Gobber stepped closer, the gun still raised. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
Violet dramatically dropped the pen onto the floor, slapping a hand over her heart. “Thank goodness you’re so perceptive. I might’ve caused serious damage with that biro.”
“Move,” Gobber demanded, pointing to the door.
No gurney today? That’s something at least.
Still, even though walking was a new privilege, Violet couldn’t help but try to antagonize the soldier a little more. “I can’t stop thinking about that pen,” she murmured as they walked, shaking her head a little.
“Shut up.”
“Do you have any idea of what might’ve happened? I could’ve written a strongly worded letter to your superior officer…”
“I said shut up.”
Violet pulled a shocked face. “My God, Gobber…I might’ve drawn a funny mustache on you.”
One of the other soldiers snorted, but Gobber just shoved her on with the end of his gun. “Don’t push me.”
“I might’ve made you a name badge with a ridiculous…oh, never mind.”
A definite laugh from one of the other men. Gobber had clearly had enough. He grasped Violet by the shoulder, forcing her to turn around.
“Listen, mutant, you have all the jokes you want. We both know your days left walking around like the rest of us are ticking away. Soon, they’ll have all they need from you while you’re breathing, and you’ll be cut open on that table and taken apart piece by piece.” He grinned widely at the thought.
Violet met his gaze but stayed silent.
“Nothing to say now, huh?”
She cocked her head to one side. “What happened to your tooth? Was it before all this? Or after? And if it was before, why didn’t you get it fixed? Something like that would drive me crazy.”
Gobber nodded, as if realizing this was how the conversation was going to go, and then slapped her sharply across the face. Violet hadn’t been expecting it, and stumbled back.
“Gobber, what are you doing?” one of the other soldiers muttered. “You know our orders.”
Gobber shrugged. “Doc said not to kill her. Didn’t say we can’t bruise her up a little.” He stepped forward, almost nose to nose with Violet. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper. “Remember, mutant, I know where you sleep.” His grin was evil when he forced her around and pushed her toward the elevator.
Violet was taken into an office, then strapped to a chair with wrist and ankle restraints. The soldiers stepped back, leaving her to take in her surroundings. This room was warmer than the one belonging to Doctor Ross. It had yellow walls and several framed photos of smiling children on the large oak desk. There were framed paintings, and a comfortable-looking cream couch by the large window. Violet heard the door open behind her. The redheaded doctor appeared, smiling kindly at Violet as she walked in. Her smile flickered as she snapped at the soldiers. “What’s wrong with her face?”
I really hope I have a bruise; otherwise, that’s a little insulting.
“She resisted, so we had to subdue her,” came Gobber’s cool reply.
The doctor raised an eyebrow. “She’s never resisted before.”
“First time for everything.”
The doctor clearly didn’t believe that in the slightest, but simply nodded. “I see. And why is she restrained?”
“Doctor Ross’ orders. She’s dangerous.”
“I want them removed.”
“No can do. We have orders.”
The doctor bit her lip. “Fine, then leave.”
“We have to—”
“She’s restrained; she’s no threat. Wait outside, please.”
Surprisingly, they did as she asked. The doctor sighed, sitting down and staring at her from across the desk. Her face was kind, and she had an accent Violet hadn’t noticed before.
“My name is Frances,” the woman began. “And I’m so sorry.”
Violet was caught a little off guard. She raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
Frances held up her hands, “For everything. I’m sorry you’ve been locked away from your friend; I’m sorry you’ve spent so much time sedated; I’m sorry for what those men did to you… I’m afraid the people here have lost touch with what they’re meant to be doing. They think they’re here to fight and control, when really that’s only a tiny part of it.”
“What are you here for?”
“I’m here to learn. I’m a psychiatrist. My job is to talk, to listen, and to help. If I can.”
“No one has jobs anymore,” Violet retorted.
“I think it’s important to remember who we are.”
“You’re thinking about who we were. Who we are is different.”
“Okay.” Frances was waiting for Violet to explain, but she wasn’t going to. She’d said too much already; she didn’t want this woman getting into her head. Frances seemed to sense her hesitation. “You’re unsure about me; I can understand that. I don’t know how much it means to you, but you do have my word that I’m here to help.”
Violet said nothing, so Frances continued. “The doctors and scientists in there—” She gestured across the hall. “They’re interested in you because they think your blood holds the cure to the disease.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Why do you say that?”
Violet didn’t answer. Frances waited several minutes before speaking again. “That’s why they’re interested in you, but not why I am. You survived out there for months, and how you did that is something I’d like to know about. I’d like to know how it has affected you.”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“Because I can help you.”
Violet shook her head. “No one can help me.”
And that was how it was for a while. Violet met with Frances every other day. Each time, she said nothing. Frances, to her credit, never became frustrated, never yelled, never hit her. She simply waited for Violet to speak, and after a while, sent her back to her room. Those sessions weren’t the problem. The problem was what happened in between.
Violet was still taken to the white room, still probed and prodded, only now it seemed to be more vigorous. Whenever she woke up, she found herself scarred and sore. One terrible day, she was unable to walk for hours because her feet felt as though someone had taken a knife to the soles. Which they probably had. Violet didn’t know what they were doing, but clearly finding a cure from her blood wasn’t as simple as it seemed.
Today, they had tried something new—cutting into her without sedation. They hadn’t gone deep, but Violet had screamed until her throat was raw. It seemed to take hours, but she never passed out. She felt every cut. Afterward, when the doctors were cleaning up, Gobber approached the bed. He stared at Violet, who was covered only in a thin sheet, and grinned.
“Nothing clever to say now, huh?”
Violet spoke, despite the pain it caused. “I guess not. Is this what it feels like to be you?”
The grin was wiped from Gobber’s face, but he said nothing. He glanced over to the doctors, “Want me to take her back?”
“Yes, please.”
“My pleasure.” Gobber’s smirk was back now, and it didn’t take long for Violet to realize what he was planning. The second they were out of the doors to the white room, Gobber pulled the sheet off Violet’s body and dropped it to the floor. “You looked like you might be too hot.” He grinned wickedly. Violet was now completely naked, but due to her restraints, unable to cover herself up.
This is what he wants. He wants to humiliate you. Just act like you don’t care.
So Violet said nothing as she was wheeled through the halls to the elevator, past the soldiers and doctors, some of whom considered her, some whom clearly thought of her as a corpse already and didn’t even glance in her direction. Gobber continued to grin at his revenge, but Violet kept her face impassive.
As they waited for the elevator, Gobber leaned in a little closer. “How do you
feel now, mutant?”
“Pretty embarrassed actually.”
Gobber seemed surprised at her admission. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, please don’t stand so close to me. I don’t want people to think we’re friends. That would be mortifying.”
Gobber’s face turned a rather unflattering shade of magenta. Before he could react, the elevator doors opened.
“Violet?”
She jerked her eyes over, her heart leaping into her throat. Joe, Sam, and Matt, each bruised and covered in dried blood, were being led out of the elevator by two armed soldiers. Violet didn’t care one iota that she was naked; all she wanted was to get off the bed and hug her friends. They, however, looked furious, and Matt immediately tried to reach out and grab her hand. He was pushed roughly away by one of the soldiers.
“Keep moving,” he growled, tapping Matt with his gun.
“Get off,” Matt protested. Two more soldiers, who were passing in the hall, stepped in to hold him back. “Let her go!” Matt fought against them while Sam and Joe watched helplessly, guns still aimed at their heads.
“It’s okay,” Violet called. “I’m all right!” But she was wheeled into the elevator before she could see what happened next. The doors closed. Gobber was grinning widely now, and Violet knew he was already planning what to do to her friends.
The elevator doors opened again, and Violet was wheeled out into the hall. From the corner of her eye, she saw Frances heading in the other direction.
“Hey,” Violet called.
“Shut up,” Gobber growled, but it didn’t matter. Frances had heard, and she jogged over to the gurney.
“What are you doing with her?” she asked Gobber accusingly.
“Taking her back to her room; the doctors are done for today.”
“Why is she naked?”
“What does it matter? She’s a freak.”
“I don’t think you’re in any position to judge that,” Frances replied coldly.
“I need to speak to you,” Violet interrupted, her eyes pleading. “Now.”
Frances nodded. “You heard her. Take her to my office, right this minute.” She took off her coat, draping it over Violet to give her some modicum of decency.
In the office, Frances ordered the soldiers outside. The second they were gone, she began to untie Violet’s restraints. Then she handed her a blanket to wrap around herself.
“He’s a nasty piece of work,” Frances muttered, sitting down at her desk. She sighed, running a hand through her red hair. It was down today.
“You said you could help me,” Violet said.
Frances considered her for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes.”
“How?”
“They’re confused about you, about your blood. If we can find out more about what happened to you, about what affect the virus has had on you, they’ll start to treat you better. They won’t need to keep doing all the things they’re doing.”
“I don’t care about that. I want you to help me in a different way.”
“How?”
“My friends just arrived, and I know Gobber and the other soldiers want to hurt them. I want you to stop that from happening.”
“They say your people injured some of our soldiers.”
“They killed my friend first,” Violet retorted. “They killed her for no reason. She wasn’t infected, and she wasn’t dangerous.” She felt a tear on her cheek. “She just had a cut.”
Frances nodded, eyes widening slightly at the sight of the blood sliding down Violet’s face. “Okay. I can make sure the soldiers don’t hurt them. Gobber will listen to Jeremy, and I’ll speak to him.”
“Can you let them go?”
Frances shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. It’s nothing to do with them; the soldiers have their orders—anyone fit and well gets evacuated. Surely that’s a good thing, though?”
Violet found herself nodding. “It is.”
“And I can make sure they’re evacuated as quickly as possible.”
“But not me.”
Frances nodded sadly. “But not you. You’re too valuable.”
“I want to be with my friends. Until they’re evacuated, I mean.”
“I’m not sure the others will agree—”
Violet’s expression was hard. “If you want me to speak to you, then you make sure we can be together. If they’re being evacuated soon, we need time to say goodbye.”
Frances considered this, then got to her feet. “Let me see what I can do.”
Violet watched the clock while Frances was gone. Twenty-five minutes later, the woman returned. She sat down with a smile on her face. “It wasn’t easy, but I convinced the others to put you and your friends in the same room.”
“Really? How did you do it?”
Frances’ lips curved slyly. “I’m persuasive.”
“Thank you.”
“So, are you ready to talk?”
Violet told the woman everything she needed to know—about how they had survived, about who she was, and most importantly, about what had happened to her. She explained what happened when she encountered blood, and, reluctantly, about the people she had killed because of it.
“That’s why my blood isn’t the answer,” she said, shaking her head. “They want my blood for a cure, or a vaccine, but I’m not immune. I’m dangerous, just like those things outside.”
Frances hadn’t interrupted Violet’s story at any point, and simply nodded her head now. “I see.” She got to her feet. “Thank you for being so honest with me. I’ll talk to the other doctors about what you have told me.” She moved to the door, opening it for Violet to leave. Violet was escorted by two soldiers she didn’t recognize back to the first room she had shared with Toby. She watched as Frances headed in the other direction. She hoped what she had said would be enough to stop what they were doing. Her blood wasn’t the answer.
Violet pushed the door open. Her friends stood up when they saw her, and Matt was the first to pull her into a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Violet breathed into his shoulder. She pulled back, looking closely at him and the others. Sam had certainly got the worst of it; it seemed as if his nose had been broken, but he still smiled at the sight of her, giving her a hug, too.
“What happened?” Violet asked.
“We were trying to find you guys,” Joe explained. “We guessed you’d been taken in the truck, so we started searching for it. It took us a week, but it eventually showed up again. We were just thinking of how best to follow without being seen, when Sam blew our cover.”
Sam interrupted, shaking his head. “I didn’t blow our cover.”
“You made that ridiculous noise.”
“That was a sneeze!”
Joe raised an eyebrow. “That was not a sneeze; it was a fog-horn.”
“Anyway,” Matt interrupted. “They found us and brought us here.”
“Not before giving us a less than friendly welcome with their boots,” Joe added.
“Where’s Ben?”
Matt and the others shifted a little.
“We don’t know,” Matt finally said. “I think he followed the truck for a while when they took you, but he was gone when we came out.”
“Oh.”
“He’ll be okay,” Joe said. “The biters don’t eat animals. He’ll be all right.”
Sam looked Violet up and down. “What about you? What have they been doing to you?”
Violet sighed, taking in her group. Joe and Matt knew her secret, and Toby had pretty much heard it all, but Sam still had no idea. It didn’t feel right to keep anyone in the dark anymore.
“They’ve been running tests on me.”
“Why?” Sam asked.
“Because I have it.”
Toby couldn’t meet her eye, but Sam just sounded confused. “Have what?”
“It—you know, whatever makes the biters do the things they do.”
Sam still looked baffled. Joe piped up. �
�Show him your mangled arm.”
Violet exhaled, removing her arm from the blanket to show her bite. Sam instinctively stepped back, color draining from his face.
“How…how long?” he stuttered.
“Since the start,” Violet replied honestly. She glanced at Toby, whose expression was unreadable. Sam, however, was shaking his head. “You couldn’t…it’s not possible.”
“It is,” Violet said. “It happened on the first day. I passed out and woke up a week later.”
“You’re immune?” Sam’s voice was disbelieving, happy even, but she knew she had to burst his bubble.
“No. Not completely.”
“I don’t understand.”
Violet searched for the words, but they evaded her. She looked to Joe and Matt for support. Matt ran his hand through his hair. “She still has it, whatever it is…but she’s not dead, and she doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Want being the key word,” Joe added. “If she smells or tastes blood—”
“I lose control,” Violet interrupted, knowing she had to take responsibility for explaining it. “When there’s blood around, I become one of those things. I can’t control it. I usually pass out afterward. When I wake up, I’m back to normal.”
Toby’s voice came from across the room. “Have you killed anyone?”
Violet nodded. “Yes.”
“Did they deserve it?”
“Some of them did. Not all.”
Toby nodded. “Okay.”
That’s it?
Sam was nodding, too. “We’re still family, Violet. Nothing has changed.” He pulled her in for another hug, and her whole body relaxed. “I’ll just go to one of the others the next time I get a paper cut.”
She smiled. “Good plan.”
Joe grinned, clapping his hands together. “Okay, now that we’ve got the awkward ‘Violet might kill us’ conversation out of the way, how are we getting out of here?”
“You don’t want to be evacuated?” Violet asked. “They said they were taking you guys out of the country.”
“I don’t trust anything these people say,” Sam said. “And I’m guessing if you’re so important to them, they’re not planning on getting you out?”
Alive? Page 26
