The Last Girl (6 page)

“You’re going in the box,” Simon says, so low it’s hard to hear. He turns away from Rita as more Clerics round the next corner of the building. He comes to Zoey and kneels, reaching out to grasp her hand. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she manages, but tastes blood. Must’ve bit her tongue.

“Can you stand?”

“If you help me.”

Simon raises her to her feet, letting her lean against his arm.

“Maybe you want to reconsider sending her to the box,” Lily’s Cleric says. “Zoey was the closest to Rita, so that means she’ll go in as well.”

“Zoey was being attacked,” Simon says in a voice coated in ice. “
She
was the closest.” He points at Penny, who merely stares back at him.

“I don’t . . .” Steven begins again, but Zoey steps away from Simon, her anger boiling over.

“Why don’t you help your ward, Cleric?” she says. Her stomach is on fire, the pain trying to double her over, but she won’t let it. Steven scowls but slowly turns and begins to speak to Lily in a quiet voice. She continues to rock back and forth, her hands rubbing endlessly at one another.

The promenade is alive with movement, men streaming out of the building, all of them talking at once. The sniper is trained on their position now. The scope on his rifle flashes in the sun as he pans it over them all.

“Come on, let’s go,” Simon says, and leads her away from the throng. As they walk, Rita catches Zoey’s eye. She bares her teeth and shakes her head. Zoey looks away and focuses on walking, one foot after the other on the concrete.

The infirmary smells of disinfectant and vanilla linens. Zoey lies in a bed within one of the sectioned rooms that occupy an end of the medical area. Outside the open entrance there is another doorway as well as a hanging curtain around a large operating space. The tiled floor reflects cool light. Simon sits rigidly in a chair by the door. He stares at the wall beside her bed, not making a sound. A balding doctor with a long, clean-shaven face returns to the room and gives them both a quick smile.

“X-rays and MRI look normal,” he says, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “There seems to be only bruising to the abdomen and swelling around the zygomatic bone as well as the sternocleidomastoid muscle in the neck.” He opens a slender packet and oozes a clear ointment onto one finger. “Here, this should ease the swelling and pain a bit.” He dabs the gel onto Zoey’s cheek and neck where Penny struck her. The effect is instantaneous. The throbbing pain recedes like dust before water. She can’t help but sigh with relief.

“Can I put that on my stomach too?” she asks when the doctor steps back.

“No. It won’t do a lot for a larger injury like that. I’ll give you a painkiller before you leave.” He looks coldly at her as if she is something inanimate before turning to Simon. “She’s free to go.”

“Thank you,” Simon says. The doctor leaves and Simon rises, moving toward the door. “You can change. I’ll get the pill for you.”

He is nearly out the door when she speaks. “Simon?” He pauses. “Thank you.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for, Zoey.” He hesitates. “I failed you today.” She begins to tell him he’s wrong, that the Clerics haven’t accompanied the women around the track for many years now, but he’s already gone, the door closing solidly behind him.

She stands and strips off the thin cotton gown she changed into for the examination and dons her clothes. The knees of her pants are dotted with crimson from the abrasions that still sting as she flexes her legs. She catches sight of herself in the long mirror beside the door. A skinny woman a year out of her teens with dark, unruly hair that’s come loose from its binding. Her image, the weakness she exudes, sparks the anger within her once again, and she wants to smash the mirror into a thousand pieces.
But that would only make more reflections of me
, she thinks. She sighs and leaves the room, not looking at the mirror again.

After Zoey takes her pain pill under the scrutiny of the doctor, they leave the infirmary, but not before she sees the massive steel doors hiding the elevator at its far end. It’s hard to believe that Terra disappeared through them only today. Zoey tries to imagine what is happening to her, but her thoughts are lost in the tumult between what she’s been told and what she feels is true. The guard beside the doors studies her and Simon before returning his gaze straight ahead.

They walk down the hallway side by side but when they reach the stairs, Simon turns right instead of left. Zoey stops.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Not me. We. We’re going to the boxes.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to go. I don’t need to see.”

“It’s not optional, Zoey. We have to.”

“Please, I just want to go to my room.”

“Zoey.” There’s steel in his voice that holds no compromise. She stands at the head of the stairs for a moment before following him in the opposite direction.

They pass the assembly and turn down another, narrower corridor before stopping outside a windowless door. Simon scans his bracelet, and they pass through.

The room they enter is low-ceilinged and wide. It holds a sense of constriction, an air of suffocation that may partially have to do with the two separate facades that intrude on its far side.

The protrusions extend into the room several feet and line the entire length of the wall. It is like another room has been shoved into the current one but stopped short before its full bulk could be revealed. Two black doors are positioned on either end of the boxes.

The other women are already there, waiting in a half-circle of chairs, their Clerics standing behind them. Assistant Carter waits before the two boxes, his hands held behind his back. He nods to them as they enter, and Zoey takes her seat beside Lily. There is a long silence that draws out painfully before Carter finally steps forward and speaks.

“I’m disappointed in you,” he says, looking down at his shoes. “There is order and disorder. Order breeds compliance, compliance begets tolerance, and tolerance brings peace.” He flicks his ferret-like gaze across them all. “Disorder is unacceptable. The greater good depends upon all of you, and you quibble and fight like children!” His nasally voice tightens as it rises, and Zoey has to resist clamping her hands over her ears. “You should be ashamed,” Carter says, spinning away from them, his tie swinging. Lily begins to rock in her seat, and Zoey places a hand gently on her arm. “Punishment is, at times, the only language that is understood, the only . . .” He pauses, a smile curling then fleeing from his face. “. . . voice that is heard. Clerics?”

Rita’s and Penny’s Clerics move around the row of chairs as the two women rise. Rita walks with sullen steps toward the right door, while Penny strides to the left. They turn when they reach the wall and stand looking out back at the group. Assistant Carter takes center stage between them.

“Rita and Penny, you are sentenced to twenty-four hours in containment. No food or water shall be given during this time. You shall not speak to anyone nor have any contact with the outside. Remember, and do not fall outside the rules again.”

Carter nods to the Clerics, who each scan their bracelets. Zoey looks at Rita, their eyes meeting, and sees her lips are moving soundlessly, repeating words over and over.

You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead you’redeadyou’redeadyou’redead.

The doors pop open as if pressurized. Inside, there seems to be nothing.

It’s not simply dark within the boxes—the light from the room doesn’t
penetrate
the blackness. The void is like something alive, churning just out of sight past the threshold. Rita doesn’t move, struck by the sight as the rest of them are. Penny only hesitates a moment before stepping inside, disappearing as if she’s been swallowed.

“Rita,” Carter says. She looks at him, and there is hatred etched in her face, but also fear. She shoots one last look at Zoey before walking out of sight.

The doors clank shut, latches clacking louder than any Zoey’s ever heard before.

“Take the punishment of others and use it to keep yourselves on the path,” Carter says. “The greater good is more important than any one life.”

They repeat his last words in unison, knowing it’s expected. Then they are dismissed with a wave of Carter’s pale hand.

The dinner chime rings as they move down the hallways, and Meeka shoots Zoey a look. Zoey shakes her head before hanging back behind the rest of the group.

“I don’t want to go to dinner, Simon,” she says.

“Zoey, you barely had anything today. You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” She doesn’t look at him, her eyes fastened on the tips of her shoes.

“Zoey, look at me.” She does. “It is not your fault that Rita and Penny are being punished. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one that sent them there.”

“It doesn’t matter. They blame me.”

“That’s ridiculous. What they did was inexcusable; they could’ve truly hurt you. They could’ve—”

“Could’ve damaged me, you mean,” Zoey says. “Could’ve made me sterile.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“You didn’t have to.”

A long, uncomfortable silence drifts between them. “They’ll think twice before ever attacking you again,” Simon finally says.

“Or they’ll make sure they don’t get caught next time.”

“I’ll protect you.”

“You can’t protect me from everything.”

He opens his mouth to reply but stops. She follows his gaze over her shoulder and sees the digital calendar set in the wall.

“Take me to my room,” she says after a moment. She leads the way and hears him follow a second later.

Zoey watches the afternoon pass into evening and then into night. The sun slides on its track below the rim of the walls, fading to a glow before it winks out completely. The exterior lights come on, flashing to life one at a time to bathe the promenade in their radiance. But it’s the walls they want seen, even at night. Always the reminder of where they are.

She takes out the window and chews a piece of gum to quell the hunger that’s built upon itself over the last hours. She should’ve eaten something. Simon was right. Again. She chews until the flavor is completely gone before swallowing the stringy lump that is slowly dissolving on her tongue. She applies the last of the ointment to her bruised neck and face before lying back on her bed with the copy of
Monte Cristo
, reading in the dim light cast by the bulb built into the wall beside the headboard. The book seems to breathe the word that’s been floating through her mind for years now. At first it was insubstantial and fluttering, like the wings of a moth disappearing into the night. But now it is a pounding insistence that won’t disperse no matter what she tries to focus on.

Escape.

She comes awake to a sound, only then realizing that she had fallen asleep. The book is splayed on her chest, open to the page she stopped reading on. The light still glows beside her, the calendar minutes away from a new day.

Someone is standing at the foot of her bed.

4

Zoey inhales, a shriek building in her lungs, but the person steps forward, letting the light wash over his smiling features.

“Lee,” she hisses.

“Hey.”

“Don’t hey me, you ass,” she says, flinging her pillow at him before standing up. He catches it, flinching in a mockingly hurt way.

“You think I’d get a warmer welcome being in here for what, the fifth time ever?”

“I knew you were going to try to get in, I just thought I’d hear you.” She eyes him. “How do you get in? Do you pick the lock?” The brightness of Lee’s smile is only rivaled by his intelligence. Already he’s found solutions for several issues regarding the ARC’s mechanical maintenance that had baffled some of the best workers. It’s rumored he’ll be the head of the department before he’s twenty-two.

He shakes his head, coming closer. His true grin is back, and she can see he’s pleased with himself. “Told you before, I gotta keep some secrets from you.” Lee stops inches away and gazes at her. His hand runs down her arm, leaving a trail of tingling warmth in its wake, before he grasps her fingers gently. The urge to lean fully into him, to press herself against him, is powerful, though the thought both thrills and frightens her in equal measure. Lee seems to sense what she’s thinking and tips his head down toward her. His eyes flit to the book she holds in her free hand, and she glances at it before returning his gaze. “Where did you get that?”

“I . . .”
I found it. Someone must have dropped it.
“I don’t know,” she says. “It was left for me.”

Lee steps back. “Left for you? By who?”

“I don’t know, it was just in my room one day.”

“Zoey, you can’t have that, it’s too dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s contraband. And whoever left it is probably trying to set you up, get you punished.”

“My room’s been inspected and they’ve never found it. Besides, you’re telling me you haven’t seen a book before outside of the NOA texts?”

He falters. “Well, no. But . . .”

“So you’re saying you’ve seen them but never read any?”

His jaw works. “No, I’ve read a few, but—”

“So they’re available to the men?”

“Yes, there’s quite a few in a room attached to the guards’ dorms.”

“But
I’m
not supposed to have one, is that it?”

“I’m just worried that you’ll get caught, that’s all.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she says. She sets the book on the covers. “I can take care of myself.” She strides to the window and looks out at the wall. Lee sidles past her bed, careful to keep out of the sniper’s view.

“Zoey, I’m sorry. You know they’re not my rules. If I could choose, you’d have as many books as you want. You wouldn’t be locked up in here, either. But I’m not in charge, not yet anyway.” She watches his reflection in the window. He’s fidgeting with something in his pocket.
“I talked to Dad again about what will happen after your induction.”

She lets the quiet of the room build for a moment. “What did he say?”

“He said it will be up to the Director whether or not we can go with you and your parents to the safe zone.”

“That’s never happened before, Lee, and you know it. Grace and Halie’s Clerics are reassigned now, and so are their sons. What makes you think you and Simon will be any different?”

“There’s no reason not to let us go. I’m working on getting a private audience with the Director. If I can, I’ll make him understand.”

She turns to face him. “He won’t listen, Lee. Don’t you get it? The system doesn’t make allowances. Not for you, or your father, or for me. We’re just pieces in a game.”

“Listen—”

“What’s your last name?”

Exasperation has finally stripped him of his cheerfulness. “You know what it is.”

“Say it.”

“Asher.”

“And what’s mine?”

He blinks, then sighs. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t either. No woman here does. What purpose does that serve, Lee? What could possibly be gained by keeping our heritage from us?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s control. It’s just another wall built to keep us in place.” She glances away from him. He seems to struggle with something and looks down at the floor.

“I always told you I’d give you my last name.”

She studies him and then slowly moves to stand before him. She puts a hand to his cheek, and he looks into her eyes. “I know you would. But I need my own. Do you understand?”

He nods. “It scares me a little when you talk like this. You sound like you’re going to do something rash.”

She is on the edge, the cliff beneath her feet once again. What to say? How much to tell him?

“If we were able to leave, would you come with me?” she asks, her foot hovering over the drop.

“What? What do you mean, leave?”

She looks around, knowing they are alone but unable to help herself. “I mean, escape.”

It’s like she’s hit him with something. He steps back from her, and her hand that had fallen to his shoulder drops to her side.

“Zoey, think about what you’re saying. The wrong person hears you even breathe that word, and you’re in the box.”

“I know, but there’s something wrong. There’s always been something wrong. This place isn’t what they tell us, what they’ve pounded into our heads for years.”

“Look, I know you’re shook up. I heard about what happened today, but you have to think about this logically.”

“I am. This has nothing to do with Rita.” She stops herself. “You know, maybe it has a lot to do with Rita. You know why she’s so angry? Because she’s the only one of us who’s ever seen her parents’ faces. She came here when she was five, but that’s enough time to remember. I can’t forget how much she cried. Do you remember?”

He nods. He seems to have run out of words.

“That anger she has for everyone and everything, it’s not a coincidence. She was taken, Lee, just like we all were. This isn’t right.”

“It’s for the greater good.”

“You don’t even know what that means.”

“I know Reaper and his men go out, week after week, hunting for another infant girl, and they never find one. I know my father has dedicated his life to protecting you, and soon he’s going to have to let you go. He would never turn you over to any kind of danger.”

“He has no idea what waits behind those steel doors in the infirmary.” Their voices are barely above whispers, but the vehemence in them could cut flesh.

“And neither do you. There’s no reason not to believe the Director and
Miss Gwen. No one has ever hurt you besides Rita and the other two.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Zoey says, moving to her bed. She picks
up the copy of
The Count of
Monte Cristo
. “Maybe you should read this. Then you’ll have an idea how much they’ve hurt me. Hurt all of us.”

He doesn’t take the book from her outstretched hand, instead glancing at the glowing calendar. Immediately he turns away, then shuffles to the door and pulls it open. He snatches something from the lock and pockets it. She expects him to say something more, some final retort, but there’s nothing. He simply steps into the dim hallway, lets the door click shut behind him, and is gone.

She watches the curved horizon of wall until the sky begins to pale in the east. The urge to cry comes and goes, as does the fury. There is something worse about being reprimanded by Lee. It’s not only because he has been her closest friend for all the years she can remember. It’s something else she can’t put fully into words. He’s told her before that he would give her his name, but never explained exactly what he means. As thrilling as the idea is to have something so precious, the odd independence she feels holds her back and drives her forward at the same time.

There is the swift flutter of feathers outside the window and her heart leaps in her chest.
Zipper?
She steps to the window, eyes searching the air outside her room. A small, dark shape swoops past the glass, and her hope flattens. It is a bird, but some species she can’t identify, its outline too compact to be the owl. It glides over the top of the wall and disappears from sight.

“How does it feel to fly away?” she says, watching for the bird’s shape to reappear. When it doesn’t, she nods once to herself. “I thought so.”

She dozes for several hours and wakes, groggy and sullen with sleep, to a sharp rap on her door.

“Zoey? Are you awake?” It’s Simon.

“Yes. I need a few minutes.”

A long pause. “Take your time.”

She showers, dressing in clean clothes and making her bed afterward. She takes the cloth sack filled with that week’s laundry with her when she leaves, stopping to deposit it down the third-level chute, knowing she will most likely be washing it herself later that day.

Simon says nothing other than “good morning” to her on the way to breakfast, and they encounter no one in the halls since they’re running late.

The cafeteria is quiet as Zoey collects her plate and sits in her customary place beside Lily. Meeka nods from across the table, her mouth overly full of food. Zoey glances to her left, seeing Sherell seated by herself. The woman’s ebony skin glows beneath the lights, almost as if she’s lit from within. She looks up from her plate and catches Zoey staring. There is a hint of something in her gaze before Zoey looks away, but she can’t determine if it is anger or simply a vague interest.

“How are you feeling?” Meeka murmurs, swallowing an enormous mouthful of cereal.

Zoey shrugs. “Sore. Tired. Other than that, fine.”

“Total bitches,” Meeka says, even lower. “I was late getting out from my shift. If I would’ve been there—”

“If you would’ve been there, we both would’ve taken a trip to the infirmary.” It’s their custom to rib one another, but she doesn’t fully believe her words. She’s never seen anyone with reflexes as fast as Meeka’s. Perhaps if she had been there, they wouldn’t have gone to the infirmary. Instead it might be them in the boxes right now.

Meeka seems to read her thoughts. She waves a spoon in Zoey’s direction. “Whatever. It’s probably better this way. Those two needed to be taken down a notch, along with someone else I know.” She says the last words louder, turning her head to stare at Sherell. The other woman glances her way and smiles poisonously. Meeka raises her eyebrows and pulls a face. Zoey laughs a little under her breath, causing pain to slide across her stomach.

“Stop, you’re only going to make things worse for me,” Zoey says.

“Why do you say that?”

“Do you really think Rita and Penny are just going to apologize and leave it at that? The next chance they get, they’re going to attack me again.”

Meeka waves a dismissive hand. “They won’t have the chance. Simon won’t let you out of his sight now. He’ll send them to the box for a week if they try it again.”

“He doesn’t have the power to do that,” Zoey says, trying to eat her food.

“What do you mean? He just did it yesterday.”

“I know he sent them there, but Assistant Carter is the one that decides the length of punishment. Lee told me,” she adds.

“I didn’t know that,” Meeka says after a time. “Why have you never told me that?”

“No one has gone to the box since Halie and Grace. It didn’t seem very important.”

Meeka stirs the remainder of her food around before dropping her spoon. “He creeps me out almost as much as Dellert.”

“Who? Carter?” Zoey asks.

Meeka nods. “It’s like he’s not really a person, just something wearing human skin as a disguise.”

The image gives Zoey pause. She imagines Carter unzipping a hidden seam in his flesh to reveal a hideous sublayer of scales and glistening skin. She shivers.

The chime comes from the speakers and they rise, filing through to deposit their trays. Zoey follows Meeka through the hallways to the lecture hall. Miss Gwen is there, waiting beside her desk. Her eyes glide over them as they take their seats, her face tight, hands clamped together. When they’ve settled she steps forward, head tilted to the side.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, Miss Gwen.”

“I’m sorry to see so few of you here today. Punishment is an ugly, but necessary, aspect of our lives. If the balance of the world were not so precarious, there might only be warnings for such transgressions. But alas, it is.”

The speech sounds scripted. Zoey wonders who gave her the orders to write it.

“To renew humanity; what a purpose,” Miss Gwen says, looking at each of them, a glaze of awe on her face. “To give birth to a new generation and drive away the shadows of extinction—what better cause do we have? We must coexist and work together for the greater good. Our differences must be put aside, our conflicts cast away.” She stares solely at Zoey as she says this. “There is no one person more important than the fate of our species. We would all do well to remember that.” Zoey holds her gaze until the instructor finally gives her a cold smile and turns away, saying over her shoulder, “Rise and recite the creed.”

The women do as they are told. “We are of the greater good. We live for the chance to rebuild the world that is no longer. We are one in our knowledge and stand steady before the challenges that face us. We give thanks for our shelter and for the guidance of the Director. We will not stray from the path.”