by Joe Hart
“I don’t want to stay here. I hate it here.”
Simon studies her for a long moment before standing. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He sweeps out through the curtains, and she listens to the pop of his boots on the tile. Zoey takes several deep breaths, willing the clinging effects of the drugs in her system to go away. She doesn’t want to be in this room after dark. Not this close to those shining doors, not until she’s ready to step through them. A minute later footsteps return and Simon appears through the curtains followed by a young doctor with a shaved head and a manicured goatee. The doctor is taller than Simon and has dark brown eyes that are nearly black.
“This is Doctor Calvin,” Simon says, stepping to the side.
“How are we feeling, Zoey?” Calvin says in a surprisingly high, nasally voice. The way he looks at her makes her want to shiver and hide deeper beneath the blankets, but she steadies herself and meets his gaze.
“Much better. I think I can go back to my room now.”
“Hmm.” Doctor Calvin moves to the beeping machine and presses a button, bringing up an array of readings and digital lines on its screen. After flicking the button several times, he nods to himself and faces them. “Your vitals look good. Are the effects of the sedatives wearing off?”
“It feels like it.”
“Good.” The doctor’s eyes glint in the light and he cocks a half smile that reveals a crooked canine. “I guess I don’t see why you can’t spend the night in your room then.” He gives Simon a nod and steps through the curtain without looking back.
Once he’s gone, Zoey motions to Simon to come closer. When he does she says in a low voice, “Have you ever seen him before?”
“Doctor Calvin? Not that I can remember. Why?”
“Where has he been all these years if not in the infirmary?”
“Zoey, there’s a lot of doctors here and they rotate out constantly. It would be easy to not meet one of them since we’re rarely up here. Except as of late,” he adds, giving her a warning look. “Get dressed. I’ll be waiting outside if you need anything.”
Simon steps through the curtains, and she hears him cross the aisle to where Lee rests. Zoey gets shakily to her feet and waits nearly a minute with one hand on the steel bed railing until the floor steadies beneath her. She finds a fresh set of clothes stacked on a bench beside the bed and dons them before taking another long drink of water. The place where the guard shocked her in the lower back feels strangely numb, but the pain in her abdomen has become more like severe menstrual cramps. It is as if a smoldering coal has been placed inside her and stokes red every time she moves.
After several deep breaths, she emerges from the surrounding curtain and crosses the tile to where Simon stands at the foot of Lee’s bed. Lee is awake now, his eyes slits in his face, but they follow her and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Simon is holding Lee’s feet through the thin blanket that covers him, and when he notices her approaching, he releases them.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He turns to Lee, squeezing his son’s foot one last time. “I’ll be back later this evening to bring you home.” Lee nods and refocuses on Zoey as his father turns toward the exit. There is something in his gaze that dismantles all the doubt she’s carried until now about his allegiance. The warmth and reassurance that radiate from him tell her all she needs to know. He’s going to help.
Tonight, he mouths so quickly that she barely catches it. She flashes him a fleeting smile and follows Simon to the doors that lead out of the infirmary, elation carrying her above the pain in her body every step of the way.
The meal she ate in the empty cafeteria sits heavily in her stomach as she lies on her bed. There was barely any hunger to sate, but she ate as much as she could, almost to the point of bursting. She knows she will need her strength for what’s to come. It’s really happening. Lee is going to help her. They’re going to try to escape.
Excitement bristles along her spine at the thought. She dozed for a time, but now she shifts on the bed, wincing as she sits up. Her lower back is bruised from the strength of the shock she received. She examined the area in the bathroom mirror after Simon escorted her to her room, the vague outline of the injury a solemn red, the center beginning to purple like the eye of a storm.
Rita. Rita caused this.
Hatred rises within her at the thought of the other woman. The sneering, smug look she must have plastered on her wide face right now. Zoey clenches her fist. I should leave her here, she thinks, shaking with rage. If the plan works I’ll take the rest of them, even Penny and Sherell, but leave her here to suffer alone.
The thought stokes righteous anger but just as quickly it deflates, leaving her feeling dirty and defiled for having thought something so cruel, even about someone as heartless as Rita. She couldn’t leave another woman here any more than she could leave one of her limbs.
Zoey shoves the thoughts away. There isn’t time for whims of revenge now. At a later date, if they make it out alive, she and Rita will have their reckoning. Until then the energy is better spent elsewhere.
She uses the next few hours to reexamine her room for a hiding place for the gun she will steal. And at the end of her search, her options are the same: mattress or cabinet. She finds a loose seam on the top end of the mattress that she easily widens, just enough to slip a handgun through. She pulls up the mattress several times, mimicking an inspection, but the torn seam is only noticeable if looked at directly from the end.
Satisfied, Zoey remakes her bed and lies down on it again. She watches the calendar and imagines she can hear the digital numbers ticking off. Three days. Three days until the white dress will appear in her closet. Three days until she’ll be led into the assembly. Three days until she’ll stand before the shining doors.
No.
That’s not going to happen. Until the box she considered herself weak and unimportant, simply another cog in the machine of NOA, an unwilling part of the greater good. But now she knows different. For years the whispers from her inner sanctums spoke of traitorous and forbidden things, actions and words that would immediately receive punishment both swift and fierce if spoken aloud. For the longest time she was full of doubt each time she considered those most secret thoughts. Who was she to put herself above the rest? Who was she to question the authority of those so much older? Who was she to ask the questions that were only answered by penance? Yes, the shame that accompanied the strange obsessions was almost as powerful as the thoughts themselves.
But not quite. Not quite.
And now, with so little time left, with the numbers actually falling away before her eyes, there is no more denying the choices that will become her fate. Her horizon has split into two now, one of freedom and one of death. There is no in between.
Zoey stands from the bed, her body calling out for the sleep it so desperately needs, but the fire in her veins won’t let her rest. Instead she showers and dresses in fresh clothes. As she carries her dirty clothing into the bedroom, she imagines the pile of laundry that must be accumulating in the room far below her feet and wrinkles her face in disgust. To never return there for another shift—how would that be? Wonderful, she thinks. Truly wonderful.
She is just beginning to wonder how long it will be before Lee arrives, or if he will come at all after receiving a head wound, when footsteps begin to approach her door. She glances at the calendar. It is nearing midnight, but it’s earlier than Lee’s ever come before. Two feet stop in front of her door, creating ominous shadows in the space at the bottom. Even as it registers to her that Lee never made as much noise before, the locks clack open and the door swings inward, revealing Dellert’s torn visage.
His face is a landscape of skin patched in several places by black thread. The gaping mouths left by her fingernails have been closed, but their lips still shine ugly and red in the harsh light. The guard smiles, which makes his entire appearance even more foul.
13
She opens her mouth to scream, but Dellert moves like lightning.
He shoves something between her lips that shunt her jaws painfully apart. Her cry dies in her throat just as one of the guard’s hands comes up and strikes her upon the left temple.
The room whips to the side, and before she can gain her balance, she’s being hauled out of her room and down the hallway. Zoey blinks, trying to clear her vision, but the blow has left her head spinning, unable to focus completely on anything. She grunts and tries to dig her heels into the smooth floor, but Dellert is strong and has her by both upper arms. Whatever he put in her mouth digs into her tongue, its surface rough and sharp. A rock, maybe. She shakes her head, trying to expel it, but it’s stuck fast between her teeth. Her stomach slops with fear as Dellert forces her around the closest corner and stops beside a featureless door she’s only noticed in passing. She tries to scream again as he scans his bracelet and the locks open, but his fingers entwine themselves in her hair, and he yanks her through the doorway so hard her head rocks to the side and the bones in her neck pop.
Through the door is a dimly lit stair landing with a set of treads running both up and down. A dome light throws shadows across the other two occupants of the space, and when Zoey focuses on them, she quits breathing for a long moment.
Meeka stands in the closest corner of the landing with Dellert’s companion, Baron, beside her. The younger guard has her pinned to the wall and is nuzzling her neck with his mouth. The same type of gag protrudes from between Meeka’s lips, and her dark eyes are alight with panic as they meet Zoey’s.
“Baron! I told you, nothing until we get there,” Dellert says, his voice just above a whisper. Baron snaps away from Meeka as if he’s been struck and wipes at his mouth.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry my ass. Get moving.”
The two guards shove them down the stairs, hands grasping their hair. Zoey’s heart beats so hard her vision jumps with each pulse. Her breath rattles in her chest, and she feels saliva escaping her mouth around the sides of the gag.
They go down, farther and farther through the stairway until they reach the lowest level. Dellert again scans his bracelet, his hand loosening some on her hair, and Zoey takes the opportunity to spin and throw a punch at his throat. Dellert sees it coming and turns, taking the strike on the meat of his shoulder. His retribution is immediate. His hand comes out, slapping her on the same place he’d struck her earlier. Her sight bleaches at the corners and she nearly falls, her jaws clenching down hard. The taste of blood fills her mouth.
“You try that again and I’ll strangle you to death,” Dellert says, emphasizing his words by sliding a callused thumb beneath her chin. His hand clamps down on her throat, and she gags as he releases her. “But first I’ll kill her in front of you. Got it?” He jerks a thumb at Meeka and ducks his head so that his face is level with hers, their eyes inches apart. She nods. “Good. Now let’s move.”
Dellert rescans his bracelet and checks the hall outside before ushering her into it. They are in the laundry corridor beside the mechanical room, the sonorous throb invading her bones. Realization of where they’re being taken hits her and she begins to struggle again, but there’s no escaping Dellert’s grip. He guides her to the mechanical entrance and opens the door.
The reek of oil and hot steel assaults her nasal passages, and she nearly gags again. She prays silently that the yellow flash of a worker’s jumpsuit will appear in the tangled rows of equipment, some promise of salvation, but none does. Dellert shoves her to the left, past the hanging worker uniforms, past the stand of lockers and humming electrical panels. Then they are in the narrow passage that Miss Gwen and the anonymous guard occupied only days ago, the end of the bench where the instructor rested still clear.
Zoey scans the rest of the space, but the aisle ends in a cement wall a dozen yards away and there is no possibility that even she can squeeze through the gaps in the cabinets. Dellert gives her a last shove and she stumbles, catching herself on the edge of the workbench. Meeka bumps into her, and Zoey snags her friend’s arm as she’s about to fall. They stare at one another, wide-eyed, trembling, and even though Meeka doesn’t resemble her at all, Zoey feels like she’s looking into a mirror. The same terror is etched into Meeka’s face, and there is something in her eyes that is beyond panic. It is like a cord has come unplugged somewhere deep in the younger woman’s head. Zoey feels the same anchoring pleading to be released within her own mind. What a joy it would be to detach and become an otherness, separate from the all-consuming fear that’s rising with shining teeth and a promise of what’s to come.
“You can take those things out of your mouths now,” Dellert says, standing with his hands on his hips, blocking the only way out of the aisle. “And don’t bother screaming after you do, no one’s going to hear you.”
Zoey reaches up and gets her fingers around the thing in her mouth. She stretches the tendons in her jaw even farther, the pain so bright she whimpers from it. She tugs and pulls the gag out, its rough edges grinding against her teeth. It is a rock, the perfect size to barely fit in her mouth. Its jagged sides are coated with a slickness of blood.
“Throw it on the floor,” Dellert says. Zoey glances at Meeka, who has also removed her rock. She considers flinging the stone at Dellert’s head, but the chances of hitting him are slim to none—and it seems he can read her mind, for he jabs his finger at the floor. “Don’t you dare throw it either, bitch. Put it down.”
Zoey and Meeka drop the rocks at the same time, the sound of them striking the floor barely audible above the growl of equipment.
“Good girls,” Dellert says. His grin stretches the sutures on his face, and his tongue protrudes obscenely, touching his upper lip.
“You can’t do this,” Meeka says, taking a small step forward. “You’ll be executed for even touching us.” She spits a wad of blood onto the floor at Dellert’s feet, and he looks down at it before raising his eyes to them.
“You don’t know what I can do,” he replies. He takes a step forward and Baron follows him, the younger guard’s face tense with excitement.
“You’re insane. You’re both on camera taking us from our rooms. We’ll tell the Clerics and you’ll be dead before tomorrow,” Zoey says, forcing back the vomit that has gathered at the back of her throat.
“See that’s where you’re wrong, girlie,” Dellert says. “We’re friends with the guard that runs the cameras and it won’t be anything to get that little bit of video deleted. Especially since we promised him a turn next time.”
“You’re lying,” Zoey says, but even as the words leave her she remembers the information Lee gave her about Becker sleeping on his shift. If the man is that lackadaisical, perhaps his morals are as well.
“You know I’m not. I wouldn’t lie. I’m not like you, keeping contraband in my room.” The guard’s voice wavers as he motions to his injuries. “Do you know what the doctor told me? He said the scars will never go away. Never. I’ll have to look at them every time I shave or catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror or window. I’ll have to remember the pain of your fingernails tearing my skin apart.” Zoey backs away as Dellert takes another step, but Meeka stays still, frozen by fear. “So it’s only fair that I give you something to remember, too. I’m going to screw you so hard you won’t walk right for a week.”
“I’ll tell Simon. He’ll kill you,” Zoey says, flicking her eyes to the right. A short length of steel pipe rests on the workbench beside a vise. It isn’t overly long, but it looks heavy. Heavy enough to break bones.
“Go ahead and tell him—no one will believe you when there’s no video to back it up. It’s your word against ours. And you said so yourself—we’d have to be insane to do something like this.” His dark eyes glint in the light as he advances another step.
Dellert is almost even with Meeka when Zoey shoots the pipe another quick
glance. It will have to be perfect. If her hand slips or she stumbles, there won’t be another chance. Dellert stops several feet from Meeka, who hasn’t moved. He reaches out and tucks some of her hair behind her ear.
“Think I’ll warm up on you, though,” Dellert says to Meeka, his eyes swimming over her body. “I want to last longer when I punish your friend back there.” His hands drop to the zipper of his pants.
“Hey, you said she was mine, man,” Baron says in protest.
“You’ll take what you get or I’ll bust your teeth off in your head,” Dellert replies, without looking back. He continues to dig at his crotch and smiles as he takes another step forward.
Zoey lunges for the pipe.
She sees Dellert’s eyes widen but he only has a split second of surprise before Meeka moves as well.
Meeka, always so fast, faster than any of the other women no matter what the activity. No one has ever come close to beating her in a footrace, and Zoey doesn’t know how many times she’s seen her friend snatch a falling item out of the air with startling reflexes. But the speed at which she moves now defies reason.
Her foot flicks out in a light kick, perfectly aimed at the bottom of Dellert’s prod that hangs from his belt. The weapon shoots straight up out of its holder and hangs motionless for an instant between the small woman and the guard before Meeka snatches it and twirls it once. In one motion she depresses the button on its handle and jams it up into Dellert’s gaping mouth.
There is the droning crackle of electricity and blue light leaps from between Dellert’s lips. His eyes roll up to the whites and his long body jerks backward, arms and legs going rigid.
Zoey is stunned by the violent spectacle but manages to grasp the pipe from the bench as Dellert topples backward. He falls gracelessly and slams into the cold floor on his back. His slackened jaws clack together, and one hand curls into a spasming fist. Zoey steps forward, her eyes locked on Baron, who is openmouthed and frozen in place. She has to incapacitate him before he can draw his weapon. But as she tries to step over Dellert’s fallen form, Meeka shoulders past her and brings the prod down in a flash of black steel onto Dellert’s forehead.
