Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THEA
Screams shred through my poor sleep, and I shoot upright, inhaling thick air. I choke, my lungs seizing in … wrongness. It’s almost sweet, but the chemicals sear the back of my throat and burn my eyes. I can’t—
I can’t breathe.
Another scream echoes through the dark room, and I scramble to get off the bed, away from the unbearable squeeze on my chest. My legs tangle in the sheets, twisted and wrapped around them, and I tumble to the floor with the fabric still hung around my ankles.
Panic surges in my chest as an eerie thump, thump, thump, thump sounds around me.
Next to me, Beth stands clutching her neck, eyes wide, and when she topples over, she lands with a thump.
Bodies.
The girls are dropping like dominoes.
The thought yanks the rest of the sleep from me like a dunk in cold water.
A sickening, dull red glow pulses from somewhere near the ceiling, and I swear a faint voice, perhaps outside the room, rhythmically repeats something. Words I can’t make out. What is happening?
I can’t breathe. Coughing, I stumble forward, tripping over the foot of my bed and using all my strength to pull myself up along the iron frame.
Smoke—gas, I don’t know—rolls in, coiling along the floor.
I blink hard. I can’t see. Blurry shadows dart across my field of vision, flailing in contrary directions.
They’re followed by more shouted pleas and thump, thump, thumps to the floor.
I spin, heart nearly pounding out of my chest, and I stagger toward the door. The concrete is cold on my feet as I cough and sway toward it, blindly searching the space in front of me with both hands.
I’m dizzy, I—
I fall, tripping over … oh, gosh, a body. On my hands and knees, I squint, taking in Juliette’s body crumpled on the floor beside me. Her eyes are closed, chest still moving, and loudly I scream at her. “Juliette! Wake up!”
Pressure builds behind my eyes as I fight the tears from both the smoke and the knife-like pain clawing at my lungs.
I glance back toward the line of beds and at the girls scattered along the floor or draped across the mattresses.
Disoriented, I grope for Juliette’s limp limbs.
I eye the door. I can’t leave her here. She’s deadweight, but I grab both her hands and pull her arms overhead.
Inch by inch, I work toward the door. I slip, stumbling back on the cold tile, but quickly stand and press on.
More gas seeps in through the vents in the ceiling, milky and unfurling over the edges of the room. Panting, I listen as the screams become fewer, and only the sound of my own sobs and ragged wet breath keeps me company.
When I reach the door, I let go of Juliette, her body slapping to the floor, and I slam my fist against it. “Help!” I cry. “Please!” Once. Twice. Over and over, I rap on the door, pounding, screaming, and slowly drowning in a cloud of smoke. “Help us! Let us out!”
Can they hear me? Am I saying it out loud, or is my mouth moving and nothing is coming out? The more I try to speak, the more numb my mouth feels. Help! Please! Get us out of here!
My arms follow. Numb.
Please … Slade?
My body sways, and I fall into the steel door. It doesn’t budge as I sink to the ground, reaching out one last time to shake Juliette.
Everything slows.
I no longer hear my voice, the screams, or the repetitive robotic voice. I blink once. Stay open, I plead with my eyes, but my head lolls against the door instead. With one last fight, my body goes numb, and I crumble to the floor.
My mother died in a car accident. It was the end of July, my junior year of high school, and the weather was warm, perfect even.
I was working down the street at a run-down snow cone shack plopped in a blanket of gravel like an afterthought.
Grimy green coated the aqua siding, but inside, everything gleamed, and the neighborhood kids flocked to the sticky treats like magnets.
I was collapsing the rainbow-striped umbrellas over the well-worn tables when a police cruiser pulled up. We didn’t get much notice from law enforcement, and they avoided our neighborhood, so their presence was curious, but I smiled.
I’ve heard stories of people “knowing” something was wrong. That they were suddenly overcome with a feeling of dread, or a pit formed in their stomachs, but I was oblivious to the news they were about to deliver. Instead, I raised my hand and told them we’d be open for another five minutes.
They told me she had been pronounced dead at the scene of the accident while I flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. They’d tried to notify Phil but couldn’t get ahold of him. I guess he wasn’t at his usual bar. While I blame Phil for many things, her accident wasn’t one of them.
I wish there were someone to blame. A drunk driver.
Brake failure. Road conditions. Anything to point at and say, “This is what took her from me.” But there wasn’t.
It was just a turn too sharp, a guardrail too close, and a crumpled car.
They referred to it as tragic but clean. No one’s fault. And I hate that.
I hate how easy it was. How it just … happened. There’s no justice to chase, no retribution to fuel me, and no guilt to mask the grief. I’m left empty, wanting my mom.
I roll over. Today is the anniversary of her death, or it should be. I’ve lost track of time, and I don’t want to get up. I reach for the covers, but—
Hard, slick flooring squeaks as I shift, my thigh dragging across the shiny wood.
Wood. Not mattress.
What? Wait—there was smoke, and … I can breathe. I gulp in a lungful of air and bolt up, my body moving sluggishly, but moving. I’m moving.
“Ugh. I’ve been waiting for you to get up. You must’ve gotten knocked out after me.”
I blink, registering Juliette’s voice from across the room. She rests with her back pressed against a red velvet-covered wall, her knees pulled into her chest with an annoyed expression etched onto her face by her perfectly waxed brows.
“Wh-what’s going on? Where is everyone?”
She rolls her eyes and shrugs her shoulders, snarled hair bunching on top of them.
I scan the room. It reminds me of the one where they kept me before Slade came for me. This time, Juliette waits with me, and she’s … dressed?
I glance down and shudder, as if my body is now catching up to the fact that I’m nearly naked. Red silk underwear clings where it shouldn’t, and a sheer bralette offers little coverage from the chilled air. Smacking my arms around my chest, I hug myself.
“Please. Not like I haven’t seen you before.” Juliette snorts.
“I-I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, well, neither do I. One minute I’m sleeping peacefully, dreaming of the life I want at a certain lake house, and the next I’m thrust from my bed by Beth passing out on top of me.” She gnaws at her cheek. “Tried to make it to the door, but …”
I nod, as the last moments I pleaded for help pop up like daisies in my mind.
The room is surprisingly cozy with its red-dipped walls and rich-toned wood accents. The faint scent of tobacco wafts in the air, but when I stand, a sweet, clove smell confuses my senses.
Once my feet stabilize beneath me, I spin, spotting the cameras recessed in each corner of the room, but those aren’t odd. What is incongruous, however, is the sleek modern flat-screen mounted beside the door. It’s turned off, but I wander toward it, catching my reflection in the glossy black.
They’ve curled my hair. It never looks this good without help or taking hours of teasing and product.
Yet now they’re loose and springy, swept to the side at the right spot on my forehead.
Heavy, smooth makeup sits on my face, and my lashes curl long—longer than they should—and I blink, fluttering in confusion.
“They went all out for tonight,” Juliette chimes in, pushing up from the floor. She walks closer to me, her gaze flicking over my body and then meeting mine in the screen’s reflection. “We’re dressed differently.”
I turn, noting her outfit is black rather than red. “That’s …” Weird. Not right. I don’t know, but we’re always dressed the same for Market. We’ve also never been drugged before either. Unless …
“I don’t think there will be a Market tonight.” Juliette sighs but leans into her reflection and puckers her lips into a kissy face.
The corner of my lip lifts. “What do you mean?”
“I mean …” She straightens and inspects her fingernails painted red, and I immediately glance at my own, now black.
“There were rumors, like passed down from girls before me, that they like to cycle the girls. You know, move them out quietly when they stop selling.” She lowers her voice.
“But this is different, I think. Every so often they have a Call … no, Cullen? Whatever they call it, it isn’t quiet.
It’s an event. They make it a show. If you’re not chosen, you don’t just disappear. You’re made an example of.”
“That’s … sick.”
“And what they’ve been doing isn’t? Welcome to your new reality.” She adjusts her bralette, ensuring their attention lands exactly where she wants it.
I huff. “It shouldn’t be our reality.”
The screen snaps to life with a sharp, slap-like sound, breaking the awkward silence as Juliette grooms herself.
A bluish tint bleeds into the warm light cast from the ceiling as the music crackles once.
Tiny boxes of camera feed populate the picture, one right after the other, in horizontal lines.
Stepping closer, I recognize the movement in the bottom-left corner.
I move my arm, and the person in the picture the screen does the same.
Us.
Footage.
I look at the others. Girls. All the girls. Paired by twos in room after room, each dressed in the same red and black as Juliette and me. They all move toward their own screens, some wall-mounted by the doors, some on stands in the center of the rooms.