The Perfect Soldier

by B D Grant

  Glensy and some of our other Dyna classmates load up first. After they file in, people from my floor who have been in the hospital since the raid are next. Most are wearing hospital gowns over pajama pants.

  The more serious the injuries, the closer to the front Mitch and the other Seraphim security helping patients up the stairs are instructing them to sit. Mitch announces over and over that the front row is reserved for the nurses.

  Lena is told to sit closer to the front. I’m pretty sure it’s not because she’s wounded, but because they want to keep an eye on her. She’s looking closer to her old appearance-conscious self with her hair slicked back in a tight ponytail, and her behavior has improved, but obviously not enough for them to consider her a loose cannon. I don’t blame them. I’m pretty it’s been her that I’ve heard screaming a few times. It’s always been at night so she could just be having nightmares like the rest of us, but she could have just as easily been going off on hospital staff.

  Glensy and another girl, Tia, who came in from McBride’s school having migraines take the set of seats across the aisle from Boston and me. Glensy leans back in the aisle seat and closes his eyes, but his brows still pinch together, his expression pained.

  “You feeling okay?” I ask Glensy.

  Tia curls up in the opposite direction, bringing her head to her knees and wrapping her arms around her shins.

  “I will be once the medicine kicks in.”

  Boston mumbles sleepily beside me, “Pill’ll take half an hour at least.”

  “What’d he say?” Glensy asks without moving his head.

  I look over at Boston, but he just mumbles again. I’m not telling Glensy that he’s going to be miserable for another thirty minutes.

  “I couldn’t make it out,” I lie. Glensy moves his arm over his eyes to block out the light.

  “Liar,” Boston whispers to the window.

  Tia suddenly jumps up, and Glensy flinches. She looks around wildly, her mouth pinched shut. Her dark hair is sticking to the sweat on her forehead. Glensy, reading her expression, points behind us. “The bathroom, Tia, go to the bathroom!”

  Boston sits up to see what’s going on as Glensy pulls his long legs out of the way. Tia scurries to the toilet, kicking the door shut behind her.

  I turn to stare out the window. Taylor still hasn’t shown up.

  When one of the Dyna loading patients with Mitch announces that we are waiting on one patient, I relax. Boston and I had kept Taylor up late last night asking her about her uncle’s school. Boston’s bullet wound and my burns kept us from being allowed to go with the rest of our peers to The Southern Academy after Mr. McBride got approval from his staff and the parents of his current students to allow the students saved from the Rogue school who had nowhere else to go.

  The last patient, a girl who looks to be no more than five or six years old, emerges from the hospital. I keep waiting for the hospital door to reopen and for Taylor to blame her tardiness on that goofy leg contraption they’ve got her using, but the door remains shut.

  I look over the tops of the heads in front of me. Her buddy Jake isn’t on the bus either. I had heard him outside my room last night, after Boston and I had returned, still preoccupied by thoughts of Anne. From what I heard, it seemed like he was trying to talk someone out of bringing him to the hospital’s shrink. For the short time I knew him at school, he was distant towards everyone, students and teachers alike, and that was before the raid, so now post-raid I’d say he ranks right up there with Lena for needing some kind of shrink intervention.

  I wonder if maybe something happened to Taylor’s old man, or perhaps she’s doing worse today and they’re keeping Jake with her; after her parents, he’s the closest thing to family. At least, that’s what she’s told me. Before we all landed in the hospital, I’d only seen the guy when we rescued him in the basement. Taylor had pulled him into a tight hug, his arms dangling limply by his side. He’d barely talked. But I’ve seen her dad go into Jake’s room more than once; if there’s something wrong with any of them, it might explain Taylor and Jake’s absence.

  The little girl’s eyes are big as she takes in the bus. The nurse holding the little girl’s hand carefully holds up a bag full of intravenous fluids in the other hand as they get to the bus. It takes a good five seconds longer than all of the previous patients for me to see the tops of their heads pop up inside of the bus. When they step into the aisle the little girl’s cheeks are flushed from the effort it took to climb the three bus steps. It’s sad seeing a kid her age look so sickly. She should be running around playing, not hooked up to bags of fluids barely able to climb up a few stairs. I was climbing trees taller than houses when I was her age.

  The identification badge clipped to the nurse’s scrubs has a teal star on it, large enough to be visible this far back. I learned from one of the nursing assistants who frequented my room that each department has a different colored star. I remember, or at least I’m pretty certain, that the teal star represents the pediatric wing.

  The nurse doesn’t leave once the child is seated at the very front row of the right of the bus. Instead, I cock my head to the side to look around all of the patients sitting between the first row and me to watch her take a seat beside where the little girl’s head vanished as she sat down. Vernon, who’s sharp nose makes him look more like a bird than a man is the only other nurse who also took a seat next to a patient. He’s on the left side, a couple rows back from them. Vernon was the one who treated my burns during my first days in the hospital. Everything having to do with my burns has been pretty painful, but Vernon did a good job keeping my mind off of the pain talking to me nonstop as he worked. It was made enough of a difference that I try to talk to every nurse that’s treated my wounds since, even those who don’t talk otherwise. Vernon told me that his family had lived in and moved out of Aurora long before Rogues began scaring residents away.

  “She’s terminal,” Boston says in a low voice. I hadn’t realized he was up, but I see that he’s watching the girl get settled as well. “She’s one of the kids taken out from underground. She was on the floor above us in the hospital.”

  Once again, Boston’s at the forefront of the information mill. I struggle to remember, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen the kid before. “How do you know?” I ask. “She looks fine to me.”

  “She told me.”

  I don’t say anything for a moment. “You said that she was a floor up from ours.” Boston gives me a blank stare. I try to keep my voice even and quiet. “Boston, we weren’t allowed to leave our floor. Ever.”

  He shrugs. “No one stopped me. Besides, you were sleeping all the time. What was I supposed to do, just lay there?”

  I didn’t care what he was doing, but they didn’t want us wondering around for good reason. The two men who blew up themselves weren’t after the regular patients they were after Seraphim. I heard one of them shouting about us being abominations before the first grenade went off. Boston knows that the strict confines were for our safety.

  I decide not to bother pushing it further. “So, what’s wrong with her?”

  “Her kidneys or liver or something isn’t working right. She got really sad when it came up, so I didn’t ask about it. We mostly talked about how lucky we were to make it out, how nice it was to have windows to look out of—crap like that. Like me, she never knew her mom, and she didn’t really seem to know what her dad did. She just said that he worked a lot and didn’t get to see her a lot while she was under the school.”

  “She was allowed to have visitors?” I ask, not sure that I heard him right.

  “Yeah,” Boston says sounding equally surprised by it as I am. “She wasn’t down there against her will like Lena and the others. She was being treated.”

  “She must not be a Veritatis,” I say, moving around in my seat trying to get comfortable. “Or else she would have known you were never in the basement.”

  Boston had gotten shot in the shoulder when we were t
rying to reach Anne. He was weak from all the blood loss by the time we found the basement, so by the time we found an underground entrance, he could barely stand. We had to leave him behind with one of the raid party’s medics.

  “Well, apparently she didn’t see most of the people kept down there. And her nurse said it was like therapy to have someone closer to her age to talk to.”

  “How nice of you,” I say with a hint of sarcasm.

  “I thought so,” he says as if I’ve paid him a compliment.

  With everyone loaded on the bus, Mitch and some of the other adults congregate outside. A few minutes later, Mitch and two others step aboard. Mitch comes straight to me while the Dyna who had followed us downstairs plops down in the driver’s seat. The third guy talks quietly to Vernon in the front row as Vernon tends to a patient who’d had to be assisted by two others to board the bus. The light from inside of the bus reflects off of the guy’s shaved head

  Their conversation is short. The guy turns to leave, giving a wave to one of the patients two rows back before hopping off of the bus.

  “I won’t be making this joyride,” Mitch says mournfully as he walks up to my seat.

  “Why not?”

  His eyes flicker to Boston to see if he is listening. Boston is busy trying every which way to lean against the window in search of the perfect position for sleep.

  “There’s another bus we need to load,” Mitch says.

  “Alright,” I nod. I turn to look out the window, feeling childish by how let down I feel. I’ve enjoyed Mitch’s company since the raid. Mitchell Lanton was the only one who never left his watch station at the hospital to sleep or eat. He stayed with me and Boston when he wasn’t monitoring civilians coming and going from the hospital. Up until Glensy showed back up, Mitch had primarily slept on the couch in our room.

  He leans in closer to me. In a near whisper he says, “Lia Heincliff’s going to be on it.”

  My head snaps back to face him, and I feel anger surge for the first time in days. “She didn’t want to ride with me?”

  Anne had been my first Seraphim friend when I was offered a place at the school. She was sweet and kind to me despite her own rough childhood. Lia had taken away Anne’s second chance at a normal, healthy upbringing when she shot Anne as she was fleeing with her son.

  Mitch smiles sympathetically. “We’re relocating all captives from the raid. There aren’t very many of them, but I figured you’d want me to keep a close eye.”

  “They get the short bus, then?” I say, still quietly fuming.

  “I wasn’t on that committee. Guess we’ll see.”

  “Ready to go!” the driver calls down the aisle as he starts the engine.

  I look around the tops of everyone’s heads. “Hey, where’s Taylor?” I say as if it’s an afterthought.

  “She isn’t taking the bus.”

  Boston turns his head, his eyes still closed. “Her uncle doesn’t want her around you unsupervised.”

  “We’re friends. That’s it,” I tell the both of them.

  Boston opens his eyes to share a glance with Mitch. I glare at them both before Boston stretches out in his seat like a cat again.

  Mitch chuckles. “I’m sure it’s not that.” He gives my shoulder a pat. “See ya soon.”

  “See ya,” I say, dropping the subject. Mitch walks back down the aisle, nodding at the nurses and driver before hopping off the bus.

  It takes less than twenty minutes for Boston to start snoring. Most of the other occupants are slowly working their way toward similar states of slumber. Some lean over to rest on their windows or slouch down in their aisle seats so that I can barely see the tops of their heads. The bus was made for comfort, but not for occupants who are more than about six feet tall. If I lay my head back against the top of the headrest, my neck protrudes out uncomfortably, so instead I sit awake, letting my mind glaze over.

  We haven’t been told where we’re going. Surely if they’re taking a bus full of patients it’s a big place. A decent burn unit would be nice. I’m tired of the constant dressing changes and wound care that only seems to make the pain worse. The only areas I’m seeing improve are the spots on my forearms and part of my neck that only had first and second degree burns from the explosion in the basement. The only consolation I have it that it was me and not Taylor. I saw it coming, she didn’t. If I hadn’t have pushed her into that room as she was trying to run toward the Rogues, it would have been the entire front of her body that would have taken the blast.

  Glensy keeps moving around in his seat across the aisle from me. He isn’t affected by the soothing hum of the bus ride either, but he still isn’t much for conversation. Every so often, he glances back at the bathroom. His must still be waiting for the migraine medicine to kick in.

  “You should get it over with,” I tell him the next time he looks over his shoulder. “It worked for your friend.”

  Tia seems to be sleeping rather peacefully. Her head is tipped back, sandwiched between the window and chair in what should be an uncomfortable position, but her mouth is slightly ajar, and the fingers on her visible hand twitch sporadically in her sleep.

  Glensy gets up from his seat with a groan of acknowledgment. He walks back slowly, one hand raised to his temple.

  Of course, it’s not until he’s in the bathroom that I realize how full my bladder had gotten. I should have used the bathroom before we left.

  When he returns from the bathroom five minutes later, his cheeks are flushed, and there’s sweat outlining his hairline, but he’s holding his head higher. He crashes into his seat, flopping his head onto the headrest in relief.

  “You didn’t make a mess, did you?” I ask as I stand.

  He shakes his head as a tired fog settles over his eyes. To be safe, I give the bathroom some time to air out, hoping that the smell of barf and sweat doesn’t just linger.

  The bathroom is as tiny as I expected. A port-a-potty would have felt less cramped. I lift the toilet seat with my shoe, thanking God for not making me a chick. The bus begins to slow as I relieve my bladder before suddenly jerking to a halt. I put my hand against the wall to steady myself.

  After I’m done, I walk out and catch the tail end of the driver’s announcement. “I’ll see if they’ll let us go around.”

  He opens the door and climbs out of the bus. The nurse with the terminal girl stands up to get a better view out the windshield. Some of the patients shift around in their seats. Lena is standing too, peering out of the windows at the cornfields on either side of the road. From here, it’s hard to see much from the sun blaring across the top of the field. I continue forward, walking past my seat and then Lena’s. The aisle is still fairly empty, as everyone awake is peering out the windows.

  There hasn’t been much traffic since we got on the two-lane highway, but through the front windshield, there’s traffic at a standstill in both lanes. The sunlight dims noticeably as the sun ducks below the field. The blue lights of the police car ahead of us become more mesmerizing by the second. The silhouette of a hulking 18-wheeler is on the other side of the cop car, its lights off. I can’t tell over the flashing lights if there is any damage or if it’s something else. “Do you know what’s going on?” I ask the nurse who’s with the girl.

  She shrugs, not too concerned. “A wreck, from the looks of it.”

  She lays a hand on her sleeping patient’s arm and then retrieves a brown blanket from the few remaining in the stack that have been moved from the first row to behind the driver’s seat She drapes it over the child without rousing her.

  On the ground, I see our driver speaking to the only cop in sight along the side of the road. The cop looks irritated, and the driver keeps gesturing with his hands. The cop steps away from him, heading toward his police car. Our driver follows.

  The female nurse moves around me to wake Vernon, who’s napping across the aisle. Once awake, he stands, a barrage of joints cracking and popping. I step back and make space for him in the ais
le so that he can get a better view.

  “That’s great,” he grumbles while dutifully checking on the sleeping patient behind him.

  I check behind me to see whether Boston has woken up yet. His head is still propped against the window, just as I left him. I nod in acknowledgement at Glensy, who is watching me. Then I give him a little shrug.

  “That can’t be good,” the female nurse whispers softly. Vernon makes a noise in his throat that sounds like an angry cat’s growl before the hiss.

  He is standing right in front of me again, so I have to look over his head to see what they are staring at.

  Our bus driver and the cop have emerged from behind the police car with a third man.

  All three men are wearing identical, full coverage ski masks. I only recognize them from their clothing. The masks seem to add an angry confidence to the men’s stride.

  Vernon hustles to the driver’s seat. “We aren’t waiting to see what they want,” he says. He reaches for the ignition, but we hear nothing. Vernon slouches over the steering wheel. “He took the key,” he says resting his forehead on the steering wheel in defeat.

  I push past the little girl’s nurse, who’s frozen in place. I grab the lever next to Vernon in the driver’s seat, pulling it too hard and causing the bus door to slam shut.

  “We’re screwed,” Vernon hisses, punching the rim of the steering wheel.

  “We’re so screwed,” the female nurse echoes. She looks back at the passengers.

  I do the same, meeting Lena’s stare. She slowly lowers to her seat, giving me a cold and unmoving stare. The setting sun highlights her split ends that weren’t long enough to make it into her ponytail, giving her a disheveled appearance. The funny thing, I realize with a trace of panic, is that this is still the healthiest she’s looked since leaving the basement.

  Lena curls her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins. She begins muttering to herself quietly as she bows her head, resting her forehead on her knees. From where I’m standing, I can still just make out the sound of her muttering. So much for her being back to normal.