CONFORMITY (Book Two of The Criminogenic Trilogy) (3 page)

“I’m so sorry Kingsley, but you were never meant to make it out of this assignment alive.”

Chapter Four

She was wrapped into a tight ball of nerves on the edge of the bed.  Giselle had been moved to a comfortable suite, surrounded by sterile white walls and State regulated posters promoting obedience.  Dr, Andrea Clinton was insistent that she be in a comfortable room, where she could recover, but Giselle was still suspicious of the sudden kindness.  Her food was no long an unidentifiable pile of gruel, aimlessly tossed through a slat in the door.  She had now been presented with piping hot food that smelled as good as it looked.  If only she could bring herself to eat any of it.  They had to operate on her arm. The break was bad, and it had started to set itself against the joint – the pain was unbearable, but Giselle relished in it.  Now that it was reset and safely tucked away under a cast, she had no way to keep her mind occupied.  No way to visually remind her of the pain that they had inflicted on her.  She needed a reminder to keep her fire fueled. 

She feared that the medication that they gave her for pain was another anti-psychotic drug.  But they weren’t forcing her to take them either, which further propelled Giselle’s suspicion.  She couldn’t understand why the Facility had suddenly taken pity on her. Usually, they would hope to drive patients and inmates to take their own lives.  That was the preferred way to deal with unruly individuals who were
untreatable
.  Dr. Clinton was the exception.  She took great care to clean Giselle up after being left in a pit of her own waste for weeks.  Carefully washing away the pain and suffering inflicted by the guards and orderlies charged with caring for the girl.  Giselle feared that her resistance was diminishing entirely under the lure of a little bit of kindness. 

Rocking back and forth on the edge of the bed, she played the memories over and over in her mind.  Trying to keep track of her life before this nightmare began.  Trying to keep herself in the moment.  Holding on to memories that had long since been forgotten by anyone near to her, memories that kept being brought up by the presence of Dr. Clinton.  Dr. Clinton who somehow reminded Giselle of her mother, kind and nurturing – unlike anyone she had met in the Facility.

Her mother was a very tall woman with a ready smile always tucked into her cheeks for safekeeping. She remembered how sweet her mother would smell, with her head nestled close to mother’s chest to hear her heartbeat.  With closed eyes, she took herself back to a simpler time, when the sting of a grazed knee was kissed away by her mother.  When there was nothing on earth that homemade apple pie couldn’t cure, and when bedtime meant fantastical stories that were acted out by all involved.  Her mother was the sunshine that lit up the room that she was in, and her smile would warm it with the love she radiated.  With a resigned sigh, Giselle tucked that memory away again until she needed it later. 

She sifted through the memories that she could remember – hazy glimpses into her childhood that she would cling onto.  Memories of her father standing in the doorway after a long stay away from home, looking so important in his uniform.  The smell of tobacco and coffee filling the house as her parents would spend hours talking around the kitchen table.  Giselle and her brothers would sneak out of bed to listen in on these intimate conversations shared by two people in love.  These were the memories that she tried to recreate for herself while isolated in a stark room.  She wondered what her brothers would think if they saw her locked up in the Facility.  Her brothers who would fight just as hard as she would.  They would wrestle for hours in the backyard, while she would keep score for them against the trunk of the oak tree.  The same oak tree where Giselle shared her first kiss with the neighbor’s son, Ben.  She took these memories and used them to stitch herself together. To flex her own autonomy made her feel warm with life.

Eventually they would force some food into her. She knew that they would. It wasn’t the food as the pills on the corner of the plate that mattered so much. She hated those pills, they gave her nightmares and body aches. There were no windows, so she had no way of telling how long she held out before they came in her cell to force the pills down her throat. She hoped, as she kicked, bit, and screamed, that she had refused for at least a week. She was weak since she hadn’t eaten in days. Still, she wanted them to know that she wasn’t broken. She wanted them to know that she abhorred what they were doing to her.

When a guard came in to hold her down, she kicked him. Somehow, she knew it was the right thing to do, but couldn’t understand why. It eventually took three guards to hold her down so the doctor could give her the shot. A few minutes later, she was slipping down her rope of hope. She was forgetting. She tried to hold tight, but she just kept falling.

One of the guards hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her out of the cell and down the corridor. Two men in long, white lab coats walked behind the guard. They were talking about her. She wouldn’t eat. She wondered why she wouldn’t eat.

“It’s been a few days since she’s had a Treatment,” said one to the other. “Why weren’t we notified sooner that she wasn’t taking the pills?”

“The guard said he didn’t think anything of it,” said the other to the one. “He assumed she was sick because she didn’t touch the food, either.”

“She’s been checked. She wasn’t ill at all. She purposefully refused to eat or take the pills. How could she refuse anything we tell her to do in the first place? That’s what I want to know!”

“It was a glitch. It happens. Expecting this to work perfectly all the time is just asking for trouble. Just treat it as an anomaly and fix it.”

“Did you see her fight off the guards? Did you see?! There’s something wrong with the Treatment. We need to reevaluate and check for flaws in the system.”

“She’s the only one”

“Right now she is, and I’m grateful for that, but in a few weeks we could have an uprising of all the inmates.”

“You’re so melodramatic, David.”

“I am not, Philip! I’m cautious.”

The guard put her down on a big, leathery chair. She couldn’t see anything anymore. Her eyes were shut and she was drifting away.

“You’re here to get better, Shannon” David said.

Chapter Five

The shrill ring of the telephone snapped Peter out of his concentration. He was preparing a romantic dinner for Maggie, and he didn’t even know where to start.  Nervous, but brimful of excitement, he answered the phone a bit more jovially than he should have.  Maggie was on the other end, which only made his smile bigger.

“Peter,” she sounded frantic. “Peter, they were asking about you!”

He didn’t even have to ask who
they
were; he knew that this day would come.  He knew that the Bulldogs would come sniffing around for him.  Maggie called his name, she too trying to conceal her terror. 

“Peter! Speak to me!” She finally shouted to get his attention.  The Bulldogs were a vicious breed that terrified all citizens of The State and Peter was no exception.  What frightened Peter the most was that he risked losing Maggie before they had even lived.  She was his heart, his soul, and in every profound way, she was his reason for existing.  He couldn’t bear the thought of giving her up.  She was his person, and he was hers. 

They would run away together. When he told her this, he stood, silent, his phone clutched to his ear. When she said that she would leave with him, he exhaled his suspense. He had thrown caution to the wind for Maggie, and she rewarded him by doing the same. He was elated. They agreed to meet at the house, pack, and then leave. They would tell everyone they were taking a vacation so no one would alert the D.A.E.

After he hung up, Peter started throwing clothes in a bag. The ring he displayed on the coffee table in the open case. He knew she would be scared when she came through that door. She was taking the chance of a lifetime for him. The ring would prove his commitment to her and their relationship to her.

He heard the front door open and close. He rushed to catch a glimpse of her face when she noticed the ring. When Peter stumbled into the call he was greeted by three very big Bulldogs. Before he had a moment to panic, run, or decide something else, he saw Maggie behind them. For the second time that day, he was stunned into paralysis. She stood, tight-lipped, looking at him. He didn’t understand. When she confirmed his identity to the Bulldogs and they escorted him out of the house, it still took some time for understanding to dawn for Peter. Maggie gave him up.

Like the majority of the other inmates, no one offered to be Peter’s defense. It was a quick affair. The trial started the very next day after Peter was arrested. The charges against him were listed, and he was talked at by a panel of judges. He said nothing in his own defense, indeed, he wasn’t asked anything. He was only told what he was being charged with and the damning behavior he had done to warrant such charges.

Maggie was there. She was asked to speak on his Offense by the D.A.E. It was then that Peter finally spoke up.

“Maggie, no,” he begged, pathetically. “You know me. I’m Peter, Maggie. I love you. You’re…you’re my comfort. You’re my safety and I’m yours.”

Maggie wasted no time in answering.

“But you’re not safe, are you, Peter?” Maggie spat. The love she had for him had shriveled out of her eyes. Tears of betrayal trailed down her face.

“I trusted you. I thought you were good and safe and we would be happy together. When the Bulldogs questioned me about you, I couldn’t believe it. My love for you made me give you a chance to explain. You confirmed their accusations, Peter. You asked me to disobey what keeps us safe and whole. You are a villain to society, Peter. You are not who I thought you were. You deceived me. I only hope I’m not tainted by your madness!”

Maggie was an excellent actress. It was something he admired about her greatly. Her feelings of hurt and betrayal were true enough but she went the extra mile, protecting herself by throwing him under the bus. She had said that she didn’t mind standing on a neck or two. Now, she had placed her toes firmly on his neck, but it was his heart that was breaking.

Maggie thought he had betrayed her, but he would never do anything to jeopardize himself or her. Someone had betrayed
him
and, in doing so, destroyed his utopia. He wasn’t listening when he was sentenced. He did nothing as he was lifted away between two Bulldogs, his feet trailing on the floor. They dumped him in a cell. He didn’t know how long he lay there before he was picked up and carried off again, this time for transportation. He was put in the back of a van and shackled. He didn’t notice any of it. He had no interest in anything at all.

***

Maggie crept inside her dark apartment. The door had been opened, and there was movement inside.  Years of training came flooding back when she reached for her gun.  She didn’t hear her dogs, nor could she see them. That was the first warning sign for her.  The sound of her heartbeat throbbed inside of her head, the adrenaline coursing through her body.  She didn’t know of anyone daring to force their way into the home of a Zone 2 resident. No one would be allowed past the doormen anyway.  All these thoughts rushed around her, confusing her as she silently removed her heeled shoes. She needed to creep through the home without the distraction of stilettos.  Standing at the doorway of her home was a familiar shape, the familiarity of the person standing before her clouded her mind with questions. 

She knew who it was. She was sure of it.  The only question remaining was why was he here? The large shape turned to face the adrenalin soaked Maggie, gun at the ready and prepared to pull the trigger.  Before she could make sense of what was happening, he lunged toward her, grabbing the gun from her limp grasp.  She should have known this was coming. She was told it was meant to, and now it would.

Oliver took one look at her pale face. All life had already been drained from her body.  The Zone 2 compliance had already kicked in with this one.  That was truly how they could tell who the Could’s and Would’s were, by the fight left in their faces.  Maggie Kingsley was not that fighter.  She complied, followed the rules, and did as she was told – without question the perfect citizen. 

Oliver took a sharp breath in, and stated coolly before pulling the trigger; “The Director sends his regards.”

to be continued…….

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REBELLION Book 3 in The Criminogenic Trilogy is now available for Pre Order on Amazon.