I hadn’t searched right? I catch myself before I can spin toward him. He’s baiting you. He wants to catch you. He’ll turn you back over to the Trainers.
But...if I hadn’t searched right, that meant that there were listings I didn’t see. It meant—
“No? What about a Mia?”
My body reacts before my brain can stop it. My whole body surges toward the computer. Dunn jumps back, both arms up, but I don’t care about anything other than what’s on the screen. Joy crashes into relief. My knees might give out on me if I don’t hold on to the table.
There’s a photo of her next to a profile—her hair is longer than I remember, dark and curling over her shoulder the way Mom’s used to. My throat burns. Weight, height—classified as Blue. God. Thank you, God. She’s alive. She’s not like me. Something brittle in my chest snaps, and I have to keep swallowing back the urge to cry.
Black Rock. That’s her camp. Where is it? I keep scrolling, but it doesn’t say.
“Is that...your sister? A cousin?” Dunn is edging back toward me but stops when I turn and pin him with a glare.
They’re all the same. The Trainers, the PSFs, even these nurses. They are not on our side and they’ll never be. He is going to take so much pleasure in taking me down for this. Was this worth it? I know she’s alive and where she is, but I’m done. Done. I won’t even get to say good-bye to Sam, or somehow tell her that they’re taking me out, back to the Facility, back to be worked over again and again until they figure out a way to turn my head into an empty husk. The thought of the building with its bleach-white walls makes me feel almost manically desperate.
Mia is alive. She’s alive. Any happiness at the thought is smashed into pieces under the weight of knowing that, yeah, she’s alive, but she’s in a place like this. I’ll never be assigned there once the Trainers are told about this. They’ll keep me for months, trying to break me. Would they hurt her in order to hurt me? That would work. God—oh my God. There would be no place safe for that kind of pain.
Dunn leans against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. “They would never ask any of you to look something up in the system, so I have to believe that this was important enough to you to risk getting caught. I’d ask whose log-in you used, but it doesn’t matter. I admire your balls, but if you’re going to try this again, you have to be more careful. Anyone could have walked in.”
I rise to my full height, clenching a fist and drawing it up in front of me like I’m about to...do something. I have enough control over the fire to spark a flame with a small snap.
Dunn flinches. His voice goes tight and high as he waves his hands in front of him, saying, “Wait—wait.”
For some reason, I do. I wait as he turns back to the computer to type something else into the program. When he’s finished, he turns the screen toward me so I can see the profile he’s brought up.
The photo attached to it is a young boy with reddish-brown hair like Dunn’s and a wide, round face. He’s staring at the camera dead-on, with a look of open hatred.
“This is Martin,” Dunn says. “He’s the reason I’m here, and if you really think I’m going to turn around and report you for caring about someone enough to risk your neck then...you can tell the camp controllers that. We’re forbidden from serving anywhere we have a family relation.”
I don’t move. My brain has disconnected from the rest of my body.
“The draft caught up to me just as I was coming out of college and applying for medical schools. I served my four years at a camp in the Midwest, but I re-enlisted. You know why? Because this posting opened, and I’d been able to search our network and see they’d brought my brother here. I also knew that he’d gone into the system with our stepfather’s last name, and I’d kept our father’s—so I applied and, sure enough, they didn’t catch it. I wanted to be a good brother...I thought, if I can’t get him out, I can at least watch over him. It turns out I’m just as powerless now to help him as I am to help everyone else here.”
“Why?” The word is out before I can swallow it back down my throat.
The lines on Dunn’s face ease, but the shadows in his eyes are still there. “I’m limited in what I can do to help the kids. We can’t give them crutches when they sprain an ankle because they could be turned into weapons. We don’t allow them to stay overnight for treatment unless there’s a real chance they might die without being monitored. I can barely keep the medicine I need stocked. And the doctor doesn’t care. He won’t even come in to check on this poor girl we’re treating for a snakebite until the end of the week. Family time.” He makes a sound of disgust. “It’s all been for nothing. Martin isn’t here. Someone managed to break him out.”
I can’t keep shock from breaking through. “How?”
“Ironically, it was two nurses. Or, I guess, they weren’t real nurses after all. They put him in one of the large bio-waste bins we use to dispose medical trash. Just loaded it in their car and drove away. Business as usual, just going to dump it with all the rest. I have no idea where he is, but I’m stuck here, twiddling my thumbs, waiting my term out to start looking.”
Something sour rises in my throat. I swallow hard and shake my head to hide how desperate I am to find out more. It can happen. I can get myself out of here—more importantly, I can get Sam out, too. The way he described won’t work. They would have immediately changed that protocol. It’s more that it’s proof that this place isn’t necessarily the maximum-security prison they want the kids to think it is. The equipment and buildings are run down and practically painted with rust, patched over too many times. The PSFs and camp controllers are spread too thin, and because of it, they’ve let the blade dull in their hands. There have to be other gaps we can slip through.
“What’s your name?” Dunn asks.
“M27.”
“Your real name,” he says. “You’re not a number. Don’t let them make you think that.”
I think of all those kids I brought in with me today. How they spent the whole walk over to the Infirmary all knotted up with fear and anxiety. They didn’t relax until they were with him. He called them by names, not by numbers. I want to believe—I want to believe there’s no game here.
And, anyway, it’s in my file. I might not show up in the computer system, but I’m sure he’d have access to the information if he asked. “Lucas.”
“Lucas. I’m Pat.” The nurse’s smile is weak, uncertain, like there’s a thundercloud hanging over us about to burst. “I think we both have to get back to work.”
We do. My ten minutes were up two minutes ago. Dunn steps out into the hall first, which gives me a minute to wrap the shell of stony detachment back around me. It’s only the small, dark, curly-haired nurse waiting for us, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. The miserable look on her face is so at odds with the calm, sweet expression she’d been wearing with the kids.
“Sorry,” Dunn is saying, “I had to borrow him—”
“It’s fine. I sent the boy back to his cabin with one of the PSFs,” Nurse Kore says quickly, “but you need to come now. The swelling’s gotten worse and the fever’s back.”
Nurse Dunn goes rigid, his skin pulling back as he grimaces. He pushes past us both, all but running down the hall. The floor has emptied out almost entirely, but I see one PSF stick his head out of an office he’s packing up. Kore waves the soldier off, right on Dunn’s heels as he enters the first room—the one I’d seen O’Ryan and the doctor come out of earlier.
I follow them down the hallway, at a slight loss as to what to do. After taking the last kid back, I was supposed to return here and assist the staff until the last meal rotations began. I want to keep an eye on Dunn, though, see if he shows any inclination on going back on his word.
Nurse Kore is blocking the doorway as I pass, but I can see well enough over her head that Dunn is throwing open cabinets and drawers. He fires off a
series of questions. “What did you give her last? When did the symptoms begin? Shit—she’s wheezing—we need epinephrine. Where is it? Can you look next door?”
It’s only then, when Kore brushes past me to burst through the door of the next examination room, that I see the kid on the table.
Pieces of the room start to disappear. The wires. The bandages. The beeping machines. The IV drips. The adults. What I see is a pale face, tense with pain, dirty, limp blond hair fanned out around it. Something wet tracks down her cheeks, but I can’t tell if it’s sweat or tears.
No. The word pierces through me like a flaming bullet.
It’s just too damn bad you weren’t there this time.
What the hell—what the hell is wrong with this world? The temperature under my skin rises like the desert sun. This girl apparently can’t suffer enough. There’s no limit to what she’ll be subjected to here. Sammy is good and this happens. This.
And what? We’re supposed to take comfort in the fact that one day she’ll be rewarded for her struggle? I can still hear her father preaching eternal life, how the meek will inherit. The singsong Sunday school lessons. He’s got the whole world in His hands...
My feet carry me into the room as Dunn leans over her, adjusting an oxygen mask. I see the leg they’ve pulled over the thin blanket for the first time. It’s swollen to twice the size of the other and there’s a bubble of purple and black skin right around her ankle. My gag reflex makes me choke on the next breath.
People die from snakebites. How long was it before anyone found her? How long was she alone in the darkness?
I should have gone. I should have figured out a way. I shouldn’t have left.
What choice did I have? What choice do any of us have?
Kore jostles me as she comes in, holding out a syringe to Dunn. “Was it the antivenom we tried? The only other thing I gave her was morphine for the pain.”
I jerk out of my daze. “She’s allergic to morphine.”
They give her the shot. I’m not sure either of them heard me. So I repeat myself. I have to. They cannot give her morphine. The last time they tried was when she broke her arm and she was stuck in the hospital for an extra two days, she had such a bad reaction.
Dunn and Kore finally look up, turning first toward each other, then toward me.
“It’s the morphine,” I say again. I’ve already damned us both, haven’t I? But they have to know so they don’t make the mistake again. They have to help her.
“Lucas...”
My vision tunnels. For a second, I think I heard her voice in my head, but Nurse Kore is talking now, she’s telling Dunn, “She’s been saying the name all day. I’ve only been able to get a few other words out of her.”
“Samantha,” Dunn says. “Samantha, can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes. It’s Nurse Dunn. I need to check to make sure you’re all right.”
She’s not all right. Sammy is not all right. She’s never going to be, not ever again. I can’t—I can’t—
“...door is...Lucas...the door...dark...Lucas...”
My armor doesn’t crack. It shatters. It falls to ash. My vision blurs and fear wrings every bit of caution and worry out of my head. The last thing I see is Nurse Dunn turning toward me, saying something. Static pours into my ears. I press my hands over my face to try to hide it, but it’s too late. I’m crying.
I’m weeping like the kid who was pelted with rocks walking home every day from school by older kids. I’m weeping like the kid told he has to leave his best and only friend behind. I’m weeping like the kid who watched both parents bleed out in front of him, who watched the men in uniforms break his sister’s hand because she wouldn’t let go of his.
I sink against the wall until I feel the cold tile under me. I’m breathing so hard I can’t catch my breath. I understand now. I can’t help anyone. I can’t even help myself.
“What’s—?”
“Get the door,” Nurse Dunn says sharply. There’s movement at my left as the door clicks shut.
“You—” I can barely get the words out. “You have to sing to her. She’ll wake up if you sing, she loves music—she can’t—she can’t die like this—the silence—”
“Lucas. Do you know Samantha?” Dunn’s voice has a strained quality to it. I force myself to look up, eyes and throat aching. Dunn is kneeling in front of me now. Kore is pressed flat against the door, looking up at the ceiling, shaking her head.
“Sam,” I say, correcting him. “Best friend. Sammy.”
The curse that follows blisters my ears. I breathe deep, trying to suck enough air into my chest to keep the crushing feeling out.
“How is he...?” Kore starts to ask, then actually looks at me. “You remember things? They said you all wouldn’t. They made us think—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dunn says, cutting her off. “Her condition is very, very serious, but she’s alive. Do you remember what I was saying before, though, about how things work here?”
I nod.
“I don’t think it was a timber rattlesnake, otherwise she wouldn’t still be here...maybe a copperhead. The problem is, we have no stock of antivenom left, and the camp controllers won’t grant my request to leave camp premises to acquire more. They think it’s a security breach. But by the time it’s ordered and delivered through the military transport...”
“She’s going to die,” I finish.
“Lucas, listen to me. A lot of people aren’t treated with the antivenom and survive. We’re worried, though, because her symptoms haven’t gotten any better and there’s always the risk of infection. I just don’t have enough experience with snakebites to tell you anything with certainty.”
Sammy is a fighter, I want to say, but who can fight this? Who survives this? “Her leg?”
“We cut away the necrotic...the dead tissue. There might be nerve damage—a limp. I can’t lie to you, she might not be able to walk normally again if she doesn’t get proper medical treatment.”
“She won’t be able to run.”
“No one can run here,” Kore says, pressing a hand to her forehead.
“From him.” I spit the words out. “Tildon.”
Kore and Dunn exchange looks that are easy enough to read.
“What did he do to the other girls?” I ask. “The other kids?”
“I’ve only heard rumors,” Dunn says slowly. “The doctor always treats them. I saw one of the boys once, though, and he...” He shakes his head. “Are you saying that Tildon has something to do with this?”
I somehow manage to tell them what happened yesterday without giving into the compulsion to run out, find the man, and watch him burn from the shoes up. I’m angry all over again; I don’t even care that my arm is spasming. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t put the snake in the building with her. She never should have been there in the first place.
I can’t stop seeing it. I can’t stop seeing Sam alone in that cage. I left her in the dark.
“Jesus...” Kore breathes out. She turns to the other nurse. “They won’t do anything about it until he escalates. That’s been the case for all of the others, right?”
“I asked one of the camp controllers after I saw the boy. They need physical evidence of abuse and improper behavior,” Dunn says, rubbing his face, “before they can transfer him to another cabin block. They don’t take preventative action. They only respond.”
“What about discharging him?” I demand. “How many strikes does this guy get?”
They seem unnerved by the heat coating the words. It takes Dunn a moment to say, “There are so few PSFs willing to re-up their service and stay. He’s one of them. With the camp closing and the kids being sent to other camps, they...I have a feeling they’re just going to let it fall between the cracks. They have bigger messes to clean up.”
“We have to...” Kore can’t
seem to figure out what she wants to say, so she starts pacing instead, working out her thoughts that way. “We have to try talking to O’Ryan again. Make him understand how serious this is. I can’t let her die. We can’t let her die. Dammit, it’s a snakebite. It should be treatable. This shouldn’t be happening.”
“O’Ryan won’t do anything. It’s easier to explain away a dead kid than bring her to a hospital that can actually treat her. Too many questions. Too much attention.”
“Why do they have to wait for the military to bring in the medicine?” Desperation stains my voice, makes it sound different to my own ears. “Won’t it be faster coming from a civilian supply?”
“It’ll ‘compromise the camp’s secure location’ to bring someone in,” he says with no short supply of bitterness. “Even if we could get someone past the gate, they won’t have enough time to treat her before someone notices. The only way to help her is to take her out.”
“Stop!” This is clearly a conversation they’ve had before, because Kore knows exactly where it’s headed. “Dammit, Pat, stop!”
“Do you really want this on your conscience?” he asks, on his feet now. “We’ll walk out of here in a few weeks, but what about her? Say she pulls through fine—great, we’ve just saved Tildon’s latest victim. Do you really want this shadowing you your whole life? Lissa...we promised we’d do whatever it’d take to help these kids. I have a plan. I just need to adapt it to her.”
Oh my God. I can’t stop looking between them. Seconds stretch into minutes, punctuated by the steady beep beep beep of one of the machines.
“You think I don’t know that?” Her voice cracks as it drops to a whisper. “You heard what they did to the woman they caught. She only helped and they did that. They called it treason. If you get caught, there’s no coming back from it.”
“I’ll do it,” I hear myself saying. “Whatever you were planning, I’ll do it.”