“I got promoted to the President’s Personal Guard shortly after leaving the labs. It was all a bit strange, really. I’m still not entirely sure why she wanted me.” Reece shrugged like it was all a mystery that he could not figure out.
I knew what that felt like.
We returned our attention back to our food and finished in silence. Reece finished before I did, managing to fit a lot more into his mouth at one time than me. When my plate was cleared and I was considering licking it clean, he stood and gathered them all together.
I went to stand and get out of his way but I only managed to put my weight on the wrong foot and I stumbled instead. I gripped the edge of the bed at the last minute to stop myself falling all the way to the floor and breaking my face.
Reece hurried over to grab me. “Are you okay?” He helped to right me back to a standing position.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said quickly.
“It’s your foot, isn’t it? How badly does it hurt?”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
“Wren, let me help.”
He stood directly in front of me, making it clear he wasn’t going to move unless I said something helpful or honest. “It’s a bit sore. From the running.”
“Sit on the bed,” Reece ordered, sounding very much like the trooper I knew.
“No.”
“Sit on the bed.”
“No. It’s fine.”
“Wren…”
Reece didn’t give me another chance to refuse before he bent down and picked me up. He carried me over to the bed and deposited me on top of it before I could protest any further.
Perching on the end of the bed, he gently grabbed my foot and took my shoe off. Next, he peeled back the sock so my deformed foot felt the coldness of the underground room.
The familiar shame and embarrassment my foot invoked washed over me. I hated people seeing it, I let even fewer people actually touch it. The only person I let get that close to me was Rocky. The memory of him brought back a horrible pang to my gut.
Reece held my foot between his warm hands as he started to massage it. His fingers dug deep into the flesh, rubbing his hands over the skin and managing to work all the kinks out.
Because the foot was deformed, it didn’t work the same way as my other one. I had learned to put more weight on my right foot when I walked to alleviate the pressure on the gimp one. Compensating for the lack of mobility was a natural thing now, I wouldn’t know how to walk like a regular person.
While Reece was focused on my foot, I studied him. I had every expectation of his mouth twisting with disgust or his jaw set with a cringe while he touched the ugly limb.
But that’s not what I saw.
Reece’s features were relaxed as he massaged my foot. He was intent on making it feel better, determined to fix the unfixable. There was nothing of the contempt that usually graced the faces of those catching a glimpse of the deformity. It was like he didn’t even notice.
I relaxed, letting his fingers work their magic on my foot. He really was making it feel better, ironing it out so it almost resembled a normal foot. It would curl back again later, but I would take what I could get for now.
Reece couldn’t possibly be real.
He had to be a figment of my desperate imagination.
Chapter 12: Reece
My watch said it was morning and I had to get up. All the muscles in my body screamed louder to stay asleep for a little while longer.
There were no windows in the room, buried deep underground. I missed the rays of sunshine streaming in and confirming what the clock was trying to say. It hadn’t even been a day and I was already restless being locked up in the bunker.
I had another reason to stay in bed.
Wren was still asleep.
She’d tried to sleep on the floor last night, insisting that she had slept on much worse and would be fine. There was no way I was going to let her do that. She seemed to have a complex about not being good enough for the basics of life.
Food. Water. A bed.
She acted subservient to everyone, trying to scurry around so she didn’t get in anyone’s way or cause any fuss.
It killed me. I didn’t know how to convince her that she was worthy, that nobody was as strong or as intelligent as she was. That she was more remarkable than most other humans in Aria.
I would have to keep working on it, show her she was wrong until she believed me. Getting her to take the bed was only the first step. In the end I’d just laid down on the floor and pretended to go to sleep. There wasn’t enough room down there for the two of us. I heard her sigh and climb under the bedcovers, a triumphant smile hidden on my face.
She looked peaceful when she was asleep, like the weight of the world wasn’t resting on her shoulders. Nobody looking at her asleep would guess just how difficult her life was.
I hoped her dreams were magical.
I hoped they were everything her life wasn’t.
Pulling myself into a sitting position, I stretched out and tried to make a plan for the day. I would have to check in with the other members of the Resistance, see if they had big ideas for me. Ones that didn’t involve sacrificing Wren in the process.
My eyes kept drifting back to the sleeping girl, making me smile every time. She deserved to sleep and get some rest. After everything Stone put her through, it must have been so difficult for her to keep going.
Just before we went to bed last night I managed to coax out everything that happened since I last saw her in the labs. She told me everything about the doctor and the guards at Stone’s complex. It must have been horrible for her to be drugged enough that she thought she was dying, only to wake up on an autopsy table a few hours later.
If I ever met this Doctor Wagstaff, I would thank him.
He saved Wren’s life.
Not me.
I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he didn’t slip her that drug. I could never let those imaginations enter my mind or I would never be able to function properly again. It had been too close to becoming reality.
Stone had almost got her wish.
Her organs.
Wren’s eyelids fluttered open, and before I could look away, she awoke to catch me staring at her.
Great.
Now she probably thought I was some kind of pervert for watching her sleep.
“Good morning,” I said, standing so it would appear like I was only glancing at her while getting up for the day. Wren was smart, she probably knew anyway. She had a way of looking at me and seeing right into my thoughts.
She rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling without saying anything. She was still waking up, being dragged back from the heavy slumber she was managing in the small bed.
“Breakfast is in half an hour,” I continued. “If you’re not up to it, I can bring something here for you.”
Her gaze dragged back to me. “No, I can do it. But thank you.” She sat up, the blanket falling away from her chest.
“There are a few items of clothes in the closet if you want to change or shower or anything.” I was rambling. I was trained not to do that. I was trained by the elite troopers of Aria to only speak when I had to and be precise with my words.
Wren made me ramble.
She muddled up all my thoughts until I could barely think anymore.
Unless it was about her smile, then I thought quite a bit about it. She would think I was a crazy stalker if she knew just how much I thought about that smile.
I would have killed in order to see it every single day.
“I’ll just freshen up,” she replied, stretching. She didn’t move from the bed, instead blinking a few times and staring at me like she only just remembered something. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course you can.”
“What did you and Joseph talk about when I left the room yesterday?”
She had every right to know. If our positions were reversed I woul
d have demanded to know immediately after the meeting had taken place. I told her I would tell her everything. I said I would be honest with her.
But the thought of telling her that Joseph wanted to use her as a bargaining chip with President Stone was just too awful. He wanted to make a sacrificial lamb out of her without giving it a second thought.
I couldn’t tell Wren that.
She would want to leave immediately, think that everyone she ever knew would betray her in an instant. It wouldn’t do any good and I wasn’t going to let it happen anyway.
It was better all-round if I lied to her.
I hated doing it.
“He wanted to know everything I did while being a guard,” I replied. “He was interested in the security of the base and if I thought there was a way around the locking system.”
“They are planning on breaking into the guards’ base?” Her eyes were so curious and innocent, it stabbed me in the gut lying to her like that. I had to remember that I was doing the right thing, she didn’t need to be upset by the truth.
She’d already gone through so much already.
So, so much.
“It’s one of the things they are considering.” I cleared my throat and headed for the door. “We should get going. Apparently if you miss breakfast you don’t get anything else until lunch. My stomach is growling already.”
I gave her some privacy for a few minutes before she joined me in the hallway. She seemed surprised that I had waited for her. But we were a package deal now, I wasn’t going to go anywhere without her. I had let her get away once and she’d almost died. That was the only lesson I needed.
We walked in comfortable silence to the central meeting hub. There were probably about a couple of dozen people at the tables set out in neat rows. Another few were still in line for their meals. It reminded me a lot of the troopers’ mess hall. Hopefully the food would be better here but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. Dinner last night might have been a fluke.
Shuffling along the line, there was no distinctive smell to the food, only the musky scent of being underground. When we reached the front of the line, a beige mush was placed in a bowl and handed to us.
Dinner was definitely a fluke.
It was hard to determine whether the mush was animal, vegetable, or mineral. It could have been a combination of all three, plus some dirt thrown in for good measure.
We took a table in the corner, the only one with people not seated around it already. Autumn had tried to get our attention but I pretended I didn’t see her. She had the kid that delivered our dinner by her side. She didn’t look old enough to have a child that old, perhaps it was her sister?
Wren didn’t hesitate to eat her breakfast, it took some more convincing for me to give it a go. When you poked at it, the mush didn’t move. That wasn’t a good sign.
“It tastes better than it looks,” Wren said.
I arched an eyebrow in question. “Really? Because it looks like it’ll taste like the stuff I scrape off my boots.”
That made her laugh. “I can assure you it’s better than that. Give it a try.”
My stomach grumbled again, reminding me it needed to be filled with anything deemed mostly edible. I poked the fork into the mush and picked up a small amount. I had to close my eyes to put it into my mouth.
It wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever eaten.
But it came close.
I decided it would be best if I just shoveled as much in my mouth as I possibly could so I could inflict the torture on my taste buds for the shortest time possible. The dish was empty within minutes.
Wren was still only halfway through. “I don’t know if it’s that good.”
“It’s terrible,” I replied.
She gave me a little smile. “You’ll get used to it. It’s amazing what you’ll eat when you’re hungry enough.”
I thought about all the times I’d been forced to go to the Defectives’ village to give them the monthly delivery of food. It was always the rotting waste that no-one else would consider edible. The Defective Clones had taken it like we were giving them the world.
The memory made me sick to the stomach. It only made my resolve to help the Resistance even stronger. We were trying to get rid of the whole clone system, protect those that were created by their Makers and then legally abused and murdered. We wanted to ban cloning and get rid of the class system, make it better for everyone in Aria.
“Hey, guys.” Autumn’s perky voice filtered through my anger. “We’re having a meeting in ten minutes and Joseph said he’d like you to attend. It’s compulsory for everyone. I’ll take you there if you like.”
I exchanged a glance with Wren but her expression was unreadable. If the meeting was compulsory, I guessed we had no choice except to go with Autumn.
“I thought the Resistance didn’t have big meetings?” I asked. Joseph had once told me that they only had impromptu meetings now and then with a few members at a time. It was done to protect the identity of those covertly providing their services to the cause.
“We do down here.” She shrugged. “Everyone that lives here is a member of the Resistance fulltime. We can’t go back to our regular lives for various reasons so we dedicate all our time to the cause. One day we might be able to return to our lives aboveground.”
She ended the conversation by walking off, effectively ensuring we couldn’t ask any more questions. We trailed after her down yet another corridor. The whole place was like a rabbit’s warren with more doors and hallways than I could count. If we ever needed to find our way back up to the surface on our own, Wren and I would never have a hope of finding our way out.
The unmarked door at the end of the corridor opened into a large room. The stark concrete walls were painted black with rows of chairs about ten lines deep that led downwards. At the far end of the room at the bottom was a line of tables with chairs facing the rows.
Nearly all the chairs were taken. Autumn showed us to a few in the back row and brought a finger to her lips in a shushing motion before she crept away.
Joseph was seated at the middle desk at the bottom. To both sides were another two people, making five of them in charge of the meeting. I’d seen a handful of the people before but only at various small meetings. I’d never spoken to anyone other than Joseph when it came to Resistance matters.
The audience were completely quiet while the woman to Joseph’s left side spoke. “There have been more reports that Stone’s health is declining. Nobody will actually confirm whether she is truly unwell or not, but there are many rumors about the subject.”
Stone was sick?
That was news to me.
She had always looked fine when I saw her. It had been a couple of weeks since I’d been face to face with her, but she seemed normal then.
The woman continued. “We need to find out more information to determine if this is something that will interrupt parliament. If she suddenly falls gravely ill, we may have a small window of opportunity in which to act and take over parliament.”
“Nobody would be stupid enough to let anyone know about Stone’s health,” a man in the rows of chairs yelled out. The woman’s eyes found him before he continued. “If anything happened to her, all her closest advisors would pretend nothing was wrong and make up excuses for her not to show. This isn’t going to give us any opportunities.”
She nodded, I think more out of respect than agreement. “That may be the case, but we have to prepare for any outcome. If word leaks that Aria’s president is incapable of performing her duties, her advisors might not be able to contain the situation. It only takes one leak for the issue to spread.”
The man seemed to be satisfied enough to keep his further opinions to himself. He crossed his arms and clamped his mouth closed.
The woman sat down again, having said her piece. Joseph took over. “This is one item on our agenda and we will continue with our investigations to determine the nature of Stone’s health. Thank you, Miranda, f
or your input. I trust you will continue.”
He paused while the woman beamed at him and nodded. He stood to deliver his speech. “Our next order of business is the laboratories. As most of you know, we have almost finalized our plans to take down Laboratory Alfa. George, will you please give us an update?”
George, presumably, was sitting at the end of the desk. He cleared his throat and consulted a piece of paper sitting in front of him. “We have gathered enough explosive material in order to bring the whole thing down. We will pose as maintenance contractors in order to gain access and lay the C-4. Our team is making sure our tender is approved and we get the maintenance job.”
“Good, good,” Joseph said.
They were seriously planning on blowing up a lab? That wasn’t only dangerous but incredibly stupid too. There were clones in there, mothers about to give birth, let alone people just doing their jobs. I didn’t agree with anything that went on within the lab walls but I wasn’t prepared to randomly kill everyone inside either.
“You can’t do it.”
I looked around to see who had spoken those words and then realized it had been me. I was standing too, unsure how I got to my feet but now glad I was.
“You can’t blow up the labs,” I repeated, more emphatically this time as every set of eyes in the room turned to face me. I hadn’t been the center of this much attention since being on trial with the troopers and I felt just as naked as I did then.
George’s gaze was the most penetrating. “We have been planning this for a long time. Trust me, we can and we will dispose of the lab. We need to send a message to Stone and all the Makers. This is the best way to do it.”
“You’ll be killing innocent people,” I countered. “Clones and birth mothers are in every lab in undeterminable numbers. You will guarantee their deaths along with the guilty.”
“Birth mothers? What are you talking about?” George asked, as if I was speaking in another language. I had forgotten this information was unknown to the vast majority of people in Aria. Wren and I only knew about it because of our wanderings around Laboratory Delta.
“Human women are impregnated with clone embryos in the labs. They then carry the child to term and give birth to the clone, just like a regular human baby.” As I finished explaining, the people gathered fell into two groups – those shocked by the news, and those that didn’t believe me.
Hundred Stolen Breaths Page 13
