Rosabelle 17
Rosabelle
We don’t think you killed him.
The words buzz in my mind, the revelation just astonishing enough to distract me from my own spiraling needs.
I never bothered to counter the accusation that I’d killed Leon, because the circumstances surrounding his death were so implausible I never thought anyone would believe me.
“You’re the only one who interacted with Leon in the last days of his life,” Jing says to me now, “and your feedback would be crucial in helping us amass and analyze some much-needed data. You were pronounced dead a few weeks ago, so we didn’t think we’d ever have the chance to ask.
” He hesitates. “Actually, we have a lot of questions for you.”
I add to my mental list: Annoying. I underline the word three times.
I hear the sound of a drawer opening and closing in the bathroom. The faucet running.
“Aya,” Elias calls out to her. “Her nose is starting to bleed.”
“Coming!”
“So,” says Jing, still staring at me. “Are we right? Is it true that you didn’t kill him?”
“Wait for me,” says Aya, rushing back out of the bathroom with a fresh towel. She shoos Jing out of her chair before taking her seat, then looks at me expectantly while holding the towel under my nose, catching blood.
Instinct prompts me to tell the truth.
“You’re right,” I say quietly. “I didn’t kill Leon.”
“I knew it.” Jing punches the air.
His expression is hard to decipher; he doesn’t look happy, just vindicated.
“Didn’t I call it?” He glances between Elias and Aya. “Didn’t I say that all his research indicated that there’d been a corruption in the structure, that conditions were ill-suited to long-term sustainability? That the biomaterials could be remotely manipulated?”
“So it’s really possible?” Aya is stunned, the towel forgotten in her hand; my nose is now dripping blood onto my pants. “The kill switch was activated from within him?”
“Yes,” I say.
They draw back as one body.
“There’s no precedence for this,” says Elias, shaking his head. “Only hypotheses, never concrete examples.”
“Can you describe what happened?” Jing asks me. “Can you tell us exactly how he died?”
I consider Jing, weighing how much to reveal. “It was as if the body became a weapon against itself,” I explain. “He detonated from inside.”
“Holy shit,” says Jing.
Gone is his prior moment of vindication. The three of them exchange horrified glances.
There’s so much more to say—so much more I find myself wanting to say—but I still don’t know how much I can safely share with these people.
I reach unsteadily for the towel, and Aya relinquishes the dampened cloth. I take a moment, staring at the blood-smeared textile, holding out my other hand to catch the steady drip of my nose. Red drops break against my palm like the steady patter of rain. The pulse of memory.
What’s happening to me, Rosa?
Clara’s small hand coming away red from her mouth. Wet lips. Smeared cheeks. The hours I held her upright so she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit. The way she shook in my arms.
Rosa, she whispered. Rosa, I’m scared. I don’t want to sleep anymore. I don’t want to see them anymore—
Who? I asked her. Who are you talking about?
Her frail hand had curled around my wrist. Her eyes nearly rolled back in her head. They don’t like to let me go.
Now I stare, hypnotized, at the pool of blood slowly rising in my palm.
Rosa, where are you?
The endless piles of bloodied rags I scoured in the sink. The water I boiled every day on the stove.
Rosa?
The stains I scrubbed from the floorboards. From her sheets.
ROSA—
“Rosabelle?”
Slowly, I lift my head.
“Why are you all here?” I ask them. “Why are any of you here, in this facility?”
“For our protection,” says Elias.
Another strike to my dizzy head. “Of course.”
“We were all working on highly classified projects,” says Jing. “We specialized in bioactivity.”
“More specifically,” says Aya, “looking into the molecular effects of implanted biomaterials. Leon was one of us. We were all admitted into the facility together. We’re the only inmates who never graduate from the program.”
I blink, my vision blearing. My head is working too hard. “But you always used to fight—over slippers.”
“That’s because Jing is an asshole,” says Elias easily. “Very annoying all the time. More annoying the more you get to know him. And always stealing my slippers.”
Jing flips him off.
“The routines get a little tedious after a while.” Aya tries for a smile. “Sometimes we fight.”
“So you were spying on me while I was here?”
“Well,” says Aya, her expression softening. “We were ordered to keep an eye you while you were here. Report any unusual behaviors, that sort of thing.”
I lose focus a moment.
Every day this world grows more teeth around me. I move from web to web, ripping myself free of one trap only to be ensnared by another.
“Who do you take orders from?” I ask.
A moment of silence.
“I really thought he would’ve told you,” Aya says with a frown. She glances at the others. “What do you think? Should we tell her?”
“He should be here soon enough,” says Jing.
“Who?”
Jing grimaces at my bleeding nose. “I take back what I said. We should get you into recovery sooner rather than later. But while you’re still here, can I ask you something?
” He moves a bit closer and doesn’t wait for my answer.
“What was Leon like right before death? Was he still himself? Because we think something bad happened to him at some point, but we never figured out what.”
I hold still, waiting to see whether Jing will offer me more unsolicited information.
I don’t have to wait long.
“One day he just changed,” Jing adds. “I don’t know how to explain it. It was like he was evicted from his own mind.”
I add to my mental list: Guards information poorly.
And under that: Never share sensitive information with careless people.
“And we think—” Jing cuts himself off to take a breath, sharing nervous looks with the others.
Elias nods.
Aya looks wary.
“Okay, I know this might sound crazy, but we think something inhuman might’ve been implanted inside of him. Like a—a data parasite, or—”
“Klaus.”
I’ve said the word so quietly it takes me a moment to register that they heard me, and to then translate their collective shock. Three pairs of eyes widen in my direction at the same time.
“What did you just say?” asks Aya.
“Klaus,” I repeat. “Klaus was in his head.”
“Holymotherfuckingshit,” Jing says on an exhale, pushing his hands through his hair. He starts pacing the room. “Elias, get the files—get the files—”
“Now? I can’t go now—”
Jing double punches the air. “I knew it!” he cries. “I knew Leon wasn’t writing letters to fucking Santa Klaus—”
“It was a valid theory,” Elias argues, looking offended. “Leon was not in his right mind—”
There’s a sudden, sharp knock at the door, and they’re startled into statues.
Another sharp knock and Jing reanimates.
He’s suddenly at the entry, flipping the lock, pulling the door open. He stands aside, but he’s speaking way too fast to someone I can’t see—
“Okay, so, yeah, we definitely need to get her into recovery, but do you think we can hang on to her for a little bit longer? I just want to ask her a few more questions, because I feel like we maybe made a huge breakthrough and it would be super super helpful for research purposes if we could—Right, okay—sure, we don’t have to talk about it now—you’re clearly busy—that’s fine—”
Aaron Warner Anderson walks into the room without a word.
I physically recoil.
Over and over I realize how badly I’ve underestimated the intelligence of the Anderson brothers.
My heart is beating fast.
Warner does a sweep of my swollen, bruised, and bleeding face, then meets my gaze with an ill-concealed fury, his pale green eyes nearly violent in their intensity.
I can never hold his gaze for long.
Not only is it painful to maintain eye contact with him, but Warner looks so much like James that I find it nearly unbearable to be in his presence. Right now, it’s making me want to run from the room.
He takes no comfort in the sight of me, either.
Warner’s jaw visibly tightens. His exhale is slow and controlled. I see the moment he notices the embroidered message on my sweatshirt, and the wry humor does nothing to dilute his anger. In fact, it seems to make him angrier.
hang in there
it gets worse
“Unbelievable,” Warner says softly. “He was right again.”