The Last Girl (12 page)

10

“What?”

“It has to be done,” Zoey says, glancing at Lee.

“You said you wanted to escape, not kill the Director.”

“I want to escape, but I want everyone else to be free too.” She sees him wince at the word. He’s still not used to hearing it.

Lee stands and paces to the door. For a moment she thinks he’s going to leave, that she’s nudged him too hard toward something he’s not ready for, but he stops and turns back.

“There has to be another way,” he says, stopping by the desk.

“How? How do we ensure the other women’s release and safety if the Director is alive? With him dead, there will be no order, no command except Assistant Carter, and I think half of the guards hate him as much as I do.”

Lee opens his mouth, then closes it. He shifts, running his fingertips across the desktop. “It’s suicide. There’s no way we’ll get out alive.”

Zoey is on her feet before she realizes it. “This isn’t living,” she says, pointing out the window at the walls, palely illuminated in the artificial light. “I’d rather die trying to get out than walk willingly into something worse.”

“Do all the other women agree? Would they go with you if you let them out? Do you really think Rita and Penny and Sherell are going to band together with you?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t leave them behind either. They’re not my friends, but they don’t deserve being kept here any more than I do.” Lee shakes his head, staring down at the floor. She steps closer to him, and he raises his eyes to meet hers. “Lee, my birthday is in four days. I’ll be gone no matter what then. I want to try. Will you help me?” She’s very close to him and can smell his scent. It’s a mixture of steel and sawdust from working in one of the shops, a smell of strength and comfort. He puts a gentle hand to her neck and guides her face to his. He kisses her again, and this time she’s ready for it.

She presses her lips against his and discovers the feeling that eluded her earlier that day when they were interrupted by Simon. An unfamiliar giddiness blooms within her. She’s felt echoes of it before when their hands would brush or when he would smile at her in the hallways, but now it is a force of its own, wild and frightening in its intensity.

Lee pulls her closer along the length of his body. She melds to him,
conscious of every centimeter of their skin that’s touching, heart picking up speed as she runs her hands up his back. He slides his fingers gently beneath
the hem of her shirt, the delicious tactile sensations beginning to resonate
in her core, urging her to strip away their clothing as fast as possible.

She breaks away at the last second, one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do.

“We have to stop.”

“Why?” he says breathlessly.

“Because.” She steps away from him and a new sense of weakness encloses her legs and overrides the pain from the box. “I’m afraid, that’s all.”

He seems to digest this before nodding. “It’s okay. I guess I am too.” She wonders if they’re talking about the same thing.

Zoey moves closer to the window, slowly clearing her mind of the passion that nearly overcame her. She shifts her gaze to the rim of the walls. A sniper turns, and she sees the glowing tip of a cigarette before his face.

“Can you imagine somewhere that we aren’t watched or told where to be and at what time?” she says. “Where we could make our own decisions about what we wanted to do or where we wanted to go?

“I used to try to picture what my mother and father looked like by studying myself in the mirror. Do I have my father’s eyes or my mother’s nose? Does she have dark hair like mine, or is it blonde? How do my father’s hands look? I always imagined them scarred and pitted from the fights he had gone through trying to save me from this.” She turns back to Lee and rests on the bed. “But I stopped that a long time ago. They’re dead, most likely, and if they are living up there on the fifth floor or in the safe zone, then what does it matter? They won’t recognize me when we’re reunited, and I won’t recognize them. We’d be strangers. I’ve come to terms with that even if it hurts to think I’ll never truly know them. What I have is my life and those that I can save.”

“What about the greater good? What if you and the other women are the last hope for humankind? What if by leaving you seal everyone’s fate?”

She looks up at him. “The greater good isn’t what they enforce with rules and guns and punishment. It’s being free to decide for ourselves what’s best for each of us.”

They are both quiet for a long time before Lee comes to sit beside her once again. His head droops forward as if his neck has given up. He closes his eyes.

“Okay. Tell me.”

“I’ll need a weapon to do it,” she begins, letting the warmth of Lee’s shoulder seep into her own through the point where they lean together. “I’ll need a gun.”

“You don’t even know how to use one.”

She snorts. “Dellert does. How hard can it be?”

“Fair enough. But the only place you can get a gun is from a guard, and I don’t think they’re going to hand you one.”

“You said you’ve been in the guards’ dorms. Maybe—”

Lee shakes his head. “They lock their belts up when they’re not on
duty, in a container beside their beds. It takes a numbered code to open it.”

Zoey ponders the problem for a moment. The guns are almost a useless
adornment because deadly force is strictly forbidden unless absolutely necessary. Even when death is the penalty, Reaper carries out the sentence. She shivers, thinking of his masked face, only his eyes visible, their color the same as burnished steel knives. No, the guards’ weapons are mostly for show. She wonders if they’d even miss them . .
 
.

Zoey inhales, her eyes opening wider.

“What is it?” Lee asks.

“I can just take one,” she says.

“A gun?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine, listen to me. Have you ever seen a guard draw his handgun?”

Lee thinks for a second. “No, I guess not.”

“It’s because they’re forbidden to use them. The prods are what they’re allowed to use, especially on the women, because they don’t want us hurt beyond repair. The guns are mostly for show and for extreme situations.”

“Okay, but how does that help us?”

“Don’t you see? If I managed to take one from a belt, they might not notice until that evening or even the next day. There’s so many things on their belts—”

“Zoey, that’s insane. What if you got caught?”

“They’d probably kill me,” she says simply.

“How would you even do it? There’s no period of time that you’d be alone with a guard to take it from him.”

Zoey falls silent, drumming her fingers on the tops of her thighs. “Crispin.”

“What about him?”

“He’s the nicest guard here, right?”

“I would say so.”

“He hasn’t been on duty near the laundry in a while. I’m guessing he’ll be there soon. When he is I can jam some laundry in the delivery elevator and ask him for help, it’s happened before. If his back is to me, I can take his gun and he won’t ever know the difference.”

“When he realizes his gun is gone, he’s dead. You know that, right?”

Zoey grimaces.
How much is a life worth?
“I know. But he’s one of the few guards that won’t be suspicious of me.”

Lee stares at her for a time. “You’re different than before.”

“Before what?”

“Before the box.”

The memory of the darkness is almost overpowering, and she struggles against it. She hears the scritching of the insects and jumps when something touches her leg. Lee’s hand rests there, and he’s looking at her with concern.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. And yes, I am different. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same. But that’s not what’s driving me.”

Lee frowns and fidgets on the bed. “How will you smuggle the gun back up here?”

She thinks for a moment. “I’ll need some heavy tape. I can make some kind of a holster in the small of my back. Our clothes are loose enough to hide it. As soon as I get it, I’ll find a reason to come back to my room and hide it here.”

“Where?” Lee says, motioning to the walls. “They found your hiding spot.”

“I’ll think of something new.”

Lee rubs his forehead and sighs in exasperation. “Say you do manage to do all that, what’s your plan to, you know, to . . .”

“To kill the Director?”

“Yeah.”

“When is the only time we see him?”

“At the induction ceremonies.”

“And?”

Lee shrugs. “That’s about it. I never really see him in the halls or anything. And he’s always got guards around him.”

“He goes for a jog every night around the promenade unless it’s raining.”

Lee blinks. “Yeah, I guess I have seen him from time to time there.”

“Meeka told me weeks ago that she heard a couple of Clerics say they’d love to use the sauna in the exercise room, but it’s for the Director only.”

“So you think he uses it every night after his run?”

“I do. And that’s where he’s most vulnerable.”

“But how will you get down there? There’s at least six doors between here and—”

She cuts him off by holding up the empty bracelet. “After Simon locks me in for the night I’ll get out using your trick and sneak down to the exercise room. When the Director comes in, I’ll kill him, and the two guards if need be, then use his bracelet to get to the uppermost level.”

“Someone will hear the shots.”

“Not on that level. You know how loud the mechanical room is.”

“You’ll never make it up to the fifth floor without someone seeing you.”

“Not without the diversion you’re going to make.”

Lee points at himself. “Me?”

She nods. “You can sabotage a piece of equipment in one of the shops, light a fire, something. Then, when all the commotion starts, you meet me in the bathroom on the second floor. I’ll give you Lowe’s bracelet back, and you let the other women out of their rooms and bring them to the infirmary. I’ll be waiting there. And we’ll need some rope, a lot of it.”

“What for?”

“For climbing down the side of the ARC once we cross the bridge on the roof.”

“Zoey, this is . . .”

“Crazy, I know. It’s absolutely insane, but it’s the only way. The bridge to the wall is on the roof. The only way to get to the roof is through the fifth floor. You need to take the elevator in the infirmary to get to the fifth floor. It has to happen in a succession. Then when everything is done, and if the Director is dead, we’ll be able to slip away.”

“You think Reaper and his men will give up that easily?”

“No, he won’t. But we’ll just have to deal with it when it happens. Maybe they’ll leave on another reclamation mission like they did a few days ago.”

“And what about my father?” Lee asks. It’s the first time throughout their discussion that his voice has taken on an edge.

“Do you think he would help us?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

“So what then? We leave him here? Forsake him so that you and the others can be with
your
parents?”

Zoey frowns. “I already said I’ve made peace with never seeing them.”

“But you’re asking me to give up mine.”

“I’m asking for your help.”

“You’re asking for more than that,” he says quietly, rising from the place beside her. He moves across the room, glancing at the calendar as he goes. “I should get back to my room. It’s getting late.”

“Lee,” she says, standing up. “I don’t have much time. I need to know if I can count on you.”

Lee pauses at the door, his hand on the handle. “I’ll have to think about it,” he says without looking back. “Give me until tomorrow. Will you give me that?”

“Yes.”

“Goodnight, Zoey.”

“Goodnight.”

He pulls the door open and is gone in a whisper of clothing. Zoey sits and stares at her hands until she can fight the fatigue pulling at her no longer. She slumps to her side, drawing her knees to her chest, and closes her eyes to the swirling questions without answers.

11

Zoey looks for him the next morning in the halls and in the cafeteria during breakfast, but Lee is absent from the small throng of Clerics’ sons who eat quietly in the far corner of the lunchroom.

Rita, Penny, and Sherell stare at her as she sits beside Lily. It’s the first time she’s seen Penny since the other woman was locked in the box. Other than a fading bruise on the side of her forehead, Penny is unchanged, the same flatness to her eyes.

“I won’t ask you what it was like,” Meeka says between bites. “I wouldn’t want to talk about it so I won’t make you.”

“Good,” Zoey says.

They eat in relative silence save for Lily’s slurping of milk for nearly a minute before Meeka says, “Was it really dark?”

“God, Meeka.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know it was terrible in there,” Meeka says, shooting a glance at Lily’s wounds. “But you know me, I’m curious.”

“Then break the rules and find out yourself.”

“You don’t have to get nasty,” Meeka mumbles. In a lower voice she says, “Where did you get them?”

“The books?”

“Yeah.”

Zoey glances down the table at the Clerics. They are all talking to one another. “They were left in my room.”

Meeka’s slanted eyes open wide. “You’re kidding.” Zoey shakes her head. “Then you’ve got someone looking out for you.”

“Then where were they when I got put in the box?” Lily has stopped eating and begins to rock, her hands creeping up toward her ears. “I’m sorry, Lily,” Zoey says, rubbing the girl’s back. “It’s okay, we’re done talking.” She shoots a look at Meeka to affirm the statement. Meeka nods, and they continue to eat quietly until the chime sounds.

The niggling voice inside Zoey repeats the fears that invaded her dreams the night before as she walks through the corridors to lecture.
Lee’s going to tell you he won’t help. Or worse yet, he’ll tell Simon and you’ll be at Reaper’s mercy. No, Lee wouldn’t tell anyone. He wouldn’t.

She walks like a zombie across the lecture hall and past Miss Gwen’s smiling face to take her seat. Zoey draws out the hulking NOA textbook and sets it on her desk. She runs a finger up its spine, recalling the feel of the two books that were taken from her. Even though they were much smaller than her textbook, the weight they carried within their words dwarf the larger tome. Her conversation with Meeka clarifies the questions that have been burning in her mind from the moment she found the first book. Who left them for her, and where is that person now? How cruel of them to tempt her with the visions and meaning in those pages, but now, when she needs real help, they refuse to reveal themselves.

Zoey shoves the textbook away from her, and it plummets to the floor with a resounding slap.

The other women glance her way. Miss Gwen jumps, her head snapping around, eyes widening behind her glasses.

“Zoey! What is the meaning of this?”

Zoey rises from her desk to retrieve the book, the pain from her time in the box so familiar now that she barely winces when she bends over. “I’m sorry, it slipped.”

“See that it doesn’t happen again.” When Zoey says nothing, the instructor clears her throat loudly.

“Yes ma’am,” Zoey finally replies from between gritted teeth.

Miss Gwen rises from her chair and comes to stand between the first two seats of their rows. She runs her gaze across them all, hovering last on Lily’s damaged appearance. Lily gives her a cautious smile. The instructor’s mouth puckers as if she’s tasted something vile. “Once again I’m obliged to touch on the importance of following the guidance laid down by the Director and his staff. I was hoping not to mention anything like this in my room for a long, long time, because this is a place of learning. But since some of you seem to have a proclivity for stepping outside the rules, I must. I will get right to the point. You are held to high standards for a reason. You are the last few hopes of the human race. Can you fathom what I’ve just said to you? The
entirety
of humankind depends upon you. And yet you flout your responsibility like it is a joke.”

Miss Gwen’s voice rises with each sentence until it grates upon Zoey’s eardrums. She forces herself not to blink, not to look away from the fevered gaze of the instructor, and in the second that their eyes lock, Zoey sees that Miss Gwen is mad. Not partially. Completely. Insanity dances like a flame behind her irises as she surveys them all once again.

“You’re
lucky
to be here,” she hisses, pointing a dagger-like finger at all of them. “You have no idea how lucky you are, to be who you are. I’m ashamed of your actions against NOA, and I’m ashamed to call you my students.” She favors them all with another burning look before returning to the front of her desk. “Page three hundred seventeen. I want someone to read about the devastating conditions women who were unable to have children endured during the time of war. Maybe that will get it through your stubborn skulls. Who will read?”

Zoey’s breath is coming faster and faster. Her muscles twitch. She grips the sides of her desk, and when the others open their books, she remains still. Beside her, Lily finds the correct page and begins to wave her hand in the air.

“Me, I ree!” Lily says.

Miss Gwen flicks a glance at her before motioning to Sherell. “Sherell, begin at the top of the second paragraph and—”

“Why won’t you ever give her a chance?” Zoey says. Her voice is low, but it carries well across the room.

Everything is utterly silent.

Miss Gwen looks at her and blinks. “What did you say?”

“I said, why won’t you ever give Lily a chance to read?”

The instructor comes down the row, walking fast. “Zoey, you are dangerously close to more punishment. You will apologize this instant for interrupting me.”

“No.”

“What? What did you say?”

Zoey stands up, a livewire of rage running through her. “No. I won’t. Not until you apologize to Lily.”

Miss Gwen’s mouth works for a moment before the words will come. “I’ll have you locked up again, you little—”

“You hate us, don’t you, Miss Gwen? I can see it when you look at us. What is it? Why do you hate us?” Zoey moves around her desk, leaving nothing between her and the instructor. Miss Gwen holds her ground for a beat before retreating a step. “You talk about privilege and the greater good, but you don’t have a last name either. They took it from you, didn’t they? But I bet you remember it, don’t you?”

“Zoey, you will sit down.” Miss Gwen tries to make the words a command, but her voice falters, and she takes another step back as Zoey advances on her.

“No. I’ve been sitting all my life. Apologize to Lily.”

“I don’t take orders from you.” Miss Gwen’s feet bump her desk, and she puts a hand out to steady herself.

“All she’s ever wanted was to read in lecture, and you couldn’t even give that to her, could you? Because we have something you don’t, that’s why you hate us. We have a chance. That’s why you’re the only other woman here—this is your only use. We can have children, but you’re barren, aren’t you?”

Miss Gwen’s hand moves faster than anything Zoey’s ever seen. It whips out and cracks solidly across her face. Zoey’s head rocks to the side, and immediately the patch of skin on her cheek begins to burn. The instructor is shaking, her mouth open in an O of horror. Zoey wipes at the swelling of her cheek as if brushing away a fly.

“I saw you,” Zoey says in a whisper. “That day in the mechanical room with the guard. I saw you. You think if you can get pregnant, they’ll give you everything back. But they won’t.”

Tears slide from the older woman’s eyes in shining tracks down her cheeks. She tries to keep herself upright, but her legs won’t hold her and she crumbles to the floor. Zoey stands over her, breathing hard, the place where Miss Gwen struck her throbbing in time with her heart.

“Get out,” the instructor says between sobs in a breathless voice. When no one moves, she stares around at them with the same madness as before. “Get out!”

There is a thunder of footsteps as the Clerics approach from the far side of the huge room. Simon is the first to step around the barrier and see the instructor seated on the floor.

“Remand her to her room!” Miss Gwen yells. “Get her out of my sight. All of you, get out.”

Zoey walks away from the instructor, heading for the exit. The rest of the women rise from their seats and file out past Miss Gwen’s weeping form.

“What happened?” Simon says, catching up to her near the exit.

“Go ask her.”

“Zoey, stop.” He grabs her arm gently. “What happened?”

“Miss Gwen isn’t feeling well.”

He glances at her cheek where she can still feel the instructor’s palm. “Let’s go.”

Simon escorts her back to her room. He doesn’t speak the entire way, only telling her to get some rest before closing the door.

Once the locks click home, she slumps to the bed. Her hands shake and she holds them out before her, studying their traitorous vibrations.

Miss Gwen deserved it. So why do I feel dirty, like I’ve committed a crime?
It’s several minutes before an answer comes to her.

It is because she understands.

For a second she places herself in the instructor’s position, and it is enough to create a flicker of empathy.

Zoey stands and makes her way to the bathroom. There is the perfect outline of four fingers gracing her cheek, their tips pointing into her hairline above her ear. She splashes cold water on her face, cooling the sting before scooping handfuls up over the back of her neck.

When she’s dried off, she moves around the small space of the bathroom, searching for a place in which she can hide a handgun. She tugs on the sink, but it is immovable. She looks in the toilet tank, but it is too obvious. Dismissing the bathroom entirely, she begins pacing back and forth past her bed. She spends the majority of the next hours finding and discarding a half-dozen hiding places. The closest feasible options are somewhere in the small closet beside the bathroom, or within her mattress. Both will be easily detected if they search her room. But really, she doesn’t have to concern herself with it as much as she first thought. If she manages to take Crispin’s gun, she will enact her plan that night. And if it works, she and the others, along with Lee, will be free the following morning.

Or I’ll be dead.

Either way, she won’t have to worry anymore.

Shortly before lunch, Simon steps into her room. She managed to fall
asleep in the meantime and feels somewhat rested as she rises from her bed.

“Miss Gwen has requested that you not return to lecture for the remainder
of your time before induction,” he says.

She had anticipated as much. “Are they sending me back to the box?”

“In light of the fact that she struck you, no. And she hasn’t stated what angered her to that point. Would you like to tell me?” Zoey shakes her head. “I didn’t think so.” Simon watches her for a long time before motioning to the hall. “It’s time to eat.”

The lunchroom is cold. They file into it together, all the women at the front, their Clerics trailing behind, murmuring to one another. Zoey’s sure they’re talking about what happened in the lecture hall.

She hears low laughter far behind her and glances over her shoulder. Lee is near the back of the line with several other Clerics’ sons. He’s smiling at something someone else has said, but he notices her looking and his grin falls away. She turns back to the front, but not before she catches Rita looking at her. The larger woman is directly behind her, and she appears to have regained her swagger from before her time in the box.

They make it to the serving table and begin to gather their food. Rita’s elbow brushes Zoey’s arm with a soft nudge.

“Oh, sorry,” Rita says, not sorry at all. “Hope that didn’t hurt. I’m sure you’re still sore.”

Zoey smiles. “Feeling very well, thank you.”

“Hmm. Good to hear. I was worried you wouldn’t be the same after that.”

Zoey doesn’t answer. Instead she places the last few items on her tray and begins to move to the water dispenser.

“It was me,” Rita says in a whisper. “I told Dellert to search your room.”

Zoey freezes, and all sound falls away in the lunchroom. Everything is in stasis except for her and Rita. She turns her head, eyes narrowing.

“What did you say?”

“I smelled the gum on your breath, you stupid bitch. The day I hugged you I smelled it. It couldn’t have worked out more perfect. Especially since the retard got—”

But Rita doesn’t finish her sentence because Zoey smashes her tray into the side of the other woman’s head.

Rita tries to feint away but the plastic tray catches her in the temple and she stumbles out of the line.

Food flies, and Rita grunts with pain.

The sound comes rushing back to the room, and there is movement again. Zoey ignores it all. Her vision has narrowed to a pinprick with Rita taking up her entire view. She swings the tray again, the remaining food slopping off the top and fanning out in the air before the plastic clips Rita’s shoulder. The bigger woman slips in a pool of gravy as she tries to throw a punch, and her fist goes wide. Zoey sidesteps the attack, bringing the tray up over her head. She turns it sideways, making it as much of a blade as possible, and aims for the back of Rita’s neck. She hears Lee yelling something. Fingers snag her collar, but the entire world is red with her fury.