Whimper (32 page)

She turned a malicious eye on me, staring me down. “You want me to untie you so you can leave me here! You want them to experiment on me while you escape again!” Her voice grew shrill.

“No!” I answered urgently, but in a hushed voice, hoping she’d follow my example. “I want to help you, remember? I’ve been helping you!”

Amie walked up to the bed, looked at my restraints and giggled. “I could leave you here. I could walk out on you, just like you did me.”

I nodded, letting her feel like she was in control. “You could do that, Amie. You could, but you’ve always been better than me.”

“If I let you go, you have to give me the formulas for the medicine. Promise you’ll give it to me and I’ll let you go!”

“Okay, I’ll write it down for you. I promise,” I said, cajoling. “I promise I will. Would you unstrap me now?” Amie smiled triumphantly and reached out to loosen the strap across my chest. My heart was pounding so hard, it felt like it might tear through the strap all by itself. She pulled slowly, savoring the
riiip
of the Velcro as it loosened. Voices came from outside my door, and her face suddenly lost its manic glee.
Rip
! She pulled loose the chest band and thrust a pad of paper into my hands. “Write it down!” she demanded. Something about her abrupt change in demeanor made me suspicious.

I scribbled down the formula for my inhaler, the one I’d left in my pants pocket. By now they knew the ingredients, but not the percentages involved. Eventually they’d figure that out on their own, but if I gave it to them now, they’d believe I was cooperating.

I handed the paper back to Amie, who glanced at the door like she was afraid to be discovered. “It’s all based off that,” I bluffed. If she was working with them now, she may have been all along.

“I’ll be back. Don’t let them see you’re free!” she whispered and scurried back towards the door.

My heartbeat hadn’t slowed. I could feel it everywhere, throbbing and building. My blood pulsed in my temples, and a warm flush was starting on my neck. “Some say the world will end in fire…” I whispered to myself as I slid the bands over my chest. It didn’t matter if I got loose now. It was happening. Sweat beaded on my forehead and began to trickle down the bridge of my nose in rivulets.

The door to my room swung open, and Archibald Simon-Shipley strutted in, a smile on his face. “Elliott, you’re looking pretty rough! Since you’ve been to this point before, I know you’re aware of what’s coming. Are you ready to cooperate now?”

I closed my eyes, ignoring him. Instead, I tried to remember good things while I still had the capacity. I remembered sailing with my parents, the sunlight and warm salt breezes on my skin. I remembered playing with my sister in our grandparents’ house, wild games of tag when the pain got to us. I remembered Zoe, the feel of her skin against mine, the taste of her lips.

“Move him into the secure room, the second one!” Archie barked. I didn’t care. I was busy remembering the last good moments of my life, reliving it second by breathless second. As long as I could remember sex, love, family, loyalty, well, then I wasn’t lost yet.

The gurney I was strapped to dropped flat and I felt the air whoosh over me and the overhead lights flicker red through my eyelids. Somebody snickered, and I realized that I was probably flashing the surviving world with my hospital gown draped erection, but I really didn’t give a shit. This was my fantasy, and they weren’t invited.

I pictured Zoe in that black lace bra and mismatched panties, white with little pink rosebuds, her sapphire blue eyes fighting through her pain to live and take pleasure in life. Her voice, husky and delicate at the same time, saying ,“Elliott.”

The gurney stopped moving, the straps ripped, and I was tipped into a heap on the floor. I grinned. At least I wasn’t going to die tied to a freaking hospital bed.

“Oh, my God! Elliott!” Zoe gasped, but it didn’t sound right.

“Not like that, not scared,” I mumbled, trying to get the memory back.

“Elliott, wake up. Are you okay?” Zoe shook me hard, and my eyes flew open.

No. No. No. No. “No! You bastard! No! Get back here!” I screamed, pushing myself away from Zoe as I looked around frantically. “Don’t do this!” We were trapped in a concrete room, a drain in the center and one glass wall at the end. The door was set in the glass and sealed from the outside. A black bubble hung from the ceiling, protecting the camera I knew would be inside. I’d seen the footage from these rooms. The tests they’d done had convinced me I needed to find a cure before they used the virus outside the lab.

I pressed my naked back against the concrete, trying to get further away from Zoe. “Why are you here? Why now?” I asked, anguish stripping my voice raw.

“Shhhhh,” Zoe soothed, holding her hands out to calm me like the deranged animal I was about to become. “It’s going to be okay.” She glanced up at the camera, then bent down a little more. “Let me closer to you. It’s okay. We can be together for a while longer. Don’t worry. I keep my
promises
.”

My chest heaved, I sucked in air as I tried to calm myself down. I needed to slow this down. Zoe crouched beside me, her cool hand smoothing my forehead. She kissed my temple and slid down the wall to sit next to me. “Shhhh, Elliott. It’s okay.” She pulled me over to rest my head on her lap, fidgeting with her shirt as she did so.

“Help is coming. You only need to hold on a little longer. We’re going to make it. Besides, if it takes too long, we’ll be together and I keep my promises.” Zoe wiggled a little more, easing her t-shirt away from her stomach.

I turned my head to look up at her, questioning what she meant until the plastic tube bumped my cheek. Somehow, she’d smuggled the injection in here. Somehow, she’d saved me from a fate worse than death. “Control, alt, delete?” I whispered hopefully. I wouldn’t hurt her. She’d inject me and it’d stop. But what about her?

“Yeah, we can stop it.” Zoe nodded tearfully. “It’s gonna be okay. Brianna’s not here. All we have to do is hang on. You’re so warm.” She wiped my forehead with her shirt hem, sliding the injection alongside her leg.

A door buzzed somewhere beyond my line of sight, and I could hear the sharp click of heels against the sealed concrete floor. The burning agony I was already feeling fired up another notch as Amie Winters stepped up to the glass viewing window with a wide grin on her face. The hospital gown was gone and her hair was tidied into a neat chignon behind one ear.

“Awww, what a touching reunion!” she cooed. “Elliott, I can’t thank you enough for all the help you’ve given me. With the antigens flowing through my veins and the formula for your inhalant, I’ve suddenly become the most valuable researcher this department has. It’s almost disappointing how you caved so easily. I thought we’d have to infect your sister, or even that little tramp in order to pry the information out of you. Who knew you still had a conscience?” She threw back her head and cackled, doing her best Disney villain impersonation.

I glared, but the shuddering pain I was suddenly wracked with stole away any intimidation I might have been able to muster. I had played right into her hands, but she didn’t even have what she thought she did. I still had a card to play. I looked back up, but Amie had clicked away. She was evidently joining Archie somewhere to gloat over their triumph.

Zoe swore so foully at her back, I learned a few colorful phrases. “And stay away, you spineless, ungrateful gutter slut!” she finally sputtered out when the door slammed shut. “They don’t have Brianna. She’s safe. Don’t let them get to you. It’s going to be okay,” she reassured me, pressing her lips to my sweaty head as she tried to pull me closer.

I willed my breathing to slow, concentrating on my heart rate and respirations in the same way I had a million times before. Gradually, I sat up, kissing her softly, allowing myself to block out the world again. “I promised her I’d date you if we miraculously made it out of here,” Zoe said and then laughed quietly.

Then I’d have to do my best to create a miracle. I summoned all my strength, trying to find my voice. “I’ll give you the medicine if you let her go!” I called out, looking up at the camera. There was no answer. “You only have a small part of it. That inhaler alone will only buy a few hours at most. It’ll never work alone. You’ve had my blood work results by now. Look at it! You know you’re missing huge pieces of the formulas. I was taking eight different medications to stay stable. Eight! You only have the formula for one. You don’t have to save me. You only have to let her go—Agh!” I looked down in shock at the needle plunged just above my bare butt cheek.

“Zoe!” I gasped. “No!” The heat rushed at me, searing and clawing away the control I’d fought so hard for as she caught me and lowered me to the floor. I wasn’t ready yet! I couldn’t go like this. I couldn’t die before she was safe…

“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “I can’t let you trade yourself for me. I couldn’t let you do it.” I spasmed, reaching out for her face with a groan as the room went as black as that damn unblinking eye above us.

I woke up under the glaring florescent light again, parched and miserable from laying on the concrete floor without access to any water. “It’s going to be okay,” I whispered to Elliott’s still form for maybe the thousandth time. I drug myself across the gritty floor, crossing the few inches separating us with effort. I could barely feel him breathing. If I watched closely enough, there was the slightest hitch to his chest, and if I laid my hand on his face, I could feel a tiny stirring of air when he exhaled. There were no other signs of life. I’d lied to him, in the end. I’d shot him with the serum instead of his death cocktail.

No one had tried to stop me. There hadn’t been a reaction at all. I’d expected orderlies or security guys, or even that redheaded bitch to come swarming into the cell, but no one had come. There was no fight, only silence.

I’d long since decided that the black bubble above me was the only thing able to see me. The only thing that would bear witness when we both died of dehydration in this damned cell. I’d tried everything I could think of. I’d torn all of my fingernails into bloody jagged claws trying to unscrew the drain, hoping for any moisture. The only thing there were traces of our own urine. I’d even be willing to try it now, but that had long since stopped being an option. Elliott was so weak, I’d surely lose him soon.

I sighed, the most noise I was capable of making. I could go back to sleep. It was getting hard to open my eyes, the lids stuck to the whites of my eyes like gummy glue. Sleep would help. Sometime soon I’d go to sleep and never wake up.

A strange crackle sounded overhead. A weird, breaking noise. I tried to force my eyes back open, but they pulled so much it hurt. The crackle came again, followed by, “Hello? Hello?” I lifted my hand, weakly, trying to point to Elliott. “Help,” I wheezed. “Please.”

Bright lights and movement, jostling and cold. Someone moved me away from Elliott and onto a bed. I tried to reach out for him, but I didn’t have the strength. My skin felt like it had shrink wrapped itself to my bones. They peeled away my clothes, and I felt moisture on my lips before I slipped away again.

Soft beeping and the hum of a machine filled my ears; something cold pulled at the back of my hand and poked me in the nose. I tried to brush the thing away from my nose, but it seemed to be taped there.

“Zoe, no. Leave it there for right now, okay?” a female voice said. “Nurse?”

My eyesight was blurry. I tried blinking away the smeary moisture, but it only swirled. “I can’t see right,” I mumbled, feeling thick greasiness on my lips as well.

A new voice came from right next to my head, a pink and brown blob with features that could almost resemble a face. “You were severely dehydrated. Your corneas were abraded, so you’ve got drops in your eyes to help them heal. I’ll rinse them out with some saline for you while you come around.”

Warm wetness sloshed over my eyes and down my cheeks, but when it stopped and the nurse mopped me up, I could see. “Would you like to sit up?” she asked kindly. I nodded, needing to understand where I was and what was going on. Blinking, I looked around at the people with me. “Sara Beth?” I asked, confused. “What are you doing here?” I was relieved my friend was okay, but the waitress was not at all someone I expected to find by my bedside. “Where’s Elliott?” I asked, starting to feel anxiety building up inside of me.

Sara Beth and the nurse exchanged a worried glance, and she stood up to go. “I was here checking on people I knew. I’m really glad you’re feeling better. I’ll check back on you soon. If things keep going well, maybe we can get the bar open again before too long, you know?”

No, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I looked at her, my mouth slightly agape, as she stared back, looking scared and uncertain. “Where’s Elliott, Sara Beth?” I demanded, my voice like sandpaper on razor wire.

“Honey, who is Elliott? I don’t know who you’re talking about. Were you having a bad dream?” she asked soothingly.

I didn’t have time for this shit. I reached up and tore the plastic tubing out of my nose and tossed it to the side as I started digging at the clear tape that kept my IV secured in the back of my hand. Sara Beth shot to her feet and tried to stop me from ripping out the needle by flailing her hands in my general direction and saying, “No, No, No! You don’t want to do that, Zoe!”