Sarah shakes her head and lets the cart lady wash her down. She looks less like an animal and more like a kid suddenly.
The lady hands me a warm white cloth. I wash myself and sigh into it. I love this place. I will let them put as many babies as they want in my belly. I will give them anything they want. I never want to leave here.
She smiles a soft smile and notice for the first time she is black. She is the first black person I've seen all day.
"I just need to put a needle in your arm. Want to get comfortable for me?"
I lie back on the bed and cherish the grossly full feeling in my belly.
"Do they keep the white people and black people and Asian people and native people separate?"
She blushes, "Honey there aint no black people in here except us nurses and cleaners."
I'm lost, "Is there another center?"
Anna clears her throat, "They're only breeding the whites around here."
I feel the disgust in my face and the nurse laughs, "That was my thinking. Now this is going to pinch a tiny bit."
She wipes my arm and swiftly she has a needle hanging out of my arm. Sarah is beside my and curled up in my armpit. She's hurting my side by laying on it because I'm so full.
The needle is suddenly pulled away and a rubber hose is sticking out of my arm. She wraps it up with tape. She looks at Sarah and raises an eyebrow, "Now if I leave you a bottle of water will you drink it or do I have to give you a needle to?"
Sarah puts her hand out to the sweet looking nurse. She puts the huge bottle of water in her hands and chuckles, "Figured as much."
"I would have drank a bottle of water." I say.
She shakes her head of curly hair that I notice is shiny too, "Nope you gotta have that needle. They need you to take meds and antibiotics."
She squeezes my hand, "I am so sorry honey." Her eyes glass over for a second and I know I can trust her. She lets go of me and hooks several plastic bags to the clear hoses running into my arm. Water starts dripping into the hose and as it hits my needle mark my arm gets cold there.
"How's that feel?"
"Cold."
She nods, "Okay I will check on you in a bit. Try to rest."
She wheels the food cart out and pokes her head back in and gives Sarah a stern look, "You drink that now you hear?"
Sarah cracks open the plastic lid and starts drinking. The nurse chuckles again.
Anna watches my arm. She looks distant.
"What's the deal with only white women being bred?"
She shrugs, "Well you and I aren’t women firstly. We're girls. Secondly I don’t know. Some of the others have said they think it's like the Second World War where the racists wanted everyone dead."
Chapter Fifteen
I sense him. It isn’t a feeling of his body next to mine but his eyes watching me. I want to reach out and touch him. I feel myself toss in the sheets and tangle myself up in Sarah and the blankets. I open my eyes and climb off the bed. I rub my eyes and climb into the other bed. The empty one that Anna sneaks into in the mornings. The sheets are cold and crisp, compared to the sweaty bed that’s filled with a needy eleven year old.
I stare at the glowing white ceiling and feel a smile cross my lips. I knew it would be too bright to be dulled by the black of the night.
I can see his wolf eyes if I close mine. He is looking for me. I feel a tug at my heart.
He's never been away from me like this before. I knew his staying with Meg was a bad idea. I can feel his hopeless panic in my heart. My stomach makes a knot. The past two weeks have been amazing. I can't even try to lie to myself. I've eaten meals I never imagined I would, ever. I've had dessert every day. I can feel my body stretching and gaining and trying to find room for the extra weight. Anna and Sarah are the same. Sarah has started to get a little potbelly that Louise, our first nurse, has started to make fun of. Sarah eats and rubs it. I've learned Sarah was sold to the military. Her mother got liquor and smokes for her. She kissed her on the top of the head and told her not to be a bother.
I have a small plan of hunting her down when we escape.
I know Jake and Will have left us. I was worried for a few days and even felt guilt for not even trying to get out, but the food is to get better.
Anna says it's like the story of Hansel and Gretel. The witch kept making better and better food but in the end she intended to eat them.
Anna says we need to worry about anyone who wants to give as much as the doctors and nurses do. Louise has grown oddly quiet in the last couple days. She mutters to herself and gets emotional in our room sometimes and then leaves quickly.
I try not to think about it all and let my eyes close.
As my thoughts fade into simple things that make me sleepy, I hear the knob on the door turn. I know it's Anna.
"You sleep with Sarah this time." I mutter as she closes the door.
"Emma honey wake up now."
I shoot up to see Louise standing in front of my door. Her clothes are dark, not the white coats and pale blue pants and tops. I would know her voice anywhere.
"You girls gotta go tomorrow."
I frown and rub my eyes, did I fall back to sleep?
"You gotta get out of here baby girl. The doctors are going to take Anna in the morning for tests and then you have got to go. Do you understand me?"
I nod, "Why?"
"This place isn’t what it seems."
My mind starts functioning, "I can't. I'm waiting for my dad's friend to come for me. He said he would send a signal."
"I know Emma. Serge sent me. Tomorrow there will be a huge garbage dump truck. You girls need to be in the back of it."
My stomach knots tighter as my nerves twist, "Okay. How do I get there?" I remember the garbage thingy being in the middle. Will had been positive it would be there. I hadn’t been prepared for everything to be stark white and look exactly the same.
I feel her weight on my bed. She sits by my feet, "I have something to tell you."
I feel twitchy.
"The garbage isn’t for regular garbage. It's for the girls. You all will lay with the dead girls."
It doesn’t hit me in the way she's expecting it to. I've lain with the dead before. I've covered myself in their blood. Women used to die from childbirth even before. It doesn’t bother me.
"Okay."
"They take the babies three times and then when the third one is born they get rid of the girls. They think we don’t know but we do. They take their organs and put them to sleep like a dog."
My stomach lands somewhere very low in my abdomen, "What? What about the condos in the city? The healthy ones go live in the city."
I can see her dark curls shaking against the white wall behind her, "No baby. They don’t. That was a lie they made up. They built the city on the children from those women but they never leave here."
Tears have formed in my eyes, "What?"
Her hands reaches for mine in the dark and squeezes it, "That’s why you have to go. You have to get little Sarah and Anna out of here. The scientists have done studies. A baby only needs its mother for the first two years of its life. After that it can easily be raised by anyone. It gets the milk and love from its mother for the first two years and then it gets adopted out in the city. That nurse Gloria, she is waiting on you to have a baby. She'll be old enough to raise your baby by the time the first one is old enough to go."
My hands go to my stomach where my unfertilized eggs sit. My fingers bite into my skin, mine. Those eggs, those babies are mine. I would never let her take them. Not even from my cold dead fingers.
I feel a cold sweat on my skin. I have never given a single thought to having a baby. I can't imagine bringing something into the world and making it learn to be what we are.
Louise stands up and grips my hand, "You need this." She slips a piece of plastic in my hands and a small folded piece of paper.
"Thank you." I say. I don’t know what else to say.
"No. Do not thank me. Just get out. Tell everyone what you've learned." She opens the door.
"Come with us."
She sighs, "I can't. You take my love with you." She closes the door.
I lie back onto my bed and know I will not sleep no matter what.
Images of women in body dumps, like the ones in the borderlands I've seen, start to flash in my mind. If I close my eyes they get brighter, more colorful. If I open my eyes I can see their faces swirling in the bright white ceiling that never dims.
I hear their voices filling my head. My eyes grow heavy against my will.
When I wake Sarah is sitting on my bed eating an apple. It's bright and red and reminds me of Snow White. Her red ruby lips and white skin is so shocking against the bright red peel. The sun is up. Small round lights let in the sunlight instead of light bulbs. Like a skylight my granny had but tiny and round.
Sarah looks pretty this morning. I see such a difference in her. Her skin glows, her blonde hair is shiny and her blue eyes sparkle with life and health. If I close my eyes I remember people looking like that all the time, before.
"What's your mother like?" I ask because of her white teeth. They're cared for. It's obvious.
She shrugs, "She's young. Like thirty. She's kind of mean. She made me wash with really hot water every day and brush three times a day and floss too. She would scrub my skin like I was a potato."
I laugh. I wish I'd had a mother. Even if she scrubbed my skin like I was a potato.
"What did she do before the fall?"
"She was a secretary for a dental firm. My dad was a dentist."
I take an apple from the plate she has beside her of fruit and cheese, "Is your dad still there with her?"
She shakes her head and takes another big bite. She chews for a second and then talks with her mouth full spitting tiny apple bits, "He stayed with his family."
I take a small bite and leave it at that.
Anna walks in looking funny. Her eyes seem dark, like the pupil has eaten up all the color.