“I can’t run,” Sparrow says sadly. “We’d better hope those chains hold.”
Initiate Termination.
“Stop it!” I scream, wish I could put my hands to my head and squeeze it hard, but I can’t. I think of Meadow, because she’s the one who helps me fight the system. She’s the one who saves me.
But then Talan’s face pops up. She’s crying.
You chose her over me, she says.
The guilt comes.
I lose my strength.
The Murder Complex sucks me under.
CHAPTER 18
MEADOW
Doctor Wane escorts me back to my cell.
We walk side by side, as if we are old friends, but the entire time, all I can think of is my father, telling me to run. You can fight anything off, Meadow. You can find a way out of any situation. You just have to be resourceful.
I must ignore his voice now.
Escape is impossible.
I swallow hard, imagine my father fading. The sunspots on his face, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. I’m sorry, I think to him. I’ve failed you. He slips from the surface. Sinks deeper and deeper away, locked in the back of my mind. A prisoner, like me.
“You’ll notice you feel stronger,” Doctor Wane tells me. She pats me on the back. “We replenished your system with nutrients, gave you muscle enhancers. You’re brand new!”
I look down at my arms. The muscles look ropier. Stronger than before.
Funny, how opposite it is from how I feel on the inside.
“Get a good night’s sleep,” Doctor Wane says, when we reach my cell. “First light, you’ll begin the search for your mother.”
“I’m thrilled,” I say under my breath.
“You should be, dear!” She grabs my shoulders, whirls me to face her. “After this, you’ll be the Initiative’s darling!”
She unlocks my cell and ushers me in.
It is still freezing. Sketch is back, curled into a ball in the corner, trembling the same way Peri was. “I want you to make it warmer in here,” I say, curling my fingers around the bars. “I may not be able to fight you, but I can make this new relationship a pain in your ass. And you’ll need me at my best, should anyone attack me outside. It’s dangerous out there.” I stare hard, refuse to blink.
Doctor Wane smiles. “Of course, dear. Of course.” She taps the little box on the wall outside the cell, and I hear the air vents overhead shut off. Silence, finally.
“I want food,” I say. “Before I leave. For Sketch.”
“You’re pushing it, Miss Woodson,” Doctor Wane says. Then she nods. “I’ll have some delivered. You see? I scratch your back, and now you will scratch mine. Tomorrow, you have a job to do. Do it well, and you’ll be given more than this.”
It is a small gift, the only thing I can offer Sketch. Doctor Wane leaves, and we are left alone. The second the door shuts I rush to Sketch’s side and turn her over. I gasp when I see her face.
Swollen features, eyes so hidden beneath bruises and fattened skin that I can hardly tell if she is awake or not. Her arms are nearly shredded, skin hanging off of them, revealing bits of muscle. She lies in her own blood.
“Sketch,” I gasp.
They have forced me into wearing the Regulator. Why would the Initiative still need to torture her, when they can control me?
I put my hands over her heart, touch her neck to feel for a pulse, but there isn’t one.
“Please don’t do this,” I whisper. “Not now. Don’t leave me. Come on, you’re fine. Not you, too.” I hold my fingers beneath her nose, see if she’s breathing, but there’s no air. I pound her chest with my fists, so hard it hurts me. “Come on!”
Seeing her like this . . .
I am not mad. I am not angry.
I am made of fire.
I hit her harder, a final punch to her chest. “You can’t just leave like this!”
She gasps. Her eyes widen as far as they can, and she sits up, flailing her arms in front of her.
“Thank God!” I scream, and I crush her to me, wrap her in my arms. “You were dead!”
“I was sleeping, you ChumHead,” Sketch says, but I can hear the tension in her voice. The fear of doubt.
“What happened to you?” I ask. “What did they do?”
I help her sit with her back up against the bars. I take her hands in mine and rub them, warming her as best I can.
“More Resistance questions,” she says. She leans close, her lips touching my ear. “They know about Orion. I couldn’t. I tried . . .”
I shake my head and whisper softly, “You didn’t tell them where the Resistance is, did you?”
“No,” she says. “No, I held on to that.”
And that’s when she sees that I look different now. My hair, short in front, buzzed away at the back. The black Regulator protruding from my skin.
“Damn,” Sketch breathes. “What . . . is that thing?”
“The Initiative’s backup plan,” I groan. “They have one connected to my sister. It hurts her when I don’t obey.”
She lets out a low whistle, then winces in pain. “Patients don’t have choices. Only dirty Leech chores. They got into your head. We’re pretty much the same now, Woodson.”
I don’t answer.
“Thanks for saving my ass,” Sketch says. “But next time . . . let me die. Let me go in my own way. It’s all I have left.”