No one brings me food or water.
I don’t know if it’s day or night anymore. I don’t know how much time has passed since Sam came in here, but it feels like it’s been several hours at least. I hope he won’t come back.
All I know for sure is I’m freezing cold and my clothes barely offer any warmth. My mouth isn’t producing nearly enough saliva to satiate my thirst.
I’m not sure I should sleep when I’m this weak. I might not wake up.
To keep my mind working, I run through the symptoms of dehydration, from what I saw in the work camp on the Surface. Once my thirst reaches an extreme point, I’ll likely develop severe confusion and delirium, along with rapid breathing and a rapid heartbeat, and a fever. I’ll stop producing sweat and tears. If it gets bad enough, my brain cells could swell and rupture from my body trying to pull too much water back into my cells, or I could have kidney failure or go into shock from low blood volume. Any one of these could lead to death.
Surely someone will bring me water soon. Charlie doesn’t want me dead—not yet, at least. Sam said he has something fun in mind for me.
My gaze moves to Logan, who’s still knocked out on the other side of the wall. His cool breath forms misty circles on the glass. Maybe Charlie’s going to make me kill him, like he made me shoot an Unstable my first day in the Core.
I won’t do it, no matter what he threatens me with. I won’t let anyone hurt Logan again, and I won’t hurt him myself.
“Clem,” a muffled voice says.
I sit up more, snapping my focus back to Logan’s lips. They move again, forming a soundless word. Slowly, his eyelids flutter open.
“Logan, it’s me,” I say through chattering teeth. “I’m here.”
“You’re hurt,” he murmurs.
I almost laugh. Of course that’s the first thing he would say, when he’s the one who’s been knocked out with a black eye and a bloody nose.
“I’m okay,” I say, pressing my fingertips to the glass. “Are you?”
“Been better.” Logan lifts his head with effort, looking around. He blinks a few times, until his gaze seems steadier. “How long have I been out?”
“I don’t know. As long as I’ve been in here.”
He lets out a short cough and winces, touching a hand to his side. “Did Sam come in yet?”
“He did. We had a nice chat.”
The color fades from Logan’s cheeks. “He didn’t…” His voice trails off. Memories of Sam’s hands and elevators linger in the silence.
I pull my legs closer to my body. “No.”
“Good,” Logan says, his shoulders slumping in relief. “As soon as I got to the camp and couldn’t find you anywhere, I thought you might’ve already been caught. I was afraid Charlie had you.”
“I thought you were far away in one of the other sectors,” I say in a small voice. “I didn’t know when I would see you again.”
A soft smile tugs at Logan’s lips. “You can see me now.”
He presses a hand to the glass, showing me the calluses in his palm, the hard edges where he cut his skin working in the camp on the Surface. The dim light overhead casts shadows on his face, making the bruise around his injured eye even darker. I want to run my fingers across his skin and heal his bruises with my lips.
He coughs again. The movement rocks his whole body, and suddenly I remember what Skylar told me the last time I saw her: Logan received the injection in the quarantine facility.
“They gave you a shot, didn’t they?” I ask.
Logan’s mouth thins. “How did you know?”
“I saw Skylar the day the explosives went off. She said something that made me think you must have.”
“She was right,” he says. “But it’s not what you think. It wasn’t like the shot you were given in the Core.”
“I know, I could tell it was different,” I say. “But it still did something. It made everyone weirdly quiet.”
“I think that was an effect of the pill everyone took after their injection. I had to pretend to swallow mine, and spit it out and bury it when I got back to the camp.”
“Wait. What pill?”
“This chewable vitamin. My doctor said it’s something all the child workers in Crust are given every week so they won’t die of malnutrition. I asked around and I’m pretty sure she was telling the truth. But I think it also subdues people a little—probably not a strong dosage, but that would be why the atmosphere changed afterwards.”
I didn’t notice any pills during my examination, but it sounds like my doctor would’ve given it to me on my way out the door. If Logan’s right, that explains why Nellie wasn’t quiet like everyone else—she too must’ve spit out her pill. But it doesn’t explain what the injection was for.
“What about the shot?” I ask. “How do you know it didn’t contain any submission serum?”
Logan stares at nothing, like he’s trying to decide whether to reveal something. Then he looks back at me. “I was told what was in the shot on my way here. I was also told not to tell you, or Sam would administer the injection to you. And I can’t let that happen.”
I press my lips together, hard. “That’s not fair to me, and you know it.”
“I’m sorry. I just … I can’t lose you yet, Clementine.”
“But you think I’m okay with losing you? Logan, we’re in holding cells. Sam’s going to kill us himself or deliver us to Charlie, for him to kill us. You’re going to lose me soon anyway, so why not just tell me?”
An emotion I can’t read flickers across Logan’s face, but he says nothing.
“Fine.” I turn away from him and press my back against the glass, crossing my arms.
“I’m sorry,” Logan whispers.
I stare at the gray wall opposite me, wanting to tell him everything that’s been in my head for so many days—how I lost control and killed Cady, and how I might’ve killed Joe. How part of me is afraid I’m becoming exactly what Charlie wants me to be.
Logan and I are both keeping secrets. But I’m not brave enough to spill mine yet, and he cares too much about me to spill his.
“Me too,” I say.
* * *
A boot kicks me hard in the ribs. “Get up,” a voice says.
“I’m up,” I mumble, forcing myself to lift my head even though I’m only half awake. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have. My body hurts from lying curled up on my side, with my arms behind my back.
“I meant up all the way,” the official says, wrenching me to my feet by my elbow.
I see his face and flinch. The hazel eyes; the stony hardness to his jaw. This is the patrolman who found me in the maintenance corridor.
“Sorry,” I say quickly.
I lick my dirty, chapped lips to moisten them a little. My eyes dart to the cell on the other side of the glass, as I attempt to steady my legs. No!
The cell is empty. Logan is gone. There’s a bloodstain on the glass, where his face was leaning against it when he was still unconscious.
He’s gone; he’s gone; he’s gone. Where did they take him? They can’t have gone and killed him already.
No, when they kill him, they will make me watch.
The patrolman pulls me toward my cell door by my elbow, but I pull back.
“Where’s the prisoner who was in the other cell?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He pushes me ahead of him out the door, and this time I don’t have the strength to fight back.
There’s another guard waiting out in the corridor. He’s holding a sackcloth like the one Logan had over his head when Mal brought him in.
“Please don’t make me wear that,” I say. “I won’t struggle, I swear.”
“Put it on her,” the patrolman says, securing my arms behind my back. He’s much too strong.
The other guard jams the cloth over my head, blocking out all the light. I’m stuck in all-consuming darkness that reminds me of my first cell in Karum, and how I woke up there disoriented, all alone. The guard ties the cloth too tight around my neck. I can still breathe, but it takes some effort. As long as I can breathe, I won’t die.
“Let’s go,” the patrolman says, and kicks the back of my ankle to make me move. A sharp pain shoots up my leg, but I walk.
I wish I could see where we’re going. I don’t even know what building we’re in—we could be anywhere.
All I know inside the hood’s darkness is the cold feel of the ground beneath my feet. I still can’t hear much of anything out of my left ear, which makes me even more disoriented.
After a long time, or maybe not long at all, I hear the whoosh of a door sliding open in front of me. Familiar sounds arise in my ears: hammers pounding and drills buzzing, and ship engines roaring to life.
A strong smell of sweat and engine oil wafts through my nostrils as the patrolman moves me along, through the doorway. We’re in a flight hangar, and that means Sam is putting me on a ship. Either he’s sending me to the Surface to die from acid exposure, or I’m on my way to the Core. To Charlie.
The roar of the transport’s engine grows louder as we near it. I trip on my way up the boarding ramp, but the patrolman pulls me right back up, rougher than I’d like. I picture myself ramming a boot into his face, like he keeps ramming his into my leg. It would give me great satisfaction.
At least the air inside the ship is warmer, and the seat I’m forced to sit in has a cushion. The patrolman buckles me in. The sound of his boots clunking tells me when he walks away. He didn’t remove my hood. I was counting on that happening soon; I don’t know if I can deal with claustrophobia the whole flight.
It’s going to be okay. I. Will. Not. Faint.
There’s a sound like suction behind me. The ship door closing. The engine roar grows even louder, and I press back against my seat as we lift off the ground.
I need to know where Logan is. Did they put him on a ship already, and take him away?
I hope they took him wherever I’m going. It must be the Core. At least I’ll be familiar with the place. Hopefully I won’t be executed right away. As long as I’m alive, there’s still a possibility, however small, that I can escape.
As long as I’m near Charlie, there’s still a chance I can kill him.