Extracted

Miss LeRoy

I come to in the infirmary. At least that's where I think I am. Everything is muddled and unclear. For a horrifying second I think they really have taken my memories and my minds shoots to Jeremy. It's all still there. Relief washes through my senses, which is dumb because if they had erased my memories, I wouldn't have known to worry about it.

My body hurts, achy all over. Even my teeth hurt. And it hurts to think. I drift in and out for two days. I endure waking dreams of fleeing through a dark woods, my hand tight around Jeremy's wrist, but I always either lose him or the director stands suddenly in our way with a wide syringe as long as his arm and the very sight of it drops me to the ground writhing in painful spasms while Jeremy is dragged away. I can't stop it. I lose my brother over and over.

It's all my fault. Because I'm not strong enough or smart enough to get him out of here. Because I was driving. I was the one driving the truck when the tires caught in the ditch. I caused the accident. I killed Jeremy and Tyler. I killed my own brother.

"Katherine, hey, it's okay." Mitchell's voice floats at the edge of a gray haze. "It's okay."

No, it's not okay. I did this.

His warm wide hand drifts onto my shoulder, down my arm, taking some of the awful coldness away. His touch is butterfly faint and I can't be certain whether I imagine him here or not, but in either reality, I am so glad he's here with me.

I fall into a deeper sleep, lulled by his patient voice, no longer able to make out what he is saying. Could be important, could be nonsense words only understood in dreams.

When I awake again, I'm alone, back in my room where they had snatched me away.

I'm unsure of the proper protocol after being abducted from your room in the middle of the night, strapped down and tortured with Mad Scientist Vein Freeze. Did that merit me a free get-out-of-class card for the day?

I'm not willing to take the chance. It's mid-afternoon. So I gingerly cross the hall to the bathroom, walking more like an old lady rather than the bio-genetically enhanced sixteen-year-old I am. Even the bottom of my feet hurt.

With no one else around, I stay extra-long in the shower, scrubbing the oily sweat from my hair and body, trying to scrub at the insides of my veins, but I can never get the cold feel of that liquid out of me. I'll never be warm again.

I have the shower blasting as hot as it will go and even that isn't enough. Sliding down the tile wall, I draw my knees up and stare at the water running down the tile.

I make it to the tail-end of lunch and then into Miss LeRoy's group therapy session. I keep my head lowered. I don't say much or pay attention to what the others are saying, not even Jeremy. Gideon. He is Gideon now.

My throat catches. I'm useless. I can't help him. The director knows. He left my brain and memories alone as another case study among us monsters of Frankenstein.

And the antifreeze drug. That is his warning. I get it now, realize its terrible meaning when I walk into Miss LeRoy's room and see Jeremy.

We can do anything we want to you. We can do anything we want to him.

"What do you think of that, Katherine?"

I lift my head at Miss LeRoy's question.

"I...I didn't hear."

"Obviously. You haven't been paying attention this entire session. This is group therapy. It's important we listen and support each other."

I blink at the laughable statement. Support each other? That's the last thing the school wants from us. They want us at each other's throats. Survival of the fittest where the strong and aggressive come out on top.

The rest of us? We're just fodder. Disposal once our individual experimentations have run their courses and there's no more data to be collected.

So she is right. I better pay attention, because after the director is done with my special little case study... I doubt I'll be slated for graduation and whatever purpose only a handful of us are elite enough for.

Only the rats that make it to the end of the maze get to move onto the bigger maze.

"I'm sorry. I'm not feeling well."

Miss LeRoy's mouth pinches as though she doesn't believe it, because lab grown specimens rarely get sick. Beat up on a daily basis, but never ill. So she must not know about my recent visit to the lab.

"Benjamin confessed he enjoys sparring, yet he sometimes feels bad. Do you believe Benjamin should feel bad about being triumphant?"

Is this a trick question? I look at Benjamin. He stares back, challengingly me to run straight into his trap. Run, little rat, the cheese is right over here.

"No," I say. "We survived the plague. If we are to survive readjustment, we have to be strong now. No weakness, only strength. Rely on no one."

I feel the weight of Gideon's gaze. My heart shrivels into a heavy burdensome black stone.

Benjamin's lips curl upward.

~~~

Dinner is quiet. I don't want to be here. I'm not hungry. No one asks where I've been, no one dares, but I feel the question burning in the air as hot/cold as the liquid that burned in my veins.

Suddenly the cafeteria is closing around me, the low chatter drones behind wads of cotton blocking out sound.

I grab my tray and move away, trying to escape the jumble of students. My muscles ache and I'm shaking.

Hands latch onto my tray, stopping me. Lily looks up into my face. "I'll take it for you."

It's a simple gesture of kindness, but also an act of defiance in this place. No weakness, only strength. Rely on no one. I hang onto the plastic tray, unwilling to let her put herself in the director's sights, just another component in his case study.

Lily tries again. "I'll take it, Kat. Please let me help you." Her face is serious, her eyes staring into mine intently, but it's the way she says my name, the name I choose to go by, that shoots through the gauzy layers of despair. There's a message in her words and help and it's all I can do not to crumble under the hopeless waste of it all.

I can't take that from her, I can't. Uncurling my fingers, I let her take the tray.