Part 18 (1/2)

I look into her pinched, sweaty face. ”I'm here. It's going to be okay.” G.o.d, what a lie.

Betsy looks as if she's about to nod, but then her face scrunches up as pain rolls through her. I scan the room for these drugs they're talking about. I'll give them to her myself.

There's no time. Between Betsy's moaning and writhing, all I can do is pat her hand and wipe sweat off her brow. The doctor gears up, and they remove the lower half of the bed. I'm thankful Betsy keeps pulling me closer to her head. I do not want to see what's happening down at the other end.

The doc says push, and Betsy screams. Though I'll be deaf as well as fingerless by the end, I just keep murmuring sweetness like Auntie would. There's a grunt and a scream, and suddenly there's a new noise in the delivery room. A mewing cry. The doctor holds up a gooey, purple baby.

”Oh G.o.d,” Betsy cries. Fat tears trace her puffy cheeks. ”I did it,” she whispers. ”I really did it.”

I watch the baby wriggle and cry in the nurse's gloved hands. It's amazing, really, how we're brought into this world. Red and squalling, but so, so beautiful. I feel the corners of my eyes dampen as I watch a fresh life take her first breaths. A real-life miracle.

”You did it,” I whisper. ”You were amazing. I couldn't have done that.”

Betsy smiles up at me. ”When it's your time, you will.” Then she turns her smile toward her baby.

The room chills suddenly. I can't do what Betsy just did. The pain, the torture. Not to mention the nine months of agony beforehand. And Betsy's already done this three times. I step back, shaking my head. I'm not thinking about Betsy or the baby. I'm thinking about escape. I glance around the room and realize no one's paying any attention to me. The doctor tends to Betsy. Two nurses clean off the mewing baby in a heat tray. Two steps and I slip unnoticed into the quiet hallway.

Then I take off running.

Time has slipped away while Betsy was pus.h.i.+ng. The hallways are dark and empty. As I creep down the hall, I hear the murmur of someone's TV set, the steady hum of the air ventilators. Other than that, it seems everyone's asleep. If I can find the stairs, maybe I'll have a chance at getting out. I pull up to a corner and peek around.

There's a guard at a desk twenty feet away. His half-lidded eyes watch the flickering surveillance screens in front of him. I watch, barely breathing, as his heavy lids slide down. I can't believe this is the best security the government can offer. They must think that their patients are as easy to tend as mindless sheep. Well, tonight I'm more wolf than sheep. I slink past his desk and into the stairwell. I fly down the stairs at an amazing clip. The only sounds are my footsteps and the beating of my heart.

At level G and the bottom of the stairs, I pause, panting. A solid metal door separates me from whatever lurks beyond. Nannies, Doctors, Guards-all three could wait on the other side. Or it could be the fresh air under the twinkling midnight sky. There's only one way to find out. My hands slowly push open the door.

It's another dimly lit hallway. My heart sinks. There has to be a way out of here. My panic building, I head left and run past a number of closed doors with key-card swipe locks. The distant hum from behind a set of double doors gets my attention. It has a key swipe box, but someone's propped the door open a crack with a wooden wedge. Maybe it's an electrical room that has a pa.s.sageway to the outside. I take a deep breath and open the door.

I stumble in the dark room and let the door click behind me. It's pitch black, but there's an odor I don't like. My eyes find a shape here or there, but little else. I clutch the door handle and will my pupils to adjust. Soon soft silhouettes appear. The quiet echoes inside let me know it's much larger than a patient's room. At first I think cafeteria, but then I see blinking monitors every six feet or so. Some sort of computer facility?

Something s.h.i.+fts in a dark corner. I freeze, barely breathing. Is someone there? After several seconds, I hear nothing but the beat, beat, beat of my heart. There's no time. Across the echoing expanse, a fan hums and a puff of air dances on my face. On the far wall, I can just make out a large rectangular metal plate. It's the first dirty surface I've seen, stained with dried smears of what looks like garbage. A garbage chute? Does it lead out to a dumpster or down to an incinerator? I shuffle toward it.

I b.u.mp into something at thigh height. A table? I reach down until I feel the spongy material at my fingertips. Blankets. A mattress. It's a hospital bed like my own upstairs. My fingers trace up the sheet until I touch something firm beneath. My hand slides around the shape under the blanket. I stagger back. A foot. It's a human foot.

The room seems to slide sideways. There's a pounding in my ears. Is this the morgue? But why the monitors at every bed? I can't breathe. I spin to leave and b.u.mp into another bed.

Trembling, I peer down, my hand over my mouth to cover the gasp.

It's a girl, though I can hardly call her that. Her lank hair has fallen out in clumps and lies in piles beside her head. Her pasty sore-pocked skin is nearly see-through on her skeletal face. Cords and wires jut out of her arms, chest and head like she's some kind of machine. Long, thin fingernails curl from her lifeless hands. An odor like rotten meat wafts from the bed, gagging me.

She's the living dead. And she's eight months pregnant.

Icy waves of fear wash over me, weakening my knees. I scan the dark beds. There must be dozens of girls in similar states. They're human incubators. A fate worse than death. On a bed next to me a legless creature lies nine months pregnant, her face covered by paper-thin skin. The stumps of her legs still oozing. Oozing.

I gag and stumble back. Have to get out.

”Dear G.o.d,” I whisper with trembling lips, ”What is this?”

”Plan B,” the husky male voice behind me says.

I whirl around, but it's too late. He slams me to the ground. My knees bang into the tile, then my wrists, and finally the ground hits my cheek like a punch. I shove up and scamper forward, but he's got my ankle. He pulls. My fingers find a bed sheet. I claw up the bed. The sheet slips back and the unconscious woman's head lolls towards me. It's then I see the burns.

My mother's burned face lies before me. She's unconscious, a tube taped over her mouth like a transparent snake burrowing into her throat. Tubes coil out of blue veins in her arms. One hand lies cupped on the bed as if she were reaching out to me. But she's not. She's unconscious. One of their plan B experiments.

”No!” I scream. The guard yanks on my arms, pulls me across the tile floor. I lock my eyes on my mother until it's too dark to see, until she's a ghostly blur in my tear-filled eyes. ”Mama!”

G.o.d, no. Please no. Not her. Not like this.

I used to think the Breeders were monsters. Now I know they are.

The guard drags me back upstairs to my room. I'm glad he grips my arms because my legs are jelly. When he pushes me on my bed and straps me down, I barely have the strength to fight back. All I can see in the darkness is my mother's lifeless face. The tube in her throat. Her hand clutching, finding nothing in the dark.

Dr. Rayburn stands at the side of my bed. He waves the guard away.

”You're a monster,” I manage to croak.

”You ... uh, you are not authorized to roam the hallways.” His eyes flick to my face and then away again. ”Full restriction is back in place.”

”What did you do to her?” I blink back tears. I won't cry. Not in front of him.

The doctor's voice is thick and full of phlegm when he speaks. ”It's, uh, it's not your concern.” His eyes flick to the camera. Then he leans in and lowers his voice. ”This is what I've been warning you about.”

”How could you?”

”Those girls could not comply. The hospital feels,” he pauses and looks up at the camera again. ”We feel it's for the, um, greater good. No fertile female can be wasted.”

”That's my mother, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” I say through my teeth. ”She has children! You turned her into a living corpse!” I bang my fists on the railings. ”How can you sleep at night?!”

”Uh, yes, well, listen,” he says, running a hand over his greasy mop of hair. He steps closer to my bed than he's ever dared and lowers his voice to a whisper. ”You've got to comply. If not, you'll end up down there. There won't be much I can do to help-”

The intercom on the wall squawks to life. ”Dr. Rayburn, please report to your supervisor immediately.” The voice is cold, calculating and surprisingly female.

Rayburn stiffens. His eyes grow as wide as a child's caught in some unspeakable act. He's been kind, and now he's in trouble. I swivel my head away as he turns to leave, feeling the tears starting to well. Even the smallest kindnesses are banished here. I can't stand it. I look out the dark window. Dawn's graying the sky. I wonder if it will be one of my last sunrises. What does it matter? My mother can't see sunrises anymore.

”Forty-eight hours,” the doctor mumbles as he stands at my door. ”You have that long to prove to them that you'll, uh, you'll go along with the program. After that, well,” he looks at me with sympathy, ”you know.”

When the door clicks closed, I let the sobs break free. Crying is one of the only things I'm still free to do.

I'm in my room, staring at the clock. The TV is on. Some show with two men fighting. I can't focus. I watch the second hand tour the clock face and think of my mama. What did it feel like when they put her under? Could she hear me when I screamed her name? If I could get to her, could I somehow wake her up?

I roll over and stare out my bedroom window. Even if I could get it open, there are the heavy metal bars. Even if I could pry the bars off, we're seven stories up. I roll over and look at the door. It's monitored day and night. It doesn't open without a guard pressing a b.u.t.ton from the control room. Yet there has to be a way to get my mama out. I refuse to give up and let her live out her last awful moments in that room.

The only possible option is what Tish suggested earlier. Rusty. Rusty with his filthy smile and ugly mustache. Thinking about him makes my stomach churn. I can't imagine letting him touch me. But if he could free my mama, wouldn't it be worth it?

Would he get her out and me out, too? Images of Betsy writhing in pain flash through my head. I don't want to bring a baby into this world, be a part of this twisted system that manufactures girls like canned soup. Then my daughters would be faced with the same horrific decision I'm forced to make. I shutter at the thought of having a baby, just to lose her to plan B.

I've wound my bed sheets into knots. I lean my head back on my pillow and look up at the clock. Forty-four hours, fifty-five minutes. Soon, by not acting, my decision will be made for me.