“Vestor,” I say, before he can leave, “can you tell me where they are, what happened to them? Wyck and Saben, Fiere and Alexander?”
His brows twitch inward in the merest suggestion of a frown. With a warning in his violet eyes that I take as confirmation that our supposedly confidential session is being recorded, he says, “It is completely understandable that you should be worried that the outlaws might try to kidnap you again, or hurt you to keep you from testifying. You endured a horrifying experience, something that an adult would find hard to deal with, never mind a young girl like you. I can assure you, however, that your fears are groundless. I’ve been given to understand that you were the only survivor of the attack on the Peachtree Street house.”
It takes me a moment to realize he means the former brothel that Bulrush used as its headquarters. I suck in an audible breath. “Dead? All dead?”
“Of course you’re relieved to hear that. I’m grateful, too. Now, get a good night’s sleep. We have lots of work to do tomorrow to make you presentable.”
When he has gone and Bigfoot’s replacement, a guard named Rute who occasionally offers a sentence or two of conversation, takes me back to my cell, I don’t even try to sleep. I lie on the narrow cot and stare up at the ceiling. Heaven knows, there’s not much else in my gray-painted cell to look at. There’s a stainless steel toilet and sink in one corner and a single shelf where I have kept my Little House on the Prairie and my albatross feather and drawing since the interrogators finally became convinced the objects had no sinister purposes. I don’t remember everything that happened in the interrogation sessions because of the drugs, but snippets of conversations, of questions about Little House being a code book for Bulrush, or even the Defiance, come back to me at odd times.
“It’s just a book,” I’d told them again and again. “A book my parents sent with me to the Kube.” The feather I’d found on the beach, proof that birds were still alive somewhere. They returned it to me once they ascertained it couldn’t be used as a weapon. The albatross drawing they sneered at and crumpled, but let me keep. Saben had given it to me, had drawn it because of the feather, and I treasured it.
I smooth it now, comforted by the familiar grain of the paper and the angle of the bird’s wing in flight that sings with perfect freedom. It can’t be true about Wyck and the others. They can’t all be dead. Saben, gravely injured by a blast, had run into the swarm with me, but the force of the locusts had pulled us apart. I don’t want to think about how weak he was. Surely at least one of the others made it to the tunnels, escaped. I’d seen Fiere get shot, so it was sadly possible that she had died, but the others . . . I refuse to believe it. They aren’t dead. If they are, why did the interrogators spend so much time and effort badgering me to give up names?
Tears of shame trickle down my face as the memories come back, of the pain from the implanted electrodes, amplified by the drugs. The stench of bile and urine. I can still hear myself stuttering the names, and I am grateful that I didn’t know many, and only first names at that. Alexander was right to keep details of Bulrush’s operations away from me, because I vomited up everything I knew. It wasn’t much, thank goodness. Fiere had shouted at me in those last minutes, told me to “tell them everything.” I hadn’t known what she’d meant until the second interrogation session when they’d switched on the electricity.
I shudder and turn on my side, burying my face in the thin pillow. The cameras are always on and I refuse to give whoever’s watching the satisfaction of tears. I haven’t cried since my first month here, since I decided I was going to survive and escape to find my friends. I started exercising that day, doing pushups, sit-ups, squats, and the other strengthening drills Fiere taught me, as many as I could, no matter how weak the torture left me. When I wasn’t exercising, I sat on my bed, eyes closed, and went through every theorem and chemical equation I knew, reciting the Table of Elements in my head, envisioning each locust I’d dissected and working through different means of destroying them. That kept other thoughts at bay.
I must have slept at last because the next thing I know, Bigfoot is back with a tray and a command. “Wash.”
He leads me to the hygiene cubicle after I eat and scratch another mark under my bed. He hands me a bar of soap and actual shampoo. “Hair, too.”
I’m elated at the prospect of shampooing my stiff hair. They shaved it when I arrived and it's only two inches long now, but the harsh soap I’ve had to wash it with has left it dull and dry. I show no emotion, keeping my face as impassive as Bigfoot’s when I enter the hygiene cubby. He removes my explosive bracelet and leaves, electrifying the doorway. I strip, feeling little embarrassment, even though I know guards are watching. I tell myself it’s not too different than the decon drills we ran at the Kube. I was worried about being raped when I first got here, but it’s clear the guards are chemically neutered. I suppose that’s because even though I’m a prisoner, I’m still a breeder age female who could potentially bear a child for the state. There are too few wombs for the Prags to risk damaging mine.
Nonetheless, I turn my back to the doorway, and begin to wash in the spray that suddenly spurts from a dozen nozzles. It’s cold. Goosebumps pimple my skin and I try to scrub them away. When I lather my hair, the lily-scented shampoo takes me back to the bordello and I feel like an avocado stone has caught in my throat. I let out a sound almost like a bark, and put a hand on the wall to steady myself. If there are tears, the streaming water hides them.
The water cuts off. Blowers switch on to dry me and then Bigfoot is back to re-attach my anklet. Dressed in my gray jumpsuit and with my hair damp, I am led to the room where I talked to Vestor. He’s there, garbed in an emerald tunic, mole winking when he smiles. He swoops down on me and I get the double kiss treatment.
“Shoo, shoo, shoo.” He gestures Bigfoot out of the room. When the guard has gone, he turns to me. “Sleep well? The under eye circles say not. Never mind. A bit of tristesse can be very affecting. We’re playing to the jury and the cameras, you know.” He hands me white garments that are draped over the loveseat. “Put this on.” He turns his back.
After a moment’s hesitation, I strip to bra and panties (and ankle bracelet, of course) and don the long white tunic and leggings. I clear my throat when I’m dressed. “Cameras?”
“Of course cameras. Yours is the biggest trial of the year. It’ll be broadcast, suitably edited, of course, during a special Assembly. I’ll be inconceivably more famous when I get you off.” Vestor works his lips in and out as he studies me. “We’re going for youthful innocence,” he says, circling me. “No make-up. Pale. Sad but composed. Pretty, but not beautiful. Don’t want to alienate any female jurors.” He chuckles. “The long sleeves hide those unfortunate muscles. Your hair . . .” He runs a hand through it. “We’ll even up the ends. That silvery blond is perfect—angelic. It's a shame they shaved it when you got here, but short like that it looks like a halo.”
He summons Bigfoot and requests scissors, then snips at my hair to neaten it. “Al-most,” Vestor says, studying me while tapping an index finger against his lip. “Your expression . . .”
“What about my expression?”
“It’s too . . . confrontational, verging on combative, in fact. We’re going for modestly downcast eyes, perhaps a whisper of puzzlement. You can’t understand why you’re on trial when you’ve done nothing wrong. Victim! Yes, we want victim. Can you give me victim?”
“No,” I say uncompromisingly. I will not for one minute think of myself as a victim. That undermines my strength and I know I will need to be strong.
Vestor raises his expressive brows and I think I see a hint of amusement and even approval in his eyes. “Confused, then. Meek.”
I look at my feet in my best approximation of “modestly downcast eyes.”
“No, not sullen,” Vestor says, sounding annoyed for the first time. “Hurt. Think of your friend Halla.”
Pain lances through me and I look up involuntarily.
>
Vestor claps his hands. “Yes, exactly! Hold that thought.”
I glare at him.
He bustles over and takes me by the shoulders, his face inches from mine. “This is not a game, Everly,” he says in a low voice with none of his usual affectedness. “Well, it is a game—theater, if you will—but it is played for the highest of stakes: your life. You are on trial from the second you leave this prison. Your every move, word, and expression will be recorded, studied and evaluated—every eyebrow twitch, every upthrust chin.”
He taps the offending chin and I lower it slightly.
“Your test scores tell me you are a very, very bright young woman. Well, you need to dedicate that brainpower to playing the role of injured vic—innocent, and you’d better put everything you’ve got into it because otherwise . . . Trust me when I say execution would look merciful compared to your likely fate if they convict.” He steps back and pins a broad smile to his face. “Not to mention the crushing blow to my flawless record. Agreed?”
I nod slightly and work on looking timid and confused. With my brain worrying at what sentence could be worse than death, it’s not too hard.
“Excellent!”
About the Author
Laura DiSilverio is the national bestselling author of 15 mystery and suspense novels, and a retired Air Force intelligence officer. Her first standalone novel, The Reckoning Stones, was a Library Journal Pick of the Month. The third book in her best-selling Book Club Mystery series, The Readaholics and the Gothic Gala, comes out in Aug 2016. A Past President of Sisters in Crime, she pens articles for Writer’s Digest, and teaches writing in various fora. She plots murders and parents teens in Colorado, trying to keep the two tasks separate. Incubation is her first young adult novel.
Laura DiSilverio
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