The Last Girl

by Joe Hart

  “Then break the rules and find out yourself.”

  “You don’t have to get nasty,” Meeka mumbles. In a lower voice she says, “Where did you get them?”

  “The books?”

  “Yeah.”

  Zoey glances down the table at the Clerics. They are all talking to one another. “They were left in my room.”

  Meeka’s slanted eyes open wide. “You’re kidding.” Zoey shakes her head. “Then you’ve got someone looking out for you.”

  “Then where were they when I got put in the box?” Lily has stopped eating and begins to rock, her hands creeping up toward her ears. “I’m sorry, Lily,” Zoey says, rubbing the girl’s back. “It’s okay, we’re done talking.” She shoots a look at Meeka to affirm the statement. Meeka nods, and they continue to eat quietly until the chime sounds.

  The niggling voice inside Zoey repeats the fears that invaded her dreams the night before as she walks through the corridors to lecture. Lee’s going to tell you he won’t help. Or worse yet, he’ll tell Simon and you’ll be at Reaper’s mercy. No, Lee wouldn’t tell anyone. He wouldn’t.

  She walks like a zombie across the lecture hall and past Miss Gwen’s smiling face to take her seat. Zoey draws out the hulking NOA textbook and sets it on her desk. She runs a finger up its spine, recalling the feel of the two books that were taken from her. Even though they were much smaller than her textbook, the weight they carried within their words dwarf the larger tome. Her conversation with Meeka clarifies the questions that have been burning in her mind from the moment she found the first book. Who left them for her, and where is that person now? How cruel of them to tempt her with the visions and meaning in those pages, but now, when she needs real help, they refuse to reveal themselves.

  Zoey shoves the textbook away from her, and it plummets to the floor with a resounding slap.

  The other women glance her way. Miss Gwen jumps, her head snapping around, eyes widening behind her glasses.

  “Zoey! What is the meaning of this?”

  Zoey rises from her desk to retrieve the book, the pain from her time in the box so familiar now that she barely winces when she bends over. “I’m sorry, it slipped.”

  “See that it doesn’t happen again.” When Zoey says nothing, the instructor clears her throat loudly.

  “Yes ma’am,” Zoey finally replies from between gritted teeth.

  Miss Gwen rises from her chair and comes to stand between the first two seats of their rows. She runs her gaze across them all, hovering last on Lily’s damaged appearance. Lily gives her a cautious smile. The instructor’s mouth puckers as if she’s tasted something vile. “Once again I’m obliged to touch on the importance of following the guidance laid down by the Director and his staff. I was hoping not to mention anything like this in my room for a long, long time, because this is a place of learning. But since some of you seem to have a proclivity for stepping outside the rules, I must. I will get right to the point. You are held to high standards for a reason. You are the last few hopes of the human race. Can you fathom what I’ve just said to you? The entirety of humankind depends upon you. And yet you flout your responsibility like it is a joke.”

  Miss Gwen’s voice rises with each sentence until it grates upon Zoey’s eardrums. She forces herself not to blink, not to look away from the fevered gaze of the instructor, and in the second that their eyes lock, Zoey sees that Miss Gwen is mad. Not partially. Completely. Insanity dances like a flame behind her irises as she surveys them all once again.

  “You’re lucky to be here,” she hisses, pointing a dagger-like finger at all of them. “You have no idea how lucky you are, to be who you are. I’m ashamed of your actions against NOA, and I’m ashamed to call you my students.” She favors them all with another burning look before returning to the front of her desk. “Page three hundred seventeen. I want someone to read about the devastating conditions women who were unable to have children endured during the time of war. Maybe that will get it through your stubborn skulls. Who will read?”

  Zoey’s breath is coming faster and faster. Her muscles twitch. She grips the sides of her desk, and when the others open their books, she remains still. Beside her, Lily finds the correct page and begins to wave her hand in the air.

  “Me, I ree!” Lily says.

  Miss Gwen flicks a glance at her before motioning to Sherell. “Sherell, begin at the top of the second paragraph and—”

  “Why won’t you ever give her a chance?” Zoey says. Her voice is low, but it carries well across the room.

  Everything is utterly silent.

  Miss Gwen looks at her and blinks. “What did you say?”

  “I said, why won’t you ever give Lily a chance to read?”

  The instructor comes down the row, walking fast. “Zoey, you are dangerously close to more punishment. You will apologize this instant for interrupting me.”

  “No.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  Zoey stands up, a livewire of rage running through her. “No. I won’t. Not until you apologize to Lily.”

  Miss Gwen’s mouth works for a moment before the words will come. “I’ll have you locked up again, you little—”

  “You hate us, don’t you, Miss Gwen? I can see it when you look at us. What is it? Why do you hate us?” Zoey moves around her desk, leaving nothing between her and the instructor. Miss Gwen holds her ground for a beat before retreating a step. “You talk about privilege and the greater good, but you don’t have a last name either. They took it from you, didn’t they? But I bet you remember it, don’t you?”

  “Zoey, you will sit down.” Miss Gwen tries to make the words a command, but her voice falters, and she takes another step back as Zoey advances on her.

  “No. I’ve been sitting all my life. Apologize to Lily.”

  “I don’t take orders from you.” Miss Gwen’s feet bump her desk, and she puts a hand out to steady herself.

  “All she’s ever wanted was to read in lecture, and you couldn’t even give that to her, could you? Because we have something you don’t, that’s why you hate us. We have a chance. That’s why you’re the only other woman here—this is your only use. We can have children, but you’re barren, aren’t you?”

  Miss Gwen’s hand moves faster than anything Zoey’s ever seen. It whips out and cracks solidly across her face. Zoey’s head rocks to the side, and immediately the patch of skin on her cheek begins to burn. The instructor is shaking, her mouth open in an O of horror. Zoey wipes at the swelling of her cheek as if brushing away a fly.

  “I saw you,” Zoey says in a whisper. “That day in the mechanical room with the guard. I saw you. You think if you can get pregnant, they’ll give you everything back. But they won’t.”

  Tears slide from the older woman’s eyes in shining tracks down her cheeks. She tries to keep herself upright, but her legs won’t hold her and she crumbles to the floor. Zoey stands over her, breathing hard, the place where Miss Gwen struck her throbbing in time with her heart.

  “Get out,” the instructor says between sobs in a breathless voice. When no one moves, she stares around at them with the same madness as before. “Get out!”

  There is a thunder of footsteps as the Clerics approach from the far side of the huge room. Simon is the first to step around the barrier and see the instructor seated on the floor.

  “Remand her to her room!” Miss Gwen yells. “Get her out of my sight. All of you, get out.”

  Zoey walks away from the instructor, heading for the exit. The rest of the women rise from their seats and file out past Miss Gwen’s weeping form.

  “What happened?” Simon says, catching up to her near the exit.

  “Go ask her.”

  “Zoey, stop.” He grabs her arm gently. “What happened?”

  “Miss Gwen isn’t feeling well.”

  He glances at her cheek where she can still feel the instructor’s palm. “Let’s go.”

  Simon escorts her back to her room. He doesn’t speak th
e entire way, only telling her to get some rest before closing the door.

  Once the locks click home, she slumps to the bed. Her hands shake and she holds them out before her, studying their traitorous vibrations.

  Miss Gwen deserved it. So why do I feel dirty, like I’ve committed a crime? It’s several minutes before an answer comes to her.

  It is because she understands.

  For a second she places herself in the instructor’s position, and it is enough to create a flicker of empathy.

  Zoey stands and makes her way to the bathroom. There is the perfect outline of four fingers gracing her cheek, their tips pointing into her hairline above her ear. She splashes cold water on her face, cooling the sting before scooping handfuls up over the back of her neck.

  When she’s dried off, she moves around the small space of the bathroom, searching for a place in which she can hide a handgun. She tugs on the sink, but it is immovable. She looks in the toilet tank, but it is too obvious. Dismissing the bathroom entirely, she begins pacing back and forth past her bed. She spends the majority of the next hours finding and discarding a half-dozen hiding places. The closest feasible options are somewhere in the small closet beside the bathroom, or within her mattress. Both will be easily detected if they search her room. But really, she doesn’t have to concern herself with it as much as she first thought. If she manages to take Crispin’s gun, she will enact her plan that night. And if it works, she and the others, along with Lee, will be free the following morning.

  Or I’ll be dead.

  Either way, she won’t have to worry anymore.

  Shortly before lunch, Simon steps into her room. She managed to fall asleep in the meantime and feels somewhat rested as she rises from her bed.

  “Miss Gwen has requested that you not return to lecture for the remainder of your time before induction,” he says.

  She had anticipated as much. “Are they sending me back to the box?”

  “In light of the fact that she struck you, no. And she hasn’t stated what angered her to that point. Would you like to tell me?” Zoey shakes her head. “I didn’t think so.” Simon watches her for a long time before motioning to the hall. “It’s time to eat.”

  The lunchroom is cold. They file into it together, all the women at the front, their Clerics trailing behind, murmuring to one another. Zoey’s sure they’re talking about what happened in the lecture hall.

  She hears low laughter far behind her and glances over her shoulder. Lee is near the back of the line with several other Clerics’ sons. He’s smiling at something someone else has said, but he notices her looking and his grin falls away. She turns back to the front, but not before she catches Rita looking at her. The larger woman is directly behind her, and she appears to have regained her swagger from before her time in the box.

  They make it to the serving table and begin to gather their food. Rita’s elbow brushes Zoey’s arm with a soft nudge.

  “Oh, sorry,” Rita says, not sorry at all. “Hope that didn’t hurt. I’m sure you’re still sore.”

  Zoey smiles. “Feeling very well, thank you.”

  “Hmm. Good to hear. I was worried you wouldn’t be the same after that.”

  Zoey doesn’t answer. Instead she places the last few items on her tray and begins to move to the water dispenser.

  “It was me,” Rita says in a whisper. “I told Dellert to search your room.”

  Zoey freezes, and all sound falls away in the lunchroom. Everything is in stasis except for her and Rita. She turns her head, eyes narrowing.

  “What did you say?”

  “I smelled the gum on your breath, you stupid bitch. The day I hugged you I smelled it. It couldn’t have worked out more perfect. Especially since the retard got—”

  But Rita doesn’t finish her sentence because Zoey smashes her tray into the side of the other woman’s head.

  Rita tries to feint away but the plastic tray catches her in the temple and she stumbles out of the line.

  Food flies, and Rita grunts with pain.

  The sound comes rushing back to the room, and there is movement again. Zoey ignores it all. Her vision has narrowed to a pinprick with Rita taking up her entire view. She swings the tray again, the remaining food slopping off the top and fanning out in the air before the plastic clips Rita’s shoulder. The bigger woman slips in a pool of gravy as she tries to throw a punch, and her fist goes wide. Zoey sidesteps the attack, bringing the tray up over her head. She turns it sideways, making it as much of a blade as possible, and aims for the back of Rita’s neck. She hears Lee yelling something. Fingers snag her collar, but the entire world is red with her fury.

  As she swings the tray down, there is an explosion of pain in her lower back, her muscles seizing with it. She hears the crackle of electricity as the tray falls from her hands, tumbling down harmlessly to the floor. Zoey opens her mouth to scream, but she’s already falling, falling like the tray, into darkness that is enclosing the ceiling from the sidewalls in. It rushes down and covers her completely.

  Crimson furrows of light brighten somewhere in the distance, but it is like an angry sunrise before a storm. Heavy clouds adorn everything around her and she tries to rise through them but fails. She drifts, weightless, as unfamiliar sounds echo outside the darkness. She is vaguely aware of her body, but it is insubstantial as fog each time she tries to reckon out her position.

  Suddenly a voice speaks above her and the drifting ceases. The words are jumbled, but she knows their owner. It is the first voice of memory. It is Simon. It is her father.

  She tries to say the word, to call him what she’s always wanted to, to give him a title that he’s earned, but he falls silent. The red smear of horizon begins to widen with gaps of lightning painful enough to make her moan, and even as she realizes she’s struggling to open her eyes, there is a sharp pain in her arm and ice flows outward from the spot.

  Zoey tries again to open her eyes, but the storm clouds are unfurling like black sails and coming lower and lower until they smother her in their dark embrace.

  12

  Boom.

  Boom.

  Boom.

  Boom.

  “Zoey.”

  She hides from the pain that each thunderous concussion brings.

  “Zoey, can you hear me?”

  She takes a deep breath, coming slowly to realize that the blows she’s feeling aren’t being rained upon her head from outside, but from within. Her heartbeat holds the hammer and continues to smash the sides of her skull. Nausea snakes through her stomach and sets up camp there, ready for an extended stay. She groans and opens her eyes.

  She’s in the infirmary, but not in the same room as before. Curtains surround her bed, and a machine beeps quietly to the left. A heavy cuff of fabric gradually inflates on her right bicep, almost to the point of pain before relinquishing its grip. There is someone beside her and she cranes her neck around.

  Simon peers down at her, his dark eyebrows drawn together. “Zoey, can you hear me?” he repeats.

  She nods, forcing herself into a sitting position. Simon steadies her with a hand, and the room spins.

  “Going to be sick,” she manages. He places a plastic container in her lap, and she vomits into it.

  “The doctors said you might get sick from the sedative,” Simon says, taking the bowl from her grasp. He produces a white towel and dabs at her mouth. “It’ll pass soon, though.”

  Zoey sinks back into the bed and its pillows. She stares up at the featureless ceiling. “What happened?”

  “The guard in the lunchroom shocked you with a prod. He was right behind both you and Rita when you attacked her.”

  The memory comes flooding back. “She told Dellert to search my room.”

  “What?”

  “The day she was released from the box and she hugged me in the hall, she smelled mint on my breath from the gum I’d been chewing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me.”

&nbs
p; Simon sighs. “So you attacked her.”

  She lets the silence draw out. “I couldn’t help it.”

  “Zoey . . .” He shakes his head.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.”

  “What are they going to do with me?”

  “I don’t know yet. Assistant Carter is meeting with the Director right now. The only thing you have going for you is the guard overreacted. He’s young, and he panicked when the fight broke out. They’ve already stripped him of his post, and he’ll be punished accordingly.”

  “What about Rita?”

  “She was treated for a concussion and released an hour ago.”

  “What? But she—”

  “Zoey, it looked like you attacked her for no reason. And that’s exactly what she told Carter.”

  She turns her head away. There is a slight gap in the curtains around the bed, and through the slit she sees half of Lee’s face across the aisle. He is asleep, and a small bandage is stuck to his forehead. She turns back to Simon.

  “What happened to Lee?”

  Simon glances in the direction of his son, his mouth becoming a thin line. “He tried to wrestle the guard’s prod away from him after you were shocked. The guard hit him and knocked him unconscious.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’ll be fine. He needed a couple stitches, that’s all.”

  She relaxes into the pillows once again. The nausea is relenting, but a thickening ache takes its place in the pit of her stomach. She wonders if the guard also struck her there. If he did, there will be no saving him. She twists her neck, noting that the pounding in her head has come down to a manageable level. “Can I have some water?” Simon produces a cup with a straw and she drinks. “How long have I been out?” she asks when she’s finished drinking.

  “About five hours. The doctors said you had some kind of reaction to the shock. They had to work on you for a bit before bringing you back here.”

  “When can I leave?”

  “They want to keep you overnight for observation.”