.
At some point, the doctor left and returned with a syringe.
I didn’t care. He injected me, and the whole time he was poking my ass with the needle, I was glad. Maybe they could put me in a coma until the babies were born. Then I wouldn’t have to feel this pain.
This pain was more than I could bear. It was worse than knowing my parents weren’t ever coming to get me from the Line. It was worse than my first appointment. It was worse than anything I’d experienced my whole life, and that was saying something.
This pain of knowing I’d had freedom and lost it, and that I’d lost everyone and everything I had ever cared about, it was vicious. It was beyond cruel. It physically hurt. It went down into my soul and ate away the very core of my heart.
I bawled, and wailed, and sobbed like a pathetic child, pressing my face into the gurney as if to shield myself from feeling more pain.
Then the drugs took effect, and thankfully, I fell into the dark.
* * *
I awoke dressed in clothes again, a loose T-shirt and drawstring pants. I was lying on a small bed. I had a raging headache like I’d never felt before in my life, and my eyes burned hot.
I swung my legs to the floor. I was in a mini-apartment with bare cement walls and floors. I assumed this was my home for the last months of my life.
There was a toilet, a sink, a viewing screen bolted to the wall on one side and a mirror on the other, and a table and chair, with a tablet sitting on top.
I got up and went to the tablet but saw no point in it. Did they want me to turn it on and play games for six months?
Forget it.
I noticed a slight breeze across my face and saw an air-conditioning vent up in the corner of the room.
At least there was that.
On one side there was a door with a wide slot in it, probably for food trays.
I sat at the table and stared at the blank viewing screen for a few moments, debating what was left of my life.