Chapter 10
DON’T FIGHT IT
Wake up
Wake up.
Wake up!
My eyes snap open, but the world doesn’t shift into focus. I’m facedown on white tiles, freezing and gasping for air. The floor tilts as I stagger upright, each motion unsure.
A long corridor of doors surrounds me. Lemon antiseptic assaults my nostrils with every rigid pull of breath, twisting my stomach tight with nausea. Everything is bathed in white. Clean. Cold. Clinical.
Like everything I’ve ever known.
And yet…wrong.
My legs betray me. One step. Then another. Each drags me farther until I’m captive to the sea of nothingness. More doors, each bearing plaques tarnished beyond recognition.
Before I know I’ve stopped, I’m reaching for a golden door handle. The moment I make contact, it turns scarlet, dripping to the ground like fresh blood.
My hands are soaked with it. A soundless scream shakes free from my burning lungs.
My hands tremble as I drag them down my uniform, unable to look away from the crimson seeping into clean fabric.
The door before me vanishes, but the one to its right rattles until it fractures, sending jagged fissures down the middle.
It splits just wide enough to reveal a girl with matted auburn curls and familiar eyes staring straight through me.
A dark ribbon is tied across her mouth, pulled so taut she can’t possibly breathe.
Her form crackles at the edges, phasing in and out as if the universe doesn't know if she’s real.
There’s no time to decide. The door slams with a force that sends me tumbling back.
My mouth opens. I’m screaming again. And again. And—
Laughter roars from somewhere beyond, low and thick. My knees hit tile before I can register I’m falling. The sound only swells.
“Careful, little star. The world’s already watching,” a deep voice purrs.
I’m on my feet in a second, skidding impossibly fast down the twisting hallway…and going nowhere. Eyes. There are eyes everywhere. Studying me with hunger and horror and something I can’t place.
A door falls off its hinges, slamming to the ground. Two faceless figures are on the far end of the room, voices bleeding down the corridor. Their silhouettes are hazy, shadows in human form.
“She’ll break if you push further!” one says, urgent.
“Nothing unbroken can be rebuilt,” the other responds coolly.
They blur into smoke.
Every time I run, the hallway stretches further. More doors. Always more doors. I fall into the handle of another.
The room beyond is empty save for a mirror that’s cracked at the edges. When I blink, I’m in front of it.
The girl staring back isn’t me.
Deep brown eyes find mine, burning bright—almost feverish as she takes me in. Her hands twitch at the hem of her skirt like she can’t coax them still. Her hair is more gold than brown, falling in waves she’s tucked precariously behind her ears. A lopsided smile sits on her lips, hazy and wrong.
Then I see it.
Stark against her bloodless skin is a bruise curling around her throat in black and blue swirls. My breath shudders. I reach for my neck, but there’s nothing save for my hammering pulse. When I look back, the mark remains, spreading now, blooming darker across her neck like I’ve awoken it.
Her lips part. Her eyes darken. Seven words ring crystal clear through the glass.
“Don’t fight it. They’ll take you, too.”
The room dissolves. Another hallway replaces it in a blaze of familiarity.
A figure looms at my back, shadowed and too close.
My gaze falls, and I’m left staring at my uniform, spattered in ruins of arterial dark.
My mouth opens before I give it permission, lips forming words I didn’t choose. Barely a whisper, shaky and raw:
“Don’t remember me in red.”
The figure reaches, but I’m already moving. Heat surges down my arms in waves faster than my mind can follow. Every scrap of sense tells me to cower, to duck, to hide. But I can’t stop running. The hall collapses, hurling me forward.
The lights flicker. Someone screams.
When the world reanimates, I’m braced over a piano.
A piano stained with blood.
An incessant ringing brings me back to the hallway. Sound explodes through the expanse.
Laughing. Screaming. Begging. They all bleed the same from here.
I collapse to the ground, limbs dragging in protest. Cold slices through my dress as I press myself to the floor, praying the sounds will pass.
But they just turn to static, growing closer and closer until my eardrums threaten to burst. A whisper caresses my ear:
Shine for me, little star.
The floor drops out.
I jerk awake, acutely aware that I’m not alone. There’s a shadow in the doorway, broad-shouldered and tense. For a half second, I think it’s Mister M, come to taunt me—or worse—drag me to the lab.
Then Colt shifts in the light, jaw tight, caramel eyes fixed on me like I’ve done something dangerous just by opening mine.
“You shouldn’t be awake.”
I flick a bead of sweat off my forehead, forcing my breath to steady. “Sorry.”
He shakes his head fast. “Don’t…don’t apologize.” His eyes flick to the cuff at my wrist, then to the ground. He presses a hand to his temple. “I drew the dose myself.” He mutters, baffled. “It should’ve held.”
I don’t know what to say.
Colt crosses the room before I can blink and crouches low so we’re eye level.
His face is sharper in the dim, his usual boyish grin stripped away.
It occurs to me that I don’t think I’ve ever seen him serious.
“Listen to me, sedation doesn’t fail. Not like this.
” His breath hitches. “How long has this been going on?”
I don’t respond, which seems to be the only answer he needs.
His eyes sharpen. “You’ve been faking sleep? Why? How often?”
My stomach drops. “No!” It comes out too loud, amplifying the shame. I bite my lip and try again. “No, I—I wouldn’t.”
Colt studies me, searching for something in my eyes. Whatever he finds, it doesn’t ease him. He scrubs a hand over his mouth, then sits back on his heels, sighing in something like defeat.
“I have to file it.” The words land heavy between us.
“If sedation can’t hold you then—” He stops.
Runs a shaky hand through his hair. “God, I don’t know Mays.
That’s the shit girls get flagged for.” My chest seizes.
His gaze flicks to the door, then back. “You get how rare this is, right? I shadowed patrols for almost a year before being assigned a pod. And I’ve never seen it. Not once.”
“What’s going to happen?” I wring my fingers through the blanket, fighting the urge to vomit.
Colt doesn’t answer right away. He presses his eyes closed. Sighs. “Diagnostics. Noxen.” The name rolls bitterly off his tongue. “It’ll be fine. He’ll know what to do.”
The silence stretches, unbearable in its intensity. He pushes to his feet, forcing his tone into something that could be interpreted as reassuring. “Stay put. Don’t fight the next dose if they bring it. Promise me that.”
Words fail. I bob my head in the barest nod.
Colt lingers a beat longer, hands flexing uselessly at his sides. Then he leaves, his shadow quickly swallowed by the dim blue lights of the common room. And once again, I’m alone with the echo of everything.
My nightmare. His disbelief.
The fact that I can still feel an ache at the base of my neck.
Don’t fight it. They’ll take you, too.