Her clothes marked her as an outsider as much as her looks. An avocado green sweater and gray denim pants hugged her slim frame beneath a spotless white lab coat. Expensive black trail boots with only a hint of dirt completed her look.
I hadn’t seen anyone so well dressed in years; she didn’t belong here amid this destitution. A stiff breeze rolled through camp and rattled my canvas door flap, bringing a faint whiff of lavender and vanilla to my nose. It came from her onyx hair, which fluttered gently in the wind. The woman clamped down on the clipboard in her hands, stopping the ruffling papers with her well-manicured fingers.
“What do you want?”
Her smile deepened in its falseness, showing off her perfect teeth. She had a good smile, but it was all for show, and it didn’t touch her eyes; they were calm and unreadable. “My name is Dr. Bell, but you can call me Jessica."
She paused, taking stock of me, her eyes flicking up and down. Suddenly I was very self-conscious about my appearance. Usually, it wouldn’t bother me what anyone else thought, but she was different—gorgeous, intelligent, and, more importantly, clean. Something I wasn’t.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a chance to take an actual shower, and sitting here in my stained and threadbare clothing put me off balance. My appearance obviously didn’t bother her; she was satisfied with her assessment as a flicker of a grin crossed her lips and her eyes thawed by a degree.
“Would you like to help save the world?”
What? I blinked, stunned. Surely, I misheard what she said? “Come again?”
She chuckled. It shattered the persona she wore for just a second, giving me a glimpse at the real Jessica. She was laughing at me, but there wasn’t any meanness in it.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve laughed; that was rude of me. I can’t say much, but the organization I work for needs test-volunteers. I can’t give away any more details about the project as it’s highly classified, need to know, and well…”
“I don’t need to know.”
“Bingo.”
She was too clean and well dressed for this to be a joke. There had to be some truth to what she was offering, even if what she was saying was impossible. Earth can’t be saved; it’s been beyond saving for five years now. One look outside this camp will tell you that…besides, even if it could, there’s no world for me to go back to.
I shied away from that thought before it dragged me deeper into despair and shifted to meet her gaze. “Last I checked, this world’s fucked, and unless you’ve figured out a way to get rid of the ghouls, this is a pointless conversation.”
The corners of her mouth lifted by a notch, but her cold demeanor returned in spades. “So cynical for such a young man,” she said, smirking before flipping through a few pages on her clipboard. She stopped and whistled under her breath. “But you do have a good excuse, don’t you, Sammy?”
Cold ice gripped my heart as she said that name. Stop it, what would Micah say? He’d be devastated at seeing me like this. “Don’t call me that,” I snapped.
“Right…Sam?” she hedged.
I stifled my sigh. “That’s fine."
She nodded and went back to her notes. “According to FEMA’s records, they picked you up six months ago?”
I craned my neck over at the scratch marks on the far corner of the wall. “Five months, twenty-one days,” I clarified.
“And in that time, you’ve attempted escape seven times, is that correct?”
I scowled. “Eight, actually. Tonight makes eight.”
Jessica spoke, not looking up from the clipboard. “Why don’t you want to stay? You know what lies outside those walls.”
My throat burned, and I spat onto the floor. “This is supposed to be a refugee camp, not a goddamn prison. I want to go home.”
Her smile fell from her face, pinching her lips together. “You have no home to return to,” she said, flipping through her notes once more. “Family: mother, father, and younger brother. All deceased.”
Deceased. A single word, the lives of my family reduced to a single word on a clipboard.
“There is nothing waiting for you out there but death. Do you want to die?” Jessica asked.
I let the question hang in the air; I didn’t have an answer for it, anyway. Jessica just stared at me while I looked anywhere else. I coughed to break the tension in the room. “So, what’s your offer?”
“A jailbreak, so to speak. I can get you out of here.”
I looked sideways at her. “And in return?” I asked with trepidation.
“Your cooperation in our experiment.”
I was getting anxious just sitting on the bed, but with her blocking the doorway, I couldn’t leave, so I settled for drumming my fingers in my lap. The dulled sound helped to focus my thoughts. Well, this is shady as hell, but she’s offering the thing I want most. Son of a bitch, I’ve been had.
“I’m guessing you won’t be explaining anything about any of this, either?”
“Can’t,” she said with laughter in her eyes. “Classified.”
Jessica had me beat; she knew it, too. Before she ever stepped foot in here, she knew exactly what to dangle in front of my face to get me to dance to her tune. I couldn’t refuse her. Anything beats rotting in here. Guess I’ll be her little guinea pig. I climbed to my feet and looked her in the eye. “Okay, I’m in.”
“Excellent,” she said, extending her hand. “We leave in the morning.”
I shook her hand. A thick scar on the center of her palm rubbed rough against my own as we shook. I don’t want to stay, but guess we can’t leave tonight, not unless we feel like getting torn to shreds. I didn’t want to stick around
