I followed him as we made a dash back through Litropolis and to the Outskirts. I hoped my family was hidden safely in the house and that Father and Bram were okay. The sirens continued to ring. It was going to be a long night for everyone.
* * *
When we arrived back in the Outskirts, Dunstan sat at his desk, looking at some kind of list. His front door was open, and Jax was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey!” I shouted as Colden and I entered the room. “There's a riot going on. People are dying—your people—and you're sitting here reading.”
He didn't look up. “Oh, I see you've made it back.”
I kicked the back of the chair he satin, and Colden pulled me back. Dunstan stood and faced me, wearing a scowl.
“You're just like your brother,” I told him. “You don't care about anyone but yourself. You're using these people.”
Dunstan took a deep breath and then sat back down. “I don't know what your problem is, but you need to calm down.”
“You don't know what my problem is? Nowhere is being destroyed right now. My family, friends, and everyone that I know lives there. I understand why you are angry and that you've been treated unfairly, but this isn't going to fix anything. Your people are dying. They're being shot dead in the streets. Don't you even care?”
Dunstan's expression didn't change, showing me he didn't care. “The casualties of war. Everyone taking part in this knows what's at stake. They're willing to give their lives for the cause. And unlike my brother, I don't force them to participate. Now, I'm sorry about your family, but I have to think about my people who've been made prisoners in Gattica and slaves in the Mill when they've done nothing wrong.”
“So what's next?” I asked.
“Nowhere will be flipped upside-down after this. My brother will try to regroup and rebuild, but we have them outnumbered. We've weakened them. He'll be forced to negotiate. The prisoners and the Mill workers will be coming back here. Don't worry. We won't hurt anyone unless we have to.”
“Why do you need me here? Why was it so important for Colden to bring me back?”
“You should get a good night’s rest. You can sleep in my bedroom. I'm pulling an all-nighter,” Dunstan replied.
He clearly wasn't going to answer my question, and I was too tired to argue with him. I turned to leave the room.
“By the way, Naomi, you're never going back there. We're your family now.” Dunstan closed the door behind me, and he and Colden stayed in there talking for a long time.
Chapter 44
The next morning, I woke up early to take a walk. The place was flooded with new faces, all the prisoners and Mill workers who had survived the riots. I heard around seventy of them had been killed the night before. It occurred to me that the Outskirts or Litropolis had been their home to begin with. I imagined that many teary-eyed reunions had taken place that morning.
I spotted two men pulling a cart full of guns and other weapons. “Where did those come from?” I asked Nigel, who stood on the road with me.
I liked Nigel, and I was glad he had escaped from Gattica. He didn't belong there.
“The prison and Nowhere's weapon collection,” he answered.
“Wow.”
“We also got some lifestones, but not very many. They had the Mill pretty heavily guarded.”
I would imagine so. It was the most important place in Nowhere. Lifestones—I could sure have used a few of those. I'd never known that feeling before—needing the lifestones so I could live—yet it was how the Foragers felt all the time.
I made a promise to myself that I would stop using the term Forager.
“If they try to come over that wall, we'll be ready,” Nigel said.
I'd come to the conclusion that I wouldn't be going over the wall anymore, either. It was much too risky. “So, we're just going to wait and see what happens?”
Nigel nodded. “Dunningham needs to negotiate. We haven't given him a list of demands. We only want one thing: to be assigned deaths so we can collect lifestones, too. It's our right. All we want is what we should have in the first place.” Nigel patted me on the back. “So, this is home for you now. It's not so bad. You might even meet yourself a nice fellow.”
I laughed, even though that was the last thing I was thinking about.
“Naomi, walk with me,” Dunstan said from behind us. I hadn't even noticed him approach. I said good-bye to Nigel and followed Dunstan.
“Where are we going?”
“I have something I want to show you.”
As we passed, everyone stopped and respectfully acknowledged Dunstan. It was nothing compared to the way the Grims of Nowhere acted around Dunningham, but I could tell the people revered him. It occurred to me that this was the first time I'd seen Dunstan leave his cottage since I had been in the Outskirts.
Dunstan brought me to the same building Colden had brought me to the other day—the one with the dying hybrids. I had no desire to be in that place again, but I figured Dunstan might tell me more about this experiment he needed me for.
The stench of rot hit me as soon as we stepped inside. We moved quickly past the cots filled with the dying. A man in a white coat who was walking around checking for pulses greeted Dunstan and nodded at me. Dunstan returned the hello.
We walked into a part of the building I hadn’t known existed, filled with all sorts of monitors and screens. Glass cabinets were stacked with medicine and medical supplies. It looked like the hospitals I'd seen in the Human world. I had been to plenty of those.
Dunstan took some kind of card from his pocket and slid it through a metal object with a slit. The door slid open, revealing a room that was white, cold, and sterile. Two beds with white sheets stood in the middle, as did several metal stands with bags hanging from them. It looked like a quarantine room.
“What's this for?” I asked.
“It's for you,” Dunstan said. “The experiment.”
Nausea twisted my stomach.
“See, you have the perfect blood. No one else here does. Half Grim and half Human, not just a small percentage.”
“So?”
“We're going to be recruiting other Grims to live here, starting with the Grims in Litropolis. In order for them to be able to stay here permanently, they're going to need some of your blood.”
I didn't understand. How were they going to get my blood? Before I could ask, Dunstan placed his hand on the small of my back and pushed me inside. Pain shot through my knees as I landed on the hard tile. I turned to look at him just as the metal door slid shut, sealing me inside.
I stood immediately, despite the pain, pounding my fists against the cold doors. I screamed for Dunstan or anyone who might save me. I didn't stop until my hands were sore and my throat was raw. Giving up, I lay across the bed, looking around the room for a way out. The room was sealed with no possibility of escape.
* * *
For the longest time I lay on the bed, thinking about random things. It was Keira's birthday. Her seventeenth. With all that was going on in Nowhere, I was positive her birthday would suck. I didn't realize I had fallen asleep until I woke up to someone's cold hands on my ankles. Through the lashes of my half-closed eyes, I saw someone in a white lab coat strapping my feet to the bed. I had flashbacks from the subtraction chamber. I struggled to move, but couldn't. My arms were already strapped down.
“Let me out of here!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, but the man ignored me. He walked away and returned seconds later. He felt the inside of my elbow with his index and middle fingers.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. The man disappeared again without giving me an answer.
Dunstan appeared next to my bed. “We tried to get you to eat, but you wouldn't. This would be much easier if you had eaten.”
When did they try to get me to eat? I vaguely remembered someone shaking me and pushing a bowl of soup in my face, but I thought I'd been dreaming.
I looked up at him, trying to appear as pitiful as po
ssible. “'Please let me go.”
“I will when we're done.”
I looked past him. Someone laid on the other bed. Doyle. “What is he doing in here?”
Dunstan put his hand on my forehead, brushing my hair back. I wanted to push his hand away, but I couldn’t move. “You and Doyle are part of this experiment. He'll get your blood, and we'll see if that will enable him to stay in the Outskirts longer.”
Doyle had a coughing fit. He had already been in the Outskirts too long.
The man in the lab coat came back. He wrapped a strip of rubber tightly around my arm, just above my elbow. It squeezed my arm. I looked at the area. I could see my green veins clearly. He wiped the area with a cotton ball and some kind of liquid.
Someone else rolled in a table filled with all sorts of different tubes. The man in the lab coat opened a package and removed a tube with a needle on the end.
“Mr. Dunstan, please. I've already been through so much,” I pleaded weakly.
“I know, but this won't take long. We'll only take a pint at a time,” Dunstan answered.
While I was focused on Dunstan, the man stuck me with the needle. I howled. I hadn't been expecting such a tiny needle to hurt so much. It was nothing compared to my branding and the year-subtraction chair, but it was still painful.
I watched my blood, crimson and thick, run into the tubes. A pint couldn't be that much, right? The man in the lab coat switched one filled tube for another until they were all filled. It felt like they had taken more than a pint.
“Her brother,” Doyle said. “He's a troublemaker, but he has a lot of influence with the boys there.”
“Good. That's what we need,” Dunstan replied.
Bram? Why were they talking about him? They needed him for what? I wished Bram were there so he could help me, but I would have to save myself somehow.
I closed my eyes as the man removed the rubber strap. Relieved, I looked down at my arm, which was quickly bruising.
“See that wasn't so bad,” Dunstan said.
The man in the lab coat turned to Doyle. “Are you ready?”
Doyle looked afraid, but he nodded, and the two of them left the room.
I looked up at Dunstan. “Can you unstrap me now?”
“Not yet. We'll bring you something to eat in a few hours.”
“A few hours?” There was no way I could stay in that room a minute longer. I felt as if I was in prison again.
“Yes. It's imperative that we keep up your strength so we can collect your blood.”
Reality hit me. Dunstan was using me for a blood bank. He had no intentions of letting me go.
“Please. You can let me go. I swear I won't go anywhere.”
He stepped out of my sight. I heard the door slide open. “See, that's the problem with you, Naomi. You don't really follow the rules and do what you're supposed to, so I can't risk that.”
“Please, no!” My voice echoed off the sterile walls. “Please, don't leave me here like this. I'll go crazy!”
But my plea fell on deaf ears. The lights went off and the door slid shut, sealing me inside. I was left alone with the darkness.
***
Two Weeks Later
Muffled voices came from the other side of the door. I winced at the thought of them coming to take more blood. I'd counted fifteen days since Dunstan had locked me in this room. Every couple of days, his doctors drew blood from me, but they would never say what they were using it for. I spent most of the time feeling weak and disoriented as I lay in the darkness. Gattica would have been better than this. At least there I got to move around and leave my cell.
The door slid open. If I'd had enough energy, I would have bolted from the room, but I could barely manage to sit up. The light flicked on and my eyes struggled to adjust as brightness filled the room. I must have been hallucinating because I could have sworn that Bram, Keira, and Chase were standing before me,
I shook my head, trying to clear it, trying to make the mirage of friends disappear, but Keira stepped forward and squeezed me. When I squeezed her back I knew that she was really there.
She stroked my hair. “Naomi, I've been so worried about you.” I tried to say something, but no words would come out.
After a few moments, she let me go and Chase stepped forward. He touched my face, making me shiver. It seemed like forever since someone had touched me so gently. I'd grown accustomed to being shoved and thrown around like a rag doll. “I'm glad to see you,” Chase said.
He stepped back and I got a good look at my brother. I never knew what to expect from Bram and I couldn't quite read his expression.
“Bram, say something to your sister,” Keira urged.
As much as we had been through, I loved my brother and I was happy to see him. I stood and wrapped my arms around his neck whether he wanted me to or not. He hugged me back, then he whispered in my ear. “Don't worry, Nay. We're getting you out of here and out of Nowhere.”
“How?”
He paused for a few seconds. I could tell there was something more he wanted to say.
Bram patted my back. “Trust me. Things are changing. Just be patient.”
He let me go and Dunstan stepped forward. I hadn't even noticed him in the room. “I've made arrangements for you to stay at Newar's. She has plenty of room.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Oh, you're finally going to let me out of here?”
He gave me a half smile. “I'm really sorry about all this. I know it hasn't been easy for you, but it was for the good of the cause. You'll understand later on. We're all on our way to having better lives and your blood has played a big part in that.”
I guessed I was supposed to be flattered by his statement, but I wasn't. I resented being an unwilling participant in his experiment and I wasn't buying this “better life” he was talking about. There was plenty I wanted to say to him, but for the moment, I was being freed from my solitary confinement, I had my friends, and my brother had promised me that everything was going to be okay.
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Naomi Grim: The Final Breath Chronicles Book One Page 27
