Unforsaken

could not understand how he lived on long after his flesh had withered.

She’d visited him, over and over, the pain fresh every time she stared into his unseeing eyes and touched the cold flesh of the arms that had once held her. For more than a decade, she’d snuck into the nursing home where he existed between life and death, his tissues pumped full of experimental chemicals. She pretended to be someone else. A volunteer. A church lady. Anyone but the girl who’d believed that she and Vincent would be together forever.

“These two came in over the weekend,” Cutler continued, oblivious to her pain. “America’s finest, gave their all for their country, blah blah blah. They haven’t yet been… transitioned. That’s where you come in.”

Prairie couldn’t keep a soft cry from escaping her lips. Transitioned… such a bland word for the most horrific act she could imagine.

“No,” she whispered. “No, I can’t-I won’t-”

“And when you’re done, we’ll send them on down to the lab, which you’ll be happy to know we’ve set up in your old hometown. Great for the local economy and so forth.”

“You’ve… you’ve got people in Gypsum?” Prairie’s mind reeled at the thought. So many Banished concentrated in such a small place. They would be sitting ducks waiting to be picked off by the General, turned into lab rats, made to commit unthinkable acts.

“Oh hell yes. Got a real nice operation in the works. It would be better to fly these fellas straight there, but I guess you know how things work in the sticks. Can’t get a decent bagel, much less a direct flight. So we bring in our… volunteers… by private car. These two will be heading down there next week, once you’re done with them.”

“I’ll never help you.”

“Oh, don’t be hasty!” Cutler exclaimed, his voice taking on a hard edge. “There’s someone here you’ll want to talk to. Sharon, will you help her?”

Only then did Prairie realize that there was one more person in the room. In a far corner a wilted figure leaned in a chair, her face obscured by a bandage that circled her scalp, her arm in a sling. Her other wrist was manacled to the arm of the chair.

The woman working at the computers got up and went to kneel next to the motionless woman, opening the manacles with a small key. When the woman didn’t stir, Sharon took her good arm and guided her up, not without care. The woman stumbled to her feet and seemed to rouse herself from a stupor, then limped toward them with a look of bleak resignation on her bruised face.

Prairie searched her features, then took a step back in shock. “Zytka,” she gasped. “How-”

Cutler chuckled. “Ah, I was hoping you’d be surprised. I suppose you’ve been disappointed that she’s been out of touch. You see, there was a slight… problem with her flight to Poland. Irregularities with her documents, you might say. We were able to step in before the authorities got involved. Nasty business, deportation. Although I suppose they can’t be careful enough these days, can they?”

As the pieces fell into place, Prairie’s throat went dry. She remembered the silent tears that had streamed down Zytka’s cheeks as she’d walked through security at O’Hare, planning to disappear among her countrymen, to build a new life and try to put the nightmare of her old one behind her.

“I realize that you probably thought you’d never see Zytka again,” Cutler continued. “But after that unfortunate accident at the lab, we found ourselves understaffed. Luckily, we were able to persuade her to stay and help us rebuild.”

“Do not do what he says,” Zytka mumbled with effort, lifting a shaking hand to point at the beds lining the wall. Her voice was raw, and Prairie saw ugly purple bruises at her throat.

“What’s wrong with her?” Prairie demanded. “What did you do to her?”

“Oh, I didn’t do anything to her, personally,” Cutler said. “And my colleagues only issued a, er, correction when she broke one of the very few rules we have here.”

“What did she do?”

Cutler laughed, a chilling, soulless sound that echoed around the sterile room. “She decided to leave without telling anyone. She made it out the door-quite impressive really-but she was, er, dissuaded before she made it to the elevator, and as you can see, that was not a very comfortable experience.”

Zytka took two tottering steps, one leg twisting as though it would buckle under her weight, and one of her arms hanging at a strange angle. She worked her jaw and spit at Cutler. It fell short, and Cutler looked at the saliva on the floor at his feet with distaste. “See to this, please.”

He turned his back on the pathetic scene as Sharon gathered paper towels and a spray bottle of disinfectant while Graybull led Zytka gently but firmly back to her seat. Zytka pushed weakly at the man’s hands, but she was no match for him.

“It’s too bad, of course,” Cutler said conversationally to Prairie as he took her arm and guided her toward the closest bed. “If she wasn’t one of your own, you could fix her up far more quickly than we could.”

Fix her up… heal her. So he knew that Healers were of no use to each other, a fact that had perplexed Bryce. It had been one of the things he was most looking forward to studying when he’d found out that Prairie had a niece. Back then, convinced that Bryce loved her and was working to combat disease, Prairie had told him almost everything-how the healing gift ran in Banished families, how Healers only bore girls, how the once-noble Seers had diluted their gift by marrying outside the Banished and become hateful and mean, addicted and lazy and stupid. How glad she was to have left Trashtown, and her childhood tormentors, behind.

Up close Prairie saw that the patient in the bed had nearly half a dozen tubes protruding from his body, including equipment for airway maintenance and cardioversion. He was receiving advanced life support. If the machines were disconnected, he would die within moments.

“I won’t touch him,” she vowed, clenching her hands tightly behind her. “I won’t touch any of them.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we don’t expect you to start work tonight,” Cutler said, chuckling. “You’ve had a long day. You need your rest. I just couldn’t wait to show you how much we’ve accomplished in such a short time. Impressive, no?”

Prairie shuddered. “This is… unconscionable.”

Cutler tsked and pulled the sheet back from the body on the bed with a flourish. The young man’s torso was swathed in bandages. Prairie reached involuntarily to touch the smooth, undamaged patch of exposed skin above the bandages. He was not yet even a man; he was a boy barely older than Kaz, shot down on foreign soil, far from home. She guessed that he’d lost a great deal of blood, that his brain had been deprived of oxygen long enough to leave his body unable to sustain life on its own.

“You want to touch him, don’t you?” Cutler said, unable to restrain the excitement in his voice. “To heal him.”

Prairie jerked her hand away and took a step back. “No! I told you, I won’t do it.”

“Oh, but I think you will,” Cutler said. “In a few days, when you are settled in and ready to begin work, I will turn the machines off. This young man’s heart will stop beating, and oxygen will cease to reach his brain. His systems will shut down. And then you will lay your hands on him and say those words. You’ll do it because you cannot help yourself, deep inside… Heal him, and we will leave your friends alone. Refuse, and we will be forced to go find Kazimierz and Anna Sawicki. Are you willing to gamble with their lives?”

“No,” Prairie whispered. “Leave them alone!”

Cutler shrugged. “As you wish. And welcome to the team.”

10

THREE OR FOUR BLOCKS from the train station, Kaz’s cell phone made the ting that signaled a text message. He dug it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen.

Then he frowned and showed it to me:

WE HAVE PRAIRIE TARBELL AND THE BOY