by Sarah Noffke
“Now”—Zack turns and gives me a demanding look—“go to the labs, Em. Your father will be on your case otherwise, and we don’t need you getting these attacks before we have a plan of how to fix them.”
Chapter Seventeen
I feel Rogue’s kiss on my lips as I stroll to the labs. I never in my life thought there was a reality where I would press my mouth to Rogue’s, but a week ago I didn’t even know he still breathed in this world. And his breath haunts me now. Makes me want to breathe it again. Having him so close felt too complete, like I was close to a reality where I could live my own life. Where I could know what his life felt like, experience it with him. But I remind myself I only shared a kiss with him. I’m not Rogue’s. I’m just the girl he kissed…today. I’m sure I’m a part of a club. Should have a punch card or something. I’m sure Rogue kisses lots of girls. Guys like him don’t have to try to get attention.
I know without them testing that I’m not running a fever. I can feel it, the absence of heat in my body. I’d felt it so acutely that I’m more aware of the normalcy. I’ve been too aware of my every action and instinct, waiting to breathe fire or spy a flash of the future. There’s been nothing. Aside from Ren’s reading of me, I’ve had no other indication that I have a gift trying to surface. Even so, I’ve been trying to push every leaf on the sidewalk with my mind or push my way into every person’s thoughts as I walk down the busy Central Boulevard. I’m waiting. Waiting like a chrysalis before it becomes a butterfly. A seed before it becomes a sapling. But like all those things I have no idea what I’ll become, what gift lives inside me.
I round the corner and walk into a starched black suit. The aroma envelops me immediately. I know without opening my startled eyes the man who douses himself in this scent. It’s like my father’s, but with more of a floral tone. I back up several paces and lower my head without making eye contact, taking an extremely low curtsy. “Hello, President Vider,” I say, my eyes fixed on the pavement under my feet. Why is the President walking down a main road? Out around the general public?
I bring my gaze up to catch the tight look on the President’s face. “Hello, Ms. Fuller. Are you on the way to the lab?” he asks, pressing down his suit and pushing back his perfectly short hair. It’s too cropped to curl at the ends like Rogue’s does.
“Yes, sir,” I say, standing tall, trying to eject a confidence I don’t feel into my posture.
He sniffs the air, like he smells something. Not something delicious, but rather interesting or different. His eyes swerve to me. “So, you’ve been sick, I hear, dear Ms. Fuller. My sincere apologies.”
“I’m better now.”
“Which is why you’re on your way back to the labs?” he says, his long nose leading the direction of his face as he turns in the directions of the lab. “I’m sure you’re relieved to be back to your treatments.”
“Oh, yes,” I say.
President Vider takes a couple of steps until he’s too close, looking down on me. His nostrils pull back with one deliberate inhalation. This is not the first time he’s reminded me of a werewolf. The black slicked back hair. Manicured eyebrows. Long canines. And a pronounced nose. Right now though, as the hairs on my body stand on end, I wish I envisioned him as something less menacing. Anything else.
To my horror he brings his nose down and smells my shoulder. Actually runs his nose across it. His almond-shaped eyes spring up, giving me a satisfied expression. “Excuse me for that,” he says, his breath hitting me. “It’s just I’m on the hunt for something and you smell awfully close to what I’m looking for.”
I shiver out a disingenuous smile and step back. “It must be croissants. That’s what Giorgio fixed me for lunch.”
He shakes his head, his eyes trained on me with a brutal determination. Around the streets people don’t even notice us. They know better than to even chance a glance at the President. They might have noticed him on the streets, but a second glance wouldn’t be paid. “It’s not pastries I smell on you. It’s something woodsy.”
My head snaps up. Too fast. “Well, I’ve been sick. Home all day.” I stumble back.
He makes up the distance quickly, grabbing my shirt sleeve, pulling me in his direction. The President is strong. Stronger than I realized as he holds me in place, not giving me any room to negotiate. “And who in your home is responsible for ripping your clothes like this?”
I chance a glimpse down and spy the holes and tears along my sleeves and socks from my run in the woods. My shorts are unmarked, but there are several fresh cuts along my calves. I shake my head, at a loss for a response. If I set off at a run, where can I get to? How far will I be before President Vider has someone after me?
Ever so gently, he angles my wrist up, turns it over, and his eyes run over a long scratch on the underside of my arm. Blood has bubbled up on the cut and dried. He sniffs the air. His eyes dart to mine, a strange sensitivity in them. “Do have Dr. Parker treat your wounds while at the lab, Ms. Fuller, would you?”
I pull my arm back to my body, the sting of the cut registering for the first time in my brain. “I got that—”
“While farming, I’m sure,” he says, narrowing his eyes with a conceited knowing.
“Yes,” I say too fast.
Bikes ride past us on the street. A shopkeeper across the way refills his case. Middlings hustle down the alley way behind me, which is their thoroughfare through town. Their voices low as they walk. I’m aware of all of this, like my ability to observe has suddenly been thrown into hyperdrive. But my main focus is on the figure hovering over me, too close.
“Your father told me you were still grieving for my son,” the President says, his voice matter-of-fact.
“I will always grieve for Rogue,” I say, my reaction immediate, as though built into my instinct.
His eyes narrow, scanning behind me, and then studying me with a unique interest. “You know, you and Rogue were always close, and also so much alike. I could see why you miss him still.”
“Thank you, sir,” I say, at a loss for words. Again and again I take in everything around me, the details as exact as if I’d studied them under a microscope. I spy the tiniest of differences in Ms. Willow’s socks as her slacks hike up as she walks. Know they don’t match. I smell a group of Middlings who work in the sanitation department a minute before they pass the alleyway. I hear Mr. Carmichael’s stomach growl a half a block away. And in front of me I spy the tiniest hint of nervousness spring to the President’s eyes. It isn’t something I’ve ever noticed before. His eyes dilate a tiny degree. His eyelid twitches.
“Maybe I should escort you to the lab myself,” he says, grabbing my arm, nails pressing into it as we move up the street. I work at not tensing, at pretending this is normal. Because something is completely wrong. With him. With me. And I can’t afford to do anything until I figure out why. Why can I see, smell, and hear everything around me all at once and individually? Why is the President out? He seems to be looking for something, but the President is always chauffeured in a rickshaw. Everywhere he goes. Our President doesn’t walk the streets. Never has.
“The thing is,” he says, now almost pulling me through the crowd to the lab, “there’s something different about the Valley now. Something isn’t right. I can sense it, like something dead has been unburied. And it might be nice for you to bring your head up to the land of the living. I’d hate for you to get caught up in something tragic. Like whatever happened to my dear, poor son.”
I startle. Stare at him. I say the only thing that comes to mind. “I’m still so sorry for your loss, sir.”
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t reciprocate. Doesn’t accept. Instead he smiles, one that flashes both of his long canines. “We all know that Rogue wasn’t a benefit to this society. If he stayed here, he could have been,” the President says, swiveling me around at the stoop to the lab.
Stayed? He knows Rogue left here. That he’s alive.
“I hate what happened to my boy, but he chose
his fate. You can choose differently. You can choose to serve your people. To serve me,” the President says.
“Well, sir, you know I have nothing to give. I’m a Defect.”
He smiles, like I just told him a not-so-funny joke. “Oh, but you do have so much you can give me. Compliance is the purest form of flattery. It means I’ve established what you need for yourself and others.”
“But why are you discussing this with me?” I ask.
“Because I don’t want dividers,” President Vider says. “I don’t need them here. And I want them to know where their place is on the outside. Em, the world outside our borders is cold.” He stops and looks at me. “Rogue will tell you this is true. You’ll suffer outside our walls and we’ll allow it. And if you’re ever found inside our borders then the worst will happen to you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, listening to his steady heartbeat, a sound that shouldn’t be audible from two feet away. The look in his eyes chills me. Paralyzes me. Crucifies me. And I’m only whole when I’m away from him, where his judgmental eye can’t see me as I stumble off to the lab.
“I’ll wait for you to get your injection, Em,” the President says, like a threat. “I want to make sure that it makes you better.”
I turn and stare at him. Take in everything about the President. Behind him my senses sweep in a thousand details.
“Because right now, you really don’t seem well, Em,” the President says, his eyes narrowed. He stands at the bottom of the stairs like a gate.
I nod and turn away from him. I open the door to the lab, breathless to find a site that empties me of all my resolve to back down from this fight. Every single chair and every single space is crowded, filled with a person. It’s never been so full in the lab.
Chapter Eighteen
There’s nowhere for me to stand while I wait for my name to be called. I literally slide in front of two boys who are lined up against the wall. They’re Nona’s age. One of them, Scott, tried to kiss her last year. The other one, who I don’t know by name, was caught a month ago skipping classes. Rebels for sure. Real hard-core criminals. Hell, why be so kind as to numb our gifts, why not just give us a full lobotomy now?
As I scan the anxious and irritated faces of the kids in the waiting room, I expect to be attuned to every detail like I’d been out on the street. It’s gone though. Unmistakably and inexplicably gone. I’d felt like a lion when I was on Central Boulevard, able to hear, smell, and see the tiniest of details from yards away. Actually, to be quite honest, it was fantastic and made me feel like the strongest predator.
I expect, since I was the most recent to arrive, that I’ll have a long wait. I don’t. Tammy calls my name next, an annoyed look on her face.
“What?” I mouth to her when I meet her by the door. She isn’t hurrying off down the hallway, making me run to catch up with her like usual. A crease marks the space between her eyebrows and she looks half past the verge of verbally tearing me in two. Then I remember the last time I was in the lab, the deception Nona and I pulled. Has she figured us out? Is she going to turn me in?
She indicates the direction she wants me to take with her pointy fingernail. “March. You know which room to go to.”
What am I going to say? How am I going to get out of this? My adrenal gland, which is already exhausted from my run-in with the President, is pumping again, overflowing my bloodstream with adrenaline. Pulse racing, I whip around and face Tammy.
“Look, I can totally explain,” I say, staring at her scrutinizing glare. And out around her the strangest thing appears. A red cloud forms, outlining her. It hovers beside her skin, bathing her in a strange glow. It’s transparent like a bubble. I stumble back, simultaneously wanting to get away from whatever is enveloping Tammy and also sensing that it’s harmless. “Wh-wh-what is that?” I say, unable to refrain from pointing directly at her.
She turns and gauges the empty hallway. Swings back around looking even more irritated than before. “Em, I don’t have time for your games. You’ve already derailed our schedule and now I have a waiting room of patients to explain this to. They’re all going to want to know why you got bumped up in line and they’re all going to be mad at me about it. Gods know I can’t tell them the truth.” She shakes her head, lips pursed as she marches past me, carrying that red glow with her.
“But I didn’t have to be bumped up, I didn’t ask for you to—”
“No, of course you didn’t,” Tammy says, chunking my file on the lab counter as soon as she opens the door. “Wouldn’t make any difference if you did and you know that. President Vider just phoned the lab himself. Said to make your injection a priority because you are past due. You’ll have this first one now and come back in three hours for your second one. He insist that you get caught up on your injections quickly.” She shakes her head, that strange red glow still hovering around her. Then quite unexpectedly she pins her hand on the doorway, closes her eyes, and sucks in a strained breath.
“Tammy?” I say, still standing in the hallway, watching the glow around her pulse with intensity, but always red. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she says, batting her eyelids a few times, like trying to clear her focus. “Just hit by a strange bout of exhaustion. It’s these hours. All the demands of the job. And now your arrival throws a wrench in our schedule.”
“Sorry,” I say, meaning it.
She straightens suddenly, moves to the side so I can enter. “Oh, good, you’re ready for her,” she says to someone behind me. I turn to see Parker rounding the corner. Encasing him, similar to Tammy, is a greenish cloud. I rub my eyes. Open them. It’s the color of an evergreen tree, but again transparent, surrounding him. Tammy has already hurried away down the opposite hallway, carrying her red glow with her.
“Hello, Em,” Parker says, giving me a genuine, although tired smile. “Please,” he says, extending his hand, indicating I should enter the lab room. I scamper into the room and take my usual seat. Parker enters behind me, closes the door, and the greenish glow around him instantly falls away. Disappears. I bat my eyes to try and clear my vision. When I open them, Parker’s giving me a concerned look. “You all right, Em?” he says, hurrying to pull the thermometer from the drawer, along with the needle and tube of pink liquid. I shudder at the sight of the poison.
“I’m…well…” I can’t figure out what to say. I want to protest the injection. To tell Parker there’s something going on with my senses. Something I can’t really explain, but then he’d be obligated to report it and the President is obviously suspicious of me. I shake my head, not having constructed a real sentence. “Nothing.”
“I heard you were sick,” he says, swiping the sensor across my head. “Missed seeing you and your bouncy curls.” He eyes the reading on the thermometer then smiles. “Seems that you’re all better now. I bet you’re glad.”
I shrug, unable to feign a look of relief.
“Well, maybe you’ll feel better after your injection,” he says, hurrying to take the position behind me. “You’ve never gone so long without your injection, I hope it didn’t slow your opportunity to recover your gift.”
I don’t nod. Instead, I clench my teeth together as he rubs the cold alcohol swab across the top of my neck. “One. Two. Three,” he says, and then the sharp intrusion I haven’t missed blankets my head in pain. It’s worse than any other time before. A scream actually rips out of my mouth. I can’t stop it, since I’m using every ounce of consciousness to keep myself upright and not buckle over. Parker’s arm actually whips around and holds me up, balancing me, keeping me still. Noises of pain continue to issue from my mouth as fire scorches through my brain and the base of my skull explodes over and over again with a cutting sensation. A single tear slips out of my eye and rolls over my cheek, finally falling on Parker’s arm with a splat. The pain turns into an ebbing throb, a more manageable sensation. Parker removes his steadying arm and walks around to face me.
“I figured the drug migh
t have a stronger effect on you now, Em,” he says, squatting down and looking up at me. “I’m so sorry. And that’s why we don’t like you to skip injections.”
I usually nod in understanding, but I know I’m not allowed to move my head and couldn’t even if I wanted to.
“It’s hard to watch the injections do that to you kids but if it works then it will be worth it, I’m sure,” he says, standing and picking up my chart, filling out the information for this injection.
Parker doesn’t know, does he? He doesn’t know he’s severing our gifts. If he did, I’m certain he wouldn’t be doing this.
He claps my folder shut, gives me a sympathetic smile. “I see now why the President was so adamant about you getting your injection as quickly as possible. He really does care about every citizen, doesn’t he?” he says, like the idea just reaffirmed in his mind.
“He must,” I say, the effort to speak actually bringing more tears to the back of my eyes. The strangeness of everything I’ve experienced recently motivates me to talk. “Parker, can I ask you a question?”
He eyes the clock on the wall, seems to calculate something in his head. “Sure.” He finally nods. “I should be spending more time evaluating you after your injections anyway.”
“I wanted to get something for Tammy to thank her for being so nice all these years. I can’t decide on what to get her though. Can you tell me what her gift is? I was thinking that might inspire me.”
Parker’s brown eyes shine behind his glasses. “That’s thoughtful of you, Em. Great idea too. Tammy’s gift is she can read auras.” He pauses to tuck his pen behind his ear; it immediately gets lost in his thick slicked back hair. “You know, she says I have a green aura. Dark green.”
Chapter Nineteen
