The Last Girl (13 page)

As she swings the tray down, there is an explosion of pain in her lower back, her muscles seizing with it. She hears the crackle of electricity as the tray falls from her hands, tumbling down harmlessly to the floor. Zoey opens her mouth to scream, but she’s already falling, falling like the tray, into darkness that is enclosing the ceiling from the sidewalls in. It rushes down and covers her completely.

Crimson furrows of light brighten somewhere in the distance, but it is like an angry sunrise before a storm. Heavy clouds adorn everything around her and she tries to rise through them but fails. She drifts, weightless, as unfamiliar sounds echo outside the darkness. She is vaguely aware of her body, but it is insubstantial as fog each time she tries to reckon out her position.

Suddenly a voice speaks above her and the drifting ceases. The words are jumbled, but she knows their owner. It is the first voice of memory. It is Simon. It is her father.

She tries to say the word, to call him what she’s always wanted to, to give him a title that he’s earned, but he falls silent. The red smear of horizon begins to widen with gaps of lightning painful enough to make her moan, and even as she realizes she’s struggling to open her eyes, there is a sharp pain in her arm and ice flows outward from the spot.

Zoey tries again to open her eyes, but the storm clouds are unfurling like black sails and coming lower and lower until they smother her in their dark embrace.

12

Boom
.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

“Zoey.”

She hides from the pain that each thunderous concussion brings.

“Zoey, can you hear me?”

She takes a deep breath, coming slowly to realize that the blows she’s feeling aren’t being rained upon her head from outside, but from within. Her heartbeat holds the hammer and continues to smash the sides of her skull. Nausea snakes through her stomach and sets up camp there, ready for an extended stay. She groans and opens her eyes.

She’s in the infirmary, but not in the same room as before. Curtains surround her bed, and a machine beeps quietly to the left. A heavy cuff of fabric gradually inflates on her right bicep, almost to the point of pain before relinquishing its grip. There is someone beside her and she cranes her neck around.

Simon peers down at her, his dark eyebrows drawn together. “Zoey, can you hear me?” he repeats.

She nods, forcing herself into a sitting position. Simon steadies her with a hand, and the room spins.

“Going to be sick,” she manages. He places a plastic container in her lap, and she vomits into it.

“The doctors said you might get sick from the sedative,” Simon says, taking the bowl from her grasp. He produces a white towel and dabs at her mouth. “It’ll pass soon, though.”

Zoey sinks back into the bed and its pillows. She stares up at the featureless ceiling. “What happened?”

“The guard in the lunchroom shocked you with a prod. He was right behind both you and Rita when you attacked her.”

The memory comes flooding back. “She told Dellert to search my room.”

“What?”

“The day she was released from the box and she hugged me in the hall, she smelled mint on my breath from the gum I’d been chewing.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me.”

Simon sighs. “So you attacked her.”

She lets the silence draw out. “I couldn’t help it.”

“Zoey . . .” He shakes his head.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“What are they going to do with me?”

“I don’t know yet. Assistant Carter is meeting with the Director right now. The only thing you have going for you is the guard overreacted. He’s young, and he panicked when the fight broke out. They’ve already stripped him of his post, and he’ll be punished accordingly.”

“What about Rita?”

“She was treated for a concussion and released an hour ago.”

“What? But she—”

“Zoey, it looked like you attacked her for no reason. And that’s exactly what she told Carter.”

She turns her head away. There is a slight gap in the curtains around the bed, and through the slit she sees half of Lee’s face across the aisle. He is asleep, and a small bandage is stuck to his forehead. She turns back to Simon.

“What happened to Lee?”

Simon glances in the direction of his son, his mouth becoming a thin line. “He tried to wrestle the guard’s prod away from him after you were shocked. The guard hit him and knocked him unconscious.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine. He needed a couple stitches, that’s all.”

She relaxes into the pillows once again. The nausea is relenting, but a thickening ache takes its place in the pit of her stomach. She wonders if the guard also struck her there. If he did, there will be no saving him. She twists her neck, noting that the pounding in her head has come down to a manageable level. “Can I have some water?” Simon produces a cup with a straw and she drinks. “How long have I been out?” she asks when she’s finished drinking.

“About five hours. The doctors said you had some kind of reaction to the shock. They had to work on you for a bit before bringing you back here.”

“When can I leave?”

“They want to keep you overnight for observation.”

“I don’t want to stay here. I hate it here.”

Simon studies her for a long moment before standing. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He sweeps out through the curtains, and she listens to the pop of his boots on the tile. Zoey takes several deep breaths, willing the clinging effects of the drugs in her system to go away. She doesn’t want to be in this room after dark. Not this close to those shining doors, not until she’s ready to step through them. A minute later footsteps return and Simon appears through the curtains followed by a young doctor with a shaved head and a manicured goatee. The doctor is taller than Simon and has dark brown eyes that are nearly black.

“This is Doctor Calvin,” Simon says, stepping to the side.

“How are we feeling, Zoey?” Calvin says in a surprisingly high, nasally voice. The way he looks at her makes her want to shiver and hide deeper beneath the blankets, but she steadies herself and meets his gaze.

“Much better. I think I can go back to my room now.”

“Hmm.” Doctor Calvin moves to the beeping machine and presses a button, bringing up an array of readings and digital lines on its screen. After flicking the button several times, he nods to himself and faces them. “Your vitals look good. Are the effects of the sedatives wearing off?”

“It feels like it.”

“Good.” The doctor’s eyes glint in the light and he cocks a half smile that reveals a crooked canine. “I guess I don’t see why you can’t spend the night in your room then.” He gives Simon a nod and steps through the curtain without looking back.

Once he’s gone, Zoey motions to Simon to come closer. When he does she says in a low voice, “Have you ever seen him before?”

“Doctor Calvin? Not that I can remember. Why?”

“Where has he been all these years if not in the infirmary?”

“Zoey, there’s a lot of doctors here and they rotate out constantly. It would be easy to not meet one of them since we’re rarely up here. Except as of late,” he adds, giving her a warning look. “Get dressed. I’ll be waiting outside if you need anything.”

Simon steps through the curtains, and she hears him cross the aisle to where Lee rests. Zoey gets shakily to her feet and waits nearly a minute with one hand on the steel bed railing until the floor steadies beneath her. She finds a fresh set of clothes stacked on a bench beside the bed and dons them before taking another long drink of water. The place where the guard shocked her in the lower back feels strangely numb, but the pain in her abdomen has become more like severe menstrual cramps. It is as if a smoldering coal has been placed inside her and stokes red every time she moves.

After several deep breaths, she emerges from the surrounding curtain and crosses the tile to where Simon stands at the foot of Lee’s bed. Lee is awake now, his eyes slits in his face, but they follow her and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Simon is holding Lee’s feet through the thin blanket that covers him, and when he notices her approaching, he releases them.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Good.” He turns to Lee, squeezing his son’s foot one last time. “I’ll be back later this evening to bring you home.” Lee nods and refocuses on Zoey as his father turns toward the exit. There is something in his gaze that dismantles all the doubt she’s carried until now about his allegiance. The warmth and reassurance that radiate from him tell her all she needs to know. He’s going to help.

Tonight
,
he mouths so quickly that she barely catches it. She flashes him a fleeting smile and follows Simon to the doors that lead out of the infirmary, elation carrying her above the pain in her body every step of the way.

The meal she ate in the empty cafeteria sits heavily in her stomach as she lies on her bed. There was barely any hunger to sate, but she ate as much as she could, almost to the point of bursting. She knows she will need her strength for what’s to come. It’s really happening. Lee is going to help her. They’re going to try to escape.

Excitement bristles along her spine at the thought. She dozed for a time, but now she shifts on the bed, wincing as she sits up. Her lower back is bruised from the strength of the shock she received. She examined the area in the bathroom mirror after Simon escorted her to her room, the vague outline of the injury a solemn red, the center beginning to purple like the eye of a storm.

Rita. Rita caused this.

Hatred rises within her at the thought of the other woman. The sneering, smug look she must have plastered on her wide face right now. Zoey clenches her fist.
I should leave her here
,
she thinks, shaking with rage.
If the plan works I’ll
take the rest of them, even Penny and Sherell, but leave her here to suffer alone.

The thought stokes righteous anger but just as quickly it deflates, leaving her feeling dirty and defiled for having thought something so cruel, even about someone as heartless as Rita. She couldn’t leave another woman here any more than she could leave one of her limbs.

Zoey shoves the thoughts away. There isn’t time for whims of revenge now. At a later date, if they make it out alive, she and Rita will have their reckoning. Until then the energy is better spent elsewhere.

She uses the next few hours to reexamine her room for a hiding place for the gun she will steal. And at the end of her search, her options are the same: mattress or cabinet. She finds a loose seam on the top end of the mattress that she easily widens, just enough to slip a handgun through. She pulls up the mattress several times, mimicking an inspection, but the torn seam is only noticeable if looked at directly from the end.

Satisfied, Zoey remakes her bed and lies down on it again. She watches the calendar and imagines she can hear the digital numbers ticking off. Three days. Three days until the white dress will appear in her closet. Three days until she’ll be led into the assembly. Three days until she’ll stand before the shining doors.

No.

That’s not going to happen. Until the box she considered herself weak and unimportant, simply another cog in the machine of NOA, an unwilling part of the greater good. But now she knows different. For years the whispers from her inner sanctums spoke of traitorous and forbidden things, actions and words that would immediately receive punishment both swift and fierce if spoken aloud. For the longest time she was full of doubt each time she considered those most secret thoughts. Who was she to put herself above the rest? Who was she to question the authority of those so much older? Who was she to ask the questions that were only answered by penance? Yes, the shame that accompanied the strange obsessions was almost as powerful as the thoughts themselves.

But not quite. Not quite.

And now, with so little time left, with the numbers actually falling away before her eyes, there is no more denying the choices that will become her fate. Her horizon has split into two now, one of freedom and one of death. There is no in between.

Zoey stands from the bed, her body calling out for the sleep it so desperately needs, but the fire in her veins won’t let her rest. Instead she showers and dresses in fresh clothes. As she carries her dirty clothing into the bedroom, she imagines the pile of laundry that must be accumulating in the room far below her feet and wrinkles her face in disgust. To never return there for another shift—how would that be?
Wonderful
,
she thinks.
Truly wonderful.

She is just beginning to wonder how long it will be before Lee arrives, or if he will come at all after receiving a head wound, when footsteps begin to approach her door. She glances at the calendar. It is nearing midnight, but it’s earlier than Lee’s ever come before. Two feet stop in front of her door, creating ominous shadows in the space at the bottom. Even as it registers to her that Lee never made as much noise before, the locks clack open and the door swings inward, revealing Dellert’s torn visage.

His face is a landscape of skin patched in several places by black thread. The gaping mouths left by her fingernails have been closed, but their lips still shine ugly and red in the harsh light. The guard smiles, which makes his entire appearance even more foul.

“Evening, Zoey. It’s time we had a little talk, you and I.”