Denis shut the door on us as I whispered hoarsely, “Gwen, Gwen, what… how can… are you?” Each question was cut short with the axe of redundancy. It didn’t matter. She was here. She shouldn’t be here.
She put her hands in my dyed hair and lifted it to the light.
“What have they done to you?” She smiled and those familiar dimples formed high in her cheeks. But there was falseness to her humor.
I blew my relief through my lips like a whistle. “Oh, thank God! You know who I am.”
She laughed sadly. “I’m not crazy, despite my accommodation. Apparently, singing is for loonies,” she said, winding her finger in circles at her ear.
Was she crazy? I cocked my head to the side and examined her like crazy was something I’d be able to see on her face. But then I remembered—I knew exactly what crazy looked like. I knew what crazy sounded like. Crazy squealed and stomped its red, leather-clad foot. Crazy made you jump and turn in circles before you passed through the door.
I doubled over, clutching my stomach, as Este’s squealing echoed through my head and I felt the knife going in and out, looping, never-ending.
No, Gwen wasn’t crazy. But I started to wonder whether I was.
Gwen touched my hand, and I snapped up.
“You ok, Rosa. Where’d you go?”
I laughed unconvincingly. “Sorry, I just can’t believe you’re here.” Why was she here?
I wrapped my arms around her neck and pulled her forward into a hug. She returned it, but she was weak and didn’t move very well. I sat on the edge of the bed, my eyes roaming over her diminished frame. Her sunken eyes, her dirty face. She had a bag hanging of the edge of the bed, and I noticed a tube poking out from under her thin, cotton dress.
“Are you sick?” I asked shakily.
Her bare feet were a purplish blue. I pulled the blanket up over her legs and tucked them under her feet. Watching my hands closely, she shook her head. She couldn’t meet my eyes. I put my hand over hers, which was resting on her leg.
“Gwen, what is it?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to know the answer. I wanted to grab her hand and run—push Denis aside, kick the guard in the groin or the face or whatever I could reach, and run. I could feel the bad answer; it was already carving a deep pit in my stomach. They hurt her. They hurt her like they’d hurt me, and then they’d hurt her more.
Still staring at our hands touching, she said dully, “I can’t feel your hand on my leg.” A sob caught in her throat, and she coughed. “I can’t feel anything from my waist down. The bastards paralyzed me.”
The air sucked from the room, gravity inverted, and I thought I might explode with anger.
Grant, I hate you. My hate is a searing sun. It’s going to swallow you and turn you to ashes.
I knew it. But once she said it, the last pieces slotted together. Any doubt I had was swept away. Grant was using my friend as the test subject. He broke her back and then he showed her to me like some sort of twisted trophy. He was evil.
Grant had to die.
“I’m so sorry,” I wept.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is.” I put my hands to my head and rocked. My head was being crushed in a vice of guilt.
Gwen grabbed my hands and jerked them down, locking eyes with me. “Listen to me, Rosa, and stop crying. Evil is never your fault.”
Okay. Okay. Just stop. Gather up the frayed, pilled edges of your sanity and pull it together. She needs you.
I drew in a large breath from this airless room and wiped my tears with the back of my hand.
“What do you know?” I asked, leaning in.
“That’s better.” She smiled with effort. “I know I’m Grant’s guinea pig for the healer,” she said, gripping the edges of her blanket. “I know he’s a selfish prick!” she screamed towards the door. “I know neither of us will survive the process, but he won’t listen to me.”
She gasped from the screaming, her starved eyes wide, her lips dry and cracked. A glass of water was placed on a table just out of her reach. I retrieved it for her, and she grabbed it greedily.
“Oh, it’ll work, Gwen. It worked on me,” I said loudly, not trusting that they weren’t listening to me.
Her eyes peeled back further, her sharp cheekbones pressing out of her skin like tent poles. I couldn’t say anything else. I just looked at her, trying to convey with my eyes that somehow I would get her those pills.
She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth.
“You may push us down
In the very dirt
That grows your fruitful lies
But you should fear us
When you hear us
When you hear our cries,
We’ll rise, rise, rise.”
Her hand was a fist, pumping with each ‘rise’.
I rose from her bedside.
The door opened and Denis hovered in the doorway, his face a mixture of worry and something else I couldn’t quite discern. “Something’s happened,” he said. “I have to take you back.”
“I thought I had an hour?” Panic drove through me like a rusty spike, plunging deep into my ribs. I couldn’t leave her. She was injured, alone, and she was my only anchor to my old life. The life I wanted back.
I shook my head and returned to her side. “No. Let me stay here. I’m a prisoner anyway, shouldn’t I be in prison?” I pleaded, my fingers digging into Gwen’s mattress. She stared at me with carved-out eyes, her frame wavering like vapor. She needed food.
“Rosa, please.” Denis sighed in exasperation. “We don’t have time for this.”
I didn’t turn around and just waved one hand behind me. “Then leave me.”
Please don’t take me away from my last beacon of sanity.
Gwen wrapped her hand around mine and gripped it. “Don’t go, not yet,” she whispered. She blinked, but there were no tears. She was too dehydrated. Then she lifted her chin defiantly and snapped, “Who’s this clown?”
“I’m Master Grant,” he said authoritatively, and then he glanced down at me. “Rosa, we have to leave now!” He was moving from leg to leg like he needed to pee.
“Why?” I snapped, so sick of being dragged from place to place, being a pawn in their sick games. This was my friend lying here, broken. I choked on all the tears I couldn’t cry as Denis’ shadow encroached on me.
“We’ve lost Palma,” he stated. “We have to go home. Now!”
“Home?” I laughed. I had no home. And Palma. Lost. We. We, like I was part of his people. No, we had gained Palma. They had lost Palma.
Gwen grinned. Her skin was paler than clean sheets. She was suffering, but God, she was so strong. Much stronger than I was.
“I’m not leaving yet.” I filled her glass again and handed it her. I searched the room, my breaths getting shorter and more hysterical. “Why doesn’t she have any food?” I yelled, my voice uneven, shrill as a drill bouncing against metal.
Denis strode towards me and yanked me up by my collar, the silk fabric tearing at my neck. “Get up!” he growled.
Gwen’s grip was tight, but she was too weak to hold me against Denis’ pull. I scratched and hit but he held me out from his body as if I were a rat hanging from its tail.
“I’ll see you again,” I screamed as he dragged me from the room.
She shook her head. “You won’t see me until Test day.”
My eyes widened. She would die if we didn’t get those pills. “You know I’ll do what I can to help you?” I shouted as I held onto the doorframe. Denis pulled on my arms.