Escape (Alliance Book 1) (7 page)

She waited all these years. A few more days, and she'd know. She could take it. She had to.

She saw the ad the day it appeared on the door of her escort service, Lexi's, the one she'd been at for about two months now. She knew it was hers as soon as she saw it. That she finally made it happen. She had to see her. Next week it'll be eleven years of celebrating the bad sister, or rather, the bad half-sister day, as she jokingly called it when she'd just turned eleven and Sandra was gone. Gone to the prep school and then med school. And then gone to the headlines and death threats to her and to mom.

That school morning of waking up to a small cardboard box outside their front door with a tiny finger in it. The kids she had known her whole life looking at her like she had two heads. Her sister, her half sister, was working on the cure from babies. That's what her friends said. That's what everybody said then, and she was angry. And then, later, she was ashamed.

She didn't do anything stupid or dangerous in her angry years. She just kept to herself, picked up smoking, when she could sneak a pack from her mother, but other than that she was functional. Quiet, but functional. She got her period later than most girls in her class, at 14, and then she was no longer angry. She was scared and ashamed.

This, being a woman, the conversations she had with her mother about what it all meant, the consequences of these belly aches, that's what Sandra was trying to stop. It felt wrong. Not that she thought even back then of ever having kids, she already knew she didn't want them, but it, what Sandra was doing, she knew was wrong.

After her first birthday as a woman, she was no longer keeping to herself. She went everywhere the older kids went. Crashing impromptu parties in old warehouses and abandoned apartments. Somehow the boys could always find enough liquor to keep everyone drunk through the night. Few of these same boys could ever find enough to eat, but the liquor was stealable. So they stole ample amounts of it every week.

Later, she'd steal it with them, sneaking a bottle of Vodka or Gin under her winter coat. Her breasts grew enough by then to cover the protruding shapes of the bottles, and her face, still that of a little girl, would be the last one anyone thought of. She was okay with it then -the drinking, the boys, the music. She never thought about Sandra in those moments, and that felt good. Until the night Jess called her, in tears.

That night her best friend, Jess, learned she was pregnant. She ran over to see her at the old ball park they used to hang out at. She didn't know what to do about this pregnant Jess, but she knew she needed to be there, if only to listen to her sob, something she couldn't do over the phone from her house without her parents noticing.

Jess was early with everything. She stopped looking like a little girl long before anyone else in their class. He body changed over one summer to something fluid, something ill suited to run in or swim or climb fences. And Jess seemed awkward in it. She kept hiding her new curves under old boy sweaters she stole from her brother, the one who died in the war, but she still felt guilty about taking his stuff.

Jess was a genuinely good sort. She still blushed at everything dirty, and couldn't bring herself to lie with a straight face, couldn't bring herself to steal liquor and no one ever asked her to. But she was always there, tugging along with her to every overnight gathering, so Cassie never had to walk home alone, half-drunk, or rely on some boy to take her.

And now she was waiting for her to talk her out of being pregnant or if that wasn't an option and she was irrevocably pregnant, talk her out of feeling helpless and sad, only she didn't know how to do any of that. Sandra might know or her mom, but she hadn't talked to or seen Sandra in three years and she couldn't tell her mum. Mum, who was always fawning over everything Jess did or said. Mum, who spent half her awake time wishing Cassandra would magically turn into Jess by association, by being around her all the time. That she'd pick up all the Jess goodness, like a virus, and then mum would have at least one child to be proud of.

She saw her before she could think of anything to say, and far too late to fall back into the shadows of the trees. Jess looked flushed. She was sitting, primly enough, on a wooden bench in the old bleachers, legs crossed, hair flowing just right. It always did that, even at their sleepovers, her hair fell in these soft light brown waves around her face. Nothing stuck out any which way, like Cassandra's.

"Hey Cassie," - a sob, "I think I'm going to kill myself..." Jess whispered and smiled at her, but her eyes were wet and reddish at the rims. She'd been crying, there was no mistaking it. She meant the kill herself part too. Jess never joked about serious stuff, and this was definitely serious. She hugged her close, smelling her shampoo, rose petals and lavender, wiping the tears from her face, holding her for as long as she could without having to say something.

She hugged her for so long that night that all the stars changed their places, and all the birds, even the nocturnal ones stopped making their racket, and then she let her go. She didn't know what one could do if they were pregnant already to suddenly not be pregnant anymore. There was no cure for that.

She walked her home the long way, by the canal, and then through the bad part of town, almost hoping to run into a group of thugs to take her mind of the thing making her friend so unbearably sad now, but all was quiet. She waited for her to go inside, and stood by her front door until she saw the light go on in her small upstairs bedroom, one she used to share with the now dead brother. She threw a tiny nothing of a pebble at her window, and waved at the dark silhouette, and then walked home, slowly, thinking of something to say to her tomorrow at school.

She almost had it, that something when she opened the door to her small house. She could help Jess fix this. And then she saw her mother hovering over a teapot at the stove. Her mother was making bloody tea at four twenty two in the morning, if the clock on the stove was right. Her mother, who hardly ever made tea anymore, was scalding the pot and carefully measuring out two teaspoons of dark leaves, and putting her hands around the now brewing pot in that way she had, as if the heat didn't bother her at all.

She knew something was wrong, her mother did. She also knew that she couldn't make Cassie tell her. So she made tea and set out two cups, remnants of their old life, when tea cups were still more pretty than useful, and they sat there quietly sipping their tea out of tiny and easily breakable porcelain cups until the pot was drained.

She wanted to tell her about Jess, but it wasn't her secret to tell. And maybe she didn't need to. She almost thought of a way to fix it anyway. It just had to wait until tomorrow, and maybe, maybe all of this would be okay, and she'd have her not crying Jess back, the easy to make laugh, gullible Jess, the knew-all-her-secrets Jess.

When she walked into class the next day she could feel it. The kids weren't looking at her. No taunts about her too big on her shirt, no jabs in her back with a pen. And then she knew what it was. Jess was gone. She could feel it in all the eyes that avoided hers now. She grabbed her bag and ran, ran to where she'd dropped her off just a few hours ago, ran all the way up the stairs to the door and kicked it hard, as if she needed to make a lot of noise to be heard. Jess's mum stood in the doorway, looking at her all bleary eyed, holding a wad of tissue in her surprisingly delicate hand, "She is gone, Cassie. She is gone..."

She startled out of her reverie, still staring at the ad on the door. She had to see Sandra. She had to tell her that now she understood. That she wasn't wrong. That she needed her sister. She walked to the hospital where the lab was, and for the first time, went through the double glass doors.

The place looked immense. She had no idea where the lab was. The youngish girl in a white coat at the reception beckoned her. "I'm looking for Doctor Sandra Groning. It's important. No, I don't have an appointment, but I have to see her. Look, lady, I am one of her new test subjects and something is wrong..." At that the woman, girl really, poked a few buttons on her screen and handed Cassandra a key card, "You need to take the lift up to the 8th floor. You'll have to put this card into the slot in the lift for it to go that high up. Dr. Groning will be waiting for you at the office right next to her lab. It'll be to your right, all the way down the hallway. You can't miss it".

She smiled at the girl, not unkindly, and almost ran for the lift, but checked herself. She was this close now. She could give this a few more minutes if she had to. The ride was slower than she expected, but then it was an older building, so the lifts still traveled at the speed they did a century ago. She was amazed it still worked.

The hallway was long, but she could tell where the offices were from here. The sign, "Dr. Groning" on the door surprised her. She had known that Sandra was a doctor for all these years, but somehow seeing that sign made it real to her for the first time. She wasn't playing a scientist, experimenting on monkeys and people and babies. She was a doctor, one who could fix someone if they were broken.

She took a deep breath, and knocked the knock she hadn't used since she was a little kid, back when they lived in a much larger house in the country, and Sandra would hide in the tree house for hours on end. She'd go up there and then pull the rope ladder inside, so no one knew she was up there, and even if they did, they couldn't get to her. Only Cassandra always knew, and she'd climb the inside of the oak tree, and very carefully walk around the tiny ledge of the tree house to where the improvised door was, and she'd knock in that way she did now: five beats, a pause and another two beats.

She waited for what seemed to be far too long for someone to open the door. She was almost ready to turn around and run, go back to her uncomplicated if unpleasant life, as the door swung open. She could tell from the way Sandra was looking at her that she knew who she was, that she recognized the knock.

What could she possibly say to her now after so much nothingness for so long? After blaming her for Jess, for not being fast enough with her research to save her, and for mother's turning to drink, and then, finally, slowly, dying in that way nobody should ever have to die and nobody should ever watch someone die...

Sandra wasn't there for any of it, not even the funeral. She sent flowers and paid for the arrangements, but she didn't come. There was a card, courier delivered, with apologies in her handwriting. Some urgent business in Sweden or Switzerland or Somalia, or some other S country. Nothing she cared about or would ever travel to. She still couldn't forgive her for that. For not protecting her from so many sad faces boring into her eyes, looking at her in that way one looks at a starving puppy, kicked too many times to bark.

Some of what was running through her head must have shown on her face, for Sandra walked up to her, and grabbed her face, almost roughly, and pulled her to her, and finally, inside her office, and then held her to her chest letting her breathe. Letting her cry into her white coat. Holding her, tighter than mother ever dared, tighter than she ever remembered being held by anyone who didn't pay money to hold her however they wanted.

And cry she did. For Jess, and for her mom, and for the stupid porcelain tea cups that she sold when she had no money left to buy food, and for her sister's face in the news as someone dangerous, as someone who deserved all the death threats she got. She let it all out in long painful sobs, and then finally looked her over - the still familiar gray eyes, with just a few tiny lines in the corners. Sandra never really laughed much, so that wasn't surprising. She looked tired, this much Cassie could see, and far too thin for someone who still had access to whatever food was available. And most surprisingly, she looked sad. Too sad for someone who finally solved a puzzle that cost them almost two decades of their life and so much more.

"I had to see you. I needed to tell you about Jess, and the others I've known later on. How it really is to feel so hopeless, so unfixable," she whispered, just loud enough for Sandra to hear her. Letting go of her, Sandra walked her to the only chair in the room, perched on a stool facing her and waited.

"I think I'm going to need a drink..."

Sandra just shook her head at her softly. It didn't matter. She knew a drink wouldn't help her any. She just wanted to collect her thoughts so she didn't sound like a blabbering fool. And she needed to decide if she could tell her about herself, if she wanted her to know, and if Sandra would pity her for it. That she didn't want.

"I saw your ad."

Sandra's eyebrows shot up in surprise. She must have known that the only places the ads were posted were escort services, whorehouses and the like.

"I work in one, Lexi's, just a few blocks away from here, on Fromer. If it wasn't for my inability to get pregnant, I'd qualify as one of your test subjects." She wanted to giggle at that, at the incongruity of it all.

Sandra stared at her with almost maternal concern now. She had to tell her she was okay.

"I don't mind it, really. I'm in control of what I do and who I do it with, and most of the boys have been good to me. When mom died, I sold what I could, none of it for very much, and when that ran out... Well, when that all ran out, I wanted to come find you, but I was so, so angry at you for not coming to the funeral, I just couldn't do it. Eventually, everyone I knew had died or moved to one big place or another, but I just couldn't leave. I wanted to stay close to Jess and to mom. I went to see them at that tiny cemetery every day for years, you know. At times, when things started to get really bad I felt they were the lucky ones, gone when the world was still a little bit okay, you know? But then I just couldn't stay there, and someone took over the house. I let them have it for a way out to Manchester and a few winter coats. My old ones were no longer serviceable by then.