Part 19 (1/2)
”Needle, nurse. The sooner we sedate her, the sooner we can induce the coma.” The doctor held out his latex-gloved hand, and a hefty syringe was placed into it. ”I'm going to inject this directly into your spinal tissue, and then you'll go to sleep. It will only hurt for a minutea”a little pressure in your spinea”and then everything will go numb,” he said to me.
I looked at the needle, twice as long as my index finger, and screamed. The doctor stepped up to me and put his icy, latex-gloved hand on my naked back, pressing it against my spine. Something p.r.i.c.ked my skin, like the sting of a bee, and then pressure built around my spine, hot and white, as if the needle were forcing its way between my vertebrae, wedging them apart. I screamed again and lurched, fighting against my restraints, making the needle dig against bone.
”No!” I shrieked. As if he could finally hear me, Jonah's eyes fluttered open and locked on mine, his ma.s.sive pupils instantly shrinking. ”Help me, please,” I whimpered to him. My legs were going numb, a warm tingling sensation spreading from my thighs to my knees to my feet. I couldn't feel the table beneath them, couldn't feel the metal's coldness seeping into my skin.
”Jonah,” I cried. ”Get me out of here.”
His eyes, so wild, so foreign, seemed to clear for a moment as they focused on mine, as if there was a piece of him left inside. And then he grunted, long and low. A vein in his forehead popped to the surface. His face became red, his neck all sinew, and every single muscle in his body flexed. He trembled with effort, making the metal bed vibrate beneath him.
”Nurse, sedate him again,” the doctor said. ”Quickly!”
A hefty woman with graying hair and a syringe in her hand walked into my line of sight, intent on my brother. A pop echoed in the room, and the nurse stopped dead. The leather band around Jonah's shoulders fell to the floor, and the nurse took a step back. ”Doctor, we have a problem,” she said, backing away from Jonah until she crashed into my bed.
”Sedate him!” the doctor bellowed. ”Now! I'm almost done with the girl!”
The leather holding Jonah's wrists popped, and then the straps tethering the small of his back and his ankles exploded simultaneously, until only the strap on his head remained whole. He tore it off, leaped from the table, and lunged for the doctor. They fell to the floor and Jonah lashed out at the doctor's face with his fingernails, smacking the doctor's head against the cold, hard floor.
I stared at Jonah's hands, gentle hands that built dinosaur models and did science experiments for fun; long, slender hands that played duets on the piano with me. Now, they were covered with blood.
The nurse screamed and huddled in a corner of the room.
Jonah leaped to his feet and tried to tear me off the metal table, his nails raking my back, my neck. I gasped at the pain, but then the tingly numb spread from my legs to my waist and oozed like warm honey along my spine, into my shoulders.
Red and blue lights started flas.h.i.+ng overhead, and an alarm blared.
”Jonah. Run,” I slurred. Even my mouth was turning numb, my tongue swelling with deadened warmth. My mouth sagged open, and drool trickled down my cheek. I forced my eyes to stay wide and watched Jonah ram the hospital door open with his shoulder.
And then he ran.
”You tried to save me,” I whisper, staring into his feral eyes. At my words his eyes narrow and he grips the bars keeping us apart. The bars keeping me alive. His knuckles turn white, and the metal groans beneath his grasp, s.h.i.+fting a millimeter.
Oh c.r.a.p.
I look away, straight forward again, and don't touch my dinner. I'm starving, yet the thought of food makes bile rise in my throat. In an effort to calm myself, I start to hum under my breath, random notes that have no tune.
Across the room, Arrin stirs. She lifts her head, and her sharp nose wrinkles. And then, cracking her eyes open, she shoves her face into the pile of onions and meat. When her food is mostly gone, she notices me watching. She sits and grins a grimy, grease-covered grin, and drags her finger across her neck.
”I'm going to kill you,” she mouths.
Oh yeah? Wait in line, I think, listening to the sounds of the beasts breathing into my cage on either side of me. I press my back harder against the wall of my cage, cradle my throbbing hand, and for the first time ever, can't think of a song to distract me from reality.
Chapter 32.
Somehow I sleep. I know because I lurch awake when my arms meld together and I topple sideways into a puddle of cold drool. Fingernails plunge into my cheek, and I'm yanked into the bars on the side of my cage.
The fingernails move, digging into my neck, cinching around my windpipe. My mouth opens, but no air enters my lungs. I stare across my cage at Jonah, my mouth gaping, struggling for air. He shrieks and throws his body into the bars separating us, straining to reach me.
I lurch against the claw-hold, but can't break free. Fire fills my air-starved lungs, and I wonder if this is how I'm going to die, before I ever see the pits.
”Taser! Cage eleven! Now! It's going to kill the Ten!” someone screams.
Electricity travels from the fingers gouging my flesh, into my blood, and heats the cuffs on my forearms. The fingers lose their power and fall away. The heat fizzles out of my body, but I'm too limp to move. I gasp and fill my burning lungs with air.
Somewhere, someone is screaming, ”He's bending the bars! Taser thirteen!” Other voices call out orders and mingle with the scream. Cool hands find my neck and probe for a pulse.
”I'm not dead,” I say, panting. My voice box hardly works.
Hands clasp my ankles and drag me out of the cage, through the pile of cold uneaten food. Outside the cage, I'm lifted into a chair. Metal cinches down on my wrists, ankles, and neck, pinning me immobile into the chair. My pinky throbs. My neck aches. My hair is plastered to the side of my face with saliva and cold onion slop.
I am wheeled past two clean-cut men talking to Arrin. One has a knife in his handa”a sparkling, new-looking blade. The man holding the knife looks at me as I pa.s.s and then hands the knife through the bars of the cage to Arrin. I crane my neck to see more, but someone smacks me on the back of the head.
”Face forward,” the person pus.h.i.+ng the chair orders. So I do.
We pa.s.s rows and rows of cages. Those that are occupied hold muscular beasts or filthy, boney Fecs. No one else like mea”no one normal. We come to a door at the end of the cage hallway. A young man, probably about my age, types something into a keypad and the door opens. I am wheeled into a tan-and-green-tiled room occupied by four muscle-heavy guards.
I sit a little taller. Something about this place is familiar, with its rows of lockers and shower stalls, automatic hand dryers and sinks, and toilets in separate stalls. The air smells like a womena”hairspray, lotion, perfume, powdera”and bleach. Seeing the toilets reminds me how badly I need to go to the bathroom.
”Can I use the toilet?” My throat hurts too much to talk louder than a whisper.
There's a collective inhale of breath. ”She talks,” someone whispers.
”Are they sure she'll fight back?” another voice asks.
”Of course she will. Two Tens in one match? That's never happened before. If she doesn't fight she'll be killed,” the young man, the one pus.h.i.+ng my wheelchair, says.
My chair stops, and the metal bars release my neck and ankles. The young man walks to the front of my chair, followed by the four guards. From a hook on the wall, the young man takes a scrub brush affixed to the end of a ten-foot pole and examines me with nervous eyes.
”Do you want me to cuff her ankles, Lance?” one of the guards asks.
”I don't think she needs them,” the young mana”Lancea”answers.
The guard ignores him and steps up to me, ankle cuffs in hand. ”Better safe than dead,” he says, kneeling in front of me. ”Don't kick me or I'll zap you,” he warns. He lifts my pants and slides the cuffs into place. They clink together and I'm immobile.
”Stand her up and hook her,” Lance orders.
The metal slides off my neck and wrists, and retracts into the wheelchair. I am hoisted from the chair by two of the guards, their hands clamped on my elbows. They carry me, my feet dragging on the floor, to a shower stall, and hook my wrist cuffs onto a meat hook attached to a chain hanging down from the ceiling. The ankle cuffs are attached to another meat hook that's chained on the floor. I'm stretched tight between them, immobile. All I can do is turn my head from side to side and blink. My pinky finger pounds with building pressure, and my shoulders feel on the verge of dislocating.
Water turns on and falls onto me from above. Lance grips the ten-foot-long scrub brush, squirts something onto it, and swings it toward my head. He starts with my face, dragging the stiff bristles against my skin. Soap gets into my eyes, burning them, so I squeeze them shut. After a minute, Lance moves the scrubber to my hair and scrubs so hard I might go bald. When he's satisfied with the cleanliness of my hair, he moves the brush over every inch of my bodya”both clothing and skina”rubbing me raw with his fervor.
”What are you doing?” I splutter, and swallow a mouthful of soap.
The scrub brush pauses and Lance looks at me. ”Getting you ready to fight. We've discovered that people feel more sympathy for the fighters if they're clean. And if they feel more sympathy, they make higher bets.”