The scarlet harvest, p.32
The Scarlet Harvest, page 32
With one hand, Deca catches Franz by the collar, throws him into the air like a volleyball, rears his fist back, and slams it into his jaw. Franz falls to his knees. Deca picks him up, throws him across the room, and charges after him.
The charming super-soldier has transformed into something fierce, scary, unstoppable. Like the soldier who killed Everly, Deca was trained to be a killer. It frightens me to see this side of him.
I run to the stage, dodging fallen bodies and fistfights on the way. Almost to the stage. Keep going. Don’t look back. A hand shoots up and grabs my ankle, tripping me, knocking me down. My chin collides with the floor. My teeth snap together. I taste blood.
“Help,” a man from the Valley croaks. Blood bubbles from a hole in his neck. He keeps a strong grip on my ankle.
I snake forward on my stomach and kick my leg free. I did this to him. I did this to all of them. If people die today, it’s my fault. Everything is my fault.
Choking back a sob, I lift my head. The sonic attack slowed the soldiers, but it didn’t incapacitate them. Tears burn my eyes as I survey the bloodshed.
I won’t cry. I can’t cry.
I have to move. I have to stop Gregor.
I push up and crawl to the stage. At the bottom of the stairs, I put my hands over my ears to block the screams of rage, the howls of pain.
Behind me, soldiers reclaim their weapons. If I don’t do something soon, the Valley men will be slaughtered.
The stage is empty except for the floral arbor and the microphone. The microphone. I dash up the stairs and grab the microphone. “Retreat! It’s over!”
Gregor is gone. The remote is gone. Fighting is pointless.
“Retreat!” I scream into the microphone.
A super-soldier wheels around and points his weapon at me. I raise my hands and back away. Please don’t shoot. Sweat rolls down my face. Panic lights up my spine.
Just when I think the soldier is going to shoot me, a Valley man tackles him, landing blow after blow to his skull.
I rush toward the wall where Gregor disappeared. My eyes sweep the room for any sign of Fritz. I don’t see him. The smell of vomit and flowers and blood makes my stomach lurch. I press my hands against my stomach.
“Wren,” Deca’s voice strains over the wind, rain, bullets, shouting. He stands over Franz’s unconscious body.
I give him my best thank-you look and move toward the elevator. Deca climbs the stage. Blood trickles from one of his ears. His complexion is gray, sickly, slick with sweat.
I maintain eye contact with Deca as I back into the wall, blindly feeling for the elevator. My fingers catch on buttons. A chime rings and the doors slide open. I step into the elevator. Deca just wants to protect me, but what if he’s loyal to Gregor?
“I’m okay.” I reassure him.
We lock eyes until the doors close. The elevator drops and so does my stomach. I squeeze into the back corner, close my eyes, and massage my head where Franz ripped out clumps of hair. Sweeping my fingers across the necklace Fritz gave me, I picture the last time I saw him safely tucked into the bathroom hallway.
Warm liquid drips down my shin. I open my eyes and dislodge a glass shard protruding from my leg. I toss the glass to the floor and swipe at the blood. With all the adrenaline pumping through my body, I don’t even feel it.
The elevator opens and a blast of lemony-mint air hits me. The mint tingles my nose and throat where the stench of vomit still clings. Tension burrows into my neck and shoulders. The classical music doesn’t soothe me. Instead, the screeching violin claws at my nerves like fingernails against metal.
Gregor couldn’t have gotten far. The truss bridge overhead is empty. The observation room is dark. I peer down aisle after aisle of twelve-foot tall gynopods. It’s like an orchard of human beings: hundreds of men, women, children, babies, and fetuses.
Cradling the gun in both hands, I tiptoe into the nearest aisle of gynopods. Long hair swirls and curls around the faces of children floating in the fetal position. Their catatonic eyes stare blankly ahead. I swear they are looking at me, through me. I shudder. So creepy.
Moving into the center of the room, I feel exposed: too easily seen from the observation room. Heart pounding, palms sweating, I hear a swish-click beyond the last row of gynopods: a door closing.
Forty-five
I zigzag down the aisles of gynopods, speeding toward the sound of the closing door. Drumming under the classical music is an irregular beat—bullets or thunder or rain.
Or maybe it’s just my heart ticking like a bomb.
Beyond the last row of gynopods is a door: no sign, no microchip scanner. I wipe the sweat from my palms and dry the gun between the folds of my dress. I tug at the scratchy lace around my neck and wrists to release body heat.
Touching the cool metal of the door sends a jolt of anxiety through me. I don’t want to open it. I feel like the biggest chicken. My heart is beating so fast, I imagine it detonating and feathers flying everywhere.
I take a deep breath, crack open the door, and slip through. I’m in an underground parking garage containing rows of dark green military vehicles, modern sedans, and Helixes. A musty miasmic odor permeates the place. It’s dark, but not too dark.
Fluorescent tubes spotlight water damage: rusty pipes mounted to fractured walls, clumps of green and black speckled mold clinging to corners, streaks of mildew fanning across the concrete floor. It’s as quiet as the backseat of a hearse.
A flash of white moves between vehicles. A shoe scuffs concrete. My heartbeat accelerates. I lie down next to the closest vehicle and look under it.
I see white uniform pants with gold threading. I have to get closer. I inch around the back of the cars, gripping the gun tightly. I’m covered in a sheen of sweat. I feel the dampness on my back, my stomach, my calves.
I squat and peek over the hood of a utility vehicle. Gregor looks deep in thought as he chews the end of an unlit cigar. I see a little of Fritz in the angle of his jaw and the shape of his eyes.
Relief and fear well up inside me: relief because he thinks he’s alone; fear because soon he will know he’s not. He withdraws the remote control from his front pocket.
I jump into the aisle, pointing the gun at him. “Put the remote on the ground.” My voice is strong, calm, steady. For a split second, I’m proud of myself.
Gregor snaps his head in my direction. An expression of shock flickers across his face. He looks me up and down and then lets loose a roar of laughter that bounces off the concrete and metal surfaces.
“I said drop it.” I use my best I-mean-business tone. I’m feeling somewhat confident: I have a gun; he doesn’t.
Gregor places the remote on the car behind him, withdraws a match from his pocket, and lights the cigar. He puffs and then jabs at the air with his cigar. “What is this? You’re going to be a hero? Save the world from the villainous Gregor Hahn?” His tone is smooth, unrattled by my presence or the loaded gun aimed at his chest.
I hold the gun against my stomach to still my shaking arms. “Why can’t you do things your way without hurting people? You can have it all without releasing the virus.”
Gregor holds the cigar smoke in his mouth for a beat too long, as if we’re in a cigar lounge and people aren’t dying above us. “If past societies had the technology to cleanse their gene pools, there would have been no Hitlers, no Stalins.”
I frown as I try to follow his thought process. “We’ll never know what might have been.”
He leans against the car and crosses his ankles, completely at ease. “Those with enhanced DNA will never sink to the levels of depravity seen throughout history. I can’t say the same for people in the Valley and Hillcrest.”
The faces of Everly and Bacon and Berkeley and Harlowe flash through my mind. All genetically-modified, all violent.
“Why did you hurt Dr. Hahn?” I ask. The lace collar on the dress is making my neck itch, but I don’t dare move to scratch it.
He clicks his tongue and inhales. “You have a soft spot for the old man, but you wouldn’t know what it’s like to grow up without a mother and with a father obsessed with bringing her back. He coddled clusters of cells and neglected his only son.”
He’s trying to make me feel sorry for him, to manipulate me the way he manipulated Dad. This smooth-talking man is the reason my dad is dead and my family is in danger.
Gregor stubs his cigar on the hood of a car, picks up the remote control, and starts entering a code. “Someday, every child in Ovation will have a father and a mother. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m growing bored with this conversation and I have work to do.”
I extend my arms and aim the gun at his chest. “Put the remote down or I’ll shoot.”
“This remote?” Gregor casually flips the remote into the air and catches it. He backs between two cars, smiling from ear to ear, and moves out of my view.
“If you want it, come and get it.” His voice comes from behind a row of cars.
I swing the gun in the direction of his voice. A wave of panic crests over me. I’ve lost control. I should have shot him when I had the chance. He starts whistling a tune and wandering around the garage like a psycho.
I spin around, tracking the sound. He was across from me. Now, he’s behind me. I move across the aisle. The blink of a shadow on my left. A smear of movement on my right. He’s circling me, hunting me, taunting me.
The whistling stops.
Every cell in my body is on high alert: listening, watching, waiting. My entire body is quaking. I step back and hide between sedans.
Hot breath on the back of my neck.
A whistle in my ear.
Terror, sheer terror guts me.
I spin around, gun raised, heart racing. Gregor hooks me under the ribs and body slams me against the hood of a car. My back spasms, my head cracks against metal. The gun skitters into the aisle.
The gravity is sucked out of the room and for a moment, I’m hovering, looking down at Gregor pinning me against the car, binding my wrists together over my head, the gun six feet to my left.
The gun.
“Silly girl. Did you really think the remote was the only way I could activate the drones?” His face is inches from my own. His breath is cigar-sweet.
“Let me go,” I gasp. “You’re hurting me.” I twist and kick and buck, but his body is like a concrete slab pressing down on me, crushing me.
He shakes with laughter, but his eyes aren’t laughing. His eyes are dark empty pits devoid of humanity, devoid of empathy. He analyzes my face with the detached eyes of a scientist analyzing a specimen or a serial killer studying his next victim.
I push and shove, but he doesn’t budge. “Please,” I whimper and I’m instantly embarrassed by my cowardice.
Gregor strokes my cheek. “The damsel in distress routine is so passé, wouldn’t you agree?”
His touch sends a shiver down my spine, draining my courage, filling me with fear. I flinch away from his hand and go limp. Maybe he’ll think I’ve given up, maybe he’ll let his guard down if I stop fighting. I feel his warm breath against my lips and I want to sink into the hood of the car.
In my periphery, the gun is a black smudge screaming for my attention, consuming my thoughts. I don’t dare twitch an eyeball toward the gun. I can’t let him know what I’m thinking.
His fist tightens around my wrists. He continues stroking my face. “It would be too easy to kill you. Instead, I will break you and make you a good little lap dog like your dad, Joe.”
And just like that.
Something dark and wild and primal explodes inside me. I jerk my head to the side and sink my teeth into the flesh of his wrist, deeper, harder, gnawing, hacksawing his arteries like a rabid animal, tasting blood on my tongue, feeling warm blood gush down my chin.
“Bitch!” Gregor yelps and releases my hands.
I spit out his wrist, roll off the car, fall to my knees, and scrabble for the gun. My fingers reach for it, so close, almost touching. Every part of me is on fire with one desire: survival.
I wrap my fingers over the butt of the gun. Sweet relief rolls through me. The heel of Gregor’s shoe slams down on my hand like a hammer, crushing my fingers.
I scream and try to pull my hand away, but he pivots his heel, grinding it against my fingers, burning my skin, trapping my hand.
Finally, he steps back, picks up the gun and points it at my head. Blood drips from his wrist staining his pants in streaks of red. I did that. I made him bleed. I feel a swell of satisfaction.
I sit back on my haunches and hold my throbbing hand against my abdomen. I won’t beg. I won’t be a coward. I'll look him in the eye as he circles me, daring him to shoot me.
“It didn’t have to be this way.” His voice is quiet and I detect the slightest hint of regret.
Cold metal slides against my sweaty temple. It was all for nothing. A hysterical wail starts rising in my chest, but I cage it and padlock it and hold it down. I won’t let him see me cry.
Gregor cocks the hammer. My heart slams my chest.
I close my eyes and cycle through the faces of the people I love: Fritz kissing me on the rooftop; Abe and Addie and Mom and Dad on a hike—picking blueberries, the twins pelting each other, inky-blue stained clothing.
Click.
My mind goes blank.
The images go black.
I open my eyes.
The gun jammed.
The will to live rushes through me and I feel manic, desperate. I jam my hand into my pocket, pop open the forgotten switchblade, and slam the razor-sharp edge into Gregor’s foot.
“Son of a bitch!” He stumbles back.
I crawl forward, grab the grill of a truck, and pull myself to my feet. Then, I do what I do best: I run. Twenty feet to the exit. I’ll run through the basement, climb to the control room, and escape to the underground tunnels. I’ll run back to the cathedral and—
Something twists my hair, snags me, lifts me off my feet. My head is slammed into a windshield. A snapping crack: my neck or the glass? I think of coffee cherries bouncing off glass. My legs crumble. My vision glitches. Cars melt into glossy puddles. A flurry of dark and bright spots—red, black, white—barb my vision.
Something warm and wet on my head. Gregor’s face. Gregor’s hands—the smell of blood and cigars. I’m lifted, thrown over a shoulder. My hair drags on the floor. Moving away from the exit, deeper into the garage.
Bobbing and swaying. Blood dripping onto the concrete. My blood or his blood? Blackness attacks my eyes. Numbness attacks my limbs.
A door slams. Pitch-black hallway. The smell of urine and bleach. Blood rushing to my head. Blinking eyeshine everywhere. Prickly fur against my arm. I scream. It screams. They all scream. Terror stabs me in the chest, taking my breath away.
Where are you taking me? The words roll around my mouth, roll around my mind. I try to speak, but my tongue is thick; my thoughts are slurred.
Focus. Remember how to get out. Metal scrapes concrete. I turn. A hairy leg chained to the wall. Hairy human things. Hunch-backed things. A woman: four eyes sunken into a twisted face. An ape with a man face.
Teeth. Sharp, gleaming teeth.
Feet padding up and down walls. Little girl giggles. I’m hallucinating. They said there was no Hell, but I think this is Hell. Flames of darkness engulf me. I’m falling, spiraling into the dark bottomless pit of those two brown eyes.
“Welcome to the Menagerie, Wren. You’re going to wish you had never crossed me.”
The last thing I hear before the world melts away: laughter.
Forty-six
The sweltering sun beats down on my face. My mouth is desert dry. Thirsty. Headache. I open my eyes. A dazzling double sun looms over me. I blink once, twice, three times; two suns merge into one.
Where am I?
Disjointed memories flare up and then dissolve: the last time I saw Fritz; Deca’s kiss; Deca’s fist; my dad’s eyes; screeching violins and floating faces; the parking garage, the gun, the knife, the windshield, the creatures.
Gregor.
Terror shatters my disorientation. Where is Gregor?
I try to sit up, but I can’t move. A guttural sound claws up my throat. I try to cry out, but my mouth won’t open.
I raise my head. Tools tacked to one wall—scissors, pliers, saws, scalpels. Medical tray next to me. Makeshift operating room.
I look down. Straitjacket. Legs strapped to an operating table. Crushing weight on my chest. Pins and needles in my hands. Can’t open my mouth, can’t suck in a deep breath.
Cool air blows across my legs. Then, it’s gone.
My heart pounds. My head pounds. My blood pounds. Everything pulsing, pounding, thrumming.
“Well, well, well.” Gregor materializes at my side. “Sleeping Beauty has awoken.”
Let me go comes out as a gurgle: “Mm-gg...” My mouth is tender, my lips hurt.
Gregor presses his finger against his lips. “Shh. Save your energy. You’ll need it later.” He pulls down the surgical light and angles it close to my face. His wrist is bandaged where I bit him. “The stitches look good,” he says as the light glides away from me.
Stitches? I slide my tongue between my teeth. Threads crisscross the back of my lips in an X-shape. While I was knocked out, he mutilated me.
My heart slams. A bottleneck of screams builds in my chest.
Gregor selects a pair of pliers from the wall and smacks them against his open palm.
Smack.
Smack.
Smack.
“You didn’t think you could sink your teeth into me and get away with it, now did you?” He sets the pliers at my feet and runs his fingers up my inner calf.
