Solstice (13 page)

With great effort, I turned my head, looking for Rueben. His usual bed was empty. I turned the other way, trying to identify the sleeping people in the beds. One was the copper-skinned girl, the other a girl I didn’t recognize.

My fingers started to tingle, and I was able to move them. Then the tingling spread along my hands and up my arms and I realized the numbness from the injection was wearing off. The tingling created a strange warmth in my body, as if there were a ray of sunshine within me, trying to emerge. It moved to my torso, my legs, and my feet. After several minutes, when I trusted my strength, I sat up. Eventually I made my way to the latrine on shaky legs. I washed the best I could.

I stared at my image in the mirror. My hair usual thick brown hair was lank and wet on the sides, my face dripping with water, my dark brown eyes bloodshot. I looked pale and sickly, despite my normal olive skin coloring, and again I wondered what they had drugged me with.

My chest tightened with anger, with sorrow, with frustration, but tears refused to come this time. I touched the image in the mirror as if I could feel a human connection that way, but felt only the cold rejection of the mirror.

I lowered my hands and braced myself on the edge of the sink. I had to get out of this prison. Rueben had told me he’d been here for nearly three months. But where was he now? The look of disgust in Matthews’s eyes when he mentioned Rueben had frightened me. Had Rueben been punished for my outburst?

Taking a deep breath, I dried my face and hands, then left the latrine. I came to a stop when I saw someone waiting outside. “Rueben.”

He put his fingers to his lips. There was bruising on his face and a wild look in his eyes.

“What happened?” I whispered.

He crossed to me. “My time is up. They’ve altered me,” he said in a shaky voice. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be coherent.”

Fear threaded its way through my limbs. Was the wildness in his eyes just the beginning?

I reached up and touched the side of his face that wasn’t bruised. “They hurt you.”

His hand covered mine, lowering it. “I didn’t go down easy.”

“Oh, Rueben.” I felt heartsick, and before I could think better of it, I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him like I’d never been allowed to hug anyone before.

His arms went around me, too, holding me tight. “I’ll be fine.”

“No you won’t.” My voice caught in a sob. “You saw what happened to Grace.”

But he didn’t respond, only tightened his embrace.

If I had the power to stop time, I would have done it right then. The next minutes, the next hours, were too fearful to comprehend. I buried my face in his neck, memorizing his scent, feeling the warmth of his skin against mine. This moment, this space in time, was ours alone.

“That’s what I like about you, Jezebel,” he whispered. “You’re not afraid to show emotion. You’re real.”

Cold seeped through my body, and with it came sadness. The exact reason he liked me was why I was here in the first place. It was also the reason that I’d met him. I had been taken away from Sol, only to find another friendship in the most unlikely of places.

Releasing my grip on Rueben, I looked him over. “Did you miss Solstice, too?”

He nodded slightly, his hands still on my waist. I felt the depth of sorrow in his eyes. “I’m sorry.” As sorry as I was for myself, I was sorrier for him.

“You could kiss me and make it better.”

My breath left for an instant until I realized he was teasing me. I pushed him away, and a grin splashed across his face. I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. I wanted to return his smile, but I knew once I did, I’d be crying.

He dragged the beds together so that he could hold my hand as we supposedly slept and I entered into the dream testing. Rueben wasn’t being tested. He’d failed everything they’d put before him, just like I had so far, and altering was the next step in the research process.

I stared at him for a long time, even after he fell asleep. I memorized every angle and curve of his face, the way his chest rose and fell with his even breathing, the cut above his eye, and the way that, even in his sleep, he didn’t relax his grip on my hand.

When I finally closed my eyes and slept, I dreamed bright vivid dreams of a woman named Rose with long, yellow-gold hair, skin freckled by the sun, and a smile that tortured my heart.

I woke to Rueben sitting up on his bed, staring at me.

I looked around the room. All of the others were sleeping.

“How are you feeling?” I said, turning back to Rueben. Would he be able to communicate if he’d already resorted to gibberish?

“I’m fine,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. He reached for my hand.

“Are you sure?” I turned his hand over. “No shaking?”

“No.”

“That’s good, right?” I asked.

He blinked and looked away.

“Rueben?”

Releasing me, he scrubbed his hand through his hair, still avoiding me.

“Do you think it will still take effect?” I asked, sitting up. “Or maybe the altering doesn’t work on you?”

Rueben stood and walked a few paces away from me. I didn’t understand why he seemed so worried. This was
good
—he wasn’t in overload.

I climbed off my bed and moved in front of him so he had to face me. “What’s wrong?”

He met my gaze. The wildness of the night before was gone, and I only saw the Rueben I knew—the one who had all the answers in this prison.

“I don’t know anyone who’s made it through altering without going into overload,” he said.

“But I thought you said there was a sixteen percent success rate.”

“I know.” Trepidation crept into his eyes. “That’s what I was told. But since I’ve been here,
no one
has escaped overload.”

I clenched my hands together; it was like he knew more than he was letting on. “What are you saying?”

His hands rested on my shoulders, his fingers digging in as if he wanted to anchor me to the floor—prepare me for something. “I don’t believe them, Jez.” My heart tugged at the way he called me Jez. The last person who’d called me that had been Sol.

He exhaled. “What if . . . what if I’m the first one? And what if they increase the altering to the next level of control, until I do hit overload?”

I shuddered. I didn’t know what the next level would do, but the fear in Rueben’s eyes pierced me to the core.

My breathing slowed. “What do we do?”

“
You
will stay here. Don’t do anything stupid. Do what they ask.”

I closed my eyes for a second. Those were the last words Sol had said to me. And now here I was again, losing a friend to the unknown, being told to follow the rules again. I folded my arms to stop the trembling. “I don’t want to be here without you.”

“I’ll still be here, just in another section. I’ll find my own way out.” He touched my arm, briefly. “Try to pass their tests. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I don’t care about
me,”
I said, realizing how deeply I meant it. “I don’t want anything to happen to
you.”

Rueben’s expression softened for a moment, then went firm again. His voice fell to a whisper when he said, “I’ll find you again when we’re both out of this place.”

“How?” I whispered.

“I’ll pretend the altering was successful,” he said. “I’ll figure out a way from there.”

We stared at each other for a few seconds, the only sound in the room that of our beating hearts. I hugged him again, and this time I didn’t try to stop the tears.

I pretended to sleep while Rueben pretended to react to his altering. He started to mumble and thrash around on his bed. It wasn’t long before the scientists came in and put him in a strait jacket. I sneaked a peek as they carried him out. Our eyes met for a brief instant, then he was gone.

The black hole in my chest expanded to every part of my body, dragging me into the darkest abyss of fear, the unknown. My ally was gone, and by the time we saw each other again—if ever—nothing would be the same. I looked over at the others on their beds, oblivious to Rueben’s demise. Estee, the copper-skinned girl, was staring at the ceiling. The rest looked asleep.

Which one of us would be next? I closed my eyes, thinking of the parting words first from Sol, and now from Rueben.
Don’t do anything stupid.
Did that mean I should try to pass the tests? Even if I had to lie about my first instincts?

My hope had all but vanished. Solstice was over, and Rueben was gone.

At the morning meal, I watched the scientists carefully, observing everything I could about them, from their short haircuts to the badges each wore on their shirt. Most of them carried an electronic tablet in their shirt pocket.

Matthews looked over at me more than once. His trembling wasn’t noticeable today. I quickly returned to my pickled beet and carrot salad and kept my eyes on my food until it was time to go to the testing room again.

I stayed duly demure, trying to forget the image of Rueben being carried out of the dormitory. In the testing lab I answered questions without emotion, which really meant my answers came more slowly and weren’t based on my first instinct. I wondered if it was enough to convince Matthews.

On the way to bed that night, I saw Estee walking slowly ahead of me, one hand rubbing her temple. I hurried to catch up with her. We hadn’t spoken before, but I felt I had to reach out to her now.

“Are you all right?”

She turned and looked at me, and the panic in her eyes made me shudder. I took a step back. “Did they—?”

Estee let out a scream, cutting me off, and sank to her knees.

I wanted to run and hide, but I knelt and put an arm around her.

She jerked away from me and lashed out, clawing my arm. I stared in shock at the stripes of blood rising to my skin.

Estee twisted away and curled on the floor, cradling her head and screaming.

I staggered to my feet, pressing the bottom of my shirt against the slashes on my arm. As sickened as I was at the sight of her pain, I was relieved when the scientists hurried down the corridor, injected her with something, and carried her away.

Then, before I could remind myself not to do anything stupid, I followed. The drug they’d injected into Estee was taking rapid effect and she no longer thrashed, but her lungs were still going strong, her screams echoing through the hallway.

I stayed as close to the walls as possible and kept enough distance between us to give myself a chance to hide should they slow or turn around. The corridor sloped deeper into the earth. As the air grew colder, the hairs on my arms prickled.

They stopped at a door. When it swooshed open, I crept closer. I caught a glimpse of the interior of the room beyond. My stomach felt hollow as I stared into the room until the metal door closed and blocked my view. But I had seen enough. And it made me sick.

Fear pounding through me, I turned and ran the way I’d come. I needed to make it back to the dormitory before anyone spotted me. I was filled with adrenaline and a newfound resolve to pass every test put before me in the coming months. I knew for sure now that the last thing I wanted to be was altered.

I was afraid to close my eyes, knowing that images of the room would be lurking beneath my lids. But I hadn’t had slept much the night before and, involuntarily, my eyes slipped shut. My dreams swirled with images of the room and the cage-like cells that lined the wall. There must have been two dozen cells made of thick metal bars. Inside the square prisons were people, my age or younger. A few had been standing and staring through the bars, their mouths open in silent screams, their hand clawing at the bars. But the rest . . . the rest weren’t moving at all.

My body shuddered with a sob, waking me up. Holding a pillow against my chest, I wiped my cheeks. My breath stalled as I thought about my dream—now the scientists would know what I had seen as well. Had Rueben been in one of those cells, reduced to a science experiment? I tried to remember, but it had only been a few seconds, and I wasn’t sure.

My head hurt with confusion. From the age of five, everything we’d been taught was aimed at preserving and saving our civilization—not torturing, testing, and altering it.

I had to make a plan. I didn’t know where I’d start, but I had to find a way to get those people out of there.

Looking around in the near dark at the row of beds, the sleeping forms, the monitors on the wall, made me realize my prison was only temporary. I was comfortable, and I still knew my mind, but how long would that last? And what about Rueben? Or Grace and Estee? Were they the ones collapsed on their cell floors or had something even worse happened?

It was still the middle of the night, but sleep was impossible now. How could I just lay in bed, doing nothing, while they suffered? But what was the alternative? I’d be locked back into the dark cell if I broke any rules. My eyes burned with tears as a deep sense of helplessness settled over me. Just the fact that I was awake, and not feeding dreams into the monitor, might get me in trouble.

The lights flickered on, signaling another day underground, and Dr. Matthews walked into the room. I was dressed and ready. As I followed him through the halls, I counted the doors we passed and tried to memorize all of the turns and passages.

It was with mixed feelings that I entered the cafeteria. I noticed immediately that another boy was clearing the trays and dishes. They’d already replaced Rueben.

I may have only known him a week, but he’d made me feel safe and hopeful, and my throat burned from holding back my emotions as I imagined him in a cage, powerless.

Out of the corner of my eye, I took note of where each scientist sat—it was the same for every meal. Their tablets were either next to their trays or stowed in their various pockets. If only I could get ahold of one of their tablets, they might have the answers I needed to find a way out of this place.

But then what? Part of my brain argued. Outside, I wouldn’t be hidden. If what Rueben said was true, they had a way to track me through my Harmony implant. There must be something—some way. I had to keep thinking.