Wither (The Chemical Garden #1) Page 35
Author: Lauren DeStefano

Green-eyed and anonymous, I stumble along the wall, whispering Gabriel’s name and looking for a biohazard suit. I find a closet of them and quickly adjust one over my clothes. There’s a harsh plastic smell inside, like being slowly suffocated. I take deep breaths that fog the face covering. It’s like being in a nightmare. It’s like being buried alive.

“Gabriel!” My whispers are becoming increasingly desperate. I am hoping he will just crash into me, or I’ll turn a corner and there he’ll be, mopping the floor or organizing storm supplies. And as I’m hoping I won’t have to open a door, I won’t have to open a door, I won’t have to open a door, I hear his voice. At least I think it’s his voice. It’s so hard to hear in this thing, and my own breathing is amplified in the confined space.

Something touches my shoulder, and I start. “Rhine?”

He spins me around, and there he is. Gabriel. In one piece. Not etherized on a table. Not bruised. Not dead.

Dead. The word trills through my head like the fire and the hurricane alarms, and I realize that’s what I’d feared underneath everything else. I throw my arms around him, and it’s awkward, with the helmet in the way, but I don’t care. I can feel his sturdy arms around me and I don’t care about anything else.

He eases the helmet off of my head, and sounds of the world outside my own breathing enter my ears. He’s laughing a little. The helmet falls. He squeezes me, says, “What are you doing?”

“I thought you were dead,” I say into his shirt. “I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead.”

It feels good to say the words. To relieve myself of them. To know they’re not the truth. He can hear the fear coming out of me. And his hand runs up my back, along my spine, and it crashes into my hair and holds the base of my skull. Holds me steady. And it’s like that for a while.

When we draw apart, he pushes the hair out of my eyes and stares at me. “What’s happened to you?” he says.

“What? I’m fine.”

“Your eyes.”

“Contacts. I didn’t want to be recognized, in case I ran into someone, and—What about you!” I cry, remembering the situation. “I haven’t seen you for days!”

He presses his finger to my lips to quiet me, and then leads me into one of the horrifyingly dark rooms. One of the places I most fear. But he’s with me and I know it will be all right. He doesn’t turn on a light, and I can smell cold metal, hear water dripping against a hard surface. In the perfect darkness I hold both of his hands and try to decipher his outline.

“Listen,” he whispers. “You can’t be down here. The Housemaster knows everything. He knows about the kiss. He knows you tried to run away. If he catches us together, I’m out of here.”

“He’ll kick you out?”

“I don’t know. But I have a feeling a body bag will be involved.”

Of course. How stupid of me. Nobody leaves this place alive. In fact, I’m not even convinced anyone leaves this place once they’re dead. More bodies for Vaughn to dissect. Is that what Jenna was trying to warn me about?

I imagine my eyes in a jar in one of Vaughn’s medical rooms, and I purse my lips against a wave of nausea.

There’s a good chance this is all one of Vaughn’s traps—the key card, putting Gabriel into the basement where he knew I’d look for him. He could be lurking around a corner, waiting to lock me in one of these rooms. The thought causes my pulse to hammer against my temples, but Gabriel’s presence overpowers my fear. I would never have been able to live with myself if I hadn’t tried to find him.

“How?” I say. “How does he know?”

“I don’t know, but he can’t see us together. Rhine, it isn’t safe.”

“Run away with me,” I say.

“Rhine, listen, we can’t—”

“I’ve found a way out,” I say, and I grab his hand and bring it to the key card hanging around my neck. “Linden gave me permission to use the elevator. And I found a way out. There’s a glitch in the trees that border the property. Some of them aren’t real. They’re a hologram.”

He’s quiet, and in the darkness it’s the same as disappearing, and I grab at his shirt. “Still there?”

“I’m here,” he says. He’s silent again, and I listen for his breathing. I hear his lips part, and he utters a fraction of a syllable, and I know, just know, that he’s going to use logic against me, and that will never do if I want to get out of this place at all before I die, so I kiss him.

The door is already closed, and in this isolated darkness, it’s almost like we’re not in the basement at all.

We’re in the infinite ocean with no continents in sight, and there’s nobody to catch us. We’re free. His hands are in my hair, behind my head, traveling the length of me.

The biohazard suit crinkles, making audible record of his movements.

He tries to break away every so often, getting out a “But—” or “Listen to me—” or “Rhine—” But I stop him every time, and he gives up, and I will this moment to last forever. I will the wedding band off my finger. I will us both to be free.

Until one time when we draw apart and I feel his forehead press against mine, and he says, “Rhine. It’s too dangerous. The Housemaster will do anything to protect his son. If he catches you running away, he’ll murder you and make it look like an accident.”

“That’s far-fetched even for him,” I say.

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” he says. “His son is all he has. He had you and your sister wives brought here just to console him while Lady Rose was dying. Don’t think he wouldn’t destroy you before he lets you hurt him again.”

If you value your life, you won’t run again. That’s what Vaughn said to me after my botched escape attempt. But he also said I was more special than I realized, that Linden’s spirit would be destroyed if he lost me. And despite all the horrible things I think of Vaughn, I do believe he cares about his son. There’s no accident he could stage that would make Linden accept my demise. Linden would never forgive his father if something were to happen to me on Vaughn’s watch.

A pang of guilt rushes through me, and with some effort I force it away. I don’t belong to Linden. I don’t want to hurt him, but that’s just the way it has to be.

“It will be okay. We just won’t get caught,” I say. “That’s all.”

He laughs, but it’s full of disbelief. “Oh, is that all.”

“I said I’d drag you kicking and screaming, and I will,” I say. “Don’t you see what’s happened? You’ve been captive for so long that you don’t even realize you want freedom anymore. And don’t say it’s not that bad here.

Don’t ask what the world has got that this place hasn’t got, because the answer is something I can only show you. You have to trust me. Please. You have to.”

I can hear him hesitating. He works a lock of my hair around his finger. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he says after a while.

“You can’t see me right now,” I say, and we allow ourselves to laugh quietly.

“You are insane,” he says.

“So I’ve been told. So, does that mean you’ll at least try my plan?” I say

“And if it doesn’t work?” he says.

“I guess we both die,” I say. I’m mostly serious.

There’s a long pause. His hands finding my cheeks.

Then his voice, smooth and clear. “Okay.”

We work out the details in hushed voices, pressed close to each other in the darkness. On the last Friday of each month, at about ten p.m., he takes the bio waste out the back exit, to the dump truck that Housemaster Vaughn orders in. He’ll watch the truck leave, and then he’ll follow its path through the hologram trees and wait for me. I think it’s a solid plan, but Gabriel keeps asking how we’ll get through the gate, and what if there’s security, and I wave him off. “We’ll figure it out,” I say.

Tonight Linden is taking me to a solstice party in the city. “While we’re out, I’ll make a note of the roads. I’ll look for someplace we could go once we’re out.”

“It’s the last week of December,” he tells me, as we’re saying good-bye. “So I guess I’ll see you next year.”

We kiss one last time, and then the elevator doors close between us.

On the wives floor the fire has been successfully extinguished, though we have to bid farewell to the scorched remains of what were the ugliest pink curtains I’ve ever known. I enter the sitting room just as Jenna is telling Housemaster Vaughn, “. . . and I saw that the flame from the candle caught the curtain, and I tried to put it out, but it was just out of control.”

Linden pats her shoulder reassuringly, and I can see her struggling not to push him away. “It’s not your fault,” he says.

“We’ll get some new curtains,” Vaughn says. “But maybe we shouldn’t leave candles burning unattended.”

For some reason Vaughn looks right at me.

Cecily, holding the fussy infant against her shoulder, says, “What’s happened to your eyes?”

“My eyes?” I say.

Jenna taps the skin below her own eye, and I realize what she’s trying to tell me. I still have the green contacts in.

“I . . . thought I’d try something different,” I say. “It was supposed to be a surprise. For the party tonight, Linden. I was trying them on and then the alarm went off and I suppose I forgot.”

I can’t tell if Vaughn is convinced by my story, but mercifully the baby starts screaming and that distracts everyone. When Cecily can’t calm him, Vaughn takes him from her arms. “There, there, Bowen, my boy,” he says, and this soothes the crying. Cecily stands in Vaughn’s shadow, looking like she wants to say something, her hand poised to reach for her son, but for some reason she doesn’t move.

“I think he’s hungry,” Vaughn says.

“I can feed him,” Cecily says.

“Now, darling, don’t trouble yourself.” He taps her nose, like she’s a little girl. “That’s what wet nurses are for.” He leaves the room, baby Bowen in his arms, before Cecily can say another word. Her small, swollen br**sts are leaking through her shirt.

It takes an hour for the attendants to get me ready for the solstice party. I’m so relieved to have found Gabriel, and so excited about our escape plan, that I don’t mind that they’re pulling my hair and spraying it until I’m choking in the perfumed cloud. They discourage the contact lenses, and I pretend I’m sad to take them out. “Your eyes will be the talk of the party, trust me,” one says.