In White Robes

Chapter 13 - Rotten Blood

We were free.

Not being led here and there under the authority of the Concealed, not being pushed around the headmaster's puppet, Koko--but finding our own way through the facility. We felt our way along the walls, careful not to make too much noise that might alert any wandering Concealed. Strangely though, we had not seen any of them. The facility was eerily quiet, letting us explore it without bringing us down in a flash of bullets and red lights.

Tabby and I stopped by a door with the message R-24 scribbled on the metal. It seemed as though everything had a number around here. Us included. The doors were all marked neatly with signs and numbers and warnings.

"Do you think they're keeping someone in here?" Tabby whispered, practically kissing my ear from where he was standing. Too close. But I didn't mind it.

"I think so," I replied, setting my hand timidly on the bolts next to the door. Unlocking it and freeing whoever was inside was right in my grasp, the choice to rebel spinning wildly in my head. Then I stopped, fearful. "Wait, no. We shouldn't. That's dangerous."

"There's strength in numbers. We should do it."

"They have guns, you idiot."

Tabby's ears folded. He shrugged. I supposed he was considering the image of us prisoners being gathered together in a crowd and being shot until blood splattered the walls. The Concealed had no mercy. They had only their duties, and their duties were to tend to us, restrain us if necessary, and kill us if need be.

"Plus we're only out here for Avery," I added. Tabby shook his head quickly.

"What happens when we find him, huh? He won't be alone. It'll be just like last time." His voice was getting louder all of a sudden. I wanted to clasp my hand over his lips to shut him up but he kept talking. "Just like when everything was red and I was scared and confused and . . . !"

When everything was red? I stood there for a few moments, trying to think of what he could mean. I couldn't come up with much. Barely anything in the facility was red. Everything was just stark-white or gray. An empty, blank color.

Unless.

"You were the one they were chasing," I told him. He nodded a moment later. Finally I could flash back to that day, when all I could see outside my window were guns and footsteps and the blur of a fleeting figure. When the white walls turned red and the siren was wailing ever so loud in my ears.

But there had also been a gunshot that day.

"It was right after my test," Tabby explained. I looked briskly around the hall to make sure no one was about to see us. "The injection. It hurt so bad and I was crying and I just wanted to run. So I ran. I made a beeline for whatever hallway I could, and then everything went red and I heard that loud noise and I heard the masked ones following me, yelling my number."

"The gunshot," I said, looking deep into his red eyes. He scanned the hallway the same way I did a second before, and then he unlocked the door next to us, opening it and slipping inside quickly.

Without a word, although fearing the consequences, I followed along, watching him shut the door back and slide down to the ground. There was no one else in here. Just us, and the solitude of this cell. He curled up before my eyes, looking up at me and then lifting his robes for me to see underneath.

"Look."

Right in the center of his chest, a hole the size of a bullet. I found myself staring both in sympathy and anger for a solid minute. They shot him. The wound itself, penetrating his fur, looked all too real and horrifyingly fresh, while the blood was . . .

Dry? But not just dry. I had to look closer at the stains to see if I really was imagining things. So many questions found their way into my mind. Are you still in pain? What did they do with you after they attacked? How are you alive?

I blinked sorrowfully at Tabby's wound, the flesh still pulsing in unnatural ways, still attracting my eyes with its nasty pink display.

"Why is your blood black?"