Eat the Ones You Love (The Thirteen Book 2) (22 page)

“I’m here,” Sarah said.

“Sarah,” Jenny said again. “Sarah, please.” Without another word, Sarah understood. She held her sister tightly as her body shook with grief. As Trix sat beside her, her cold hand clasped in Jenny’s. Sarah held her as she held Declan, the man who she’d loved. The man who had been everything. The man who was gone.
 

“Maybe he’ll wake up,” Jenny whispered, before her voice was lost to sobbing.
 

And above the sobbing came the sound of a helicopter. Jenny looked up when she heard it and a light caught her eye, magnified by her tears. A small green light. Blinking.

A security camera was watching her.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Jenny didn’t remember being taken. She remembered holding onto Declan as long as she could. She screamed and tasted a tang of blood in her mouth, though whether hers or another's she had no idea. She had a vague memory of movement, of flight and noise and shrieks of rage. She couldn’t move and suddenly she was back in the same hospital where she stayed as a girl, the click of heels announcing a visitor in her room. Of psychiatrists and nurses and drugs.

She’s not real, Jenny.

She felt herself being carried then. The smell of iodine and bleach. The glare of fluorescent lights. This must be a dream. She was imagining it all. Because now Sarah was next to her, cuffed to a wheelchair, staring at her, moving her mouth. But Sarah wasn’t real. Sarah was made up in Jenny’s head. She looked slowly down and saw her own wrists were cuffed to an identical chair. She looked at Sarah again. She was still saying something to her. Jenny blinked.

“Declan,” she said, her own voice disconnected from her body. She saw his eyes again, like a flash of a dream. Dead eyes, really dead now. There was a knife, black with blood.

I’m not strong enough.

“No,” she whispered.

Since the moment I met you…

“No,” she said again, louder. “No, no, no, no.”

Paramilitary firing submachine guns in Colorado. Declan’s guts all over the floor. Faron shoving a knife into her chest.

Jenny blinked and wrenched her arms up, feeling the cuffs cut into her skin. She looked down and watched a red trickle of blood run down the palm of her hand. She blinked again, the beeping of medical machines becoming real, the fluorescent lights becoming real, the chair and the cuffs and the blood becoming real. She turned her face to Sarah, but she was gone.
 

People in black jumpsuits were running around her, someone was yelling. A woman’s voice shouting orders. Jenny pulled up hard on her wrists again and she felt something tear. Blood poured out now, covering her arm, her hand, the wheelchair. She yanked again and again and again. The yelling woman now noticed what she was doing, and narrowed her eyes at Jenny. Jenny smiled at her and yanked again and felt the arms of the wheelchair wrench up.

“Stop her!” she yelled. She had red hair and very pale skin and looked to be in her early forties.
 

Jenny felt the blood gushing now, but it didn’t matter. She would heal. It didn’t help that she felt lightheaded, but she would live.

She yanked again, as she watched the woman grab one of the soldiers dashing around and pointed at her. Again and again, the padded arms were almost loose. A soldier grabbed the back of her chair and wheeled her to face the woman.

“Stop her, I said,” she barked. “Just grab her.”

“She’s covered in blood, though,” she heard a man say behind her. She yanked again and one arm came completely off and one hand was free.

“I don’t give a fuck if she’s covered in fucking acid. STOP HER.”

“But the blood…”

“Goddammit, get out of the way.”

She was in front of Jenny now and put a strong hand on Jenny’s chest, pushing her back.
 

“Thank you,” Jenny said. The woman looking puzzled even as Jenny grabbed her hair and moved her face next to hers.
 

The woman screamed, trying to get away, but Jenny held tight.

“I want you to understand something,” Jenny said as the woman struggled. “I have absolutely nothing to lose. Do you fucking understand me?”

The woman went still and Jenny felt her nod.

“I can bite your goddamn face off if I want to and you can’t do anything to stop me. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” the woman gasped.
 

“Answer me this,” Jenny said. “Do I have a sister?”

“What?” said the woman, clearly taken aback.

“Answer the fucking question,” said Jenny. “Do I have a sister?”

“Of course,” she said.
 

“I didn’t imagine her?”

“No, she’s real,” said the woman, sounding unsettlingly interested for someone who was in danger.

Jenny felt something stab into her arm and she cried out, releasing the woman.

“Take her into isolation,” she heard the woman say as her vision blurred. The blood on Jenny’s wrist was gumming up and she held her free hand up to look at it. The handcuff jingled on her wrist. The wound had healed. She pulled halfheartedly on the other wrist, but she was sinking. Someone was moving her, talking all around her.

“…Isolation…family genetics…hallucinations…keep them away from the boy.”

“He’s here, isn’t he?” Jenny mumbled. “You have Sarah’s boy here.”

The world started to go dark, but she heard a man say, “He’s safer with us.” And then she closed her eyes and was gone.

Jenny saw shadows flickering against the red. Many shadows. Her sister Sarah’s shadow as a small girl, hunkering down on a street corner. The lean and hunched shadow of Casey, her brother. Abel and Fisher and Grayson, all flashing through in the blink of an eye. The fat, squat form of Sully, his frizzy ponytail sticking out behind him, reaching for her, towards her, out of the red. Her mother, a flash and nothing more. Sneaking through, making herself scarce before a looming shape absorbed the red, scalpel in hand, hair clipped neatly to the scalp, adjusting his wire frame glasses just as her grandfather always had. She could almost see his cold eyes flashing. And then he was gone and only one shadow remained. Tall and wide-shouldered and standing straight. She knew the shadow was looking at her, straight into her. Declan.
 

And then all the shadows were gone and there was only the red. But it wasn’t the red of hunger and rage. It was part of her now. It was just her and nothing else. She was the red.
 

Jenny opened her eyes, blinking in the dim light. She smelled iodine again and heard voices murmuring. Someone was in the too-warm room with her. She tried to shove blankets away, feeling the fabric clinging to her skin, wet with sweat. Something stopped her hand and a chain jingled. She was cuffed again, only now the cuffs were padded. Restraints. Just as she had been restrained as a girl. The smell of iodine and the beeping of machines and the murmuring of voices. And restraints.
 

“I know this place,” she rasped, her lips cracked and her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.

She blinked again, clearing the sand from her eyes. She was alone, but she had the sense that someone was watching. She looked up and found the camera, just like the one in the Academy. Green light blinking lazily, clean lens shining in the dim light. She looked at the ceiling and saw the lights were working. Raising her hands as much as the chains allowed, she flipped off the camera.

“You shouldn’t be here,” said a voice. It echoed in her head like someone was projecting right into her mind. She looked to see a shadow that gathered form and looked at her disapproving.

“Casey.”

“
You shouldn’t be here. He told you to run.
”

“I have to save them,” she said. “It’s my fault, all of it. Trix and Sarah and Rafi. And Declan.”

“
Declan’s dead.
”

“Stop it,” she said. “He’s not really dead. He can’t be. That’s not real.”

“
You don’t even know what’s real anymore
,” he said. Jenny shook her head to get rid of the echo. She looked up and Casey was gone.
 

“Who are you talking to?” said a voice that didn’t echo.

A man was standing in the doorway. Fat and pudgy with small eyes and a wide mouth. He wore a white lab coat and was holding a clipboard.

“No one,” she said. “Who the fuck are you?”

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

“I’m here to help,” he said, smiling. It didn’t touch his eyes.

“I fucking doubt that,” said Jenny. “Take these things off of my hands.”

“I’m afraid that’s for your own safety as well as the safety of the staff,” he said. His voice was calm and it pissed her off.
 

“Nothing about this is about my safety, you fat, smug bastard.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Jenny.”

“Where’s my sister? Where’s Trix?”

“Your friends are safe,” he said. “We aren’t going to harm them.”

“What is this fucking place? A hospital?”

The man sat in a chair, sighing as he settled in next to the bedrail.
 

“Uncuff me,” Jenny said, panic creeping into her voice. “Please. I won’t hurt anyone.”

“Yes, you will,” he said. “You’ve tied our hands, Jenny. The death of Anna Hawkins was a tragedy.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said. “But you let it happen. You’ve greatly inconvenienced us.”

“So sorry for the
inconvenience
, ” said Jenny.

“Tell me about the hallucinations.”

“What the fuck is this place?” said Jenny. “I’ve been here before.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“My name is Doctor Klein.”

“Did you know? Did you know what they did to us?”

He sighed. “I was very young back then. I knew of it, whispers of something big. I just didn’t know how big.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You,” he said. “Your sister. Your mother’s experiments. You are all very small cogs in something much larger than you can possibly imagine.” He smiled his false smile again. “But I’ve said too much. Now. Tell me about your hallucinations.”

“I’m not having hallucinations,” said Jenny. “What is this shit you’re talking about? Is this about Sully? Releasing the virus?”

“It’s not a virus, exactly,” he said. “I don't know exactly how to explain it to you – how far along did you get in school? ”

“Kind of hard to get a fucking education when I was locked in a basement with people cutting me open.”

“Point taken,” he said. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me.”

“Fuck you.”

“You say that word a lot,” he said.

“I want to see my sister, asshole.”

Klein sat back, looking pleased.

“Are you sure your sister is real?”

Jenny narrowed her eyes.

“You’re not a doctor. You’re a fucking psychiatrist, aren’t you?”

“Psychologist, actually.”

“Even worse.”

“When did the hallucinations start, Jenny?”

“I don’t have hallucinations.”

“When you arrived, you asked the Attending if your sister was real.”

“So? I was in shock.”

“We’ve been watching you.”

“I know. It’s fucking creepy.”

“You wander off. You talk to people who aren’t there. You have whole conversations.”

“Fuck you. Uncuff me.”

“You’re not a prisoner, Jenny. We brought you here to help you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Your equipment is malfunctioning, I’m afraid. We can fix it.”

“You’re not touching me,” said Jenny. “No one is operating on me. I will die before I let you cut me.”

“Well, that’s not much of a threat, is it? Dying?”

Jenny spat at him. It landed on his clean white coat. Klein sighed.

“Mr. Sullivan caused some kind of reaction when he…explored your machinery.”

“Sully? You mean when he fucking tortured me?”

“Yes, I suppose it could be viewed as such. Mr. Sullivan was a very troubled man.”

“Is that why you hired him?”

“We didn’t hire him, he volunteered.”

“To end the world.”

“The world didn’t end. Just modern civilization as we knew it. It was very predictable.”

Jenny stopped and stared at him. He smiled.

“You did this on purpose?”

“Enough talking,” he said. “What if I brought you to the man you want to see the most?”

“And who would that be?”

“We have Mr. Faron locked up. Would you like to see him?”

Jenny felt her heart in her throat. She swallowed hard.

“I’d like to kill him.”

  
“That can be arranged.”

TWENTY-NINE

Klein summoned four men to accompany Jenny in her wheelchair. Two kept their guns trained on her head while the other two cuffed her hands and feet. She smiled at the man cuffing her right hand and his hands began to shake. The gunmen stayed with them as Klein pushed her out of the room and down a hall bright with fluorescent lights. Jenny blinked in the bright light as nurses and doctors moved out of the way. She felt their eyes on them as they passed. As her eyes became accustomed to the bright lights, she noticed people inside the rooms. Most were unconscious. Jenny distinctly saw some chained to their beds. As she passed, she saw a very small female patient try to sit up in bed. In another room, a small boy shouted.
 

“You’re still doing it,” she said.

“What’s that?” Klein said, putting his ear closer to her behind her.

“They’re all children,” said Jenny. “Just like before. You’re experimenting on them.”

“Not experimenting,” said Klein. “Perfecting. You were the recipient of an imperfect system. We are perfecting it.”

“On children,” said Jenny.

“The young seem to be the only ones who can tolerate the procedure.”

Jenny reached down, the chain pulling at her wrist, and pulled on the handbrake. Klein ran into her as the wheels stopped. The two gunmen turned, their weapons held toward the floor. Jenny saw that a few soldiers in black stopped when they saw her.
 

“I would advise against this,” said Klein. “Don’t you want to see Faron?”