Traitor

by Alyson Santos

  It’s absurd her concern. Confusing at first, but now I get it. Ten days later, I’m on board.

  “Emery,” I call as she moves toward the door. She stops and faces me, sad resignation floating across the room to rest on my shackled body. “Can I just have something? Please…” Oh shit, the fucking tears again. Further humiliation as the metal on my wrist crashes against the bed frame when instinct tries to remove them.

  Her expression softens as she studies me. Her muse. Her masterpiece. Her last hope.

  “If you eat, we’ll talk analgesics.”

  My eyes close again in defeat. Soft foods will somehow have to make their way into my stomach, because counting isn’t nearly as effective as their drugs. They will win again.

  I stare at the tray for a long time. Pudding, applesauce, some lukewarm orange liquid that requires a spoon. I was nauseous before I had to make sense of my meal. Still, I can’t breathe from the pain. Think. I just need something, and if relief costs me a few bites of bitter orange mush, I’ll fight on.

  They’ve released my left arm so I can follow Emery’s orders, only highlighting the ridiculous nature of the restraints. I’m a threat? I can barely grasp a plastic spoon, let alone fight my way through the guard lounging on a guest chair five feet away. Forget the other two stationed outside the door. I don’t have enough functional joints left to fight back.

  My eyes clench shut as the pudding slides down my throat, coating its path with a thick reminder that I’m giving in. That I’m going to keep surviving if I keep eating, but I’m tired of counting. I’m just so damn tired. Not surviving has become too hard.

  “Need help?” the guard asks, solidifying my regret. I burn at his sincerity because no one is ever going to help me eat fucking pudding.

  “I got it,” I mutter.

  “That orange shit is nasty. They made us eat it for lunch today too. I don’t know what it is. Some kind of carrot squash thing.”

  I study the orange pool and notice the small black specks in it for the first time. “It looks bad.”

  “Tastes worse. Stick with the pudding. It going down all right?”

  He’s just making conversation. Isaac, I think his name is. Nice guy, talks a lot, doesn’t seem to understand that we have a ton of bruises separating us. Still, I prefer him to Stacy, who overcompensates for the fact that he hates his name.

  The pudding still feels like cement, lodging in my throat as I fight a gag, and I glare at the tray. I’m losing to pudding. I desperately hope one bite will satisfy my end of the bargain, but I’m not optimistic. Isaac evaluates my slow progress with an expression that tells me the pudding will win.

  “She said at least one of those containers has to be empty before I can call her back. Just one, man.”

  Just one might as well be a month of rations. I shove the tray away and settle against the pillow. Yes, they gave me a pillow for my throbbing head. Today’s gifts. Metal restraints, a shattered wrist, and a pillow.

  “Wanna play cards or something?” Isaac asks, and I don’t bother opening my eyes to answer. “Oh shit, sorry. After they give you something, I mean.”

  “My arm,” I manage, reminding him of the latest of many reasons I have to decline.

  “Oh… fuck. Yeah.”

  He studies me in the silence.

  “I heard about today.”

  I don’t want more of his thoughts, but I’m too weak to stop them.

  “Sorry, man. I mean, I get that you’re a traitor and all, but shit. What they’re doing to you…”

  A traitor. The official reason I’m a pile of mangled flesh. Unofficially, no one has a clue except Emery and her inner circle. The guards are okay playing cards with an official traitor who’s an unofficial ghost.

  “Tell you what.” He quiets, and I force my eyes open when I sense his approach. Alarm sets in as he leans close. I hate how my instinct is to flinch now, but the strike never comes. Instead he assaults the applesauce with a few aggressive slurps.

  The burn of tears climbs my chest again at this shock of mercy, so out of touch with my fate. He delivers a half-smile and returns the empty container to the tray. Our conspiracy goes live when he passes along the news that I finished my food.

  “Emery is coming,” he reports back, and I’d breathe a sigh of relief if I could. Maybe I will in a few minutes.

  They not only reward me for my cooperation, they downright spoil me with a gentle slide into oblivion. The searing pain becomes grass fields and clouds. Cotton candy from the time of innocent childhood and laughter. But my narcotic dream doesn’t linger on the past. It finds its way to new memories, poisonous fantasies of the woman who brought me back to life, even as I was dying.

  Andie studies the contents of the top drawer of the filing cabinet, her face scrunched in an adorable strain of concentration. Since our kiss, I’ve found it difficult to maintain that same focus when we’re together in this office. My body ignites with the memory as I watch her, addicted to how good it felt to feel good. I suddenly have to help her, inspect her progress, anything to get close to the dangerous connection again.

  She tenses as I approach, her deliberate movements stalling to an absent flutter of papers beneath her fingers. I feel the heat of her, breathe in her scent as I hover, waiting for her to make the decision I’m not allowed to make. I know I’m trespassing, fueling a fire with a girl who’s already admitted she’s consumed by it. I’m terrified and relieved when I catch the rapid inhalation of her breath.

  “Kaleb …”

  She turns now, the force of my advance shoving the drawer back in place. Her hands push up my chest, claiming, exploring.

  My blood is hot, searing with unfed hunger, longing for a woman, for any brush of pleasure in my world of constant pain. The fact that it’s this woman, these curious, compassionate, intelligent eyes searching mine, makes the ache unbearable. I need her against me, just a brief moment of letting her beauty chase away the dark void that owns me. The briefest, I swear.

  I don’t know who moves first. She wants me as much as I need her, a terrible combination for our hopeless reality. But in this moment I’m forgetful, undisciplined, careless as I let go of my constant filter and release the flood that will drown her. It’s not fair. It makes me terrible. But I’ve been deprived of light for too long.

  Her lips are soft and reckless. I know right then her nights are filled with the same burning imagination, her days the same brutal denial.

  She pulls away too quickly, her hair tickling my chin as she settles against my chest. My body is still reacting to the kiss, her closeness, but I’m grateful for her sacrifice. Grateful she is stronger than I am.

  “You said we can’t,” she whispers. “It’s so hard to stop.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want apologies. I want you. I want this so much. It’s all I think about.”

  The tears in her voice crush me.

  “Don’t you feel it, Kaleb? How do you deny it?”

  “I do feel it. I’m in physical pain,” I confess into her hair.

  She makes it so much worse when her arms tighten around me in protest. Her fingers press up my back, trailing heat and tension along my spine. She must feel my need as we melt into one statue, but she’s as helpless to feed it as I am to satisfy hers.

  “What are we going to do?” she moans, pulling my hips into hers. I suck in my breath at the direct invitation.

  I have to… I...

  My mouth finds hers again, killing her strength. We’re hands ripping at clothing and soothing hard-fought aches with hot skin.

  “If we start this, don’t stop it. Please, Kaleb. Please,” she pleads, arching, gasping as I take what isn’t mine.

  It’s a heartbreaking plea, soul-crushing as it floods through me. She doesn’t know falling for me is going to kill her. I’m a monster.

>   Her breaths are desperate like mine. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just…” I don’t even know who I’m talking to as my hands rake through my hair.

  “You think you’re a monster,” she whispers, “but you’re not. You’re beautiful, Kaleb. One day I’ll make you understand how beautiful you are.”

  She’s not reading my mind. Her hope is for the freak with scars and deformed fingers. She can’t begin to imagine the true extent of the monstrosity that’s slaying her heart.

  You need to transfer her. You can’t handle this, Kaleb.

  Dennel’s warning has run in a constant loop since the kiss. He’s been right all along: I’m not strong enough to resist her. I thought I could walk the line. Instead I’ve paraded her straight into my nightmare. I will be the destruction of the one woman, the one person, I might love. I’m going to snuff out my only light.

  “Kaleb. Can you hear me? How much did you give him? I need him sober again.”

  I squint toward the voice. It’s not Andie. It never is. She’s safe in 9B doing laundry, eating terrible food, sucking at basketball…

  “Kaleb!”

  I blink again and croak some kind of response. It’s infuriating that my ability to speak is directly related to the amount of pain in my body. Damn drugs and their power over my existence.

  “It’s time, sweetheart.”

  I don’t even know how to respond as my stomach contracts. It’s time. I call for the bin and she slides it just before I lose that one bite of pudding I conquered.

  The narcotics, the memories, the pain, I’m asking way too much of my insides. I cough out the remainder of the acid and spit.

  My reaction isn’t enough to dampen her spirits, however. She transmits a calm request to have someone come clean it up.

  “Isaac, unlock his restraints, please.”

  Isaac takes a step forward and stops. “But, ma’am…”

  “Now, Isaac.”

  I feel bad for him. It can’t be easy to discover you’re the monster in a horror story.

  His hands shake as he fumbles with the lock on my good wrist. The metal clatters against the bedframe, but I’ve stopped enjoying the few seconds of freedom in these moments.

  “Stacy, get in here.”

  It takes both soldiers to get me to my feet and down the hall.

  Light. God, how I’ve come to hate light. It hurts. Stabs my throbbing brain, but even worse is the sick announcement that I’m still alive. I thought for sure they killed me this time.

  Isaac is there with the bin before I even have to ask.

  I can’t breathe after the heaves terrorize my body. I don’t even know what they took this time. I passed out after the first few minutes.

  A straw tickles my lips and my eyes fight to meet my nurse. His face is contorted. He looks like he’s in more pain than I am.

  “This is wrong,” he mutters. “Fucking animals.”

  Even if I had a reply, no way could I give it. Not without the drugs. I close my eyes and let myself slip away again.

  “Did you know…”

  I squint up at the burst of mischievous sunshine leaning against my desk.

  “Did I know what?”

  “That’s the game. I say ‘did you know’ and you have to respond with something I don’t know about you.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yes it does!”

  “No, it doesn’t. Because you’re asking me if I know something. So if I respond with something about myself, it’s obviously something I know. You’d have to tell me something about yourself that I didn’t know.”

  “But the question is ‘did you know?’ Not did I know,” she argues.

  “So make it ‘guess what.’”

  “That’s dumb.”

  I shrug.

  “Ugh. Fine. Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Hey, wait! That doesn’t work either.”

  I laugh at her glare. “Why don’t you just ask me what you want to know?”

  “That’s no fun.”

  “How is the other way fun?”

  “You’re so annoying today. Did they screw up your coffee?”

  “Nope, coffee was good.”

  “Oh, so you’re just cranky.”

  I shrug again just to watch her bristle.

  “Fine. Favorite candy?”

  “I don’t eat candy.”

  “Seriously? At all?”

  I shake my head. “No. My father never allowed it. Then I ended up here after he was gone, and believe me, they don’t feed us candy.”

  “Okay, fine. Favorite movie? And don’t tell me you don’t watch movies.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Not even possible.”

  “It is, because I don’t.”

  “What do you do then? You must do something when you’re not in this office.”

  “What do you do when you’re not in this office?”

  “Oh no you don’t. Answer the question.”

  I sigh. “You know what I do, Andie. Take inventory, monitor the halls, monitor rec time, check in with the residents, other soldiers.”

  She doesn’t like my answer. “But when you’re not doing that?”

  “I’m in therapy. Or sleeping.”

  She quiets. She definitely doesn’t like my answer. “That’s it? That’s your life?”

  “Not much better than yours, huh?”

  “I’d say worse. At least we get to watch movies.”

  I turn back to my computer screen. “What’s your favorite tree?”

  Her grin radiates right into my chest. “Palm trees.”

  “Me too.”

  Sting. Then another.

  A groan rumbles from my throat as I try to face the offending party. Roy. His hand goes to strike my face again when Isaac calls out, “Stop! He’s awake! He’s awake.”

  Sweet Isaac. Damn sweet, that guy.

  “He’s awake, ma’am,” Roy announces.

  “Good. Get him something. I need to talk to him.”

  Movement, sounds, and a few minutes later, relief. Relief that’s even sweeter than damn sweet Isaac.

  “Kaleb, can you hear me? Hey, look at me, son.”

  I’m no one’s son.

  The hand on my face is different this time. Soft strokes, tender even. These hands order violence. They don’t inflict it.

  “Emery,” I mumble.

  She smiles and actually kisses my forehead.

  “We’ve finally received a reply! It’s happening!”

  The drugs must be putting words in her mouth now.

  “From the Rebel Camp. They’re sending someone to negotiate.”

  She’s accustomed to my blank stares by now, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a genuine smile on her face. It’s not something I wanted to witness.

  “It worked, Kaleb. This last clip must have been enough. Even though the crunch of snapping bones didn’t work, the drowning must have. We actually thought you were dead for a few seconds. You lost consciousness for a while.”

  There’s no response for that. She doesn’t need me for this conversation, and I should be dead. I’ve earned that blessing. Fuck them for taking even that from me.

  “In light of the news, we’ll hold off on any more work until we find out what your father is offering, okay?”

  I find no comfort in her optimism.

  “Kaleb.” Her eyes trace my features, my broken body, like they so often do. But there is no explanation this time. Just a sad smile to accompany me back to the darkness.

  A hand shakes my arm, and I force my eyes open.

  “I only have a second. I’m supposed to be checking on your condition.”

  “Dennel.” I struggle to push myself up from the floor.
>
  “Fuck, Kaleb,” he mutters.

  “I’m okay.”

  “No you’re not. What they did was fucked up.”

  “Yeah, well.” I swallow against my screaming chest. “Guess I’m a film star now.”

  He doesn’t laugh at my joke. “This isn’t funny. It’s just the beginning. I told you Emery was working on something. I didn’t think she’d go this far.”

  My joke had nothing to do with humor.

  “How long are they keeping me here?”

  “Until the evidence isn’t visible, I guess.”

  “They’re sending me back to work?”

  “This time.” My relief is short-lived. “Andie called me.”

  “What? How—”

  “She’s worried about you. She doesn’t understand why you’ve disappeared and she’s been transferred to laundry.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing. What was I supposed to say? You’re in deep shit with her.”

  A slight smile creeps over my lips as I imagine his clash with her persistence. “We just work together.”

  “Right. That woman has it bad for you, and I already know how you feel about her. You need to transfer her.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What happens when Emery decides to make another video? And another? What happens when she figures out she can use Andie too?”

  I don’t have an answer for that impossible likelihood.

  “Transfer her, Kaleb. Before it’s too late for both of you.”

  “How long you think until… you know.”

  “Until what?”

  Stacy and Roy haven’t noticed I’m awake, and I’m fine with that.

  “Come on. You know what I mean. Until she…”

  Monitors hiss, and a blast of cool air washes over me from a wall vent as the nausea returns in full force.

  Roy just snorts. “Seriously? You actually think she’s holding him here to fuck him?”

  “He wouldn’t be the first. Remember that whole thing with Captain Franklin?”

  “Yeah, but… come on. This is Emery. Plus, look at him.”