Part 16 (1/2)

”I'm Agatha,” I lie. I take in Betsy's face. Small, dark eyes blink in her round head. She keeps smiling widely, making her fat cheeks dimple. I'm not used to seeing anyone who isn't starving, so she's off-putting. The fact that she's so chipper about being a prisoner in the Breeders' hospital makes me think she's gone over the high side.

I narrow my eyes. ”Where are we?”

”Albuquerque General. I'm told it's the best hospital in the country, if not the world.” She spreads her hands across her face with a flourish. When I don't smile, hers droops, but she continues. ”We've got all the latest and greatest here: TV, all the best food, a pool.” She leans in, smiling to take in my excitement at the mention of a pool. I shake my head.

”Are you a prisoner here, too?”

She blinks at me.

”Are they holding you against your will? Making you have that baby?” I ask, nodding towards her stomach.

Her brow wrinkles. ”I live here.”

I narrow my eyes. ”You mean you want to live here?”

She nods happily, patting her watermelon-sized belly. ”It's the best. Of course when little dumplin' comes, I'll move into the nursery with her for a year. Then she'll go live with the nannies and I'll go back into the prenatal rooms.”

”So, you're a prisoner here? You've never left this hospital.” My heart thumps in my chest. The monitors above beep in agitation.

She shakes her head. ”Why would I want to leave? It's awful out there. War. Disease. Look at you. You came from out there and you got shot. When that boy turned you in, you were basically dead.”

That boy. Clay. Clay who sold me to the hospital. He saved my life. It probably helped to justify making me a prisoner. How much money did he make off my enslavement? I lower my eyes and clench my hands open and closed. If I could move, I'd chuck something at that beeping monitor.

Betsy leans toward me. ”They told me if I get a guard, I can give you a tour. Wanna see the place?”

She's so innocent and sweet that I try a smile. My face won't allow it. The only way I want to see this hospital is in my rearview. Then I remember that my mother was supposed to be here.

”Yeah, show me around. I'm dying to see it.”

She pulls out a small rectangular device that looks like a miniature computer. With a swipe of her finger the screen flares to life. She waggles it in front of me. The screen shows a map of the hospital. She points at a green dot on the screen. ”This is you.”

When I look up puzzled, she tries again, slowly like I'm a baby. ”They're tracking you. Here, let me show you.” She heaves herself out of the chair, waddles over and presses a finger to the back of my neck. The skin there aches.

”They implant a tracking device in here,” she says, pressing just below my hairline. ”It embeds itself into the skin and runs off the thermal and kinesthetic energy of your body.” She notes my confused look and tries again. ”They know where you are. All the time. So don't mess around. If you dig that one out, they'll just put a new one in. So don't.”

Satisfied, she waddles to the little box on the wall. She pushes a b.u.t.ton and the speaker crackles to life.

”Yes?” that nasal male voice asks. The chubby doc is listening to our conversation.

Betsy leans toward the speaker, her cheeks flus.h.i.+ng red. ”Dr. Rayburn, she agreed to take the tour. Can you send in a guard?”

In a few minutes, one of the guards walks in. He releases my restraints and replaces them with metal handcuffs. When he's done, Betsy heads for the door. It buzzes and slides open.

Betsy claps her hands. ”This is so exciting. Your first tour. Let's start at the lounge.” She waddles out of the room and down the hall. I follow, feeling as though I'm walking into someone's sick dream.

The halls are white, bare and sterile. They smell powerfully clean. A doctor in a white lab coat brushes past us without a second glance. Then a guard in his white jumpsuit. Apparently the three of us on our tour aren't as much of a spectacle as I thought. I count the steps down the hall, memorize every metal door with the little window similar to mine. When I make my escape, I'll need to know every detail.

Betsy takes a right and the floor plan opens into a large common room. Puffy couches, their tan fabric as plush and velvety as newborn kittens, line the walls. Groups of plastic tables and chairs are cl.u.s.tered here and there. The chair legs are so s.h.i.+ny and rust-free, glimmering in the electric light, that the glare hurts my eyes. A large shelving area with rows of books and brightly colored game boxes lines one wall. My mouth drops open. I've never seen more than a ratty box of checkers or a mildewed Connect Four in a closet of a house we moved into. I want to run over and investigate the colored spines, flip the pages, smell the new ink, but the guard's at my back and Betsy's droning on and on about the huge TV screen mounted to one wall. The video, a black-and-white picture show with a man and woman riding in a car, is playing with the sound off. Everything in this room is newer and cleaner than any item I've ever seen in my life. It takes my breath away. Two pregnant girls sit at a checkers board. Another is asleep on the couch in front of the flickering TV. All these forms of entertainment Ethan and I would have died for back at home, and yet the girls seem more bored than we've ever been.

Betsy shuffles over to the girls playing checkers. The girls glance up at me with sour expressions. Then they go back to staring at the black and red board.

Betsy stops before them and waves me over. ”Latisha, Sammy, this is Agatha. Agatha, meet Latisha and Sammy.”

Both girls glance up. Latisha is a dark-skinned girl with a slim body and round belly, like a basketball stuffed under her white hospital gown. Her brown eyes scan me and then dismiss me in the span of a few seconds. Sammy is pet.i.te with dirty-blond hair thrown up in a messy ponytail. She looks up at me unhappily, but I can't tell if she's displeased or if her sour expression is her typical one. She rubs a hand over the small b.u.mp on her belly. They both wear the shapeless hospital gowns, matching pants and bright yellow socks with grippy souls just like mine. Apparently patients got no need for shoes.

Latisha leans into Betsy and pokes a finger in her flabby chest. ”You took my breakfast again, tubby. Do it again and I'll break your fingers.”

The smile falls off Betsy's face. ”Tish, I didn't. I swear.” She clutches her hands in front of her chest and her lower lip trembles.

Latisha shakes her head and her black springy curls follow. ”Don't lie, lard b.u.t.t. I can see my sausage links on your hips.” Tish pinches her and Betsy winces. ”Don't mess with a pregnant lady's food, girl. I know they got you on calorie restriction.”

Betsy gives a low moan, her shoulders slumping. ”It's awful. They have me down to two meals a day.”

”And whose fault is that?” Sammy adds. Her voice is high pitched and nasal. She picks up a checker and taps it on her thin lower lip. ”You keep gaining and they'll drop you down to liquid diet. They did it to Vandra.”

I haven't eaten more than some mouthfuls of corn and dry cracked toast in days and these girls are whining over two square meals a day? I look down at my skin-and-bones frame. I'm all angles compared to their rounding bodies. For a moment I wonder if Clay would prefer a rounder woman. Then I remember he sold me to this hospital and I chase thoughts of him out of my head.

Sammy notices my confused expression. ”Don't worry, beanpole. They'll fatten you up soon enough. Can't knock you up until you put on a little weight.”

It feels like someone's punched me in the stomach. I can't be pregnant. I'm only sixteen.

Betsy-smile faded, hands worrying the front of her gown-plods away and leads me out of the lounge. My mind's still clogged with the horrors of pregnancy. Being a woman is terrible. If you aren't being used for one purpose, someone find another use for you. And what choice is there? The hard, painful fight for freedom. The fight I've lost. I look down at the silver cuffs on my hands. I'm so tired. Tired of running, tired of worrying and fighting. It would be so easy to give up, become cow-eyed like Betsy and be a walking incubator. I'd get three meals a day, I'd watch picture shows on that plush couch and then fall asleep to the sound of Betsy's snoring. Easy.

A vision of Ethan swims up before me. Is Clay taking care of him right now? Is he eating, staying out of the sun? And my mother. Is she here right now behind one of these sealed doors? No, life here would not be easy. I'd be haunted by all the people I'd let down. I go back to counting tile squares as Betsy leads me out of the lounge and down another sterile white hallway.

We stop at four gigantic gla.s.s windows that overlook a large room. In the center is a rectangular concrete pond, sparkling with clear blue water. My nose crinkles at the strong chemical smell. That must be how they keep that water so clear. In it, half a dozen slack-faced pregnant girls bob up and down in large shapeless bathing suits, while one elderly woman in a blue swim cap directs their movements. The women spin and move to the beat of music that echoes from above.

Betsy peers down, her heavy breathing fogging up the gla.s.s. ”Water aerobics. We're required forty-five minutes of exercise everyday.” Then she glances at me. ”Not you. You're still healing.” She taps a pudgy finger to the gla.s.s, pointing at an older woman who lifts blue floatation devices shaped like dumbbells over her head. The other pregnant girls follow. ”That's one of the nannies. They help run the place. Them and the doctors.” Then she leans toward me, her eyes big in the doughy flesh of her face. ”Don't mess with the nannies. They may look like sweet old ladies, but they can be real cranks.”

I scan the women bobbing like seals in the water. None are my mother.

We shuffle down the hall into a cafeteria. The brightly lit eatery has a tile floor that's been freshly scrubbed. The rectangular benches and seats line up in neat rows. In the back, a few nannies scour pots over a large steel sink. The cooked meat smell makes my mouth water.

I look around the empty cafeteria and remember the one we found in that haunted school. A pang of loss washes over me. I think of Ethan, this dark hair falling over his eyes. Then my last image of Clay floods up before I can stop it. Him holding me to his chest, telling me to hold on. That everything's going to be okay.

Betsy waves a hand in front of my face. ”Did you hear what I said?”

I blink and shake my head. I scan the faces of the women in the kitchen. None are familiar.

”I said,” she huffs, ”meals are served at eight, noon and five. Unless you're on room restriction, which you are. See why you have to behave. You don't get to use any of the facilities until Dr. Rayburn says so.”

”Whatever will I do?” I mumble.

Betsy's face darkens. Behind her chipper exterior, she might have a nasty side.

As she walks us down the cafeteria aisles, I realize I've made no headway in finding my mother. I need another plan. As we pa.s.s a door marked with a stick figure of a woman on it, I get an idea.