My shoulders slump. My insides tie into knots. His eyes are still boring into me, and I can feel the shame heating my cheeks. I’m reminded of all the times I made Salma help me clean rabbits. She always said the same thing, “Why me?” Great. Being with me is as detestable to Kiran as slicing up a dead rabbit is to Salma.
“My legs scored seven and a half stars,” I tell him. I look down at the slender muscles of my thighs, and he shakes the dress impatiently in front of me.
I take it, half wishing that knife he’d thrown had hit the mark.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll find another way.” I make it sound mean, but I’m a little relieved.
His mouth is pinched at the corners in anger when he draws an X over his cheek with his first finger, then points at me.
“I know,” I tell him. “They’ll mark me. But it’s the only way, don’t you see? I’ll never get out of here otherwise.”
He points at his chest, and then slices his hands in his no gesture.
“I hear you,” I tell him slowly, the words sharp. “I get it. I’m not stupid, you know.”
He turns away. I stuff myself back into the dress, half livid, half panicked.
“Kiran!” I whisper as he turns. But it’s too late. He’s already over the stream, stalking towards the barn. He slaps a hand against the side paneling just as he passes through, and even though he can’t talk, it sure feels like he’s had the last word.
The chestnut mare I recognize from town, and a few other horses, spook at the sound and gallop out into their paddocks, kicking and whinnying. A few moments later the Watcher is outside, staring at me blankly. Then Daphne shows up, peering around the corner of the office wall as though she’s about to witness something terrifying.
“What happened?” she asks when the Watcher leaves to go back inside.
“Nothing,” I say flatly.
“Did you fall?”
“Go back to sleep,” I say. She huffs and stomps away.
I slide back against the wall, but I don’t sleep. I shred tufts of grass in my fists and sniffle as the air becomes sharply chilled. I keep thinking about Mr. Greer and the Governess. About the mayor’s house, protected in the Magnate district. About how Kiran won’t help me even to save my life.
*
I DON’T MOVE ONCE during the night. I stay there through the morning, thinking, wishing, looking for something I’ve missed, something I haven’t tried. I bite my nails down to nothing. I screw my thumbs into my temples. The Watcher brings me meal pills in another aluminum bowl, but I don’t touch them. All my ideas are coming up blank.
Sometime in the afternoon Daphne comes back around the corner. Her hair has gotten wavy out here in the moist air and sticks out on one side. From the tearstains down her freckle-free, coal-smeared cheek, I can tell she’s had about enough of the solitary pen.
“They’re here for you,” she says.
I don’t stand until the Pips make me.
Within the office my bracelet is removed, then I’m led through the door with the key code and down the long, windowless hallway with the flickering lights. My footsteps are heavy, slower than the pattering of the Pips’ padded shoes. The dread turns my guts to water. It feels like I’m climbing back onto that stage again, only this time not for the auction, but for the hangings.
We enter the foyer and pass the entertainment parlor but don’t continue down the hall to the Governess’s office.
“Where are we going?” I ask the Pip in front, somehow both relieved and even more wary than before. If we aren’t going to the Governess’s office, maybe the paperwork didn’t go through.
The Pip whispers something to the one standing beside him.
“Hey,” I say. “I asked you something.”
“Pip.” He snorts. “So rude.” One of the keepers behind me smacks me on the back with his beater, and I siphon in a sharp breath through my teeth. It feels like a fire on my skin. My fists clench at my sides.
They turn and lead me down a white corridor, one I’ve been down before, and the dread returns in one hard punch.
The medical wing.
My knees wobble, and for a moment I consider letting them give out. Laying on the floor. Making them carry me. But I don’t, because no one carries me.
The Pips must sense the change in me because they tighten their ranks. They try to push me forward, but I don’t move. The reality of my situation has come crashing down over my head.
It’s happened: I’ve been sold. And now a doctor’s here to do the purity test.
“Come on,” says the leader. “Don’t be difficult. It’s not painful.”
“How would you know?” I ask. But it’s not the pain I’m worried about.
“Come on,” he says again, and he gives a little nod to the two in back. They both lay in at once, smacking my shoulders, the backs of my thighs. In this thin dress it feels like their blows slice the skin, and they leave traces of heat with every strike.
I move over the threshold and through the doors despite myself. A cool burst of air comes from above, though that’s not why I cross my arms over my chest. In the center of the room is a thin metal table and from it extend four angular silver arms. One holds a tray of instruments, one stretches above with a light, and the two at the bottom are capped by half circles that look like horseshoes.
The doctor rises from his desk against the wall and approaches. He’s a frail man with tired eyes and a thin black mustache. His long white jacket reaches almost all the way to the gleaming white floor.
“Did you bring the forms?” he asks a Pip, who replies with a nod.
“Disrobe,” the doctor tells me. “You can place your clothes on the back of that chair.”
I swallow, my heart beating in my ears.
“Take off your clothes,” he says slowly. He turns to a Pip. “I forgot she was the one they brought in from the wild.”
“I know what disrobe means,” I say, already feeling naked. “But I’m not doing it.”
Five Pips are watching me. Five Pips and a doctor, all of them barking mad if they think I’m about to strip down to my bare skin. Taking my dress off in front of Kiran now seems a thousand times easier.
I wrap my arms tighter around my waist and glance back at the sliding doors.
The doctor sighs. “A thorough exam is expected as part of every pending sale.”
“Well that’s too bad,” I say, heart pounding in my chest. I take a step back, then another. One of the Pips moves to a corner and presses a button on the wall. He’s talking to someone, but I can’t hear what he says.
The lead Pip glares at me. “Off with the dress, girl. Don’t make us ask again.”
“You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about,” says the doctor, although I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. “Any disfigurements will be corrected before the sale is complete.”
My scars feel huge and foreign when he says this, like they’re great, ugly eyesores.
The sliding door opens and I spin to find the Watcher from the solitary yard standing in the outline of white. I back into the table. The metal tray clatters to the ground and the neatly laid-out pieces go rolling across the floor.
“Pip, pip, pip!” says the leader. “Now look what you’ve done!”
The Watcher closes in, one hand on his wire, and I dodge behind the table.
“Stay away from me,” I say. “All of you. I don’t need any medical exam, all right? I’m pure and my scars have already been lightened. Just ask the Governess.”
I keep my eyes on the Watcher—on his hand, still resting on his wire. On the key, strapped in the belt across his chest. If only I’d had that a few hours ago.
A Pip grabs me from behind, and I shake him off. But two more take his place and hold my arms. The doctor is approaching with a syringe, and out of the top of the needle a droplet of clear moisture beads and slides free. I stare at it in dread.
“Hold her still,” he says.
I struggle, furious tears burning my eyes. In one heave, I pull free of the Pips, tearing the sleeves of my dress, and charge the door. I try to get past the Watcher, but it’s no use. Inhumanly fast, he appears in front of me, and I run straight into his chest. He pins my arms at my sides as if I’m weak as a rabbit, and holds me still while the doctor sticks the needle in my neck.
It burns; flames lick my veins as the poison spreads through my blood. And then I go limp.
I can’t move. My arms and legs don’t work. I can’t even scream.
But I feel.
I feel the soft hands of the Pips peeling off my dress.
The rough material of the Watcher’s jacket beneath my knees and back as he puts me on the cold table.
The hard metal horseshoes jutting into my ankles as my legs are spread and placed in each arm.
I can’t cover myself from their judging eyes. Can’t cover my ears to drown out the Pips’ snide little jokes. Ripe for the picking, they say. Ripe as a cherry.
The doctor slides his stool between my knees, and puts his cold hands on my thighs and the places no one has ever touched. The bright light on the band around his head lowers. I watch him study and prod this body as if it’s not my own. It can’t possibly be my own. It lies there lifeless, stays where it’s placed, doesn’t fight.
It disgusts me.
“Fertile,” he says with a smile. “Very nice.”
I want to close my eyes, but can’t even do that. The only thing left to do is think of Kiran, and pretend it’s just him and me, like I’d planned it last night. But the tools aren’t gentle like Kiran’s hand on my calf, and I’m thankful more than ever that he can’t see me now.
Finally, the doctor wheels back in his chair, and removes the headpiece with the bright, round light.
“Untouched,” he says. He pats my knee. “Well done.”