Chapter 3 #2
Gaia nods. “The night clerk told the nearest sentries as soon as she noticed he was gone. The Twelve Guardians should have been alerted by now.”
“They got his exit on camera?”
Another nod. “Footage shows him sneaking out the front doors and into the passageway between Complexes 360 and 361. But he never returned to his housing unit, and as far as I know, he’s not showing up on any other cameras after that.”
Missing. My patient is missing, and I’ve never wanted to stitch up a situation as badly as I do now.
I must have missed something when I was caring for him yesterday—some sign that the injury to his head damaged his brain, too, because no one in their right mind would risk being thrown over the Wall, fodder for the Monster, for a transgression as perplexing as running away from the Healing Center.
“It’s not your fault, Saskia.”
It would be impolite of me to argue with Gaia, but I can’t help my fingernails from digging into the metal of the bench at her words. Of course it’s my fault. If I had just asked him some more questions…
I pull a deep inhale through my nose and nod. “Thanks for the information, Gaia. Have a good sleep.”
“Saskia.” Motherly concern follows every line of my friend’s face as she registers my formal response. She’s the only person I’ve ever joked with after turning fifteen and leaving my original family unit.
“Really, Gaia. It’s okay. I’m sure the sentries will find him and bring him back to the Healing Center so that we can continue our care.”
Yes, that has to be the bright side I can cling to. The Twelve Guardians wouldn’t throw out someone who is clearly delusional with a bruised and battered face.
I spend the rest of my shift trying to mull it over, but unfortunately, my remaining patients are too curious about the Choosing they had to miss.
“What was it like?”
“Who was picked?”
“Did you see any of them?”
To that one, I pause with my eyes on the young patient’s face. Odette’s been in our neurology wing ever since her parents reported her unconscious on the floor about a week ago. We’re still running tests to figure out what’s wrong.
“Yes,” I answer, watching her little eyes widen at that single word. “I saw one of them.”
“Which one?” she breathes.
I hesitate before blowing out, “The Third one.”
“Oooh. My friend Cheryl has a crush on him.” The girl is practically vibrating with excitement, her heart monitor increasing to 105 bpm. “She thinks he’s the most handsome of the Twelve. Do you think he was just as handsome in person?”
I glance at the monitor. I should probably remind her of the Cardinal List of Rules right about now. Number four: don’t ask unsolicited questions. This type of prying curiosity is stamped out of kids by the time they receive their blue badges.
But I also know a conversation like this is one of the only bits of normalcy she’d be able to have in the Healing Center now that she doesn’t have children her age to trade improper questions with, so I relent with a soothing, “Yes, he was very, very handsome.”
Too handsome, maybe. I don’t think I’ll ever get that perfect face out of my head.
The girl squeals and claps her hands. “Oh, I knew it, I knew it. Cheryl is going to die. Did he notice you? Did he?”
I think of the way the Third Guardian’s eyes flicked to my badge before moving on— how he didn’t even raise his eyes to my face, but how he inhaled after passing every citizen, as if taking note of each of our scents.
“Of course he noticed me,” I whisper. “The Guardians notice everyone.”
They’re always watching, I keep to myself, not daring to glance to the corner of the room where I know a camera is blinking and recording every moment of this interaction. They’re always watching.
So how did Diggory manage to disappear?
After hours of taking vitals, administering medications, and changing bandages, I’m finally tearing off my scrubs and sighing off the day of work.
Sweat has dried all over me like a second skin, and I can’t wait to get back to my housing unit to lather myself in soap under a scalding shower.
Usually, I wish the automatic operation was longer than five minutes, but today I’m pretty sure I’ll be grateful for every second until the spray shuts off on me.
I loiter, though, on the steps of the Healing Center, my eyes darting treacherously past the flow of civilians to the complexes across the street: 360 and 361. The space Diggory melted into.
I’m sure the sentries already tried retracing his steps. I’m also sure it’s not my place to wonder if they found anything or not.
Still, my healing motto clangs through me: nobody dies on my watch.
What if Diggory is somewhere in the labyrinth of complexes, hurt and unable to ask for help?
What if this still, technically, falls under the job designation the Guardians gave me?
He never checked out of the Healing Center the proper way, after all. He’s still my patient.
By the time I exhale, I’m already stealing in between that dark lane sandwiched between Complex 360 and 361.
It’s just like any other walkway in here.
Symmetrical doors line either side of me, with knobs and metal slats for meal-laden trays to fit through.
I’ve never really studied the corners and edges of these walkways, though.
My eyes have always been focused on the light spilling from the end of the darkness, not the darkness itself.
Now, I allow myself to slow my steps and look up. Down. All around.
The first thing I notice is what isn’t here. Flags. Loudspeakers. Screens.
Cameras.
The lack of color, the monotony, the symmetry—I’ve always considered it a no-man’s land between point A and point B.
Now, it seems like a perfect crack for someone to fall through, especially when the end of this walkway splits into spiderwebbing intersections where I waver, uncertain whether to turn left, right, or continue straight ahead.
I have a vague idea of the Xantera map etched into my mind from my schooling days, so I know that clusters of complexes bleed into other clusters on either side of the main road.
Diggory could be anywhere within the walls of this city.
Up ahead, a door opens. Somebody exits their housing unit, their red badge gleaming in the shadows. I nod politely as she makes her way past me, as if I live in one of these complexes, too, and I’m just heading home after a long shift.
Which, on a technicality, I am. I’m just taking a detour.
To where? I don’t know. I don’t know.
Watching out for signs of bloodstain or a struggle, I continue on a meandering path until something snags my attention, and I stop dead to pivot back around. For a second, I don’t understand why the door I’m staring at seems off, but unease trickles down my spine.
Then I realize there’s no metal slat for food to fit through above the doorknob.
I gawk at the smooth absence of a slat for several seconds, feeling my pulse skitter up my neck. This… this can’t be right. Unless whoever lives here doesn’t need food, they should have the same door as the rest of us, the same means for receiving daily meals.
Before I can pull myself back, my knuckles are knocking against the door.
Oh, I shouldn’t have done that. I really shouldn’t have done that.
Invading the privacy of someone’s personal housing unit is reserved for sentries and sentries alone, unless it’s Sunday.
Sanctuary Sunday marks the day of balance, a reprieve in our routine.
The Recreation Center unlocks its doors, the Blood Moon Palace welcomes visitors in the courtyard, and citizens can accept visitors, too.
Today isn’t Sunday, though. If someone opens that door and sees a random uninvited civilian in front of their space, the sentries might be knocking on my door soon enough with a whole host of questions.
But nobody answers. The door doesn’t open.
And when I abandon all sense of courtesy and self-preservation and try to turn the knob, I find that it won’t budge.
It’s locked.
Now that same unease spikes in my lungs, making it difficult to breathe.
Nothing is ever locked except for the front doors of the Blood Moon Palace, but I’ve never heard of anyone even trying to open them anyway.
To lock a door is a sign of distrust. And there is no reason to distrust this society the Twelve Guardians have built us from the ground up.
Almost as if something about the door repels me, I find myself hurrying on, taking turn after turn until I’m back in the last remnants of faint sunlight leaking from a pink-tinged sky.
Soon, it’ll be dark and the Monster will begin its nightly howling.
Malcolm will be wondering where I am. Everyone is either back at their housing unit or starting a night shift, so the main road is practically empty as I sneak back onto it.
Which is why, when a scream splits the air, I have a clear view of who’s making it.
The patient I thought I’d find bleeding out somewhere in between complexes is currently on the main road, kicking and thrashing, as several sentries haul him away.