Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles) (21 page)

Later, Marie was told that Vasurians camped outside the remainder of the night until Rena had come out and informed them of her condition. She stayed inside the next day, mostly lying on her belly while Zena or Nora, who had been able to sneak in, applied the salve Grant had given her so long ago. The little jar was always on her, passing from one pocket to the other, depending on the task ahead. Fortunately, that night, she had hidden it in her pants’ pockets. Callista arrived at the hospital later in the afternoon and exchanged a few words with Rane. The doctor was so furious she could barely talk, and the major seemed too pleased by her strong reaction. Marie faked she was sleeping and the pure breed was called outside before she could come to the bed.

The rest of the day passed without incident, and she dozed in and out of a nightmarish slumber that left her more confused than rested. When the moon was high in the sky, she came out of a vivid dream that had made her cry for help and heard a soft commotion happening behind the screen Rane had put by her bed to give her some privacy.

“If you’re caught here, there will be hell to pay.” Zena’s silhouette danced behind the screen.

“Let me see with my eyes that she’s okay. I’ll go away then, I promise.” Grant’s dark-blond mane stood over the screen.

“Grant!” Without thinking, she jumped out of the bed and threw away the screen.

Grant’s eyes widened at seeing her and he threw open his arms to receive her. Marie felt the pain of his embrace only a second later and couldn’t smother the pained cry that followed. Zena pushed him away and was at her side, asking if she was okay.

“I’m okay. Give me a moment.” But she was looking at him over Zena’s shoulders and she noticed it.

“Are you sure?” the nurse asked, still keeping her body between Marie and Grant.

“Yes, please.” She wanted to be alone with him but didn’t dare ask.

“I’ll be here.” Zena stepped out of the way and went to the other corner of the room.

“How are you?” Grant took her hand and brought it to his face.

She didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t just the pain. It was the humiliation that still made her weak in the knees a day after. It was the feeling of being powerless and at someone else’s complete mercy. Her eyes watered and she wanted nothing but to be hugged by him, to be in the warm embrace of his body. She could stand the pain. One look at the screen, and he understood she wanted him to follow her behind it. Once hidden by the relative privacy of the rice paper wall, she felt more courageous.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He shook his head softly when she moved toward him.

“I need this.” She didn’t stop.

Grant opened his arms again, but this time he carefully put his hands on her shoulders on either side of her head. She leaned into him, her nose pressed against his chest, breathing his scent and listening to his heartbeat. He had run there; she could tell from his still-accelerated heart and the fall and raise of his chest. His hands caressed her head from neck to crown and back in slow motions.

“I didn’t know… I would’ve come earlier,” he whispered to her ear and then laid a soft kiss on her forehead.

It felt right. She raised her chin to meet his lips and his heart skipped a beat. Despite the pain, and in spite of everything else, Marie smiled. His lips descended on hers and she forgot herself and where she was. His mouth against hers was soft and warm. A strand of his hair brushed against her face. His fingers were pressing at the base of her head to tilt her face and she let him. When his lips moved sideways, caressing and opening hers, she gasped, the feeling too intense to bear.

“I’m… I don’t know…” Grant had stepped back, his lips swollen, his eyes bright, unevenly breathing.

“Is everything all right?” Zena was looking at both of them from over the screen, her eyes taking in the scene.

“Yes.”
No!
She wanted to kick herself.

Zena gave her a knowing look and raised her eyebrow. Then she turned to him and shook her head. “Young man, you should leave. It’s too dangerous.” She saw Marie’s disappointment and added, “We might save
you
from Callista’s anger if she found him here, but he would be better off dead.”

Marie’s back throbbed and she was reminded of the courtesy accorded to her. Callista wouldn’t be as generous with a worker. If he were lucky, Grant would be whipped within an inch of his life. “Please go and don’t come back until things are safe.” Mindless of the woman’s presence, she took his hands in hers and bought them to her lips. “Soon.”

Zena stepped away and turned around. “I’ll go see if the coast is clear.” She made enough noise to let them know when she was on the side of the room by the window.

Grant’s face lit in a small smile. “Marie,” he whispered and then bent over her and laid a small peck on the top of her head. “Soon.”

“Now!” Zena called, gesturing for him to move. “In a few minutes, it’ll be dinnertime and the whole place will be full of soldiers.”

Marie grabbed the neck of his shirt and dragged him down for a last kiss. Nothing more than a brush, but enough to send her heart in a mad race once again. “She’s right. Go.” She accompanied him to the door and watched as he disappeared behind it. A new, different pain permeated her whole being. A different reason to feel tearful. A different reason to feel alive.

“He’ll be fine.” Zena was still looking outside and she joined her at the window.

“What’s happening to me?” She rested her head on the nurse’s shoulder. “Why do I feel like I feel?”

“Do you want the long answer or the short one?” Marie felt the quiet laugh in Zena’s voice. “The world as we know it could end tomorrow.” The woman’s head leaned over hers. “You’re fifteen, and the heart wants what the heart wants.”

Heavens knew she had tried to fight her feelings. “Is it so wrong?”

Zena gently stepped away from Marie and looked at her. “Does it feel wrong to you?”

She sighed, the memory of his lips on hers still altering her breathing rhythm. “No, it doesn’t. It has never felt so right.”

Zena smiled. “Then follow your heart.”

***

Marie wandered through the infirmary the whole night. When she noticed Zena yawning and her eyes closing while she talked to her, she sent her to sleep. She tried to relax and take small naps, but eventually, she had to accept sleep wouldn’t come. At dawn, when Callista gave order to blast the siren to give Vasura the good morning, she was awake and still in pain. The private who had gotten her in so much trouble came to announce her break had ended and that every wasted woman had to report for duty in the main hub. The woman almost spit when she said the word “wasted woman.” Marie saw the hatred and the disgust in the pure breed’s eyes, as if everything had happened the way Callista had everybody believe. As if the private were the victim and not her.

Outside, not even five in the morning, the sunlight timidly appearing, it seemed that the whole female population had been forcefully gathered. Marie looked for Nora. She didn’t know what had happened to her after she had seen her last time at the infirmary. Eyes scanning the sea of people, she saw that among the crowd were kids, some as young as two or three years old. Some were boys she had seen playing around. They were now dressed in girls’ clothes. Pure breeds corralled the Vasurians the same way they would have done with cattle and made them wait for more than an hour. By the time Callista finally decided to deign everybody with her presence, Marie was on the verge of closing her eyes and sleeping on the street.

The major addressed the crowd with a smile. “I expect your full cooperation during my stay here. Any act not in accordance with my rules will be punished as you have already witnessed. Today, Vasura will have its first census in what appears to have been years. Form two lines, one for the women with kids, the other for the women without kids, and give your name and identification number to my officers.”

A murmur rose from the women. Marie didn’t understand at first, then saw the mothers clutching their boys and girls closer to them and realized Vasura’s lack of official urban planning wasn’t the only thing they wanted to keep secret. She saw some of the women with boys try to run toward the lateral alleys. One order by Callista and the soldiers were already dragging away kids by their collars to convince the mothers to cooperate. A rock was thrown at a soldier and two wasted women were hit in retaliation. The cries from the kids calling for their mothers became deafening. Marie could feel their terror and it soon was hers as well. She was frightened beyond reason that the army was going to harm them. Within a moment, panic swelled among the crowd and Vasurians pushed against the army to break the kids free.

“Stop them!” Callista ordered and the army charged against the crowd, rifles ready to shoot.

The Vasurians stepped back at once, a compact, mindless wave trampling everything in its wake. Marie was pushed and almost fell. While straightening up, she saw one of the little boys dressed in girls’ clothes aimlessly running around. He was lost under the forest of moving legs and she reached for him before he could be crushed by the stampede. The boy anchored himself to her, his small arms tight around her neck. “Mommy! I want my mommy!” he cried. She shushed him, caressing his head. She swung around, trying to determine where to go, what to do. Shots resonated loud. She ducked, one hand over the boy’s head. Several other shots followed. The boy hid his face against her collarbone, his sobs tearing her heart. Someone screamed. She covered the boy’s ears. People started running in every direction. The shots were now being fired to kill.

Marie watched as a brunette turned toward her. Their eyes locked in recognition, only a moment before the woman collapsed on the ground, a splash of red expanding on her back. Marie stared in horror at the beautiful hazel eyes now frozen and cold. They belonged to Rachele, the woman who worked at the rainbow barrack. The voluptuous brunette with the sweet smile, who would never smile again. She started hyperventilating and heard her own voice, but she didn’t know what she was saying. The kid was clutched to her, frozen. Rachele’s eyes remained open, staring at her. Marie’s knees hit the ground and she started rocking, automatically caressing the boy’s back. She couldn’t stop looking at the woman who had been alive only a moment ago. Blood had pooled under Rachele’s body and was slowly reaching Marie. She couldn’t move. Fingers dug into her right arm. She was upright, but her legs weren’t supporting her.

“You, stop this.” Someone was ordering her. Friend or foe?

Marie looked sideways. Foe. She was pushed, hard. If it weren’t for the boy attached to her like another limb, she would have let the guard push her to the ground. “Mommy,” he whispered to her right ear. “Mommy, there, look.” He pulled at her earlobe and she turned where he pointed. A woman was running toward them, her face a horror mask. Blood stained her lips and nose.

“Ca—” She started to call her boy.

The soldier who had pushed Marie out of the way turned and pointed her rifle at the running woman. “Stop!”

“Please, don’t shoot! She’s this kid’s mother. They got separated,” Marie said, her voice hoarse, every word pulled out with difficulty.

“Is this your daughter?” The soldier swung around and pointed at the boy.

“Yes! Please, let me get to… her.” The woman hadn’t dared move and was only a few steps from Marie, who was trying to calm the kid with a few soothing words.

The soldier nodded and the woman unfroze. The boy jumped out of Marie’s arms and ran into his mother. The yellow skirt he was wearing floated up and down and for a moment revealed the shorts he was wearing underneath. Marie saw the soldier’s eyes widening and the mother hurried to smooth the skirt down.

“What was that?” The soldier moved toward the woman and raised the boy’s skirt. “Check all the little girls with short hair!” She shouted the instruction one more time to make sure the closest guard repeated it, and soon all the kids were being seized. Meanwhile, she had snatched the boy from his mother’s arms.

“What are you going to do to him? Leave him with me.” The woman’s cries filled the air.

The soldier didn’t answer; she moved through the crowd, her rifle in the air and the kid, screaming and kicking to get free, kept flat on her side. The mother followed a step behind, begging and sobbing. The soldier paused enough to turn and hit the woman’s head with the rifle’s butt. The woman fell on the ground like a heap of discarded clothes and lay motionless. Marie ran to her side and found her pulse. She cried in relief because the woman was alive, but the soldier had disappeared with the boy and soon Marie sobbed in desperation. A repeated tapping sound claimed her attention.

“As I said before, form two lines. Now, all the kids will be checked.” Callista’s hateful voice echoed over the crowd.

Marie raised her eyes and she saw the major standing on one of the barrack’s roofs, safe from the carnage. Beside her, ten soldiers had their rifles trained on the Vasurians below.

Callista raised one hand to stop the murmur her words had instigated. “It doesn’t matter to me if you live to see tomorrow. This is a sewage plant. New recruits arrive every month. I can ask to send replacements for all of you. This is how much you’re worth to Ginecea.”

This is a sewage plant.
Sewage plant, the correct words Gineceans used to call a waste plant. Marie closed her eyes and let the tears flow. She felt the air moving around her body as people slowly walked to comply with the major’s order. Someone gently laid a hand on her shoulder and a familiar voice whispered, “Stand up.”

She opened her eyes to look at Carine. “I can’t leave her here.” She tilted her head to point at the still woman. “Help me with her.”

Carine nodded and they both tried to carry the woman, but she was too heavy for them, so they had to drag her. One soldier noticed what they were doing and ordered them to stop.

“She needs immediate medical assistance.” Marie looked the soldier in the eyes, hoping to find some humanity.

The woman, a blonde in her forties, briefly hesitated. Then another soldier came along and her face hardened. “Leave her there. You must get in line.”