Deprived

Chapter 18

In the red-filled passageway, the walls bobbed and fluttered. The redness grew deep, encasing Jack's body like fresh blood.

They entered a large room filled with blue lights and walls filled with cracks where bright white light busted through.

The energy, thick, seemed to pass through Maize's body. Her body trembled with excitement.

They crossed the threshold and entered a yellow room.

Inside the room, brightly lit, bulbs shaped like sticks stretched along the ceiling's width at even intervals. The floors were white and shiny, and Maize could see her reflection on the floors.

There were rows and rows of squared glass rooms. Maize looked closer, Jack by her side. She saw people sleeping on beds. Their white clothes blended in perfectly with the white bedspreads. It would look like a crumpled sheet on the bed if it weren't for the different shades of their skin and hair.

As she walked, past the glass rooms, those lying on the bed rose one by one—some on their elbows, others sat upright—and they all stared at her as she passed by. A boy with blond hair caught Maize's attention; he was shaking his head no as they passed by. As Maize continued on, she noticed his left arm was missing. The girl in the glass room next to him sat in a wheelchair. The boy on Maize's left side had a shaved head and a jagged scar stretched across his head from ear to ear. He was bare-chested with multiple injuries on his chest, some old and keloid, others fresh and ripe red.

Maize continued down the glossy path, waves in her belly of what she might see next.

They were all about her age, but different colors and different sizes. And they all had something in common, they were silent. Either they chose not to speak, or they had lost their tongues.

If they were her subjects, it would have taken hours of finding to fix them.

As Maize and Jack stood in the room filled with teen amputees, a door in one of the side walls swished open.

Two agents wheeled in a girl. They passed by Maize and Jack without acknowledging them. Maize looked at the girl's face—she looked dead—and followed them.

The agents pushed the gurney into a separate room with solid walls and dumped her body next to another, and then they disappeared behind stripped plastic curtains.

There were metal beds, oversized plastic bags, and tin drums gathered on one side of the room.

Maize looked through the plastic curtain and saw naked bodies hanging from the ceiling on metal hooks. Her heartbeat was steady as she walked into the room. The two agents were gone. There were dead bodies everywhere and what seemed to be human organs in glass jars filled with liquid. The jars were neatly displayed on silver metal tables.

Jack came in behind Maize.

He searched her face, then said, "Follow me."

Maize did, and they went back in his office. The huge painting hung behind them as if it had never opened a new world.

Jack sat at his desk, facing Maize. "Any questions?"

"Who are the donors?" Maize asked.

"Outsiders—wanderers from all of Wisteria. Things were starting to go at such a quick pace we were running out of inventory. We decided we couldn't keep taking the kids from the villages. It would look too suspicious. So, we took our business farther.

"Successful?"

"Extremely ... which is why we are always on the lookout for more."

Maize nodded. Why she needed the answers to those questions, she wasn't sure. But she asked to quiet the voice in her head.