Page 58 of Red Rooster

11

Farley, Wyoming

The first night in Farley, she dreamed of the Institute. Its white walls, and white floors, and white ceilings, and the white lab coats of the doctors. She dreamed of the heavy scent of bleach that always permeated the air, and the measured voices of the doctors and lab techs, one rising every so often in sudden excitement. Of the hard table beneath her back, the lights in her eyes, gloved hands pushing her thighs apart, and the cold air chilling her skin.

“Sir, this one’s ovulating.”

“The first one to do so?”Dr. Fowler’s steps clipped across the tile, hurried, thrilled.“Excellent.”

Men standing over her, smiling down not at her face, but at her body, at what it could offer them. Cold hands, cold implements, and ithurt.

A week later, she saw the first bright red drops of her own blood pattering onto the endless white stretch of tile. They’d taken something from her – the mask going over her face, gas filling her lungs, unnatural sleep taking hold of her – but hadn’t left anything behind. Not that time. They’d educated them all, tutored them with the finest materials – Dr. Talbot’s idea – and she’d seen the nature documentaries. Females ovulated, and they were bred, and they gave birth to offspring.

That was when she ran away.

Only, in her dream, she couldn’t run. In her dream, they put the cuffs around her wrists which sent electric shocks through her body, the pain arcing like lightning through her veins. And they dragged her up onto a table, and the lights blinded her, and the scalpel came down, and no, no, nononono–

She woke with a start.

The sheets were on fire.

Just two small places, right beneath her hands, but it would spread, she knew. “Oh no.”

Rooster stood by her bed, a damp towel in his hands. “Here, move,” he said, almost gently, and he patted out the flames, plunging the room in darkness once more.

It was the dark of the wee hours, a few wan stripes of yellow from the streetlamp falling in through the half-closed vertical blinds. The room smelled like a freshly-snuffed candle.

Red pushed her hair back off her face, found it damp with sweat at her temples. Her hands shook. “I’m sorry,” she said, and groaned. “Ugh, I ruined another hotel bed. I’msorry.”

Rooster sat down on the edge of his own bed, elbows braced on his knees, leaning toward her. “Hey, it’s not that bad. I bet we could find some sheets to buy here in town and replace them ourselves. No one will even know.”

She gave him a lopsided smile that he probably couldn’t see in the dark. She could only just make out the shagginess of his hair and the breadth of his shoulders.

Raw from the nightmare, she allowed herself a moment to feel really, truly guilty about what she’d done to Rooster. She’d followed him the night she escaped because she’d known he was a warrior – all the sad, shuffling people who came for treatment were – but also because, unlike the others, he had something angry and knife-sharp in his eyes. So many had looked hopeful; had been calm and composed, holding their partners’ hands and nodding along with the doctors, content to read magazines in the waiting room and wait their turn. But Rooster had bristled with anger, his gaze darting, assessing, looking for threats. Not frightened, but wary, like a cornered animal. And in all the nature documentaries she loved, it was the cornered animals who struck first.

But now his life was nothing but one long, strategic retreat. He could never rest, never settle. Never fall in love, or have children, or make friends. He distrusted everyone, and liked them even less.

That was her fault. And then she couldn’t even keep from scorching hotel sheets.

During the day, she wouldn’t have said it. But now, held close by the dark, shaking from another nightmare, she gave voice to a question she already knew the answer to, just to let some of the frustration out before it started to boil. “Why won’t they stop hunting me?” she asked. “They have all the others. Why can’t they just let mego?”

Rooster sighed and moved to sit beside her, his strong arm going around her shoulders and pulling her into his side. He gave her the same answer as always: “’Cause you’re just too special.”

She wiped at her eyes with unsteady knuckles. “You don’t have to keep doing this. You can let them have me.”

His arm tightened. “Maybe you should go back to sleep, ‘cause you sound delirious.”

“I’m serious–”

“So am I. They can’t have you. I won’teverlet that happen. Okay?Never.”

But what about you?she wondered.What about your life?