The Clinic

by Cate Culpepper

  Caster finished the series of rescue breaths just as Brenna reached Jess and levered one leg over her waist to straddle her. She positioned her numb hands on her chest, locked her wrists, and began cardiac compressions, numbering them aloud automatically.

  Brenna had narrowed most of her focus to carrying out this single, lifesaving function, and she worked efficiently, rocking with the compressions, not shedding a tear. The small part of her mind not thus occupied was filling again with static. Brenna was terrified.

  “She can’t do this to us.” Caster bent for another round of rescue breaths. She looked haggard, and strands of silver hair wisped around her head as she blew into Jess’s mouth, then straightened again.

  Brenna sat back on Jess’s waist, panting, staring at her unresponsive face. “Jess, come on now.” Her voice was almost conversational, then it rose.

  “Do you hear me? Jess? Open your eyes, Jesstin!” She pounded the reddened valley between Jess’s breasts with her fist.

  Jess’s dark eyelashes fluttered against her pale cheek, and then her long body convulsed. She came to with a heaving gasp, and Brenna lunged across her to keep her flat.

  Caster hovered, as if not willing to believe her good luck. Then she pulled herself to her feet and shook off Dugan’s assistance. “Dugan, take this Amazon bitch and her half-naked little puta and toss them in a dark closet somewhere! I don’t want to look at them again today! Brenna, you’d best talk this freakish invert out of her cretinous death wish by tomorrow morning!”

  Caster spun on her heel and stalked toward the gymnasium doors. “Be convincing, young lady. Remember how easily I can still arrange your incarceration in adjoining cells on a more lasting basis.”

  *

  Jess remained conscious, but disturbingly passive. Dugan carried her out of the gym, and her stillness in the big orderly’s arms told Brenna how dangerously weak she was.

  Dugan took Caster’s orders literally. He didn’t let Brenna retrieve her shirt, and he didn’t return them to the detention cell. He found a large, empty storeroom in B-wing instead and set Jess down, none too gently, on the concrete floor. Brenna went to her immediately.

  “Hey, Miss Brenna.” Dugan paused in the doorway, backlit by the light from the corridor, jiggling keys in his pocket. “You want me to call someone for you? Wait, you live alone. That’s in your file, along with you being inverted. I got keys to every filing cabinet in the joint.”

  Brenna measured Jess’s pulse at the throat. Still thready, but stronger than it had been in the gym.

  Dugan sighed and kicked the doorjamb. “Hey, Brenna, I’m sorry about all this shit. But I’ve got to tell you, if you’d been a little more friendly around here, less stuck up, maybe you’d have more buddies now when you need ‘em. You’re in deep shit, girl.”

  Brenna didn’t respond.

  “Better you than me, I guess.” Dugan shrugged. “You two sleep tight now. And don’t let that Amazon do anything you wouldn’t let me do. Which Caster will probably let me do to both of you eventually anyway. Night.” He locked the storeroom door securely behind him, leaving them in darkness.

  Brenna could see nothing until her eyes adjusted. The only light came from a shuttered window high on the opposite wall. She lifted Jess’s head carefully into her lap, then leaned back against the swirled plaster wall, cringing a little at its cold roughness on her bare shoulders. She let out a shaking breath.

  Her hand remained lightly on Jess’s chest to monitor the even rise and fall of her breathing. Brenna closed her eyes, her fingers sifting through Jess’s hair in instinctive comfort. She seemed to be sleeping rather than comatose, her respiration slow and deep.

  I’ll never sleep again, Brenna decided. It was the only concrete resolution she could make at the moment. Sleep was a waste of time, and she desperately needed time to think.

  They had a brief respite. The Clinic’s swing shift was just coming on. They had several hours before they would be returned to the gymnasium. Before we will be returned. Brenna tasted the word in her mouth. She and Jess had become “we.”

  Having time to think was no guarantee of clarity. Brenna’s thoughts were too snarled in shock and dread and the warmth of the injured prisoner in her lap. She pictured the flask in her locker.

  The trials would begin again in the morning. With the same protocol, or one very like it. Jess moaned softly in her sleep. Brenna bent over her, hesitated, then rested her lips briefly on her forehead.

  The strange woman she held would never hurt her. Brenna knew that in her gut. Jess might even risk death again before allowing anyone else to harm her. Who was she to this Amazon? What could she have possibly done to merit that sacrifice?

  Caster won’t let you go. Brenna heard the certainty in Jess’s voice again and shivered. She couldn’t go to her sister for help. Samantha and Matthew lived in another part of the City, and Sammy was as protective of her as a bulldog. She couldn’t endanger them. But Sam was the only person who would even feel her absence. She had no one else.

  There were other Cities, in other Counties. But relocation required several permits, a financial audit, a medical screening, and multiple interviews with Immigration. It often took months, and Caster could derail that process at any stage if she wished. Brenna could just bolt, try to set up a false identity in another City, but that took money. She didn’t have enough saved for phony ID, let alone the bribes that were probably necessary for illegal flight.

  Flight.

  *

  The magnificent horse gathered itself beneath her and glided over a yawning crevice in the rocky mountain path. It landed easily, and she with it, two creatures of blended spirit. Then the whickering sound of the spear, and the gut-punching cry of grief in her heart as the black stallion staggered and fell.

  Brenna plummeted through empty space, screaming, twisting in helpless terror. Then she was brought up short with a jarring yank, caught by her wrists and ankles. She lifted her head, dazed, and found herself chained to a splintered wooden X-frame, her nude body spread beneath the brilliant flood lamps of the Clinic gymnasium. She pulled at her bonds in a nameless panic, but they held her fast.

  A tall figure walked toward her, outlined by a nimbus of light, a whip coiled easily at her side. Brenna tossed her damp hair out of her eyes as Jess emerged from the glare, and her heated gaze held her riveted. She stopped inches from Brenna’s suspended body, and her large hand rose and cupped her face. Brenna closed her eyes, savoring the rough touch of her palm.

  She felt her nipples rise and harden, and her back arched slightly, offering her breasts, her breathing growing more rapid with her rising need. The coiled whip brushed lightly against the red-gold fur of her mound, and a soft moan escaped Brenna.

  Jess slid the bunched leather across the flat planes of her belly. Her lips fastened on the taut skin of Brenna’s throat, sucking gently, her warm breath sending cascading shudders through her bound limbs. The coiled whip tickled the lower swells of her breasts, then rasped against her aching nipples. Jess’s head lowered, and her mouth fastened around one protruding bud. Her tongue swirled against it, and Brenna arched again, crying out softly.

  The gymnasium dissolved around them, and in the way of dreams, Brenna found they were standing in the crystalline waters of a rushing river, the air around them fresh and sweet with birdsong. No longer chained, her hands found the tumbled wildness of Jess’s hair and twined in it, moaning as her lips moved to Brenna’s other breast and began a light, sucking caress.

  Jess flinched, and Brenna awoke instantly. Her hand had brushed the burn at the base of her throat. She lifted it quickly, with a hiss of contrition.

  “Have you been awake long?” Brenna straightened against the plaster wall, blinking hard to banish the fading disorientation of the dream. It was too dark to see anything but vague shapes. “How are you?”

  “Is this a cell?” Jess muttered.

  “We’re in a storeroom. Are you in pain, Jess?”

  “You sh
ould have let me go, Bren.” Jess’s soft brogue was hoarse.

  “That’s a bloody stupid thing to say. What were you thinking of, Jesstin? If Amazons really believe it’s courageous to kill themselves every time they’re under a little pressure, I understand why there are so few of you left! Is it…here, this is hurting your back. Turn on your side.”

  She helped Jess move to a less painful position and waited until her head settled on her thigh. When she spoke again, she softened her tone. “Does Amazon pride really mean so much to you that you’d throw away your life for it?”

  “It’s not that simple.” Jess’s eyes closed as Brenna’s fingers drifted through her hair. “If my choices are betraying my family, torturing a friend, or escaping on my terms…” She sighed. “It’s complicated, Bren.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I died and someone jumped up and down on my chest.”

  They rested in the cool, shadowed room.

  Brenna felt oddly peaceful. Jess’s hair warmed her belly, and the darkness made her near-nakedness easier to forget. As for Jess, resting on Brenna’s muscular thigh seemed to lessen her pain.

  “Caster was positive you’d sign the renunciation today.” Brenna was exhausted. “If not right away, then after Dugan used that electric prod…”

  Jess clenched her hands. She couldn’t have watched that.

  Brenna was silent for a while. “She wouldn’t have let me leave, would she?” she said finally. “Even if you had signed. The study would just move to the next phase. A new medic might object to Caster’s protocols as much as I do, and she wouldn’t take that chance. Not when she has me, someone she can control.”

  “Caster’s a monster, lass. To her, we’re two lab rats. She said whatever she had to so she could get you into those cuffs.”

  “She told me you’d be safe.” Brenna moved her fingers through the thick softness of Jess’s hair. Her eyelashes brushed like feathers against Brenna’s skin. “She promised me no one would hurt you again.”

  They heard the distant banging of a door. Early evening dinner trays were being distributed. This storeroom would not be on the meal cart’s delivery schedule.

  She studied Jess’s aquiline profile by the faint light from the high window. Jess’s features carried a simple, almost feral beauty that registered in Brenna’s mind with insistent clarity now, whenever she saw her. She needed to hear Jess’s rich voice again. To monitor her alertness, she told herself. “Jess, tell me about your village.”

  “Tristaine?” Jess smiled drowsily. “Tristaine has lots of sky.”

  “What else?”

  “It has a river and a meeting hall. There’s a trading post, and cabins, and hundreds of gardens. No computers or televisions. Lots of campfires, though, and fir trees, and vision quests, and stubborn women who can’t wake up in the morning without debating it for six hours.”

  “There really aren’t any men in Tristaine?”

  “They come and go.” Jess was finding it hard to concentrate. The storeroom kept fading in and out. “What are you going to do about Caster, Brenna?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jess lifted her head, listening intently.

  “What?”

  “Get me up.”

  Brenna helped Jess sit erect just as a key turned in the lock. Light spilled in from the corridor, and for a moment they were blinded.

  “Cybele weeps!” a male voice said. The door closed and darkness fell again. “What in blue hippie hell happened to you two?”

  “And you are?” To Brenna’s own ears, she sounded absurdly like Charlotte.

  “Today, I’m an Amazon’s son.” The man turned his flashlight on his own face.

  It was a stirring gesture, but a mistake. Jodoch’s features were pitted and scarred, and they made for a ghoulish image. Brenna slapped a hand to her heart before she recognized the orderly. At the same time she noticed that the beam momentarily illuminated her breasts and that Jodoch averted the light quickly.

  “Jode, are they all right?” Jess sounded tense.

  “The girls are fine.” The big man moved farther into the room and dropped a bulky nylon duffle to the floor. He was younger than Brenna thought at first, close to her own age. She still covered her breasts with one arm, but her pulse was back to normal.

  “Camryn wants me to bring her your ear or something, to prove you’re still alive. Lordy, Jesstin!” Jodoch pointed the beam briefly on Jess’s face again before clicking it off. “I didn’t think you could look any worse than you did after the arena.”

  “Where I handily tromped your butt.”

  “Pardon me,” Brenna said loudly, then leaned closer to Jess. “This is the guy you’ve got watching out for your friends in the Prison? He’s on our day shift, Jesstin!”

  “Jode was born in Tristaine.” Jess closed her eyes against a wave of dizziness and leaned her shoulder against the wall beside Brenna. “He applied for Clinic staff after I was arrest—”

  “Yeah, I’m a plant,” Jodoch cut in happily. “Jode the superspy. Pamela says I’m an incredible stud these days, too. Pam’s my lucky wife, Brenna.”

  His shadowed bulk crouched in front of them. They heard him unzip the duffle and rummage inside it. There was a light metallic scraping sound. “Here, Jess, give her this. Pam sent proof that I have Tristainian genes.”

  A whiff of aromatic steam reached Brenna, and she wrinkled her nose in surprise. “Is that coffee?”

  Jess closed her eyes and inhaled with something like reverence. “Not the City swill you call coffee.”

  “Tristaine’s home blend.” Jodoch fit Jess’s hand around the thermos. “Pam’s addicted to it too, now.”

  Jess swirled the rich brew in her mouth, and its potent richness was more evocative of Tristaine than any photograph. She closed her eyes and felt Dyan’s arm against her own as they sat on the wooden steps of the cabin she shared with Shann, drinking coffee and breathing fresh pine air as they watched the sun rise over the far ridge.

  “Hey,” Brenna said softly.

  Jess opened her eyes and passed the thermos to Brenna, the fog beginning to clear from her aching head. “What are you doing here?” she asked Jode. “It’s risky enough for—”

  “Yeah, and it’s getting riskier fast.” Jode settled his bulk onto the concrete floor. “Listen, Jess. My new best buddy, Dugan the dick, was crowing like the cock he is at shift change earlier.” His brows lowered, making him look like a worried bear. “We’re supposed to set up Caster’s gym for some kind of marathon clinical test in the morning. And he’s all jacked up about…sorry, but he’s jacked up because he gets to be the one to hurt Brenna next time. I don’t know details, Jesstin, but the two of you are going to get bloody tomorrow. Mostly her. Do you still want to take her with us?”

  Brenna’s pulse spiked again.

  “Are we set at the Prison?” Jess asked.

  “Yeah.” Jode nodded. “We can get Camryn and Kyla out in six hours, quick and sweet.”

  Jess sat very still, obviously measuring his words. Jode’s large eyes were trusting as he watched her. He seemed to defer to Jess as a matter of course. It was clearly her call.

  “Did he say take me with you?” Brenna echoed faintly.

  Jess put a hand on Brenna’s knee. “How do you know we have enough to bribe Cam and Ky off the cell block?” she asked Jode.

  “Barbeler—he’s the night guard at the Prison’s communal unit—big, quiet kid.” Jodoch grinned. “Remember him from the arena? You broke his hand.”

  Jess groaned. “I broke the hand of the one guard we need to pay off?”

  “It’s cool, Jess. He’s okay with the money we’ve got so far.” Now Jodoch sounded like a teenager trying to convince his big sister. “I think he wants to help. He almost seemed jazzed about this. Barbeler and Pam can get the girls out right after midnight check. Just as soon as we see them safely outta there and headed for the hills, I’ll come for you. You can meet Kyla and Camryn at the river we
ll before sunrise.”

  Brenna was startled. “Jess, you’re going to the mountains?”

  “Getting Cam and Ky out comes first,” Jess said quietly. “Jode. We’re a good week early.”

  “Pam and I are as ready as we would be a week from now!” Jode’s voice had risen to a tense squeak. He cleared his throat. “We can get word to Shann. Look, if we don’t go with Barbeler now, we might draw someone a lot less cool next week. And Pam and I think it’s got to be tonight. By the looks of you two, neither of you can wait three days, let alone a week.”

  Jess felt Brenna’s hand on her arm, and she knew it was true.

  “Jess, I’ll help you if I can.” Brenna pressed Jess’s wrist. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Come with us,” Jess said.

  Brenna was silent.

  “I don’t know what kind of life you had in the City, Brenna, but it’s gone now.” Jess tried to sound reasonable. An Amazon didn’t beg. “If we pull this off, you would be the only one left to take the heat. Without Camryn and Kyla and me, Caster’s project will be dead in the water. And she’ll have a lot to answer for. And a lot of rage. Do you still believe she’ll let you quietly resign?”

  “No,” Brenna said. “Do you believe you can escape up a mountain in six hours? Your heart stopped, Jesstin.”

  “I can do it.” Jess nodded. “With enough decent coffee. And I can do it without you if I have to, but it wouldn’t hurt any of us to have a good healer along.”

  The title registered with Brenna, even through the turmoil of her thoughts.

  Jess waited, and so did Jode, through the interminable silence that followed.

  Brenna didn’t know her decision until she heard herself speak. “I’ll go with you.”

  “We’re on. This is great!” Jode slapped his thigh. “Jesstin, you be sure my mother, Jocelyn the Amazon, knows that her son, Jodoch the Man, was the one who rescued you guys. No fair telling Tristaine that Pammy did it all.”

  “You’ll be our hero, Jodey.” Jess was almost shivering with relief. She’d thought her heart was going to stop again while she waited for Brenna’s answer.