Her eyes didn’t change. “I lie quiet on my bed and that is as close as I get. Is that what you mean?”
There was nothing for me to do but nod in agreement even though my stomach twisted with nausea again. The fingers in my mind were back, trying to soothe the anxiety that I couldn’t still on my own. I pushed them away as carefully as I could. No need for alarm, just worried about the new kid.
You aren’t the monster they say you are. You are good and kind.
She tugged on the end of her braided hair, twisting it around her fingers. “Do you want something to eat?”
I didn’t but agreed to go with her. The food in the cafeteria was poor, though everyone else seemed to like it. The main dish was always the same, a type of gelatinous pudding that had a variety of vegetables splattered through it, and an undistinguishable meat on the side that was always overcooked with a faint bitter tang that I knew was the sedative. A barbiturate, no doubt.
Three times a day.
Every day.
I got most of it down, moving on autopilot, not letting my mind think.
Two cats wandered through the room, hopping up onto the tables, butting their heads against the people here. A few hands lifted, petting what were supposed to be therapy animals. The dogs slipped into the room next, tails down, eyes blank.
The leanest of the dogs sat at my feet. He was light brown with dark points on his muzzle. A Belgian Malinois. His name was Abe and he was as trained as the dog that my handler told me wasn’t real.
This was real.
This was the only Abe I knew.
I ignored him, though he reminded me so much of . . . no. There was nothing else. I ignored him. The other dog I fed was one that would be dead soon, I was sure. She was miserable, mean, and barely took food from me. Dead. Just like the other Abe.
“I should take food to the one downstairs,” I said to Esther as I stood, thinking the thoughts they wanted me to. We needed to help those who fought the handlers understand that this was a good place. The animals were a kind touch, just not my thing. I didn’t care about dogs.
There was no Abe in my past, no dog that I loved and who had fought at my side.
Esther didn’t so much as look my way. “You do too much. You need to rest.”
I paused. That was new. “I do what we’re asked to do. To help the others.”
Which wasn’t incorrect. I took a deep breath, the sedative slowing my thoughts and my movements, and retrieved a second tray. The fingers in my mind loosened, same as they always did after I ate. I waited until they were gone from my mind, then I pushed back on the sedative’s effects, clearing my thoughts at least a little. Like working through being tortured, there were ways to function while you were drugged, even if it wasn’t easy.
There was a prisoner here, a man who fought the training and help.
A man who’d tried to escape sixteen times. Based on his rants, he’d nearly made it out the last time. I’d taken note of every route he’d tried, every trick he’d employed. Every reason they’d caught him.
Each time they brought him back, I thought they’d kill him, but it hadn’t happened yet. I clamped down on my thoughts, just in case. I made my way to the stairs that would lead to the floor below us.
George was the guard at the door tonight.
“You on it?” he asked.
“All good. He has to eat if the docs are going to help him.” I balanced the tray as George held the door open for me. Down the stairs I went, my bare feet slapping lightly on the concrete floor. The temperatures dipped the farther I went, and a breeze that shouldn’t have existed picked up.
If I didn’t take him food, he didn’t eat. I was the only one he’d eat for. My hands tightened on the tray, shaking a little.
Everyone else was terrified of him.
Even the doctors.
The guards.
Everyone. So I had to pretend to be afraid of him too.
“Pete, you hungry?”
There was silence for half a beat and then he replied as he always did. “Fuck off, you fucking traitorous bitch!”
I sighed. “I’m here to help you, Pete. If you’d just listen to me, you wouldn’t be kept down here. You could come up with the rest of us. You need to listen to my words.”
The room was a simple rectangle shape, more long than wide, and his chains were attached at the very back of the room. No bars, no doors, because those chains were on each limb rubbing him raw over time. A rattle of chains and then he was right there in my face, straining toward me with his very sharp, very pointed, teeth bared. “Traitor! You were the best of us! You were the one who could have stopped this! You had a chance!”
I held the food out to him, staying just outside his reach of where his chains allowed him. I was being careful, that’s what I told myself, but I put myself just an inch too close.
I locked eyes with him, willing him to listen to my words and understand how important they were. “Let me help you, Pete.”
He snapped a hand out for the tray and his fingers touched my wrist. His eyes widened and he yanked me closer. I didn’t fight, thinking that’s what happened when the drugs were thick in your system.
Alarms didn’t go off. The fingers in my mind didn’t come back.
There were no cameras down here, not on a madman who lived and breathed in what would be his coffin one day at the rate he was going.
Pete rolled me around so my back was flush against his chest, tipped my head sideways,
