part0029

“You’ve got to stand up, Lucy.” Zoe dipped into a squat and then sprung upward so her feet left the ground for a moment. She shook her hands at her sides. “You’ve got to move around. Get some blood flowing to your legs. And, no, getting up to take a shit doesn’t count as exercise.”

“I’m tired,” Lucy said.

“Uh. You can’t be tired. You haven’t done anything. All you do is sleep.” Zoe moved to the corner, opposite Lucy. She leaned against the wall and slid until she was in a seated position. She kicked her legs out in front of her and bent forward, touching her toes with her fingertips.

“That’s Leigh’s spot,” Lucy said. “You can’t take her spot.”

“Are you serious?” Zoe said. “Leigh’s not coming back, Lucy. She’s never coming back.”

“Don’t say that.” Lucy fought back the tears. “She has to.”

“She’s dead,” Zoe said. “He killed her, and we just sat here and let it happen. You and me. We did nothing.”

“What were we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, something. If we all fought, all at once, maybe she would’ve had a chance.”

“I don’t know how to fight,” Lucy said.

“Yes, you do. It’s like an animal instinct.” Zoe pushed herself to her feet, walked over to Lucy and then dropped back to her knees. She looked Lucy in the eyes. “The Captain will be back. He will try to take one of us. You have to promise me we’ll stick together. No more hiding in the corner. No more pretending to sleep. Promise me?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go for his eyeballs. If you—”

“That’s so gross,” Lucy said.

“I know it’s gross, but you want to get out of here, don’t you? We need to both try to blind him. We need to dig our fingers into his eyes, no matter how disgusting it is. It’s what my dad told me to do if I was ever attacked.”

“I’ll try,” Lucy said.

Zoe wasn’t convinced.

“If it’s the Doctor, we’ve gotta try to get him to let us out,” Zoe said.

“He’s not going to just let us out.”

“Have you listened to what he’s been saying to us? He loves us and all this crap. What if we pretended to love him too? What if we promised him we’d marry him or something? I don’t know, whatever he wants. I think it could work if you and I are on the same page. There’s something in him we can get to, ya know what I mean? You said yourself he was always a nice guy, so there’s some bit of normal person in him, don’t you think?”

Lucy shook her head. “He’s lost his mind, none of that is gonna work.”

“Please!” Zoe said. “We have to try. If the Captain shows up and opens that gate, we fight. If it’s the Doctor we work together to try to get him to open the gate, then we fight. Okay?”