Red Fox (14 page)

“Alright. Follow me,” she says.

She swings around and begins up the concrete corridor, her white high heels clicking and echoing on the concrete pavement. I stay rooted to the spot until Seiger gives me a shove forward. I growl at him through my teeth but follow Warden up the hall. Her hair swishes behind her in a golden arch, and I note how fit and slender her body is—unnaturally so. She wears a white, body-hugging shirt and plain white pants that also cling to her figure. I wonder briefly if this woman is in the Bs too. Surely with that determined attitude and killer streak, she would have been chosen for a B. How easy it would be for her to swing her hips and seduce every man in this facility.

My mind reels at the thought and my mouth goes dry. What are the men in this facility going to be like? Surely not all of them are like Whil who is mild mannered and gentle. Some of them must be forceful, manipulative, and sick in the head if they were chosen for their violence and adrenalin.

I’ve felt panic before; when I stood in the town centre, realising my false test answers had doomed me to death; when I woke up in the wooden caravan with my hands bound, but I have never felt this all-consuming dread. Never have I imagined myself in a position where an unknown man would violate me time and time again. My legs jar beneath me and my knees give way. Seiger eventually seizes the back of my shirt and half drags me along the corridor while I give in to the anguish and terror of our situation. My mind goes blank, points of fuzzy black swirl passed my eyes, and I hear the echo of our footsteps, loud and hollow.

The steel doors at the end of the corridor hum as they open mechanically. When we step through, we find ourselves in another corridor, but this time, it is surfaced on the walls, floor, and roof with glary white tiles. We are standing at a ‘T’ intersection and right in front of us is a large window showing a view of a small, square room. Inside the room, there is a computer monitor sitting on a desk in the corner. Several more screens are propped on the steel table and a man with big circular glasses sits behind this desk, staring at whatever images are in front of him. The walls inside are tiled white but the carpet is the same sea green colour as the seats of the van. I wonder if maybe we are in an old hospital. And maybe the van we were transported in is part of a matching set.

Warden opens the door into the monitor room, and we are forced to trail in behind her. Seiger follows, but his guards stay outside. In the room, there are no seats except for one the monitor man is sitting in, but he doesn’t offer it to anyone. He doesn’t even acknowledge we are there. He just continues staring at the screens around him and the bluish glow they emit glazes his sallow face. He looks sort of thin, gangly, pale, and bespectacled, almost like a zombie.

“Senior, bring up the file on these two,” Warden says to the man. “Walker and Cliff.”

The man, Senior, nods and begins clicking his computer mouse and tapping his keyboard at a rapid speed. “Walker: Eighteen years old lamb farmer’s daughter; tested for D, but lied in test results. Proper group was A, but was placed in B for savaging a lieutenant; passed survival test; unbranded.

“Cliff: Twenty-one years old Dairy farmer’s son; tested for A, but exhibited hostility to protect his mother and was placed in B; passed survival test; unbranded.”

I don’t like the word
unbranded
. What exactly does that mean? It couldn’t possibly mean what I think it does.

Of course it could,
my mind snaps at me.
These lunatics are throwing you in a facility to be raped. Do you think they won’t press a hot iron against your body to keep tabs on you?

“Branding first then. We can’t lose them again. Take them out, Seiger,” Warden says. Her voice echoes loud in my ears.

She opens the door, and Seiger pushes us out. My knees cramp up again, and my stomach heaves dangerously. I can hardly step out the door without falling over and it’s all I can do not to vomit up my last meal. I turn my gaze to one horn of the intersection and then the other. Both go for ten metres or so and then turn and vanish around a corner. I wonder which way will lead out or if the mechanical steel doors are the only exit.

“Oh, Senior. Note Walker will be in Facility One and Cliff in Two,” Warden tells the monitor man.

The monitor man nods distractedly. I jerk to a halt, knowing whatever Warden just said means Whil and I will be separated.

“What?” Seiger barks, stopping in the door and turning back to look at Warden. “They won’t be together?”

“Of course not,” Warden snaps. “Nothing would ever happen if we left them together. It’s obvious to me that Cliff isn’t going to pin this girl down to get the job done. We can’t have their affection for one another getting in the way.”

Oh Gods. The handcuffs around my wrists begin to rattle as a new wave of tremors shake my body. Whil moves to stand directly beside me, pressing his shoulder against my own and making a low, dangerous rumbling in the back of his throat like a growl. Being here is bad enough, but being away from Whil… it’s unthinkable. We protect one another. I look at Seiger desperately, unable to believe that even he could approve of such a vile operation. Seiger seems stunned by Warden’s information. Then, his face hardens and a darkness I haven’t seen before creeps over it, shadowing his icy blue eyes as he stares at Warden.

“You didn’t tell me what was really going on here,” Seiger says in a low, threatening tone.

“You wouldn’t have agreed if you’d known.”

“Success will be much easier and faster if you keep them together. Just leave them together. It’s bound to happen anyway. They’ll both fight every minute of the way if you separate them.”

Is he talking about me?
The conversation is so repulsive I can’t stand listening to it.

“Yes. Yes,” Warden says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “So did our other girls at first but look at them now. Already waning and giving into their primitive urges after just a few days,” Warden says airily. “Know your place, Seiger. They can’t remain together. We’ve tried it. It takes too long. You’ve seen Madison and Jacob. We gave them a chance and they’re still dawdling about.”

“It’s only been a week,” Seiger argues. My heart goes out to the people Madison and Jacob, but at the same time at least
they
stayed together.

“Lieutenant Seiger!” Warden snarls, throwing her hair over her shoulder impatiently. “No more. Take Cliff to Facility Two now and have him branded!”

Although Seiger gives a grumble of anger, he doesn’t retort. I can tell that Seiger has no authority here. Perhaps Warden respects him somewhat, but she has more authority, more power than he does. That worries me a lot since I feel even Seiger has more morality than this snake of a woman.

The lieutenant withdraws a length of silver chain from his pocket and clips it to the back of Whil’s handcuffs: as if Whil is a dog that needs to be taken out for a restrained stroll. Whil casts Seiger a glance over his shoulder, unsure how to react, and Seiger gestures for the handcuffed boy to follow him up the passageway to the right. Then, I feel a
clink
on the back of my own handcuffs and see Warden standing with my own chain leash in her hands.

“Come on, Walker,” she says.

Whil is staring at me with horror. Horror not directed at me, but what awaits me at the end of the left corridor. When Whil doesn’t budge, Seiger gives his chain a sharp yank and mutters, “Whil, come on. Don’t play up here.”

Fear has robbed me of my voice. Whil pulls away from Seiger, but he can’t get close to me again. The guards have their guns trained on us but, like Seiger, they do not look at all happy about how the situation is unfolding. Warden holds me back by my chain and Seiger holds Whil.

With a curse, Warden tugs on my chain as if I’m her pet and my stomach gives a convulsive twist, as if the cable is tugging at my gut rather than the handcuffs around my wrists. My fear and fury explodes.

“Whil!” I shriek, lunging towards him.

Pain shoots through my arms as they bend backwards, held firmly by the chain. It’s so intense that I fall to the floor, but I scramble up again and this time, turn towards Warden. I want to kill her. She isn’t smiling at my ferocity like Seiger did at the rally. She looks stern and unforgiving and when I spring at her, teeth bared, she suddenly withdraws a whip from her high boot and strikes out with it. The leather cuts me across the cheek like a lash of fire. I feel hot blood instantly seep from the gash but my teeth clamp down onto Warden’s outstretched arm before she can get out of my way. My jaws crush down hard, my teeth break skin, and dig deep into the sensitive skin of her forearm.

“You little cow!” Warden snarls. Apparently her tolerance for pain isn’t as good as Seiger’s for she raises the whip again, her whip-wielding arm thrusting high to get aim, her face turning a bright shade of red.

I see the whip as a blur of black before it slashes across the left side of my head, slicing into my left ear also. I cringe; tempted to release my hold, but instead just tighten my jaws so they lock into place around her flesh like a vice. I can hear her ragged breaths, see how she purses her lips to stop from screaming and watch the bulge of her eyes. In a flash, I see something mad and wild in her that reminds me of myself. For one split second, I see her reflexes tell her to drop the whip and attack with tooth and claw, but she doesn’t release her weapon.

Warden begins slashing the whip across my back, where my parka has lifted just high enough to expose a strip of soft, pale flesh. She cracks the whip down on the bare area once, twice, thrice, numerous times and all I hear is the cracking echo of the whip ringing throughout the corridors. Every hit feels like a tongue of burning hot fire. The agonising sting of each whip stroke is almost unbearable but every strike makes me clench my jaw tighter. But as the whip slashes time after time, each lash becoming more furious on Warden’s part, I feel my flesh finally begin to swell and suddenly a horrible, searing pain blisters over the small of my back. I realise Warden’s whip has broken the skin. Soon, the whip hits nothing but raw, broken flesh and each time she wrenches it back to hit me again, I see flecks of blood fly into the air. My own blood.

“Stop it!” Whil shouts. “Stop hurting her!”

I realise he must have been screaming for some time, judging by the hoarseness of his voice.

“Warden! Stop!” Seiger yells. I hear his voice crack, as if he is disgusted or petrified by this woman’s aggression.

The pain is too much. I cry out, releasing my hold, tears streaking down my face and mingling with the blood that pours from my cheek. Warden jerks her arm away and delivers me one last horrible blow over forehead and blood trickles into my eyes, making me see red both mentally and physically. I crumple on the ground, gasping in shuddering breaths through my sobs, feeling my entire body scream with agony.

“Enough!” roars Seiger. He drops Whil’s chain and seizes the whip from Warden. He snaps the horrible thing over his knee and throws the halves against the wall violently. “I told you they wouldn’t be separated! You can’t treat people like this. You wouldn’t even treat an animal like this. This isn’t treating all things equally at all!”

For several moments, Warden clasps her bitten arm and I see her struggling for words. Her face is contorted with anger and pain. I watch several thick, fat drops of blood drip onto the white tiles at her feet, but a woman who is dressed like a nurse suddenly walks by with a trolley loaded with medical equipment. She stops, glancing between Warden and me with an expression of pure shock and then offers some bandages to Warden. Warden takes them, wraps her arm quickly, as if ashamed I managed to injure her, and then somehow manages to resume her calm demeanour.

The nurse looks at me trembling on the cold floor and starts rummaging through her medical supplies to help me but Warden stops her. “No treatment for her. She attacked first. Let her suffer and learn her lesson.” She gives me a glare full of daggers, and then swaps her gaze to Seiger. “As for you, Seiger, you should learn that humans aren’t the same as animals. Humans are too smart to make the same mistake twice. She won’t dare fight against me now!” Warden spits.

I hate her! I hate her so much. I hate her more because she is right. She picks up my chain, which she discarded to assault me, gives it a hard yank and I struggle to my feet, sobbing in agony, and follow after her, too exhausted and in too much pain to fight back. Blood is trickling from my face, down my neck, and into my shirt, making my clothes sticky and hot. My lower back feels like someone has just ripped it open with a chainsaw. I look back at Whil and Seiger but all they can do is stand and watch with pitiful expressions as I am led away. Whil is poised to come after me, but Seiger just places a heavy hand on his shoulder and shakes his head. Warden tugs me around the bend in the corridor and they are lost. Seiger is a murderer, but he never harmed me and I never saw him attack anyone out of anger. Even when I attacked him at the rally, he only grabbed me to stop me from mauling his arm.

“Freya!” I hear Whil’s shout echoing on every wall.

I want to shout back for him but I don’t. Gritting my teeth and pursing my lips is all I can do to stop from screaming for him again. The pain over my body is crippling but the thought of what lies ahead is what renders me silent.

“I warned you about the rules,” Warden says above Whil’s echoing hollers.

I don’t respond. How can I respond to someone with such twisted ideals? There isn’t a way to talk them out of such a demented state of mind.