“What is this?” he demands. He stares at it as if mystified and flips it over. “What did you give me?”
“Sleep meds,” I say. “The same ones you use on me.”
He slumps slightly, and I get one hand free. He grows heavier still, crushing my chest, but I shove violently to get an inch free.
“How much?” he asks.
“All there was,” I say.
He presses a hand to my throat, cutting off my wind. “Where’d you get it?”
I twist my head and struggle to pull his hand away.
“Where?!” he shouts, and he releases my throat enough for me to gasp in a new breath.
“Get off me!” I say.
He tightens his grip on my throat again, and I seriously can’t breathe. I thrash, bug-eyed and panicking, and I’m seeing stars when his grip slackens slightly. I pull at his fingers, desperate for breath, and inhale raggedly. Then I scramble and push furiously to get out from under the sagging weight of him.
Limp and unmoving, he watches me through hooded eyes.
Gasping precious air, I reach into my pocket for another syringe. I flip off the cap and lean nearer. He waves a weak hand to fend me off, but I clamp his arm down and hold the syringe poised above him.
“Where is Thea?” I ask. “Is she in the vault?”
He leers. “Find her yourself,” he says thickly.
I jab the next syringe hard into the meat of his arm and plunge in the depressor. That’s two doses, enough to mess him up for a good while if I’m not mistaken. Berg’s eyes dilate with fear, like he knows this is bad. He’s lying there like a toad, with a slick line of saliva drooling out of his mouth. He moves his lips, but no words come out, and I’m glad he’s conscious. I’m glad he knows how helpless he is.
“How’s it feel?” I ask. “You bastard.”
I have two more syringes, come to think of it. I pull them out and weigh them in my fingers, contemplating. Berg shakes his head at them, his eyes wild. It would be easy enough to give him the rest of the sleep meds. The likelihood is high they’d kill him. Then I’d be certain he would never come after me again. It’s tempting. Deeply. He deserves to suffer for what he’s done.
His skin goes clammy and his eyelids droop, but then he regains his wild focus once more. He deliberately taps his own chest, right above his heart. Then he twitches a finger at me. “Nightmare,” he whispers.
A shiver lifts the hairs on my arms. I can’t tell if he’s cursing me or accusing me. I reach for his shirt and pull it back to reveal the place he was tapping. He has a lump under his skin. A port, like mine. We’re alike.
He’s still watching me to see what I’ll do.
I draw back slowly. This taunting, vengeful person can’t be me. I don’t want to be a sick monster like him. I put the caps back on my used syringes, and put them with the other two back in my pocket. Then I feel through his pockets for two phones, mine and his. He doesn’t resist. He can’t. He’s a big body of slumbering flesh. May he rot.
34
THEA
A BEAM OF LIGHT
I HATED BERG. I really did, with everything in me. Wherever Rosie was, I hoped she was killing him. I hoped she was blowing his scurvy brains out.
I had been alone in the dark operating room for six hours, and I’d had enough. My contractions came randomly, but they came often enough to convince me my labor had started for real. Once, at the end of a contraction, I thought a bit of light came from the other room and Berg was returning, but then he didn’t. Now and then, I thought I heard a mouse. I would nudge my phone for a glimpse of light, but its battery was practically dead, and I dreaded being in the total dark with no relief.
Another contraction rolled over me, and I focused inward and tried to breathe through the pain. With my knees and hands on my jacket beneath me, I tucked my head down and kept my eyes on the little glowing screen of my phone as if it could save me. The contraction eased just as the screen automatically dimmed to black, and I curled onto my side again, exhausted.
A thump came from the other room. I listened hard as footsteps came running. A glimmer flashed in the window, and a voice came like mercy through the muffling glass.
“Thea!” Rosie called. “Are you there?”
I staggered to my feet, bursting with relief. Her flashlight blinded into my eyes.
“Thank goodness!” Rosie said. “Are you all right?”
She rattled the door from her side. I lifted a hand against the glare. Her flashlight fell to the ground and cast an angle of iridescence up the window that separated us. She tried the door handle with both hands, and for an instant, our eyes met through the glass, directly opposite each other. For an eerie second, I saw Rosie’s face glowing across from mine, exactly as if I were seeing my own reflection in a mirror. A keen wildness brightened her eyes. Then she dipped down for the flashlight.
“Stand back,” she said, and tried slamming the flashlight against the glass. It didn’t break. “I have to get something bigger,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Turn the lights on!” I yelled.
She vanished. A moment later, light illuminated the main vault, and I had a clear look at the room that had imprisoned me all this time: the bare white walls, the dusty tile floor. The camera in the upper corner was as still as a patient spider.
Rosie hurried back with a coffeemaker machine.
“Stand back,” she said again.
I gathered my phone and jacket off the floor, backed into the corner, and covered my face. A bashing noise sent splinters scattering everywhere. I peeked up as she pummeled the machine against the window again, whacking the glass shards at the edge of the frame.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll help you over.”
I doubled my jacket over the lower edge of the window edge and gingerly gripped the sides, toppling over mostly backward to Rosie, who caught and shifted me through the opening.
“How long have you been down here?” she asked.
“Six hours. I’m in labor.”
“Holy crap!” she said. “That bastard.”
I put an arm around her shoulder to lean on her. “Did you see Berg?” I asked.
“Did I,” Rosie said grimly. “I should have killed him while I had the chance.”
“What did you do to him?” I asked.
“Not enough.”
My muscles ached deeply, and every bone felt brittle and heavy.
“I have to know,” I said. “Did you talk to him? Does he know about us?”
“Yes,” she said. “He wants to get us together and compare our brains.”
“I hate him,” I said.
“What are you even doing down here?” Rosie asked.
“I came to stop you from going to see Berg,” I said. “I was worried you’d do something stupid. I’ve totally changed my mind.”