Chapter Seven
Dahlia groaned as the chimes of her alarm went off. Nothing in her wanted to move. She lay in bed, warm, relaxed, cursing the pad for being on the other wall. One more minute and she’d get herself up. The chiming suddenly turned off. Dahlia frowned, easing her eyes open and levering herself up onto her forearms.
Ben looked over sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“What did you do?” she said.
“I pressed the button.” He pointed at the keypad. “Those things nearly gave me a heart attack. I was standing right next to them.”
“Your heart’s fine.” She shook her head, still frowning. “Why are you up?”
“I was just looking out the window.” He shrugged. “There were some women knocking around the fountain out there earlier. I’m surprised they didn’t wake you.”
“Oh, they’re always trying to fix that.” Dahlia stretched, wrapping her blanket around her body before standing to look out the window. “It’s been broken for as long as I’ve been living here. I suppose I’m used to them, how did you put it, ‘knocking around’?”
He nodded, slipping his arms under the blanket and around her waist. “I take it they can’t see in here.”
“Not when the glass is sort of smoky looking like it is,” she said. “When it’s like that you can only see through it one way.”
He nodded, kissing her neck.
She pulled back a bit. “You promised last night you’d be a jerk right now, don’t you remember?”
He hummed noncommittally. “Can I start after breakfast?”
She broke away from him. Looking at the time, she sighed. “Now or never. I need to get ready for work.”
“Seriously?” He turned to watch her.
“Seriously.” She opened the closet and tossed the blanket back on the bed. “There’s cereal in the headboard if you want it. I don’t think I have any milk though.”
“You’re infuriating, you know that?”
“I’m picking up the slack since you aren’t.” Dahlia did her best to fight down a smile.
Ben nodded with a grin. “It seems we’re perfect for each other. When one of us is being nice—”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re perfect for each other.” She pulled on her underwear and then a dress.
“When will you get back?”
“I get off at 17:00,” she said, looking at him, unsure. “Do you want to stay here or go back to the camp?”
“What’s today?” he asked.
“Monday.”
“I meant the date.”
“The ninth,” she said. “Why?”
“Almost your independence day.”
She paused and nodded. “In a week and a half.”
He nodded, looking back out the window. “I suppose I’ll stick around.”
“Because of Independence Day?” She frowned.
“Because it isn’t your independence day,” he said. “Women are always... gone, when it’s your independence day.”
Dahlia smiled. “Well, it is a big day.”
“For you.”
“For us,” she agreed.
* * * *
At work, Dahlia caught up on her case notes. They had never been Dahlia’s strong suit, and she certainly hadn’t been made a doctor because of her penchant for paperwork, Today, something about them seemed especially daunting. Not enough sleep, perhaps. Or she was more distracted than she was going to let herself admit.
“Knock, knock.” Cassandra called.
Dahlia held up a finger, finishing typing something into her tablet before turning around. “Hey.”
“Catching up on paperwork?”
“No, I just thought I’d sit around and play with patients’ minds.” Dahlia smiled. “The slides were making me go cross-eyed. Is there anyone else in the waiting room?”
“I think Willa got the rest of them.” Cassandra shook her head.
Dahlia slipped the tablet away. “Do you want to do an early lunch?”
“Yes, yes, I would, but I also wanted to give you this.”
Dahlia looked at the package Cassandra offered her. “An inconspicuously butcher-paper-wrapped package?”
“It was left at the front desk for you.”
“That’s not suspicious at all.” Dahlia took the box from her, sniffing it. All she could smell was the dry paper. “Think it’s dangerous?”
“Don’t know why someone would send you something dangerous. Open it.”
Dahlia studied it for another moment, and then shrugged and pulled the paper off. Inside was a box, and inside the box, a small plastic container, not much bigger than her palm.
“What is it?” Cassandra stared at the box.
“No clue.” Dahlia opened the container, a vaguely sweet smell coming from it. “It looks like some sort of dried herbs in, very, very crude, capsules.”
“What herb?”
Dahlia shrugged, picking up the note inside. Squared-off block letters declared DO NOT INJEST. “Whatever it is, it’s not supposed to be ingested. The person who packaged it didn’t know how to spell ‘ingest’.”
“Why are they pills if you aren’t supposed to take them?”
Dahlia shook her head, “You assume I have any idea? I’ll have to test what’s in one.”
* * * *
Ben’s smile dropped as soon as he saw the look on Dahlia’s face. “Something wrong?”
She looked at him for a moment before sighing and sitting down on the bed. She held up a plastic container. “This.”
He glanced at it. “Tupperware?”
“Hmm?” she looked up.
“Those plastic containers are called Tupperware,” he said.
“Ah.” She looked at it. “Well, it’s really more what’s inside the container.”
“Well.” He sat next to her. “What’s in there, then?”
“Nerium Oleander,” she said.
Ben’s eyebrows rose and then dropped. He shook his head. “I have no idea what that is.”
“It’s an evergreen shrub,” she said. “It was... well it was supposed to have been irradiated. It’s pretty, but other than decoration, it was only really good for killing things.”
“So, it’s a poison,” he said.
“Pretty much,” Dahlia responded. “It was dropped off at the hospital front desk with my name on it, but nobody knows by whom. The security cameras don’t even show anyone leaving it there. It’s all very cloak and dagger. All it had was my name on it and this note.”
He took it and then hesitated. “What does it say?”
“Do not ingest... well, injest, they didn’t spell it right. I’ve been trying to determine if it was just a typo or if it’s some sort of clue I’m completely missing.”
“Clue?”
“Well, in jest, two words, means like as a joke. It could have been just like a Silver-level typo or it could be someone playing a joke on me.”
“With poison?”
“With a poison that’s not supposed to exist anymore.” She stood, setting the container down with her medical bag. “You know, with the oleander dried like this, so concentrated, there’s enough in there to kill the better part of this metropolitan area.”
Ben watched her. “So why haven’t you gotten rid of it?”
“I need to figure out whom to tell about it, and how to dispose of it safely. If I burn it, it contaminates the air around it. I can’t bury it without contaminating the ground and possibly the water. I’ll most likely have to turn it over to some sort of hazmat team. Though, you wouldn’t want to turn it over to someone with a bone to pick.”
“I thought all you women were peaceful. Don’t you trust the others not to poison people?”
“There hasn’t been a war since the men left,” she said, “but the power to have someone you don’t like to just fall over dead without any way to trace it back to you? Oleander is all but untraceable a few hours after death. The body metabolizes it quickly. If someone wanted someone dead, it’s the perfect, nonviolent, way to kill them without leaving behind a trace to point to an intentional killing. It would just look like the person had a sudden myocardial infarction.”
“A what now?” Ben asked.
“A heart attack.”
“You couldn’t have just said heart attack?”
“Well, we doctors use big words to scare people out of wanting to play doctor.” She essayed a weak smile.
“I think it works,” Ben said. “Sounds like you’ve had an interesting day.”
“To say the least,” Dahlia responded. “Hopefully your day hasn’t been nearly as thrilling.”
“Hardly. I tried to figure out how to get the TV working, again, and once again failed miserably.”
She smiled to herself. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” he said.
“I’ll order out,” Dahlia said.
He stood, allowing her to finish typing things into the pad by the door before wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her neck.
“You know, you’re overly affectionate today.” She couldn’t stop herself from tensing, tilted her head away from him.
He smiled. “Maybe those endorphins are messing with my head.”
“Oh, don’t go all gooey on me.” She turned to face him. “I’ve come to rely on you as a sparring partner. You won’t be nearly as entertaining if you’re all love struck.”
He kissed her forehead. “I just care about you, Lia. That isn’t a crime.”
“No.” She sighed. “It isn’t a crime.”
“So, then... while we wait...”
She rolled her eyes. “After dinner, maybe. I didn’t get to shower this morning and I seriously need one.”
“I could come with you.”
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “I’ll be out in ten minutes or so. The food shouldn’t be here before that.”
Ben nodded, watching her close the bathroom door behind her. He stood still until the water started running, and then moved to the plastic container. Glancing at the bathroom door, he opened the lip, slipped a couple of the pills into the pocket on the inside of his pant leg, and placed everything back so it looked exactly as it had been.
* * * *
Independence Day was one of the few truly big holidays celebrated worldwide. It started a month before the actual day when the entire town was decorated in purple and white during a daylong ceremony, which Dahlia hadn’t attended since she had been in Rose. Then, a week before the day, events started downtown that put everything except the Patience’s Birthday celebration in late December to shame. Each year it seemed it would be impossible to outdo what they had done the year before, and every year they still managed to accomplish that. This year, outdoing themselves meant putting lights under the fountain in the town square next to the government pavilion. Each light made the streams of water that arched from the center appear purple or white with the light lasting until the stream hit the pool at the bottom.
The Independence Week parties were known to last until sunup, and even the Silvers managed to find their ways down to the festivities. By 22:00, however, Dahlia was ready to throw in the towel. She found Zoë and Claire, the ones who wouldn’t be in the center of the crowd like Cassandra and Audrey. Dahlia hadn’t seen those two since they arrived and she refused to follow them to the heart of the party.
She touched Zoë’s arm, leaning in to be heard over the music. “I think I’m going to call it a night.”
Zoë turned to face her. “Seriously?”
“Well, maybe humorously, but I could say it seriously too.”
“Don’t be a jerk.” Zoë rolled her eyes.
“Sorry. Been a long day.” Dahlia smiled, saying her final goodbyes, instructing them to convey the goodbyes to Cassandra and Audrey. No doubt, they had found their way to the thick of things. Dahlia moved to the coat check. She smiled at the overly enthusiastic coat check girl, threw her coat over her arm to put on once she was away from the heaters set up over the square and took her bag moving over to the tram stop.
She could see the light on in her room from across the courtyard. She sighed, pressed her card to the pad, and stepped inside. “You really need to stop just showing up. I’m going to have a friend over one of these days and then when you show up—”
“I expected you back earlier,” Ben said.
“I was at the party downtown with my friends. It’s Independence Week you know.”
“I knew that,” he said. “I thought you weren’t a party type of girl, though.”
“What gave you that idea?”
“The fact that you told me you aren’t really into the whole party thing.”
“My friends dragged me along.” Dahlia shrugged. “Why are you here? You’ve only been gone a day.”
“I missed you,” he said.
“Oh, god.” Dahlia sighed. “Stop it, Ben.”
“I’m allowed my emotions.”
“Well, you get this sickeningly emotional on me and I’m sending you home.”
“Fine,” he said. “I wanted to see you. Is that better?”
“Marginally.” Dahlia slid her coat off, throwing it over the back of the desk chair.
“All right, I wanted to get laid.” He grinned. “Am I in the ballpark yet?”
She looked at him. “Things not going well at the camp?”
He frowned. “What?”
“You have another bruise.” She nodded at his arm.
“I ran into something.” He looked at his wrist.
“You aren’t that clumsy.” She took his hand, examining the bruise. “Looks like someone grabbed you.”
He pulled away. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Is it from the same person who cut you?”
“I can hold my own, Lia. Don’t worry yourself about it.”
She shook her head. “Well, I’m just trying to figure out if you’re here to see me or looking for a ‘safe house’.”
“I’m here to see you,” he said. “I’m high up in the scheme of things over there. I don’t need to run.”
“Well, then, I’m tired tonight, Ben. I’ve had a long day.”
“Come on now.” Ben looked at her.
She sighed at his persistence. “You’re so annoying.”
“Then let me make that up to you.”
“Correction, you’re incorrigible.”
“You like it.”
She crossed her arms and looked at him for a long moment. “Fine. I’m going to wash up.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
She smiled. “Didn’t think you were.”
* * * *
The next morning, Ben groaned. “How have you lived with those damn chimes for twenty years?”
Dahlia stretched and then moved across the room to turn them off. “Generally by becoming very, very irritated.”
“You have to work?” He watched her.
She pulled her robe on and then looked at the weather. “Great, fourteen degrees and rainy. Beautiful.”
“I don’t think that’s an answer to the question ‘do you have work’.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Yes I do. I’m really tempted just to crawl back in bed though.”
“I would fully support you giving in to that urge.”
She smiled to herself, pressing another button.
Ben sighed and looked at the screen on the window. “Isn’t that your fountain?”
“Yeah, they’re warning about more in-depth construction.” She pointed at the headline. “You see? Fountain to Undergo Renovations.”
He looked at it for a moment and then at her. “How would I be able to tell anything from that?”
“It’s not that hard to figure out.” Dahlia smiled. “F-O-U-N—foun, like in found—T-A-I...”
She didn’t continue. Ben frowned, shifting on the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“A-I...” she murmured and then looked at him. “Have you learned any of your letters?”
He studied her, cautious. “Is this a trick question?”
She shook her head. “Just a question.”
He paused and then shook his head. “No, not really.”
“None at all?”
He hesitated. “Not like I had anyone to help me learn them.”
She released a breath. “Mail.”
He knitted his eyebrows. “I am male.”
“No, mail. M-A-I-L. You spelt it when we met. If you don’t know your letters, if you’re illiterate, how could you spell it?”
“I...” Ben hesitated. “I just heard it around. I can know what the names of letters are without—”
“Ben, can you read?”
He opened his mouth, and then shut it again, nodding at last. “Yes.”
“Why in the world would you lie about something like that?”
He shrugged and waited.
“Ben,” she snapped.
He chewed on the inside of his lip. “People are less cautious about what they leave lying around when they think we can’t read it.”
She pulled her robe tighter around her. “You’re a spy?”
“Well...” He considered what to say. “Spy is a strong word.”
“What word is more appropriate then?”
“I’m...” He paused. “An observer.”
“An observer of what, exactly?”
“Of... you. All of you. Womankind.”
“So, I’ve been a case study for you?”
“No.”
“You’ve been observing me.”
“No, well, yes, but you aren’t high enough up to be of any real use to us. I was supposed to try to get you to send me back weeks ago.”
“What were you hoping for? Someone who could give you government secrets? A way to...” She trailed off.
“Okay, I’ve learned you stopping midsentence is never—”
“Revolution?” She cut him off.
Ben pressed his lips together and didn’t say anything.
“You’re planning on...” She paused a moment. “And you found someone you could get to hide you. Apparently I’ve been very useful.”
“No.” He frowned. “Well, you’ve been unwittingly very helpful, but it wasn’t all about just getting your help. I like you.”
She scoffed. “Why should I believe that, Ben?”
“Because it’s the truth.”
“I don’t know if I think anything you’ve said to me has been the truth.”
“It is the truth, Lia,” he insisted.
She pressed a few buttons on the pad.
Ben frowned. “What did you do?”
“You can read,” Dahlia snapped, nodding at the wall. “You figure it out.”
“Lia, I swear, I wasn’t using you. Well, I guess I was in a way, but it wasn’t all about, whatever. I—”
“I’m sending you home,” she said. “I don’t trust myself not to be rash right now, so you’re going home until I sort things out.”
“Dah—”
“Don’t talk to me right now.” She pointed at him. “You don’t want me to think about this anymore right now.”
“Please,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Really. Don’t.” She frowned, moving to the bathroom.
“Lia,” he said, listening as the bathroom door slammed and locked.
He released a breath, sitting down and resting his head in his hands before finally standing again, pulling his clothes on. He felt the slight lump in his pant leg and paused. He looked at the doors, first the bathroom, then the front and then the sliding window one, and moved to her medical bag. Quickly he found bottles that she had used on him before, the ones that he had a vague recollection of what they should be used for, and slipped them into the pockets, distributing them equally and separating them with gauze and other, nonmetallic, first aid supplies. He shut the bag again and checked the time. It would take another ten minutes or so for them to reach him.
He stood, hesitating for a second, and then went to the bathroom door. “Dahlia?”
She didn’t answer.
“If you’re listening, I never meant to hurt you. I just wanted to say that.”
There was no sound to show whether she heard him.
He sighed, disappointed. “Thank you. For everything.”
He smoothed the slight bulges at the bottom of his pants, and sat on the bed to wait for the guards.
* * * *
Jude watched in silence as Ben emptied his pockets. He shook his head. “Damn.”
“Well, I doubt I’m going back,” Ben said tersely. “I figured if there was any time when I should stock up, it was now.”
Jude frowned. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Ben lied. “Well, nothing dangerous to us at least. I just pissed her off.”
“So, you thought you’d complete that entire situation by stealing from her?”
“We need supplies.” Ben shrugged.
Jude nodded. “So, we don’t have her?”
“It would seem that way, yeah.”
“But we have Heather, and...”
Ben held up his hand for him to stop. “We have a plan. Call the guys together; we’re going to finalize it.”
“Can do.” Jude smiled.
* * * *
“What’s up with you?” Cassandra looked at what she could see of Dahlia across the table.
“Nothing.” Dahlia looked up from her menu. “Why?”
“You have this weird look on your face.”
Dahlia shook her head. “I’m just deciding what to eat.”
“Bull,” Cassandra said.
“Fine, I’m deciding if it’s worth switching men, or just not calling this one up anymore. I’m bored with him.”
“Well that’s what happens when you don’t have sex with them.” Cassandra grinned at her.
“How often do you switch?”
Her friend appeared to think about it. “Generally around a month or so. Depends on the guy.”
“So then I’m overdue,” Dahlia said. “Been over two months.”
“So you’d have to switch soon anyway,” Cassandra said. “Why don’t you switch and actually choose a guy you’re interested in this time?”
“How about you let me decide my own sex life?”
“Just saying, you don’t know what you’re missing.”
Dahlia looked back at her menu. “So, how about that party last night?”
“Nice transition.” Cassandra rolled her eyes.
“Well, it’s all Audrey talked about this morning.”
“Probably all she can think about,” Cassandra said. “I think she hasn’t slept yet. Came straight from the party to work.”
“I’m surprised you weren’t with her.”
“I ended up trying to figure out where you went.”
“I was tired,” Dahlia said. “I told Zoë to let you know I left.”
“What? Are you eighty?” Cassandra looked her over.
“Yes, yes I am.”
“Are you at least coming tonight?”
“I was thinking of resting up tonight so I could actually last the full time tomorrow,” Dahlia said
“You’re so boring, Lia. Why am I friends with you again?”
“Because you need someone who won’t be sitting in the cell next to you to bail you out when you’re arrested for disturbing the peace?”
“That happened once.” Cassandra held up her index finger.
“Once more than it’s happened to me,” Dahlia said.
“Because you’re boring. So, what was my original point?”
“Did you have an original point?”
Cassandra shook her head. “You sure you don’t want to come downtown tonight?”
“Sleep is my friend.”
“I’ll take a lot of pictures to show you what you missed.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“I think Claire isn’t going either,” Cassandra continued. “You two can commiserate about what you missed tomorrow.”
“We’ll start a support group,” Dahlia said.
Cassandra sighed. “You’re seriously not going?”
“Seriously,” Dahlia said.
“I’ve obviously failed somewhere with you.” Cassandra shook her head.
“Indeed you did.”