The Bleeding Crowd (29 page)

“Okay.” Jude rolled his eyes. “What happened
to the kiss and make up, you two?”

They both looked at him.

He sighed. “Dahlia, Ben’s crazy about you.
Ben, she feels the same way. Let’s move on.”

“I didn’t know you were my spokesman, Jude.”
Dahlia looked to him,

“Well, we don’t have the time to deal with
your bipolar, love-hate relationship right now.”

Dahlia pressed her lips together before
releasing a breath and looking at Ben. “Think we can make a
truce?”

“Do we need to make a truce?” he said. “I
thought we had.”

“You tell me.”

“Jesus Christ...” Jude moved into the
adjoining bathroom. “You two deal with it.”

The door shut with a slam.

Dahlia smiled before forcing it off and
focusing on Ben. “So.”

“So,” he repeated.

She sighed heavily.

“Have you heard anything from Jack?”

“How would I have?” Dahlia raised an eyebrow.
“I was here and you all were...elsewhere.”

“Good point.”

“Are you that jealous of him?” She didn’t
truly have to ask.

“You wanted to be with him,” he replied.

“I wanted to stop fighting with you.”

“Interesting way of going about it.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“It worked because if you didn’t want to talk
to me, I wasn’t going to force it. We can’t fight when we aren’t
talking.”

Dahlia grinned at that.

“Just tell her you love her already,” Jude
called from the bathroom.

Ben held up a finger, looking at Dahlia. “One
second.”

She watched him disappear into the bathroom,
her eyebrows rising at the thud followed by a shout.

Ben reappeared. “Sorry about that.”

Dahlia pointed towards the doors. “Did you
just hit him?”

“Yes,” Jude called.

A long-suffering sigh escaped her. “Men.”

“What about us?”

“I can very honestly say I’ve never hit
anyone.”

“Probably the reason women are so bitchy to
each other,” Ben said. “You solve a lot of fights with a
well-placed punch. Then you’re free to move on. No drawn out cold
war period.”

“Cold war?”

He waved it away.

She let it go, considering him for a moment.
“Does that mean I need to hit you.”

“Feel free to if you want.” He shrugged in
reply.

She poked his chest lightly, testing the
give. “Eh, I think I’d hurt my hand. I haven’t had any training to
work up a tolerance.”

“Well, you don’t need to have trained,” Ben
said. “I don’t intend on you getting into a situation where you
need to know unarmed combat.”

“Well, no offence, Ben,” Dahlia said, “but I
don’t think either of us intended to be in this situation at
all.”

“If I had my way you wouldn’t be.”

“If you had your way, I’d be wrapped up like
a vase.”

“A vase?”

“Or some other unprotected glass item.”

He didn’t answer.

She looked at the window, at the door, and
then back at him. “Have you eaten anything?”

Ben shook his head. “Are you hungry?”

“Just wondering if you’ve poison tested any
food they’re giving us.”

“Poison,” Ben repeated.

“It seems to be the preferred method of
execution.” Dahlia looked at the bathroom. “You can come out if you
want, Jude.”

“I’m good,” Jude called. “You haven’t fully
made up.”

“What do you want me to do?” Ben called back.
“Stop everything and take her right here?”

Dahlia opened her mouth to speak.

“Another colloquialism,” Ben cut her off.

“If it helps, I suppose,” Jude answered,
sounding less than enthusiastic.

“Pervert.”

“It’s not like I’d watch.”

“Right.”

“Can we get back on topic?” Dahlia shook her
head. “Jude, get out here.”

Ben leaned against the wall, watching Jude
reemerge.

A lull followed.

“So you think they’re going to poison us?”
Ben looked to Dahlia.

“I don’t know. Just, Hea...” Dahlia stopped
short of saying the name. “One of the women told me that all the
men that are undesirable, I think that was the word she used,
suddenly end up dying of cardiac arrest. It has to be
poisoning.”

“Poisoned with what?” Jude frowned.

“Oleander, I would guess.” She looked at Ben,
who looked vaguely lost in thought. “Remember the container someone
sent me of the stuff?”

Ben’s hand flexed as if going to the
waistband of his pants, but he stopped it and nodded.

“Really, I think H...she sent them. Some
weird signal that I’m still not sure I fully comprehend.”

“So you think they feed oleander to anyone
they don’t want around,” Jude responded.

“My theory.” Dahlia nodded. “It a pretty
clean way of killing someone. It’s almost undetectable after a
relatively short period of time.”

“Relative to what?” Jude asked

“Heavy metals, cyanide, basically anything
you that can kill you. Oleander is metabolized so fast no one could
prove anything and the worst you’d have to clean up is if someone
vomited.”

“It’s a little scary how much you know about
it,” Ben said.

“Class on accidental poisoning.” She
shrugged. “Same basic principle. The intent behind ingesting poison
doesn’t affect its overall effect.”

Someone opened the door.

Chapter Seventeen

“You are smart.” A tall woman with dark hair
and eyes stood in the doorway. “Patience said so. Then again, you
are the woman, so you should have figured it out before them.”

Ben tensed. “Who are you?”

“Lisa, I take it.” Dahlia crossed her
arms.

She smiled. “Now how did you work that one
out?”

Dahlia looked over the woman in a deliberate
way, taking her time if only to assert some sort of power. Lisa was
pretty in a way, nothing special, but even with her hair pulled
back tight from her face, there was some sort of strange beauty in
her features. Maybe it was just the poise with which she held
herself. She obviously wasn’t used to being disobeyed.

“The guard said ‘Lisa’ wanted to take over,
and based on the look on Patience’s face, that makes you the power
behind the throne.”

“We’ll have to be careful not to
underestimate you.” The dark haired woman smiled. “Lisa Morgan.
I’ve been head of government for the past three hundred years.”

“So you’re a clone too.”

“All of us are. No need to deal with turnover
that way. Despite the worries, we’ve all maintained relatively
constant personalities. Nature versus nurture right there, I
suppose.”

Dahlia took her time in responding. “You’re
the one who runs things while Patience is a figurehead.”

“Exactly.” Lisa nodded, amused. “It’s what
she’s always been. She has a more sympathetic character than the
rest of us. Most people didn’t really seem to be fans of radical
feminists.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Ben said, giving her a
sarcastic smile when she looked at him.

“You’re the alpha male, I take it,” Lisa
said, examining him. “Personally I maintain that we should have
continued getting rid of you all. Natural leaders are always
trouble in oppressed groups.”

“So you admit we’re oppressed,” Ben said.

Lisa laughed. “What else would you be?
Anyway, somehow you got your chips out, and we want to know
how.”

“We figured it would be a little too easy for
you to track us down the other way,” Ben said.

“You managed it without dying,” Lisa
observed.

“It seems that way.”

“Who helped you?”

“No one.” Ben crossed his arms.

“Take off your shirt,” Lisa ordered.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Lisa pushed her jacket back
to reveal the handle of a gun.

Ben paused and then pulled it off over his
head.

Lisa motioned him forward, looking at the
scar. “You had a surgeon help you. You can’t make a cut like that
without some training and without surgical supplies in the very
least. Who helped you?”

Ben twitched, but managed not to so much as
glance at Dahlia. “We aren’t barbarians; we have basic motor
skills.”

Lisa was already studying Jude, who hadn’t
been as successful about not looking at Dahlia. She switched to
Dahlia without turning her head.

“You’re in the wrong color.”

Dahlia raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“You’re a surgeon.”

“No,” Dahlia corrected. “I’m not. Truly.”

“What was the outcome of the 23 Treaty?”

Dahlia frowned, unable to dredge that fact
from memory.

“If you were trained as a legislator, you’d
know the answer without thinking,” Lisa said.

“I never said I was in the right colors. I
just said I’m not a surgeon, which I’m not.”

Lisa continued to examine her.

“Test me.” She held her hands out. “I’m
telling the truth. I’ll say that under any sort of lie detection
test you want.”

“Why did he look at you then?” Lisa nodded at
Jude.

“I didn’t see him look at me.”

“He glanced at you,” Lisa insisted.

“Well, he’s madly in love with me, so he
looks at me a lot, but just doesn’t want Ben to know since Ben’s
the ‘alpha male’ and has laid claim. Very like a man I would
imagine.”

Ben gave her a strange look, but remained
quiet.

Lisa nodded for a second and then drew her
gun and fired a shot. Ben jerked back, his hand flying to his
shoulder. Startled, Dahlia stared, but forced herself to remain
still. Jude moved, letting Ben lean against him and easing him to
the ground.

Lisa looked at Dahlia. “Oh, don’t look like
that. I didn’t aim for a kill shot. Though, you never know without
medical help...”

Dahlia frowned, the fact that she didn’t
fully understand the last question distracted her well enough to
keep her from looking at Ben. Lisa met her eyes for a moment before
smiling and leaving the room.

Dahlia waited a minute for the door to click
and then turned and knelt next to Ben.

“What do we...?” Jude stared at her.

“Move your hand.” Dahlia touched the hand Ben
pressed to his shoulder and looked at Jude. “Get him upright, I
need to check his back.”

Jude nodded, helping Ben sit and rest against
him.

She looked at the wound, trying to study it
through the blood fast obscuring the area. She examined his back.
“It didn’t go through. It’s probably in the bone then from the
speed that thing was going.”

“It was a bullet,” Jude said.

“Whatever it was.” Dahlia frowned, hands
shaking.

“Can we stop analyzing and do something?” Ben
asked in a weak voice.

The door opened, a bag came through, and the
door shut.

Jude frowned. “What’s that?”

Dahlia released a breath. “A physician’s
bag.”

“They’re giving us medicine?” Jude looked at
it.

“She’s trying to make me prove I’m a
doctor.”

“It’s fine.” Ben shook his head. “I’ll
survive.”

“Ben.” She shook her head.

“I swear to god, Dahlia, if you touch that
bag—”

“You’d be a little more threatening if you
weren’t bleeding out.” She moved toward the bag. “Lisa hit
something and I have to stop the bleeding.”

“Don’t forget to get the bullet out,” Jude
said.

“Is it important?” Dahlia said.

Jude hesitated. “I think so. I’ve never been
shot.”

“Dahlia...” Ben frowned with pain.

“You’ll bleed out at this rate, Ben. Shut up
and save your strength.”

He glared at her, the effect somewhat
lessened by the grimace already on his face.

She pulled out the supplies in the bag,
scanning them before picking up a pair of tweezers. “I admit I have
no idea what I’m doing, so I’m just going to try to treat it like a
really, really deep splinter.

He winced and nodded.

“Lean him against the wall so you can get
some water,” Dahlia said. “I need to wash some of this away.”

Jude nodded, moving without question.

“This is going to hurt, Ben. Just grab my leg
or something if you need to.”

He nodded again, barely moving this time. She
studied his face for a moment and then did what she could to find
the bullet through the blood. He gripped his own thigh, trying to
let her work. She worked as well she could without being able to
see. The tweezers hit something hard and she pulled. The bullet
came out, but Ben barely reacted.

Dahlia grimaced.

Jude knelt with several cups of water. “I
couldn’t find anything else to put it in...is he okay?”

“He’s going into shock.” Dahlia shook her
head. “Lay him down again.”

“Is he going to—?”

“Get him horizontal!” she snapped. “We need
to stop the bleeding.”

Jude maneuvered the all but unresponsive man
until he was lying straight.

“Put some pillows under his feet, or anything
that will get his legs up.” She took the gauze cutting it raggedly
and pressing it over the wound.

Jude propped his feet up and looked at her.
“What now?”

“We...” She shook her head in agitation.
“Keep pressure on that.”

“Is he going to be—?”

“I don’t know, okay?” she snapped, looking
inside Ben’s mouth and then checking his pulse. “At the hospital
we’d start giving him a blood transfusion. Not like we can do that
here.”

“So what do we do?”

“We try to stop the bleeding.” She left her
hand on his wrist. “Come on, Ben. You shouldn’t be unconscious.
Come on...”

He continued to be unresponsive.

She got up, taking a blanket and putting it
over him, waving Jude away from his shoulder. “Let me see.”

Jude looked as though he wanted to ask
something, but refrained.

“The bleeding is slowing some,” she said.
“He’s a good healer if nothing else. Hopefully we can get
that...then if we can keep him warm and find some way to get his
blood pressure up...”