Three more guards come into the room, one pushing a large metal cart that creaks and bumps over the uneven tiled floor of the hallways.
“Samples for what?”
“Information. We’ll just take some measurements on you. Do a few tests, if you don’t mind.”
“And if we do?” Ryan asks brusquely, eyeing a large needle on the top of the cart.
Taylor shrugs. “Then you leave right now.”
He sounds broken hearted about the idea.
“Just like that?” Ryan asks.
“Just like that.”
I shake my head. I’m not leaving this place, not until I get to speak to the council or someone of some importance. Not until I’ve tried. They can bring in all the needles, knives and scary med equipment they want, I’m not being bullied out of this place.
“Do your tests,” I tell Taylor defiantly, staring him in the eye to let him know I understand what he’s trying to do. “We’re not infected. We have nothing to hide.”
He smirks. “Not that you know of. But the infection rate isn’t what it used to be, not since The Cure,” he says sarcastically. “Thanks to that little beauty of a failure, the last we checked incubation took over a week before a person fully turned, meaning you’ll be locked in here for more than two. Are you prepared for that?”
It’s nothing new. It’s nothing we don’t already know or haven’t heard from him before, but the time frame is daunting. We can’t be in here for two weeks. I’ve already been away from the Colony for too long as it is. People didn’t have a lot of faith in me as a person to begin with. I doubt they’ve held out any hope I’ll come back and that makes me so desperately sad inside. That I’m still trying but I know I’ve been written off because it’s what I would have done. I would have given up and gone numb weeks ago.
“We don’t want to move in,” Ryan groans. “We just need to speak to someone. Someone who makes decisions for the group.”
“How do you know you’re not talking to him? How do you know I’m not the Grand Poobah? The king of the island?”
We all freeze when we hear a disembodied giggle from somewhere in the room. It’s small and light, childish. Girly. I scan the room, trying to figure out where it’s coming from. If maybe we heard it trickle down through a vent or if there’s someone hiding somewhere in the room. Then one of the guards bends down, throws open the doors on the bottom half of the cart and there she is. A young girl with long dark hair and brilliant, shining blue eyes peering out at us. She blinks against the sudden light, then her eyes fix on us inside the cage, taking each of us in one by one. She can’t be more than ten years old. Probably closer to nine. To eight.
“Beth, what the hell?” Taylor asks, exasperated.
She frowns, looking away. “I’m sorry, Taylor.”
“What are you doing in there?”
“Playing hide and seek with daddy.”
“Does he know he’s playing this game with you?” Taylor asks suspiciously.
“No,” she mumbles reluctantly.
“Cheater. Get out of here. You’re not supposed to be in here, you know that. It’s dangerous.”
She goes to climb out of the cart but stumbles. One of the guards reaches down to help her out, to stand her up until she’s there in front of us, vibrant with flushed cheeks, a clean face and hair and a daddy out there somewhere looking for her.
My throat begins to close up, making it hard to breathe.
“My mom lets me in here all the time,” she whines.
“Yeah, when it’s empty and it’s just you and her. Seriously, sweetie, scram. Your dad will kill me—“
The doorway is filled with a tall man with brown hair, only one hand and brilliant blue eyes. Eyes the exact shade of the little girls.
It’s her dad and my eyes are on fire.
“Taylor, have you seen Beth?” he asks.
Taylor silently points one stern finger at her face.
The man sighs with relief. “Come on,” he tells her, his voice annoyed but affectionate. “Let’s go.”
She walks toward him reluctantly, taking her sweet time. “But I was going to help Taylor with the prisoners.”
“You’re eight years old, baby. Let’s worry more about taking your bath and less about becoming a warden.”
“Called it,” I breathe, watching her go.
“What?” Ryan whispers.
I ignore him. I keep my eyes glued on the girl. On her dad.
“Hey, brat,” Taylor calls after her, holding up a small, rustic doll that had been in the cart with her. It’s ratty from use. Kind of an ugly thing. “Don’t forget Little Miss, Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong here.”
The girl smiles brightly, giggling as she runs back to him to get her doll.
“Why do you call her that?”
“You don’t know that song?”
She shakes her head, hugging her doll.
Taylor looks at the dad sadly. “Come on, man. You aren’t even raising her right.”
“Blow me,” the dad deadpans.
“What does that mean?” the little girl asks Taylor.
“It means don’t repeat it. It also means Music Education in the rec room in an hour, you hear me?”
She smiles happily up at him. “Yes!”
“Alright, beat it.”
She goes to leave with her dad, but she casts one last look over her shoulder at us. I see Trent, a tall blond blur in the corner of my watery eyes, waving to her. She lifts her hand to wave back but then her eyes catch on me and she hesitates. She stares at me, her sweet little girl face searing into my brain as she clutches that ugly, creepy doll that she loves so much. As she takes her dad’s hand, his only hand, and walks out of the room.
“Joss, what’s wrong?” Ryan asks me, his hand on my back.
I shake my head mutely, unable to speak without falling apart. I know my limits. I know when I’ve hit a wall and I just slammed headlong into a big one. But it’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s actually kind of… beautiful. Almost comforting. Because somewhere out there, despite everything that’s happened, everything I’ve lost, there’s a little eight year old girl with a daddy and a doll and a smile.
Chapter Sixteen
After three days, we’ve developed a routine. Wake up, fight with Taylor about leaving, eat our breakfast, give blood and tissue samples to whichever nurse or doctor they have on duty at the time, hang out in our cage until lunch, fight with Taylor about leaving again, eat, stare at each other, eat our dinner, fight with Taylor about leaving one last time for the day, then hang with Sam until it’s lights out and we all go to sleep. We never talk about it, but I lay down next to Ryan every night, Trent snoozing just a few feet away. No one sleeps in the bed.
It’s when one of the nurses, a thirty-something dark haired woman, is taking a sample from me that my injured arm finally comes back to haunt me. She’s holding my hand, pulling on it lightly to keep me still as she looks for a vein. I’m not paying enough attention and she twists it, making me breathe in sharply.
Her eyes snap to mine. “What’s wrong with your arm?”
“Nothing,” I say tightly, waiting for the pain to subside. It’s not terrible, just intense and surprising.
“She broke it,” Trent tells the woman. He’s watching us closely from his favorite corner. “Badly.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“She threw up when she saw it. The bone was sti—“
“Okay, it was bad!” I snap at him, looking at him hard. “But it’s been healing.”
The woman is gently probing my arm now, all the way up to the elbow. When I jerk and hiss again, she frowns.
“This needs to be casted,” she tells me.
“What? Like a hard cast? Something I can’t take off?”