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Quick, slick, she throws me to the side, lurching for the weapon, my shoulder slamming into the stone floor. She kicks me hard in the stomach and I reel back, the agony of it engulfing me, spiking into my consciousness.
‘Jesus Christ, Maria, why? Stay fucking still.’ She spits out some blood, looking round for the gun. ‘I didn’t want to fucking do it like this.’
But I can’t let her get the gun, can’t let her get to my cell and to Balthus. And then I spot my torn Papa photograph, lying lost next to ripped pictures of Mama, Ramon, Patricia and Harry, and a sudden rage courses through me, one phrase slamming into my mind—prepare, wait, engage.
I glance once more to the photographs and I fly. I fly at Dr Andersson and punch her throat, straight on the windpipe, and her whole body instantly folds, collapsing in with a strange gurgle as her hand clutches her skin. I scramble up, eyes scanning the floor. The gun. Where is the gun?
‘Stop!’ Slam. Dr Andersson’s whole body lands on me. I stagger backwards at the weight of her, smothering me almost, impossible to breath, horrified that she is on me, touching me, and I hit out, my legs kicking at her shins, but it does no good. She topples me, my cell phone almost slipping away.
‘Maria!’ Balthus yells.
My face smacks the tiles, bones crunching as she knees me in the chest. Air shoots out and it feels as if I am drowning, as if every atom of oxygen is wheezing from my thorax as now Dr Andersson’s knees pin my torso down, her legs wedged into my skin.
‘So it’s the governor you’re in touch with,’ she says, spitting to the floor. ‘I know his voice. Maria, it’s over. Don’t drag everyone into this.’
She shifts to the right, blowing air on her face where her ponytail now hangs in strings of sweat on her face, and as I try and jerk my head out of her way, I see a glint. The bar. The iron bar.
I move fast, automatic. I whip my hand forward and with one swift movement, stretch my arm, grab the bar and, using all the force I can find, smash it over Dr Andersson’s head.
Her grip immediately loosens, her fingers go slack. She slips to the side, a slow groan sliding from her mouth and I waste no time. Pushing her off me, I scramble back, crawling on all fours, my eyes darting left and right until they finally land on the gun, wedged now into the wall. I grab it, chest heaving, and, staggering to a stand, point it at her.
‘My baby—’ she says, eyes rolling in her head. ‘It’s her … birthday …’ Blood loops round her ear now, pooling in the well inside it, and she drifts in and out of consciousness.
I pause at the sight of her, my brain stuck, torn between helping and running.
‘Maria?’ Balthus. ‘Are you okay?’
‘She is injured. I should help her.’
‘What? No. No! Is she down?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then go. Go!’
Swallowing, unsure what to do, but knowing Balthus is right, I secure the cell phone, turn, then, throwing one last glance at Dr Andersson’s broken body, I hobble away as fast as I can. But as I drag myself across the room somehow, Dr Andersson crawls up, fast and unexpected, catching me slap at the ankle.
‘Give me … the gun,’ she yells.
She fells me, topples me to the ground, clambering to my chest, fingers finding my throat where they squeeze hard. I choke, gasp for air. My arms stretch out as far as they can, the gun still in my fingers, but it is slipping now, teetering on the tips. My legs flap, nails scratch at her as I try to wrench her off me, but she presses harder, her hands nearly at my fingers now where the gun seesaws, teetering between life and death.
Tears roll down her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry. I hate doing this.’
I feel myself begin to asphyxiate and it is hard to retain a grip on anything at all, the room swaying, my eyes bulging, about to explode. I look round at the torn articles on the floor, at the images of the friends and family that, without ever telling them, I do love. I thrash, yell, but Dr Andersson just digs in harder, strength coming from somewhere, her blue eyes fixed on mine, the sun shining on us and I feel it, there, its heat, and my mind goes to Papa, to his face and eye creases and his complete and utter acceptance of me for who I am.
I have almost no oxygen reserves left.
‘Ssssh,’ Dr Andersson says to me now. ‘It will all be over soon. Sssh.’
A warmth spreads over me, trickling at first then rushing in as, one after the other, faces swim before me—Balthus, Patricia, Harry, Ramon, Mama. And seeing them, watching the contours on their expressions, the grooves and lines, I start to believe that when I die, I will no longer be lonely and awkward and hunted down, but happy and free and regarded as normal.
‘Maria? Maria, fight her!’
Balthus? His voice swims into my head.
‘Maria,’ he shouts, ‘don’t let them win! Don’t let them win!’
His voice, hearing it—it sparks something within me, something that takes hold of the last flicker of a flame inside me. My fingers wriggle. Slow then picking up speed, I find, from somewhere, a fight, a strength and, instead of letting it slip from my hand, I begin to clutch the gun until my knuckles turn white and my breath grows strong. ‘Prepare. Wait,’ words whisper in my head. ‘Engage.’
I force myself to look straight at Dr Andersson and, gripping the gun as hard as I can, I make myself focus, make myself do what I am alarmed I’ve been trained to do, what I must do to survive.
I twist my torso.
‘No!’ Dr Andersson yells, eyes wide at the sight of the gun. ‘No. No … Her …her name is Briony. She’s three today. Three. I … I can’t let you get away. I can’t let you stop me.’ And then she goes to press down harder on my mouth, squeezing out the air.
And so I grip the gun hard.
And I shoot.
Chapter 10 (#ulink_1440fee2-4074-5fa8-8c1a-a881ec17f6b6)
Undisclosed confinement location—present day
Patricia is singing again. The song drifts in and out of my head as if in a dream, the melody and lyrics soothing, rocking me into a state of peace and calm as I think about the drug in my arm, the hallucinations.
The heat in the room appears to have increased. Sweat now drips from my body and while I know I am clothed, for the first time I begin to think about what I am wearing. Can I rip any of it off to cool me down?
‘Can you see me?’ I ask Patricia. ‘I want you to tell me what I am wearing.’
She stops singing and sighs. ‘Doc, you know I can’t see you. You know, really, that that’s impossible.’
‘It is not impossible.’
‘Yep. It is.’
Unsure what she means, I look to my arm and to the needle, to my body, my clothes. I can see nothing. The weak light that was there before has now gone, leaving a dark, dripping heat in its place, and every movement of my muscles is heavy, thick with fatigue.
We remain for a while as we are. Now and then Patricia will talk about how we may have arrived here, where the Project are, if they are watching us, but each time one of us attempts to conjure any significant recollection of our journey here, our minds come up blank.
Four, perhaps five minutes of silence pass when there is a sudden sound, the first we have heard at higher volume since we awoke in this dank, foul place.
‘Hey, Doc, can you hear that?’
‘Yes.’
It is there in the air—a ticking, a soft put, put.
‘That sounds like the stand thing, you know, the drip they had me hooked up to when I was in the hospital ward at Goldmouth.’
I listen to her words. The drip. The one she was hooked up to after she tried to commit suicide in prison. Put, put. Put, put. She is right. My brain begins to tick, firing now at the possibility of the hope of some kind of answer.
‘How close do you calculate you are to the sound?’ I ask, sitting up, alert.
‘Dunno. I’m not as hot on this maths stuff as you are. Say a metre away, something like that?’
‘No. That cannot be correct. That would mean that you are closer to the sound than I am.’
‘Well, yeah. Of course.’
‘That does not make sense.’
‘Doc, nothing makes sense in here.’
Put, put.
‘There!’ Patricia says. ‘I hear it again.’
The clicking sound hovers in the air now, hanging near us.
‘Doc, do you think, like, it’s got something to do with your arm, that sound?’
‘No. It is not …’ I stop, think. She is right—of course she is right. The needle. A drip. I whip my head to the side. ‘Have you got your bracelet on?’
‘Huh? Yeah, my mam’s one. Why?’
‘Twist your wrist.’
‘Uh, okay.’
‘Are you doing it?’
‘Yes. Hold your horses.’
‘Horses?’
Patricia moves her wrist, and at first nothing happens but then, slowly, a tiny shaft of light appears.
‘There must be some small bit of light. It is now reflecting on your bracelet. Keep moving your wrist.’
The bracelet reflection affords a shred of brightness across my body and I begin to look. At first, nothing appears, only a snapshot of my limbs, my knees, legs, but then, as Patricia’s arm moves some more, it happens. Inch by inch, upwards, light slithering towards my arm.
‘Can you see anything yet, Doc?’
There is a glint where the needle pierces my vein then it fades. ‘Move your arm again.’
‘This is hurting now, Doc.’
As the weak light returns, the glint comes again, stronger this time and, gradually, like clouds parting in the sky, what lies underneath is revealed.
I gasp.
‘What, Doc? What is it?’
I shut my eyes, open them, but it is still there.
‘Huh? What? What can you see?’
Sweat slices my head, confusion, deep-rooted fear. ‘There is a drip.’ I narrow my eyes, desperate to see anything I can. ‘It is … It is hooked up to a metal medical stand.’
‘I told you.’
‘There is a tube and it is … it is linked to the drip bag.’
‘That must contain the drugs.’
‘Yes, and …’ I stop, every muscle in my body freezing rigid.
‘Doc?’
Suddenly, everything makes sense. The put, put sound. Why the hallucinations only come in phases. Why I cannot move my arms.
‘There is a timer,’ I say after a moment.
‘What?’
I look back to the device, to the stand and the drug bag. ‘The drugs are being administered through a controlled, preset timer.’
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
33 hours and 54 minutes to confinement
Dr Andersson’s body drops sideways, falling on top of me.
I push her off and choke, her body thudding to the floor, arms slapping to the tiles, and for some reason I notice for the first time that her fingernails are painted crimson, hanging now in long, sleek shapes.
I stare at them, cannot pull my eyes away, my hands rubbing at my throat over and over, skin red, sore, every atom in me screaming for oxygen. A moan escapes my lips.
‘Maria?’ Balthus yells. ‘What’s happening?’
I stare at Dr Andersson and her fingernails, and I moan again and again, rocking gently now, back and forth. There is a small round circle one centimetre in diameter in her forehead, a single line of blood trickling from it, same colour as the lacquer.
‘She is dead,’ I say to Balthus.
‘Oh, Jesus.’
A damp circle the size of a dinner plate spreads on Dr Andersson’s jacket. It drips to the tiles, painting them red, and at first, paralysed by the sight, I cannot understand why there is a hole in her head while it is her shirt that oozes. Finally, I drag my eyes away from the growing pool on her chest as, slowly, the reality of what I have done begins to sink in.
‘I shot her twice.’
