The Henhouse

Cooperate

The walk felt much longer than Justin expected, as though the guards were taking the long way around just to irritate him. Back hunched, eyes to the floor, he felt like a lamb being led to slaughter.

"Told you we shouldn't've gone in there, Washington-"

"Shut it," someone warned Jonah. Their tone made it clear they wouldn't ask twice. Justin didn't dare look behind, but in his mind he could see her gulp, feel her heart pounding.

Only Gabe still stood tall. He looked around the hallways with something like ease, like a man who knew something no one else did....

Gabe raised a hand behind him, as though to scratch his back, then suddenly stuck out a pinky finger at Justin. He held this in a place for a second or two, then stuck up three fingers on the hand. Finally he gave a quick thumbs up before dropping the arm to his side.

I. W....

Instructional Wing....

They were going in exactly the direction they wanted. Casper was ahead.

Justin's mind refused focus, swimming in flashbacks to his test and Casper's, the files, the serums, and the blood... always the blood. He wondered what Lowery looked like at that moment, and he could imagine him starting to flake away, or sweat red, body dissolving into blood, pouring down the bench chair and adding in to the puddle below....

He shook away the thoughts. But there was no shaking away the guns surrounding him now, or the flickering of the ceiling lights making him twitch.

A few more twists and turns through the hallways brought the group to a door labeled "Instruction Room 1B." One guard unlocked this door while another used his gun to gesture Gabe inside.

Gabe looked back at Justin and Justin stared back, unsure what he could say, verbally or non. But Gabe's eyes weren't expectant; if anything, they were pitying. The guard growled "In," and he obeyed. The others, starting with Justin, filed in after him, one at a time.

Gabe fell before Justin's eyes could even adjust.

When they did, he found Gabe splayed on the floor. He hadn't tripped; he'd fallen. Hard. Justin rushed over, but even trying to replicate Ivy's checks from earlier he could find neither pulse nor breath.

No... no no no no....

He felt someone brush his side. Ivy leaned down with all the coolness of a real doctor, and placed two fingers to his wrist, then to his nose.

"He's alright," Ivy murmured. "Just unconscious. ...Again."

She looked behind her.

"I think one of the guards injected him with something."

"What do you mean, 'some-'"

The lights turned on, and Justin nearly fell over. He might as well have been staring into the sun. He closed his eyes, wincing. He caught the pattering of several sets of feet crossing the room, and the sound of something being dragged across the floor.

"Ah-! Sorry, sorry," a gleeful voice called out. "Should've warned you, probably."

Justin scoffed at it, but then realized.... This wasn't just any voice....

The door was swinging closed. Gabe was gone. The rest of the room was barren- tile floors and cream walls in a classroom-sized space, nothing inside save a few scattered chairs. A single window framed the far wall, but the other side of it was pitch black.