She was on the verge of tearing off the blindfold when their steps halted.
“Not yet,” Justin whispered with a mischievousness in his voice she hadn’t heard before. His tone made her feel silly for doubting him. If he meant to harm her, he wouldn’t sound so playful. Would he?
A door’s creak reached her ears at the same time Justin untied the scarf. The cloth slid from her face but her eyes remained tightly shut. If something horrible lay in front of her, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see.
“What do you think?” His whisper tickled her ear. Steps away, someone stifled a giggle.
She opened her eyes to see not the stolid faces of a dozen agents, but a score of her new acquaintances. Every single one of them stared in expectation. As she allowed herself to see beyond the people, she spied rows of beds and carts of medical supplies.
“What is this?”
Crispin stepped out of the crowd and held his hand out toward her as Justin pushed her forward. Once she placed her hand in his, he tugged her forward with a childlike enthusiasm. “This is your surprise.”
“It’s a clinic.” Crispin’s voice was tinged with a boyish joy. “I hope you didn’t think I was ignoring you for nothing.”
“I… I… I assumed you were busy.” Rue’s cheeks heated as she allowed the magnitude of the surprise soak in. “I never dreamed you were busy with this.”
It wasn’t on the scale of the hospital but in some ways, this was better. For one thing, it was hers. She could treat patients without worrying whether she would get caught. She could help people without wondering if she was hurting her freedom. With this place, she may be able to save a few of the lives that would’ve been lost otherwise.
An idea niggled at her, but she shoved it away. She’d worry later about what the timing of this gift meant. If Justin had plans to fill this new clinic up, she would deal with them. Later. Right then, she wanted to revel in the first gift she’d had in years and the best one she’d had in her life. A clinic. My own clinic.
“We need to staff this place.” Laughter broke free around her. She grinned unabashedly. She was going to be happy about this, damn it all. If it was the last thing she allowed herself to ever be happy about, so be it.
“This was Crispin’s idea,” Justin said.
“Thank you.” The joy in her friend’s face was apparent. Rue hoped her own features reflected his emotions. She would’ve hated to hurt him with her misgivings.
“You are most welcome.” Crispin dropped into a flamboyant bow. “But you should be aware I have ulterior motives.”
Her eyes moved to Justin of their own accord, but she composed herself before something unkind slipped out. “Oh, really?” She forced her voice to remain light. “And what would they be?”
“Any time I have a cold, you have to take care of me.”
“I’ll put in a standing order for chicken soup. I hear it’s the best treatment for the cold virus.”
Laughter broke free once more and she let herself join in. Justin’s voice added to the others, making the joy richer and deeper. If only any of it were true. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow, I’ll worry about what this means.
Shoving all the seriousness away, Rue vowed to enjoy the moment. She touched everything. Unable to believe any of it was real, she let her fingers drift along the linens and rearrange bottles of drugs. Everything was so amazing.
“Where did you get all this?”
A sly smile crept over Justin’s face, but not before she saw a cloud pass over his eyes. “Let’s say we have contacts at your former employer.” And then she understood why he’d replaced Hubert. The things she was enjoying so thoroughly were stolen from the hospital she used to care so much about.
She gave a little shrug. The government owned hospital wouldn’t miss what they never used properly anyway. And those few stolen items would be replaced before anyone needed them. One thing about the hospital—it paid better attention to restocking supplies than it did to the people who needed them.
“Here’s to hoping we won’t see any business here for a good long time.” Rue raised her hand in a mock toast. Then her eyes caught Justin’s and the flash of green turned away. What she’d been trying to hide from herself was less fantasy than fact. Justin needed a clinic because his future plans would create casualties.
To her surprise, Crispin broke out several bottles of a yellowish liquid. He proclaimed it wine, but Rue wasn’t convinced. The books she read always described it as something with the color of blood. She took a tentative sip and was pleasantly shocked as it fizzed down her throat.
“I think you mean champagne.” She held up her glass to be refilled.
He gazed into his glass and crinkled his nose at the bubbles. “Possible. I found it when I was looking for beds to stea… borrow with the express idea of never returning.” They both laughed until they heard a sharp clinking sound.
“Can I have your attention?” Justin tapped the edge of his glass with a scalpel. Conversation ceased and Rue’s heart sunk. Maybe the clinic would fill sooner than she dreaded. “I’d like to propose a toast.” Holding his glass outward, he waited until everyone did the same. “To Doctor Logan.”
The gathering repeated his words as her cheeks flared with heat.
“May she never leave us,” Crispin whispered in her ear.
As the last syllable warmed her, a cold voice behind them said, “May she be worth all this trouble.”
She turned to see Shiraz slip from the room. Justin’s eyes followed, and Crispin moved to go after her. Rue’s hand kept him in place. “Let her go. She has every reason to doubt me. All it means is I have to work harder to prove I’m worth the trouble.”
But as she spoke those words, Rue understood no amount of work could make up for the deaths she caused—not in Shiraz’s mind and not in her own heart.
TWENTY
“Doctor Logan?”
Rue jumped, almost knocking a vial over. In the weeks since her clinic opened, she hadn’t gotten used to the resident Unequals’ need to call her doctor. Between sequestering herself inside the clinic and the clinic’s low volume of patients, she didn’t see her fellow Unequal very often. Her days consisted mostly of studying what books Justin managed to retrieve from the hospital and taking care of accidental patients. Stitching up cuts and treating burns were as close as she got to a medical emergency.
She was both profoundly wistful and unrealistically elated.
Rue missed the job she used to do. Mundane injuries were boring, but they meant people were safe. In order for her to work at her old pace, something drastic would have to happen to these people. Being bored meant Justin hadn’t made his move yet. And the DOE wasn’t presenting an immediate threat.
“Yes?” She turned away from suturing the cut on a young woman’s hand. The new arrival was a young man she didn’t recognize. If he’d been at any of the group meetings, he stayed out of sight. Probably a new arrival. More and more of them were coming in every day.
“Can you come with me?” he asked with all the formality of a soldier. Rue suppressed a shudder. If this was the end of her slow days, so be it. She didn’t appreciate the idea, but she wouldn’t fight it.
One more stitch and the small knife wound would be closed. “If you give me a minute…” She pulled the surgical thread through a final time, tied it off, and applied a quick bandage. “Keep it dry for a couple days, if you can. And do me a favor? Pay a little more attention when you’re dicing carrots. Okay?” The girl nodded and without a word, scampered off toward the kitchen.
A glance at the clock told Rue dinner wouldn’t be for another couple hours but with the number of mouths they had to feed, she could understand the need for haste. Just because she never cooked didn’t mean she was ignorant of the immense effort it required. Her mother had been an excellent cook. Too bad she never got a chance to pass her skills along to her daughter.
“What’s this about?” she asked as she put her memories away.
“I don’t know, Citizen Doctor—” His mouth fell open and his cheeks flushed. “Sorry. I forgot.”
“It’s okay. I’d prefer if you call me Rue anyway.”
“Certainly, Doctor Logan.”
Rue cringed. Years of the whole DOE directive to address your fellow citizens with undue respect were too ingrained to fix in a few minutes.
The young man blushed. “Someone asked me to come down and get you.”
“Another one of Justin’s meetings, I expect.” She muttered to herself, not expecting the kid to answer. He looked scared enough as it was. Laying a hand on his arm, she said, “It’s okay.”
He looked down at her hand and then up at her face. She wished the tension would leave his jaw but her touch made it worse. With a gentle squeeze, she released him. “Lead the way.”
His face bloomed a darker shade of pink. “I’m… Nobody told me I was supposed to go. I’m only supposed to tell you you’re wanted.”
Oh, this one will make an excellent bomb catcher. She immediately regretted the idea. The kid didn’t deserve it and, over the weeks, she’d done her damndest to push the war out of her mind. But after all her efforts, she was the one bringing it up, if only to herself.
“Any idea where I’m supposed to go?”
“Rooftop deck?” he ventured. The pink of his cheeks had already started to lessen, but with those words he turned pale. “Wait. Isn’t the deck was closed because of—?”
He didn’t need to finish. The poor kid had probably come to the Unequals after the blast happened. His pasty face was probably the result of gossip. If there was one thing the closeness of this group bred faster than germs, it was rumor.
“It’s fine. I heard they were working on reopening it.” Her heartbeat began to slow with the idea. If they finished the repairs enough to have a meeting, they were probably getting together to celebrate its reopening. The Unequal seemed to find any reason they could to celebrate.
She didn’t blame them. Out in the real world, people had little enough to celebrate that those times someone tried to they chanced attracting the DOE’s attention.
After putting up a note saying she’d be up in the garden, Rue left the kid with his mouth hanging open. She was almost tempted to say, Yes, you met the infamous Rue Logan. Want a memento? But he wasn’t to blame for his wide-eyed wonder. Last time she heard the tale being told, she single-handedly saved the entire floor and would’ve saved Max if the clinic had been finished.
Funny how the hospital and the Unequal complex have that in common. I guess any time people get together, gossip isn’t far behind.
For some reason, she smiled at the ridiculous idea. She kept smiling as she reached the hallway where she’d gotten her first glimpse into Unequal life. The smile melted away as she turned toward the glass doors. The memories behind those doors weren’t ones she could merge easily with smiling.
Wrapping herself in the doctor persona where she could handle anything as long as she focused, she stuffed her fear into the back of her mind. The first step toward the garden was the hardest. She had ten meters to walk. By the time she went three, she was as confident as she could manage.
Boards covered the door where the glass had been shattered. New panes leaned against one wall. Everything was getting back to some semblance of normal. She hoped. Part of her harbored a fear Justin was about to launch his plans to defeat the DOE. Whether today was the day, didn’t matter much. It was coming. One more thing to steel herself against.
She pulled one of the doors open as though she owned the place and stepped through.
It looked the same as it had the last time she walked out into the sunshine. Plants stood in their planters. Small trees and shrubs lined the edge of the roof. In the middle, a little fountain sprayed water into the air, making small rainbows out of a sunny afternoon.
And not one single person was visible.
“Hello?” she said.
Maybe Justin wanted to meet her here so she could see how much work they’d done before he officially brought everyone else out. It could be he was planning a surprise similar to the opening of the clinic. If so, the absence of other people made her wonder if she arrived sooner than expected.
“Hello?”
Her answer was the wind blowing through a nearby evergreen. Its scent wafted to her—so clean and pure she could almost forget the carnage. Her eyes went to the spot where smoke had risen. The horror had been wiped away by the busy Unequals. Everything else in the damaged area of the roof was new. Seedlings rose out of dark soil, reaching toward the sun. Freshly built boxes held saplings.
She let her feet guide her between the rows of life until her gaze landed on something she knew hadn’t been there before. A statue stood on the spot where Max died. It wasn’t large. It wasn’t chiseled by the hands of a great artist. It was merely a simple block of stone someone had coaxed to reveal the figure of a man.
For a moment, anger flared. She never took Justin for a vain man, but the image in the stone was him. Or it could’ve been. And then again, it could be his uncle. Justin bore a slight resemblance to Max, after all. She had to admit this was a figure of a much younger Max—a man in his prime, ready to take on the DOE. From the look in his eyes, he was ready to take on the world, if it came to it.
“Well?” said a voice behind her. “What do you think?”
Rue turned and stared into the deep green of eyes so similar to Max’s she could’ve kicked herself for assuming narcissism had gotten the better of him. This could never be a tribute to Justin’s vanity. He couldn’t be vain. Not with his whole world devoted to the cause.
“It’s lovely.” Taking a step forward, she studied the figure in more depth. From a different angle, she could see the artist had captured a man with a hawkish nose and thicker chin than Justin possessed. “Whoever did this has talent.”
“It’s what makes him Unequal.” Justin stepped beside her and took her hand. “Maybe after we finish the DOE, he’ll have more time to sculpt. He’ll be able to devote his energy to creating instead of destroying.”
Rue wasn’t sure whether it was the tone of his voice or the words themselves, but she understood something very basic right then. “You did this.”
“Guilty.” His head dipped as his cheeks reddened. “Do you really like it?”
She squeezed his hand. “I really do.”
“I understand you don’t appreciate my methods, Rue, but I’m really not a bad person.” He didn’t look at her. His eyes remained glued to the statue. “I’m simply working toward a particular day, and I can’t let anything get in the way of it.”
“The day when you can create?”
“The day when I can create and not have to worry about hiding it from the world. This is the first one to see the sun. If we don’t stop the DOE, it may be the only one that ever does.”
She snatched her hand away. “Is that why you brought me up here? To shore up my promise? I told you I’d patch your soldiers back together, and I’ll do it.”
“But you don’t believe in the reason you need to do it. You continue to carry the belief that by being here, you’re somehow contributing to the number of casualties.”
Rue couldn’t deny his accusation. It lay there between them like a corpse she didn’t want to autopsy.
“Before this goes any further, I need to try one more time to explain what Max never had a chance to.”
“Max explained enough.”
“He didn’t erase your fears.” He grasped her chin and turned her to face him. “He brought you up here to explain. He so wanted to ease the pain in your eyes but since it hasn’t left, I’m betting he died before he could. I don’t want to leave his last mission unfinished.”
“What am I to you? One of your missions?”
“You are a brilliant doctor and an extraordinary woman, Rue. I can’t bear to believe you’re helping us out of some misplaced guilt over Max. Or worse, fulfilling a hasty promise made to a dying man. I want you to go in
to this because you understand how much good you can do. I brought you up here so you can see what we’re fighting for.”
“Plants and pretties?” She threw her words at him like rocks.
“For the freedom to have plants and pretties as you call them. For the chance to create something beautiful without being labeled Unequal. I want to sculpt. Crispin wants to write books people will actually read without anyone telling him what the story should be. Shiraz wants to be a chef, doing more than churning out DOE dictated meals to people who eat only to fill empty bellies.”
She tried to turn away from the fire in his eyes, but he held her firm. “And you,” he said. “You want to heal the way you were meant to heal, without anyone telling you your talents are better suited to scrubbing floors. Until the DOE is smashed into a million tiny bits, none of us will ever be who we really are—unequal or not.”
“There has to be a way to accomplish what you want without pushing people out to be killed.”
He shook his head at her as if she was a child who didn’t grasp the morning lesson. “Do you think we haven’t tried? Do you think the generations before us didn’t try to do something? By the time anyone saw what was happening, it was too late. The DOE had too much support to stop.”
“I can’t believe people would ask for something like the DOE.”
“How do you imagine it came about? It didn’t spring out of someone’s head like a grotesque, malformed Athena.” The fire in his eyes turned from zeal to anger. “As awful as it sounds, Rue, people asked for this. They took a phrase from an age ago and warped it into what we have today. They never understood what the phrase actually meant, they only grasped at the words and twisted them to fit what they thought they deserved.”
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