My skin prickled. I’d worried briefly about Gabriel’s sanity, but until now, I had mostly ignored my suspicions.
“Who took her?” I asked in as steady a voice as I could manage.
“The ambassadors. My girlfriend was compassionate and ambitious. She wanted to change things, so she was always out organizing peaceful protests and writing letters. She was the best person I ever knew.” He sighed, full of regret and admiration. “Her replacement was nothing like that. She had no ambition. No heart. And she didn’t love me anymore.”
I tried to understand him, but I couldn’t convince myself of the truth of his words. “But why would they do that?” I asked. “Maybe she just… changed.”
He stared at me, incredulous and savage. “Do you think you would know if someone replaced me, Marlo? Would you recognize me in a different form? Could you find me in a crowd?”
Confused, I nodded. “I… I’d try.”
“I was the same way about her,” he said. He sat up straight, shaking the hair from his face. His eyes were hard and flat now. “They made the switch overnight. I couldn’t even look at her after that.”
The pity I felt as I looked at him wasn’t because his girlfriend had stopped loving him. It was because he was too deluded to see the truth. He’d made up some conspiracy to explain something he didn’t like. Maybe lying to himself helped him sleep at night.
I remembered the restless whispers. Maybe not.
“She was at that party,” he said softly. “The replacement. She was with them.”
Horrified, I stared into his hard blue eyes. “What?”
“I couldn’t let her live. She wasn’t even real.”
“But—”
“The dead don’t talk,” he said. He stood up suddenly and began unbuttoning his shirt. I had to look away. “They don’t need answers. They’re gone. They can’t see or hear what I do.”
Flinging myself back on the bed, I tried to cool down. For some perverse reason, I wanted Gabriel to treat me the way everyone else had always treated me. He’d had opportunities, yet he let them pass every single time.
“I really don’t know if I can stay here,” I said, baiting him.
“Go to bed,” he said harshly.
I expected the cruelty he’d never shown me. I expected it because I’d never had anything else. But he wouldn’t give that to me. And so I saw him as the solution to my problems. With all my heart I wanted to confess I loved him. It was a love both innocent and fervent, yet doomed to make me miserable. He didn’t love me.
I pressed my secrets down and whispered just four words in the dark. “I won’t leave you.”
There was no reply. I imagined him telling me he couldn’t bear to be apart. He would cross the room and lie down next to me. His hands would be gentle.
This fierce longing troubled me. I’d just watched him murder people with a cold heart. It was likely madness consumed him.
I could have left the morgue, but it would have been useless since I would never escape unpunished for the things he’d done.
21. la decisión
The orange cat was dead. I wasn’t sure how long he’d lain around the back corner of the morgue, half hidden behind the scraggly remains of a shrub. His bottom half was gone, the tail and feet scattered nearby.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the head, my words caught up by the wind. “I should have helped you more.”
All day, I’d felt my relationship with Gabriel straining. His vague air of friendliness toward me was gone. I saw him in a new, unfamiliar light, no longer colored by my affection for him. I wondered if he’d actually always been abrupt and detached, and I’d been too awestruck and eager to please to notice it before now.
Maybe he’d been replaced, like his girlfriend had. But I wasn’t paranoid so I didn’t really believe that. I felt bereft.
He’d disappeared some hours ago, leaving me to remove the bones from the alkaline hydrolysis machine. I wandered the grounds in search of him, pretending the asylum wasn’t casting a shadow over me. In the distance, the two old trees bent toward each other. When I left, I thought, I could walk right through them.
And never look back.
I went back to the apartment and heard him breathing in the dim room. My hand hovered at the switch, frozen with my indecisiveness. Then I flipped it up to reveal him slouched low on the couch, legs spread wide, lab coat wrinkled. His pupils contracted and he blinked without breaking his gaze from the distance that enraptured him.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“No.” He lifted one hand to rub at his shadowed jaw, making a light scratching sound.
“What is it, Gabriel?” I spoke softly, hoping he’d recognize compassion in me. I wanted him to know I cared even though I had to leave. But I didn’t know why it mattered to me.
“You want to know,” he said, “what I do when I go up the hill at night?”
I nodded, hesitating. “I… I won’t hate you.”
A little laugh escaped his lips. He sounded resigned. He would tell me. His secrets couldn’t stay with him forever.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said, meeting my gaze. I flinched at the uncharacteristically frantic, forlorn expression in his eyes.
“Gabriel,” I urged.
He opened one hand toward me, as if he held his heart inside it. “They’re in their beds,” he said in a low, eerie voice. “It’s easier when they’re sleeping. When they have no idea what’s happening to them. I… I drug them. I drug them out of their minds.”
Chilled, I recalled the night my eyes had followed the blur of his white coat up the hill. I imagined his tall, narrow figure looming darkly down those moonlit halls, dripping syringe in hand. Shadow-faced, he would lurk beside beds with sinister intent, needle poised against cold skin. He would inject the patients with clinical efficiency, and then he would come back down the hill to sleep across the room from me.
I tasted salt. My cheeks were wet. “Why?” I asked.
“I do what I’m told. I give these people— Marlo, they need medical attention they aren’t getting. They shouldn’t be up there, hidden from the world. I give them medication they don’t even need. I turn them into zombies because that’s a requirement of my job.”
I’d been shaking my head the whole time he spoke. “You shouldn’t have to do that. How could they ask that of you? How can you… Gabriel, how can you live with yourself?”
“They didn’t ask me. And I barely live with myself. Every day I struggle even to get out of bed.”
“You should be better than this.”
He made a dismissive face. “Why? Why should I be better?”
“Because you are,” I insisted. “You—”
Suddenly he sat forward, fury in his eyes. “No. I’m not better. You don’t know all the things I’ve done. The things I do, the things I think, the things I ignore. My god, Marlo, you watched me kill people. You know nothing good about me. Nothing. And that’s because there isn’t anything good about me.”
“But—”
“When you’ve worked so hard for something you believe in, something you know in your heart is right, and never, ever see a single thing change… It’s exhausting. It’s disheartening. I came to work here because I didn’t have the strength to continue elsewhere. This is me punishing myself.”
I stared at him. This Gabriel wasn’t calm and confident. This Gabriel wasn’t paranoid or delusional. He didn’t scare me anymore. He was so sad and angry and… lost.
With a sigh, he fell back against the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “I know the secret to eternal life.” He nodded a few times, his lips pressed tight together. “It’s death,” he whispered. “Death is the secret. Your body decomposing in the dirt, becoming the earth itself—that is the secret. Dying in order to propagate life—it’s the paradox of eternity.”
“What are you talking about?” If he meant to kill himself, I would have to stop him somehow. But if he really wanted to go, I un
derstood.
“You got me thinking. I’m going to leave too,” he said. “No one can stop me. No one will care.”
My heart fluttered in panic. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. I want to see what’s beyond these fields. I heard about a man who built himself a castle a long time ago. It’s supposed to be due west from here, right at the base of a mountain range. I guess it’s abandoned now, but I want to see it.”
“You could die,” I said.
“Maybe. But at least I’ll die out in the world, and no one will be able to claim my body for credits.”
I sucked in a breath, thinking of a long journey across a desolate, hostile, chemical-laced countryside. Surely Gabriel wouldn’t want to do it alone. I wouldn’t have wanted to.
“I could come with you.”
“Then you’ll die too.”
That was the point. “But,” I said, “I won’t be alone.”
22. el castigo
Endless years of drought had ravaged Rueville with dust and hopelessness. The entrenched weariness and resignation on the faces of the people I passed would not fade for generations. But I didn’t pity them. Pity was a luxury.
My feet dragged through the dirt that had overtaken the asphalt. I tripped every few steps on uneven pieces, heading toward the main street with its stalls and spoiling fish. If I looked back I could still see the asylum, no less sinister for its blazing whiteness.
I was supposed to buy bags of water for our journey. We would need a lot. The drought and pollution damage stretched far. Nobody lived out west anymore, not for a long time. Gabriel and I wanted to see as much of the country as possible before the inevitable happened. Out there, we would find ourselves.
The past few days with Gabriel disturbed me. I’d thought he wasn’t a bad person. Dark and delusional, sure. But now, possibly, he was evil too.
Maybe I had changed without realizing it. Maybe my affection for him clouded my perception.
I can’t go with him, I kept telling myself.
And yet I continued walking, intent on buying the water. It wasn’t unusual for me to stay too long in a bad situation. And I loved Gabriel more than I ever did Verm or Anden. More than I ever thought I’d love anyone, though he’d done little to deserve my loyalty.
I’d almost made it to the water stall when a hand closed around my arm. Another clamped over my mouth as someone pulled me into a nearby alley. I kicked and struggled, but soon enough the person—a man—had dragged me to a car. I braced my feet against the side as he tried to shove me in the back. One foot slipped and my leg slid up, my body twisting painfully as the man pushed me harder. Then I fell inside, breathing heavily with adrenaline and anger. Blood glimmered on my shin and my hip ached. I wasn’t going to cry.
“Marlo,” a voice said. “Marlo Balfour.”
My name was spoken in such an icy tone my spine went cold. Turning, I met the sinister eyes of Ambassador Killering. His voice was a dreaded sound from the depths of my nightmares.
“Why?” I choked out as the car lurched forward. We sped along the magnet roads toward the city.
“You got away,” he explained. “You were a loose end. I never forget a face.”
The room with blue light. The black dirt. Tearing my gaze from his, I placed a hand over my beating heart, but that only made it harder to breathe. “I have to go now. I have to get back.”
“To the mortician?”
“Sí.” I nodded fervently. He would see my urgency. Gabriel was going to leave. He was going to leave without me.
The ambassador was silent so long I finally looked at him again. “You’re in love with him,” he said, his lips pressed together in a dark, gleeful smile.
His words didn’t make sense. “Qué? I don’t…”
“You are. That’s precious, Marlo.”
“Stop saying my name. You don’t know me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said dismissively. “All I want is your plasma. Taking it will be enough to extinguish your fire.”
We turned away from the city, toward the metal forest. The car glided through the shade until it reached the very last house before the dusty fields began. Dread filled me as I peered out the window. Sleek and strange, pieces of the house jutted off at impossible angles. It was white, wrapped with windows. Light shone cleanly from within the enormous, alien structure, but nothing about it felt friendly.
Passing beneath the shadows of false trees, we got out of the car and walked inside. He held my arm the whole way, his grip firm but not bruising.
The floor was polished concrete. The ceilings soared above my head. A long island separated the kitchen from the large living room. I spotted electronic screens and panels discreetly set into the walls. Picture windows offered views of the dark trees outside.
Without speaking, we crossed the room to a door set around the corner from the kitchen. Ambassador Killering opened it and a gust of cold air washed over me. I saw nothing but a set of stairs leading down into darkness.
“No one,” he said, “has ever escaped. No one but you.” Glancing over at me, he looked almost admiring. “Such strength. Such will to live.”
“No. I—”
He pulled me down the stairs. He didn’t turn on a light. We reached the bottom and I blinked, recognizing the blue glow from my dreams. I saw the rows of beds and the blinking lights of the plasmapheresis machines. Many of the beds were empty, but I could see the outlines of unmoving bodies resting atop some of them.
“You donated plasma regularly,” he said as we moved further into the room.
“I needed credits.”
The ambassador nodded, having expected my answer. “Plasma is used to treat individuals with a variety of diseases. It’s very valuable.”
“And you’re stealing it,” I said.
“Oh, no. I would never steal the plasma good people like you have donated. Others need it too much. Instead, I steal people like you, who will never be missed, and harvest the plasma myself.”
“Why?” I asked again.
“I conduct my own experiments with plasma,” the ambassador replied. “You’ve heard of our soldiers? They’re fast, fierce, and indomitable, rapidly gaining access to water in remote parts of the world. And why? Because we make them that way. A small team of scientists has helped me develop serums for strength and stamina. It’s quite astonishing, the advancements that have been made.”
“You’re not helping people who really need it,” I accused. I thought of those I’d seen awaiting organs in a shabby building in Cizel, and the ones crowding the med center in Marshwick. “What you’re doing is sick.”
“Perhaps.” He seemed unconcerned.
We reached an open bed. I pulled back, knowing what would happen if I laid down in it. But he was stronger and just as determined. I felt the cold vinyl against my skin as he pushed me down.
“A sedative first,” he murmured kindly. With one hand he held me down, and with the other he shot something into my arm.
“Por favor,” I said.
“Of course,” he went on, ignoring me, “the serums don’t always work. The formula is very precise, and sometimes there’s a bad batch. Sometimes a soldier’s body simply won’t accept the serum, and they become useless to our country. So we need to run tests. In secret, of course. This sort of thing would never be allowed were the public to know about it, even if nobody cares about a few slumlings.”
I struggled to sit up. “You can’t—”
He stuck a needle in the crook of my left arm, right into the scar. It didn’t hurt like when Kev stuck me. Just a quick sting and then a vague discomfort as the needle settled into my vein.
“Blood is the debt we all must pay,” he murmured.
Watching him smile and then walk away to check on someone else, I tried to keep awake. But I was falling fast. The plasmapheresis machine whirred, warming up to draw my blood. I tried to muster the will to move, but all my will had gone. I was going to die here in the mise
ry someone else had made for me, and no one would ever know.
Above me, the ceiling was a network of pipes and beams. I stared at their crisscrossing shapes, unable to do anything else except fight to keep my eyes open.
Seconds began to slip away from me. Minutes became meaningless. I could feel nothing.
At some point I stopped seeing the ceiling, though it seemed my eyes never closed. The framework of the house disappeared and the shadows melted. It had all turned to blue… like a sky. A blue sky like I’d never seen, except maybe in a book. I stared up at it from the ground, but I also saw myself from above. I lay in something repulsively soft and green. Slender shoots erupted around me, shivering with monstrous life. Red flowers unfurled and vines snaked toward me, seeking the blood I shed for them. Greedily, they curled around my body, drawing me into the earth.
But then I was awake, gasping as I opened my eyes to the indigo room. My right hand came up automatically and ripped the needle from my other arm. I looked down as I sat up, seeing the dark trickle of blood.
My feet landed unsteadily on the floor. I braced myself against the beds and machines as I staggered through the room. Every few steps I touched a foot, a leg, recoiling instantly at the feel of skin. The walls were lost in shadow.
There was a door somewhere. I knew there was a door that led outside instead of back through the house.
I had done this before.
A push bar materialized under my hands. I leaned all my weight against it until I gulped in a breath of artificially cool night air. The door fell shut behind me and I dropped to my knees, weakened. My palms hit the ground and I struggled to draw breath.
Disquiet settled into my bones.
It was just in front of me. The hole. I remembered it from my dreams.
Clawing my way to my feet, I walked forward on shaky legs. Don’t go, I told myself. Don’t look. But I couldn’t stop. Bit by bit, I watched the hole appear. I forced myself to look down into it.
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