One day that illusion was shattered when I caught them in the laundry room. Robert’s arms were wrapped about her, her hair out of place. They broke apart at the sound of my entrance, both of their faces flushed from the heat of the room and the closeness of each other. Emma tried to explain, but I didn’t wait around to listen; I just ran. I caught the look on his face before I did, and it only held one emotion—guilt.
Robert gripped the edge of the table as he spoke. “No, she wasn’t nervous. She was glad. Excited.”
“What about you? You had to know she was being ridiculous, just lying to herself.” I was whispering now, afraid of how he would react to my much too personal question.
He placed his face into his hands. “How can I explain what you’ll never understand?”
“Try me,” I countered. When he didn’t reply I asked again. “Don’t you think I deserve to know? Today of all days?”
“Telling you I loved Emma wouldn’t be enough. It was more than that. I was obsessed with her. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do. Every second of every minute that we spent together, I knew it was wrong, insane, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t care. I thought I deserved her, that she was my reward for…”
I was aching to know what he meant, but he quickly skipped over that part.
“I knew there were ways, things you could obtain from the underground that would prevent pregnancy. I knew she didn’t have to fall into that trap. It was dangerous to get them, of course, but I didn’t care.”
I wondered if these were the things Julia had spoken of.
For some reason, I found myself blushing at the mention of this. I looked around me to make sure no one could hear our conversation.
“Then how? I mean if you were being safe.”
The words hung in the air. My face was blazing with heat.
“These sorts of things aren’t foolproof, Tess. I can’t be sure if it was just some sort of freak accident, some vengeful joke of fate, or if it was her.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. I was sweating.
“She wanted to try, saying it was her duty to her people. I told her she was being irrational, but I can never be sure that she didn’t stop taking the pills.”
I could feel my hands begin to shake. She had done this to herself? With no care for me, or Louisa, or even Robert?
“She was a damn fool,” I spat, standing. I wanted to be anywhere but there.
Robert was up instantly. I was prepared to receive his wrath, but it never came. Instead, he took one of my hands and covered it with both of his. “I’m sorry if I upset you. But please don’t be angry with her. She was the most selfless person I ever knew. Place your anger back on me; I can take it.”
I ripped my hand from his. “You say selfless like it’s a good thing.”
And I walked away.
The waiting room was an icebox, and I was shaking from head to toe. I occasionally snuck a look at the receptionist, who didn’t seem to be even remotely chilled. I hid my hands under my legs in an attempt to keep them warm. I noticed the slash mark on her neck as she turned to file something away.
The room was devoid of any other color besides metallic grays and blues. I was quite sure the lack of color was not helping.
I tried to think of James, but it didn’t help. Thinking of him in this place, of all places, felt wrong. I didn’t want to associate him with this experience.
The seats couldn’t be any more uncomfortable either. Hard metal benches with no backs were packed into rows in the tiny waiting room. Of course, I was the only one waiting. Like I needed anything else to make me feel alone. I thought somewhere I smelled coffee, but naturally, none was offered to me.
The door swung open. I tensed up. “258915?”
I stood up at the sound of my number. Did they even care that I had a name? “Yes, sir.”
“If you will come this way, please.” I noticed how he drew out the word please. I wanted to laugh. Like I really had a choice.
The doctor led me into a much smaller room. On one side there wasn’t a wall, simply glass. I peered through it but couldn’t see a thing. I was sure that someone on the other side could see in, though.
The doctor threw what appeared to be a paper sheet into my hand. “You’ll undress now.”
I expected this, but suddenly the thought seemed horrifying. Was he going to stay in the room? What about the glass? Was someone watching? I couldn’t possibly. My heart was racing, screaming. I wanted to run, bolt through the door. The doctor, a disgraced creator, rolled his eyes as he moved to leave. “Just knock when you are changed,” he said, obviously bored. This was routine.
There was still the problem of the glass wall. How could I be expected to just undress knowing I was exposed? Didn’t they care at all for my modesty, my dignity? There had to be a better way than this.
I turned my back to the window and with shaking hands began to take off my clothes. It was like removing a second skin. With each button I undid, I felt a part of my shell leave as well—the shell that took sixteen years to surround myself with. I felt tears spill down my face and didn’t even try to stop them. I was mortified.
This wasn’t right. Never before had I been more aware of the lack of choices in my life, how little the council trusted us. What if I didn’t want to know? Just because my parents and their parents before them decided to give our government complete control didn’t mean I had to. Shouldn’t my government be what I wanted it to be?
As I stood there naked, I’d never felt more vulnerable. I’d never wanted to fight back more. I was no different than the girl upstairs at Templeton. The paper gown I put on wouldn’t protect me.
I knocked on the door as quickly as humanly possible, jumping ungraciously back onto the bed. I curled my legs under me and wrapped my arms across my chest as tightly as I could manage. I needed to try to protect myself somehow.
The men who came to inspect me were not chosen ones, but instead creators who had fallen from favor. I wasn’t even important enough to be examined by a chosen physician. I was an afterthought.
Dr. Kendall, as his nametag read, and two other men entered the room. I felt my throat closing up. How many of them would it take? How many really needed to be there? The paper dress crackled loudly.
While the other men were bent over clipboards, Dr. Kendall took a step toward me and smiled. It didn’t seem threatening, but I knew how easy it was to lie. He reached over and gave me a small pat on the knee. “James was right. You are awfully pretty,” he whispered to me. I cringed. I didn’t ask for this compliment.
I didn’t ask to be here.
And how could he know James?
I didn’t have time to ask before the men started their examination.
First, they scanned the number lasered on my arm. I was officially in the system as an adult, as a woman, but I never felt more like a scared little child. They told me to lie back. Of course they explained to me what they would be doing, but all I heard was sound. I couldn’t make sense of the words they were saying. I was letting myself shut down, crawling somewhere deep inside where no one could get me.
I wanted my mother. I wanted Emma. I even wanted my supervisor. I could faintly feel the doctors’ hands everywhere, prodding with their cold instruments. They didn’t talk anymore, just moved me when needed.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit. Every second their hands moved across my body, methodically, as if I were the experiment gone wrong, I felt something inside of me harden. I didn’t shut down the feelings anymore. I held onto them. I heard my father’s voice inside my head. And Henry’s. I understood them now.
I had been inspected and it was worse than I could have ever imagined. Worst of all was the fact that these were my people. They were my flesh, my blood, my bone, my people. These were the ones responsible for it all, and I couldn’t deny my connection to them. They were the creators, but we had created them.
They left me in the waiting room by myself until the transport came
to take me back. Even the receptionist had mysteriously vanished. I was alone except for three cages filled with bunnies. Who knew where they came from? It was just me and them, me and the animals. They thought of us in the same way.
I didn’t even question why the bunnies were there. I assumed it was for some experiment, some inspection. Some horrific moment of invasion.
Chapter 27
I didn’t want to see James. Today he was one of them, one of the chosen ones. I didn’t think I would be able to separate his inner grace and truth from its outer shell.
All we are is the flesh we wear.
While I didn’t particularly find joy at our meeting, I knew I would go.
I made no attempt to smooth out the wrinkles of my clothes before heading toward his room. The only part of my physical appearance I paid attention to was my hair. It was pulled tight against my head in a refined and constraining ponytail. The yellow ribbon tightly imprisoned it. Somehow this seemed appropriate.
James opened the door the minute I knocked. His face was pale, his hands curled into fists. I quickly walked past him and sat myself on his bed. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs, resting my chin and staring at the floor. I hadn’t spoken since my inspection. I wondered if I could even speak at all.
James took a seat at his desk and picked up a book. He began to read silently, though every once in a while I could feel his eyes on me. I knew he was giving me my space, and I welcomed it. I reached out for the copy of Shakespeare, opening it to where we’d left off in The Merchant of Venice. I didn’t think he would mind if I finished it without him. I didn’t think he enjoyed it much. Neither had I, but now the story held a certain level of interest for me. I wanted to see how it all ended.
It was painful.
The way they treated Shylock disgusted me. He was painted to be the villain, when clearly he was a victim of the bitterness that results from intolerance. I felt my heart struggle for stability as I read his impassioned speech. The complexity of it seemed to sum up my whole world. He used language to demand that the others recognize he was human. He had a heart that feared and loved, and in the end, his words were used to damn him. Shylock’s speech confirmed their fears—if he could look, talk, and move just like them, then how could they mark his difference, his inferiority? For my people, it was us, the women. Women were no longer able to create life. We were the chosen ones’ strongest propaganda.
Maybe we should have allowed the world to end. It might have been God’s will that we were destroyed by the bombs, weapons put into the hands of men who most likely had no idea why they were fighting anymore. Maybe we were supposed to die out. Living inside compounds, too afraid of the world around us, that wasn’t a life. This thing I found myself slugging through day in and day out meant nothing.
I was just biding my time till it all ended.
“James,” I whispered.
His eyes pounced on mine. I wondered if he had ever really been reading at all, or if he was merely waiting for some sign from me that I wanted his company.
I gripped the edge of the wall in an attempt to stand up. James followed suit and we were soon inches apart from each other. I briefly saw his hand reach for me, but he just as quickly placed it back by his side. I stared intently at his daring hand. It would be easier to look there, look to my ally.
Feeling a sudden fiery burst of self-revelation, I pulled James to me and pressed my lips hungrily against his. I felt him pull away and vaguely heard him mumble something about this not being the right time and asking if I was all right. But I didn’t care. I forced myself against him. I knew what he wanted. He couldn’t fight me forever.
I licked his bottom lip and he groaned, falling against me. We stumbled back into the center of the room. I desperately clung to James, pushing myself against him as hard as I could. His hand traveled down my back and he gripped onto my hip. We stumbled some more, falling against the wall. He hiked my legs over his waist and began to kiss my neck.
I moaned.
All this life was about was death. We were meant to die.
So what if it happened now?
I felt him moving against my body, and I could barely contain the need that stemmed through me. I moved my hands to his shirt and began to unbutton it. His hand reached up and gently pushed my fingers away, but he continued to kiss me. His hand moved from my waist up to my chest. I had never been touched in such a way. I moved my hand from his chest down to his waist, and he pulled away abruptly. His sudden removal caused me to fall ungraciously against the wall.
We were both left panting.
“Why?” His question was simple, but I could hear the torrent of emotions under it.
“Because I’m dead already.”
“That’s not true.”
“I won’t be able to just sit by and deal with it all. It’s not the life I want. So we can do this, you know, now,” I replied.
He stiffened. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Like what? The truth? This place, this world, is nothing but death. My father, my mother, my sister, Julia—all of them dead. My people? Dead. Or they might as well be for all the living they do. I can’t even want you without being reminded of death. I’m not supposed to survive this. Can’t you understand that?”
“You’re being ridiculous!”
“No, you just can’t see it yet. But you will. You will when I tell you what I helped the council do.”
“Tell me what? This whole reckless routine you have going on is starting to drive me a little mad, Tess. This”—he pointed between the two of us—“is hard enough without you throwing caution to the wind.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“First, you don’t tell me about your run-in with George…and now you act like this. I’m trying to keep you safe, and you’re bent on destroying yourself!” he retorted. I could see the anger work its way through James. Perhaps he was angry with me for telling the truth—a truth he had to know deep down.
I needed to make him understand. Even if it meant the destruction of my last hope at some sort of meaningful relationship. “What could you do about George? Threaten him? Then what? You’ve already been marked as insufficient. What would they do to a traitor? Because according to George, according to the council, that’s what you would be. They would find a way to do to you what they did to Frank.”
He stilled. “What are you talking about?”
I took a shaky breath. “He was sick. He had the transformation illness, whatever the hell that is, and they killed him.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I helped them do it. They didn’t bother trying to fix him. He wasn’t worth their time. What’s one when you can just create a whole lab full of replacements? Of course, in retrospect, they didn’t see Julia’s little plan of action, now did they?” I asked, near hysterics—a strange place between laughter and tears.
I watched as the anger slipped away from James. He sat down on the bed, staring at the floor. He wouldn’t look at me again—I could see it in the way his shoulders hunched over and his head fell into his hands. This boy was heartbroken. “What do you mean you helped them?”
I figured I’d break my own heart as well.
I fell to my knees in front of him, but he still refused to look at me. “While I berated you for your part in Julia’s death, I was just as guilty. I watched as they killed Frank. I kept it secret. Maybe because I didn’t think his death meant as much. Or maybe some part of me wanted him to die. Who knows? It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does,” James whispered. “You didn’t tell me. I would tell you anything you wanted.”
“I know. I don’t have any valid excuses. And I’m not stupid enough to think this won’t change things. But you should know the council will find a way to kill you, too. Someday they’ll come for you. You’re not going to survive this either. You’re not like the other chosen ones. You won’t make it.”
He was silent.
“Go ahead,” I said, standing up, “tell me you want me to leave.”
“I want you to leave.”
And I did.
Chapter 28
My eyes frantically searched for James as I followed the other girls out onto the lawn. There was to be some sort of mass meeting for all of the Templeton staff and chosen ones. When I found him, he didn’t look worried. I sighed in relief. He hadn’t talked to me in a few days, and I didn’t blame him. I saw George slither his eyes between James and me, a silky smirk on his face the whole time.
He was planning something.
It was then I noticed Jacobson, his lip bloodied and swelling larger by the second.
No one else seemed to be paying Jacobson any attention. Were they blind? I pushed my way around my fellow workers and placed myself beside him. I could feel George’s eyes follow me as I did so; I couldn’t help but throw him a quick glare before turning my attention directly to Jacobson. I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket and placed it in his hand. His eyes never left the floor but his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“Jacobson, are you all right? What happened?”
He didn’t reply, but I couldn’t miss that his eyes briefly landed on George. I felt my nails claw into my thighs. “George? George did this?”
“It was an accident. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” he mumbled, his attempt at sincerity failing miserably.
“What sort of accident?”
“Tess, please, just let it be.”
“I certainly will not,” I said, feeling the heat of rage bearing down upon me. Bitterness, a constant companion in my life, was urging me to join George’s game. My eyes sought him out, and I realized something was happening. The Templeton boys were forming a semicircle as George stalked into the middle. He was grinning, holding his arms out for a bow. It was followed by a round of cheers from his fellow mates; their laughter caused me to shiver.
Chosen Ones (The Lost Souls, #1) Page 17