"Testing? Like Atticus goes to?"
Michael nods.
"I'm gonna get worse."
"Most likely yes."
"Is it from Testing?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Atticus thinks that's what is happening to him," I respond, pressing down on the spot where he pricked. "His numbness spreads each time he goes."
"When did he tell you this?"
"I don't know," I respond. "The days kind of blend together in here."
Michael frowns and looks next door into Atticus' empty cell. A thousand thoughts flash across his face before he turns back to me. A dull smile spreads across his face as he pats the back of my hand. "I'm going to figure this out for you, Miss Cuevas."
I swallow as I watch him leave the room. Something in my gut tells me that Testing is only going to make things worse.
Chapter 12
The sun peeks through the clouds as we make our way outside after lunch. I breathe in the stale autumn air and feel a little less stressed. Atticus and I snail across the parking lot to our usual spot near the basketball court. He walks with a limp now. Testing hasn't given any improvement to his nervous system. The numbness makes it hard for him to stand and walk, but I don't mind the slower pace.
"You don't have to wait up for me," Atticus says as if reading my mind.
"I don't really want to be near anyone else here," I respond, kicking tiny gray pebbles across the parking lot. "I wasn't one to make new friends back before the chips malfunctioned."
"I have a hard time believing that." We both glance at each other and laugh. "You were such a gem when we first met."
"Yeah," I laugh. "I've always been a little rough around the edges. Add anxiety onto that, and I turn into a nightmare to be around."
"Sometimes you remind me of the little sister I always wanted. Then again, I've never been more grateful that I was an only child."
I laugh. "That's what I used to think about my little sister. She drove me crazy when she was alive." My voice catches in my throat. The pain of losing her is still raw enough that it kills me. "So, what happens at Testing?"
Atticus frowns. "Why do you ask?"
"The ND said I'm starting tomorrow."
He swallows and avoids my stare. "It's not fun, that's for sure," he responds. "But it's to make us better so—" He drifts off, and I see his jaw clench. I can tell he's trying to sugarcoat it for me, so I don't push any further.
A deflated basketball leans against the metal pole of the hoop. My fingers itch to dribble down the court and do a jump shot from the elbow. Basketball was something I loved when I still went to school. Remembering the feeling of sprinting down the court still makes my heart skip a beat.
"Did you play?" I look up at Atticus. A half smile lingers on his face as he reaches for the ball. He bends his good knee and scoops it up with his free hand. "I can pass it to you if you wanna shoot. I was more of a passer than a shooter myself when I used to play."
"Are you able to do that with your—"
"Don't worry about me," he responds, bounce passing the ball to me. "Let's just pretend like everything is normal, ok?"
I smile and take a shot from the dull free throw line. It bounces around the rim a couple times before falling through the deteriorated netting. My veins pulse with each basket I make. Atticus does his best to rebound for me, but even when he can't, the game doesn't stop. He struggles to lay up, making a basket here and there. For the first time in weeks, a smile stays on my face.
"I think I need to take a break," Atticus says, lowering himself to the ground.
I wipe a layer of sweat from my forehead and take a seat across from him. "Sounds like a plan to me." The heat from the concrete makes the sweat bleed through my scrubs. "I wish they'd let us come out here on our own. I could shoot all day long. Maybe that's why we're sick all the time."
"You seem to be fine." I look over at Atticus and realize how much our game took out of him. His cheeks are flushed against his pale skin. His right hand twitches without his say so. There's a thin layer of sweat on his forehead that glints in what little sunlight that's left.
"Are you ok? I'm sorry, I didn't realize how long I made you play—"
"I didn't want to interrupt you. You looked like you were having so much fun. It's the first time things felt normal for me too." He reaches for my wrist and squeezes. "For real, Sal. Thank you."
I attempt a smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a dark figure walk away from us. I look past Atticus and make out the back of our neighbor heading further from the scattered group of Positives. His pace quickens, closing the gap between him and the fence on the far side of the parking lot. His hand reaches out toward the metal chain link.
"Don't—"
A gunshot pierces through the air.
Our neighbor falls to his knees and slumps forward into the fence. The electricity surges through his body, shaking him like a rag doll. Atticus grabs my hand and drags me away from the scene. The rest of the Positives scatter, most hide in the shade of the building. But Atticus heads straight for the doorway we came out of. Something in his urgency scares me, but there isn't any time for that. There's only the constant ticking in the back of our minds of when the next shot will be fired.
Sirens blare around us as we're directed back through the halls. Atticus doesn't speak. Screams from the parking lot chase after us down the concrete halls. We make a left down a different hallway than I remember coming down.
"Atticus, where are we—"
"I'm not staying anywhere those guns can reach us," he responds, looking for an exit.
We run as best as we can to another hallway. It feels like we're running in circles. Atticus starts wheezing again as we continue on.
"Hey!" We both look over our shoulders at two NGs running down the hallway toward us.
"Sal, go."
My eyes go wide. "No!"
"We're not safe here. You can outrun them!"
"I'm not leaving you here Atticus!"
The guards grab him under his arm and me as well. He looks down the hallway at the red door at the end. We make eye contact one more time before we're dragged back the way we came.
I can barely hear my own breathing by the time we finally make it to our cell block. The doors seal behind us and the two men in hazmat suits disappear behind the gray door opposite my cell.
"We need to get out of here." Atticus' voice rings out with an icy chill that leaves me with desperation clawing at my throat.
Chapter 13
"Attention Positives."
The voice over the intercom jolts me awake. I sit up in bed and look into Atticus' cell. Only the outline of his body lingers on his sheets. He must be at Testing already.
"Due to the accidental death of one of our patients, socialization time will be limited to each specific cell block. Thank you."
Accidental death? They killed him. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't like all the other deaths here. This one changed everything. It turned this place into something worse than Hell.
"Seems like we haven't spoken in a while."
I look up to see the man with the green eyes staring at me from the other side of my deposit box. As I make my way toward him, he removes his hazmat helmet. I freeze, half expecting someone to euthanize me for looking at him. A crooked smile spreads across his bearded face. His hair is a mess of tangled, dark brown curls. Wrinkles touch the outside corners of his eyes, but aside from that and the occasional gray hairs, he looks young.
"Why did you take off your helmet?"
"I'm a Negative," he responds, leaning against the glass. "The suit was just a precaution."
"So you're immune to all of this?"
He nods. "In a nutshell."
I prick my finger with my eyes shut and dab it on the glass slide. "I guess you're immune to getting shot down too, huh?"
He chews on his lower lip and turns his head away. "I just fou
nd out about the accident—"
"Murder." He looks at me with wide eyes. "Let's not pretend it's anything else."
"He tried to escape—"
"And that justifies being shot in the back? He fried to death on that electric fence!" He looks away again. Seeing the side profile of his face, I can only guess if he feels guilty. "I didn't even get the chance to find out his name."
"Things are bad out there," he responds. "I'm personally dealing with—"
"You have no idea what happens on a day-to-day basis here and it's so obvious that you're clueless." My blood boils. Ever since the outbreak, vagueness is something I loathe. Vagueness is the reason I'm in this position now. My parent's told me it was a simple procedure to remove the chip. That it would fix everything. That I wouldn't have to worry about getting sick. Now I'm in a glass box locked away from everyone else.
"I know."
His response throws me off. "Excuse me?"
He lets out a sigh and rubs his forehead. "The things that our government wants me to do are absurd. The quarantine was my idea. It was supposed to bring order to the chaos that was running rampant." He makes eye contact with the camera at the end of the hallway and nods. My cell door opens and the man enters my room. "After the chips failed and everyone started getting sick again, it was my responsibility to fix things. The government came down on me to get things right. So I created these facilities."
"But you do see this isn't fixing anything, right?"
"You haven't gotten sick yet," he responds, closing the door behind him. "You're actually the first Positive to stay healthy. It's fascinating—"
"Don't talk about me like that." He frowns and tilts his head. "Seriously? You're gonna act like you're not saying anything wrong?"
"I don't understand—"
"I'm a human being. Not a thing, not an object!" My voice bounces off the walls of my cell. The beat of my heart bangs in my ears. "That man had a name you know. He had a life before you slapped a label on him."
"I know you're upset—"
"Why are you even here! What do you want from us? Huh!"
"I want to find answers. I need to find answers."
I laugh. "At what cost do you find those answers that you're looking for? What's too far for you? Because obviously murder isn't where you draw the line."
The man turns his head away. The silence is heavy and presses on my back as the seconds tick by. He turns and looks back at me, tears lining the bottom of his eyes. "I know this isn't right. That man was not supposed to be gunned down today. If you take away anything from this conversation, please let it be that. Keeping you all in here is the only way that anything can be fixed."
"All you're doing to us is caging us like wild animals."
He reaches into the sample box and grabs my slide. "I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I am trying to make things right. Please believe me."
"I'll believe you when you let me go."
He nods. "If I had a choice, I would've done that a long time ago," he starts, his face scrunching up in a scowl for a few moments. "The Government ordered a lockdown after people started fleeing."
"But why? What does it matter if someone like me wants to get away from a place like this?" I push the stray frizz from my face. I can't imagine that things would have been different either way it went down.
"People do crazy things when they're afraid," he responds. "I'll be the first to admit that things could've been handled better. But now that these facilities have been put in place, the numbers of what shall we call them—incidents—have drastically decreased. Overall,we've made the country safe again."
"You really think I'm safe here?"
He smiles and nods.
"That's easy for you to say," I laugh. "You're a Negative."
The smiles disappears from his face."You don't feel safe because you're a Positive or because I'm a Negative?"
"Both."
He nods and writes something down on a clipboard.
"What did you write down there?"
"On this?" he asks, pointing to his clipboard. I nod. "Mostly it's to help me get to know all of you. I've got a lot of catching up to do in this facility—"
"How many facilities are you in charge of?"
Michael frowns and looks up at the ceiling. "At least fifty. One for each state."
"So you just get to know us and then, what? Leave for another facility?"
"Well, as CEO, I have a responsibility—"
I scoff and cross my arms over my chest. "Right. That's what I thought."
"I'm sorry?"
"I take it this facility is just another check mark on your list and you'll forget us after you leave. We're just numbers. I've learned that already."
"Miss Cuevas, that is most definitely—"
"You call me by my last name because it's easier. It's harder to remember a first name. We all blend into each other,." We make eye contact for a brief moment. His face is scrunched in confusion. "I guess it's nice to be addressed by a name, but most of the time I'm just Positive since I've been here. That's my identity."
"You're just sick, Miss Cuevas. I will fix that, I promise."
But I don't think I'm sick. I think this moment I'm in a war for freedom—a war that I will not make it out of unharmed.
Chapter 14
The tall NG marches into the hallway. It's been several days since they last tested my blood. The nosebleeds haven't been consistent enough to be considered a symptom. Or that's what Michael says anyway. I look up at the NGs broad shoulders under the yellow of the hazmat suit. Our eyes meet, and a chill runs down my spine.
"Out of your cell," he says, his eyes narrowing.
I look next to me, hoping Atticus will be there. My heart sinks when I see his bed empty.
The NG punches a code into the keypad on the wall and a buzzer sounds. He groans and punches it in again. Another buzz sounds. He slams his fist into the wall making me jump. "Rotsky!" he says. "Did the codes change again or what?"
The gray door opens at the end of the hallway and Atticus limps through the doorway. His back is slouched, but when he makes eye contact with me, he straightens up as much as he could. The NG taps his foot with his hands on his hips. Atticus frowns and then, looks at me.
"Dammit Rotsky, I told you this one was going to Testing and to leave her codes alone!" The NG takes a step back and flips off the camera at the end of the hall.
My door pops open with a whoosh of air. My knees tremble as he walks into my cell. I back myself into a corner and crumple to the floor.
"I don't have all damn day—"
"Leave her alone."
I peek around the NG to see Atticus marching into my cell. He puts himself in the middle of us and folds his arms across his chest. The NG smirks and steps closer to Atticus. "You really think you're going to stop me?"
"I think you're being recorded," Atticus says. "There will be proof—"
The NG lifts Atticus off the ground by his throat and slams him into the ground. The air leaves his lungs in a whimper as the guard leans his knee into his chest.
"Stop it!"
"You think a video is gonna do anything for you?" he growls into Atticus' ear. "You think anyone is gonna care what I do to you? You're wrong."
I throw myself at the NG, attempting to knock him off of Atticus, but his grip only gets tighter. "You're going to kill him! Stop!"
He grabs my throat with his free hand and slams me into the wall of my cell. I claw at the back of his hands and kick at his knees until my feet throb. I hear a yell and then the NG releases my throat. Atticus is on the NG's back, tearing at the straps on his mask.
Several more NGs run into our hallway. The NG in my room flings Atticus into the opposite wall of my cell. He crumples to the ground and curls into a fetal position. The NG kicks him repeatedly in the ribs until Atticus stops moving.
It goes silent. I don't hear my heartbeat. I don't hear the other NG
s yelling when they pull him off of Atticus. I don't feel the warmth to the blood that stains my floor from him. His hand is limp in mine when I take hold of it.
"Atticus?"
A puffy right eye opens just a bit, and he smiles.
"I won't let them get away with this."
He nods and closes his eyes again. His breathing is steady despite having the wind knocked out of him so many times.
"Miss Cuevas." Michael's voice is in my left ear. When I turn to look behind me, the NGs are no longer in my room. I look past him in the hallway and see several doctors covering their mouths, different looks of horror cover their face.
"Is he going to be ok?" My voice sounds hollow coming from my throat.
"We need to get him to a treatment room to know that."
I nod in response. My hands go limp as they carry him to a hospital bed. Michael sees them off, leaving me with his small droplets of blood on the ground. I run my fingers through it hoping this is another nightmare. When the deep red smears across the concrete, my stomach tightens and nausea sweeps over me.
"Miss Cuevas?" Michael's voice finds me again. His hand grazes the skin on my arm. I flinch without thinking. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. You can use the shower if you'd like."
I nod and move at a zombie's pace behind him to the bathroom. A white towel is handed to me. I turn into a robot, going through the motions as if I didn't just watch my best friend get beat until the brink of death. Pretending that the water the runs down my back is from my own shower in my own home. Hoping that I'll wake up from this nightmare that I was thrown into by people claiming to want to help when the truth was that they just wanted to control us.
Atticus' blood runs off my fingertips turning the water a light pink. The memory pulses for a moment, then fades with the water returning back to its normal color. I close my eyes, letting the water bead through my hair and just breathe.
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