The Believers (The Breeders Series - Book 2) (12 page)

“Sorry to disappoint,” I say. “Can we get out of here?”
“Let me put 'em out.” Andrew smiles nastily. “If they don't have the sight, we don't need 'em.”

The Messiah shakes his head as he clutches some of the papers on his desk, smearing them with pig blood. “No,” he says. “No, they stay. Something will come clear to me. I just need… time.” He turns and gives us one more pleading look as if we're somehow choosing not to have his precious “Sight.” Then he turns back to his papers and holds them up to his face, smelling them.

“Come on,” Andrew says, tossing us each a towel. We wipe off the blood, but I can still smell it. “Back to your rooms.”

We turn to go, but the Messiah whirls around. “Wait!” He holds both hands out. “Maybe it's because you're still outsiders.” He rubs a hand through his beard. “We must induct you. You'll become Believers and then you'll have the Sight. Then you'll be able to stop the plagues.”

“Stop the plagues?” I ask, but he continues like he hasn't heard me.

“We'll have the ceremony tonight.” He turns toward Andrew.

“No!” I shout. “We are
not
joining you.” I cross my arms over my chest. “No.”

The Messiah's face falls. Andrew draws his knife again. “We could tie 'em up and force 'em to drink.”

“No, no,” the Messiah murmurs, shaking his head. “They have to be willing converts. No one can become a Believer unless their heart is open.” He turns to us, bloody palms out in a pleading gesture. “There are so many benefits to being one of us.”

“Our hearts are not open,” I say, thinking of the little pig heart that was beating a few minutes ago.

The Messiah blows out a breath. “You'll stay until I'm satisfied neither of you has the Sight. We can't take chances on the gifts the Gods have provided.”

Andrew opens the door and gestures us through. As we turn to leave, I think about the so-called gifts the Gods have provided. My eyes fall on the gutted body of the piglet lying discarded on the Messiah's floor. Was it a gift? Are we gifts to be consumed?

In the hallway outside, Mage is waiting for me, playing hopscotch on a board she has drawn with chalk onto the worn carpet. She looks up, teetering on one foot, hops down the rest of the squares, and lands in front of me. “Hi, Riley.” She looks at Andrew. “Want me to take her back?”

He shakes his head. “This one is…dangerous.”

“I can handle it.” She shuffles over, takes me by a wrist.

“But—” Andrew says.

“You're not allowed in the women's hallway at night.” Mage hops on the carpet like it's still a hopscotch board. Andrew tries to protest again, but she leads me away like she can't hear.

I glance over my shoulder at Clay. I need to talk to him about what just happened, but Andrew is already shepherding him back to the men's hall. Goddamn this place for always separating us just when I need him most.

Mage, still hopping, turns and looks over her shoulder. “Andrew is a bad apple,” she whispers. “You should stay away from him.”

“I'm trying.” My emotions are a stew of fear, confusion, and anger. I wipe at my eyes, still sticky though the blood is gone. “What's the 'Sight'?”

She stops hopping. “What do you mean?”

“Your dad said either Clay or I have 'the Sight'.” I step over a hole worn into the carpet. “What is it?”

Mage stuffs her hands in her jumper pockets and falls in step beside me. “My papa's worried that we're being punished for our sins.”

I frown. “The Gods are punishing you?”

She nods. We pass under a triangle of overhead light and she peers up into it, the beam illuminating her angelic face. “He thinks that if we don't fix whatever we've done, we're all going to die. Do you know that during the ten plagues of Egypt God killed all the first-born children?” She lolls her tongue out of her mouth and begins fake gagging. Then she stops, her face suddenly serious. “My papa is dying. He thinks I don't know, but I do.”

“I'm sorry.” I don't know what else to say. Plagues? Punishment from the Gods? Something's wrong with these people, but I'm not sure how much the Gods have to do with it. I
am
sure I'm not the one to save them.

I glance at her as we walk under another cone of light. Somehow she can look six and sixteen in the span of ten minutes. “I know how you feel about your dad,” I say. “My mama's not doing so hot either.”

She nods, kicking at a loose piece of carpeting.

While she's so chatty, I try again. “Why do men and women sleep in separate hallways with their grates locked? What are people afraid of?” I peer through the grate of a dark shop as we walk past and goose bumps break out on my arms. I think about the moaning echoing up from the crack. Maybe it wasn't human.

Mage plods along and doesn't meet my eyes. “You ask too many questions. You're gonna get in trouble, bubble.” She stops and turns to me. “I don't want you to end up like Kemuel.”

Goose bumps again. I wrap my arms around my torso. “There's too many secrets around here, Mage. I don't like it. No one will give me a straight answer.”

Mage nods like she isn't the one I'm talking about. “Just keep Ethan away from the Brotherhood as much as you can.”

“What about Clay?”

“Oh him,” she says, pulling a curl down and tucking it into her mouth. “It's too late for him.”

I whirl on her, my breath suddenly staggering in my chest, but she's jogged ahead and is standing at my open doorway. I can tell by her face that she won't answer any more of my questions.

Too late for Clay?

I crouch under the grate and she closes it behind me.

“More to protect you than to keep you in,” she says, spinning the padlock. “Only me and Stephen know…” her face drops, “
knew
the combination.”

She shuffles to bed and I curl up on my mattress. I fall asleep and dream of pig's blood.

A rattling, loud and insistent, pulls me out of my dreams. Always with the rattling. No one wants to let me rest. I swim up out of sleep and blink towards the light streaming in from the hallway.

Three figures stand at my grate. Mage, Clay, and Ethan. Where's Rayburn?

“What is it?” I say, pulling up, my hands gripping the metal grate. My little brother's face is ashen. Fear burns away all the sleep.

Tears pool in Ethan’s eyes. “Riley, come quick. It's Mama.”

Our feet slap on the concrete as we sprint to the infirmary. People stare and pull their children out of the way, but I don't care. A cold sweat runs down my back, dampening my shirt. What's happening to my mother?

My mind races as we take a corner and the department store-turned-infirmary comes into view. A million scenarios run through my head of what's happening to her—none of them good. She was better, resting up, and getting fluids. There's no reason she should've taken a turn for the worse. My chest is heaving and my mouth is dry. I just need to see that's she's all right.

The guard on the stool outside the infirmary entrance jumps up and holds out a hand. “Visiting hours are—”

“I don't care,” I pant, skidding to a stop. “Where's my mother?”

He crosses his big arms over his chest and shakes his head. Flakes of dandruff float onto the shoulders of his sleeveless cotton shirt. “You don't have clearance.”

“They're with me,” Mage says, shooting around him. “Come on.” She waves us into the store.

We run. The guard moves to block our path, but I duck around him and skitter into the store after Mage. When I look back, the guard's throwing his hands up in frustration as Clay and Ethan race around him too. He picks up a walkie-talkie and presses it to his mouth. He'll have back-up soon. We don't have much time.

Startled Middies fire dirty looks in our direction as the four of us jog past the rows of beds. I search each mattress for my mama, but we don't find her. Mage waves me to the back.

The sign above the little hallway says “Fitting Rooms.” A Middie with large, sagging breasts and loose jowls sits on a bench outside, fiddling with something. She looks up as we stop in front of her.

“What's this?” she says, standing. Her voice is high-pitched, but coarse. She narrows her eyes.

“Where's their mom?” Mage says, pointing at me. “A Middie told me she wasn't doing good. They came to see her.”

She frowns and glances toward the little hallway with fitting rooms behind her. “She's in there. Had to isolate her from the other patients. She was moaning and carrying on.”

Mama would never cry out in pain, not unless it was unbearable.

“What's wrong with her?” I ask.

The Middie won't meet my eyes. I don't have time for games. Guards will be here any minute to drag us out. I run into the dim hallway with wooden slatted doors on either side. Which room? The old Middie lumbers in, cussing at me. Then I hear moaning. Mama.

The moan is throaty and awful. I run toward the sound, the light growing dimmer. There, in the largest of the changing rooms, my mama lays on the musty carpet. Her eyes are squeezed shut and her face contorts with pain. She's withered even more than last time: her cheekbones rise sharply beneath her paper-thin skin, collar bones poke out of her shirt, and her hands look skeletal. The only big thing about her is her stomach, the round lump the size of a melon under her gown. How has it grown that big already? We've only been here a few days.

“Where's Mama?” Ethan asks over my shoulder. I can tell he’s close to tears.

I look at Ethan. He's seen a lot, but only when I couldn't spare him. I look at Clay. “Can you get Ethan outta here? He doesn't need to see this.”

Clay nods and takes Ethan's hand. “Come on, little bro.”

Ethan yanks his hand away. “No! I'm not a baby.”

Clay looks at me and I shake my head. He heaves a big sigh and hefts Ethan up onto his shoulder. Ethan drums his fists on Clay's back and begins to wail. I pretend I can't hear. I have to focus on my mother. She looks horrifying. I kneel beside her, my hands trembling as I reach for hers. “Mama,” I say, trying to rouse her. “Mama.”

“She's sedated.”

I whirl around. The old Middie stands behind me, looking down. Her eyes are sapped of anger, and her expression has gone doughy and soft. Somehow her pity makes me feel worse.

“What's wrong with her?” I turn back and my eye catches movement. Is she awake? Something shifts under her gown where the baby grows. I stare, filling with dread. Slowly, hand trembling, I pull up her gown.

At first there's nothing, but then… movement on her belly, the baby rolling, stretching the skin there.

I stumble back, slamming into the slatted door with a crash. In the doorway, I grip the wood and try to breathe. That fetus has only been growing for a month and a half. How can it be that big and that… mobile? Images of alien creatures, monsters with fangs and claws, flash through my head. The room tilts as I clutch the door.

“It's the fetus,” the Middie says, watching me from a few feet away.

“What d'you mean?” I ask, hanging onto the door. My legs feel unhinged.

She steps around me and kneels beside my mama, her knees popping at the effort. She places one wrinkled hand on her abdomen. “The fetus is one of the Breeders' mutations. A genetic hybrid meant to mature at double, even triple, the rate of a normal human fetus. They wanted to produce humans faster. Imagine a baby gestating in three months. The problem is the babies become parasitic in order to speed up their growth.” She pulls her hand away as the baby rolls. “Not natural,” she mumbles, shaking her head.

I stare at my mother’s stomach and the baby rolls again. “Para…sitic?” I clutch the door. “What does that mean? What is it doing to her?”

“It's taking everything, nearly every nutrient she eats, and using it to accelerate its growth. She may survive until gestation. After that…” The Middie shakes her head, her jowls swinging softly. Like she's given up. Like she's already buried my mama.

I grab her arm and she stiffens, the thin flex of sinewy muscle and bone beneath my hand. “There has to be something you can do. Can't you…cut it out?”

She shakes her head. “No, I'm afraid we can't—”

“Can't or
won't
?” I tighten my grip on her arm.

“
Can't
,” she enunciates. “The placenta has already begun to attach itself to neighboring organs. It's like a cancer, directing blood flow to itself, suffocating your mother’s kidney, her liver, her spleen... In the hospital they could sustain her body with I.V.s and medication. Here, well, we don’t have that kind of ability. She has about a month.”

My head is spinning. The world tilts and I can't see straight. What is she saying? Mama can't be saved? She'll be sucked dry, swallowed up by that
thing
in her stomach? I place my hands on my knees and try to breathe, try not to be sick.

“We've been able to help before,” says a quiet voice at the end of the hall.

I lift my head, tears swimming in my vision. Mage is the small shadow, clutching at her jumper. She takes another step forward and says it again. “We've helped before.”

The Middie folds her arms over her chest, her billowy cotton top fluttering. “Once, and it was a mandate from the Messiah. The Gods had deemed that she live.”

“Why can't God deem that my mother live?” I ask, struggling to stand. “Why not her?”

“It's very difficult and expensive. The cost of the drugs alone could feed us for weeks. With the food shortage—”

“I don't care.” I turn and clutch Mage's jumper in my fists. “Can you ask him? Can you ask your father to save my mother?”

Mage shrugs. “I can try.”

Mage and I stand outside the Messiah's chambers. She's so close I can feel the heat baking off her pale skin. Her hands fumble in her jumper's large front pockets while we wait. Her anxiety doesn't help settle my nerves. I try not to visualize my mother in that fitting room, pale and lifeless. Like she's a corpse. Like she's already dead.

“I hope he's not mad,” Mage says under her breath. She draws a curl down and bites it between her tiny white teeth.

“How come you're helping me?” I ask, staring into Mage's big gray eyes. I wonder where her mother is. She's never mentioned her.