Death's Exception

Chapter Eighteen

I jerk awake as I feel the car slow to a stop. I realize how cold I am, and how much my back is hurting all at once. I whimper as I try to blink away tears. I feel Titus' hand on my shoulder. I force my eyes open, and look over at him. His eyes are big and sad with the weight of being helpless. I take a deep breath, and smile at him. The smile flees, though, one I feel another stab of pain.

"I found a place for us to stay for the next few days to let you heal." A little house. Brick, windows boarded shut, white door worn with age, and weeds growing up the side of it. We are in the middle of nowhere. Trees surround the house as if it isn't even here. The grass skirts the house occasionally springing up high enough to graze my knees. Titus sighs, and pulls a key out of his pocket. I raise my eyebrows, and he frowns at me. His weary eyes hold onto mine. He gets out of the car, picks me up, and carries me into the house. If this house resembles anything, it resembles a skeleton. A sceleton forgotten by those who loved it before it started to decay. The windows are now shards of glass spread across the floor, replaced by harsh boards of wood only letting light pour through the gaps. The roof swoops in where there isn't concrete pillars to hold it up, and the floor is decorated with patches of unclean carpet.

"What is this, Titus?" He sits me on a dusty pile of rolled-up carpet, stomach down. He takes off his coat, and puts it under my face to keep me from breathing in what ever dusts have been hidden away in this thing.

"It was our foster home." I search Titus' face but he gives me nothing. He smiles sadly at a broken-down fireplace. "They were nice, but poor. We had to be relocated. Couldn't afford to keep us." I feel his cold hands trace the cut on my back, and he pulls out a small needle. He wets the tip with a blue liquid and eases it into my neck. My body is now used to needles intruding it, and now barely recognizes the feeling. My back is now rid of all pain and feeling at all. He pulls out a needle and thread, and I can hear him fiddling with my flesh.

"Why are we here, Titus?" He sighs heavily.

"I suppose I should tell you." He sits back and rubs his eyes with the back of his hand.

"You suppose?" He laughs, and starts to wrap my numbed torso in cloth. I bring my arms under my face, and he sits back.

"Dr. Finley lied." I grit my teeth.

"Is that really all you are going to give me?" Titus lays beside me, his arms under his head.

"Do you need more?"

"Titus, I just threw my life away.  I deserve to know more than that." Titus turns his head toward me, and gives me a firm look.

"Dr. Finley told us you were the first. That was a lie. He had done it on other people until you happened to be the one healthy enough to show off. He has a room, Rory. A room of the people he tried it on and were unlucky enough to live. I saw this room. There were some screaming, others staring blankly at a wall. There was one little girl who sat on the ground scratching her wrists and gnawing on her lips. If you hadn't been the one that happened to be sane enough, or pretty enough that would have been you. It would have been you and we would have never met. Instead you would be on that cold floor wishing your death had never been disturbed. I can't- that hurts to think that-" His voices breaks off, and he resumes staring at the ceiling. I feel my chest rise and fall but I do not think I am breathing. There were others. Others like me being held in a room where they can't even claim the four walls. I blink. I have cried so much in the past twenty-four hours that I can't even shed a tear. I am just angry and determined. Determined, maybe, to set justice upon those who have brought those like me even more pain than they were already raised with. Determined, perhaps, to prove myself worthy of saving. Dertermined to set my people free, and help them. Yes, definitely that.

"Titus we have to help them. We have to go back."

"We can't."

"And why not?!" Titus sits up, and looks down at me.

"The only ones worth saving would probably not even live the first thirty minutes in our care. He is starving them. Some have terrible brain damage, and ruptured bones. These are the defects, Rory. He is letting them die, and there is nothing we can do to stop that." I clench my fists.

"We will find a way to help them." I say defiantly. Titus grunts and rolls on his stomach so that we are face to face. His brown eyes latch onto mine, his eyelids heavy with the sleep he hasn't had in days. I brush my fingers through his soft hair.

"In the morning, though, right?" He chuckles. I smile in return.

"In the morning. Get some rest." He almost immediately drifts off to sleep. I close my eyes, but sleep doesn't come. I can only think about the people like me. The people like me that deserve more.