Hundred Stolen Breaths Read online

  Then, when I had fled, I slept on whatever I could get – nearly exclusively hard floors. It wasn’t until I was taken in by the Resistance that I slept on a real bed for the first time.

  They had drugged me.

  Kept me captive.

  I hadn’t had much luck with those that promised to help me. Reece and Rocky were the only ones who I had ever trusted and it had probably got them both killed. They didn’t have much luck either.

  I didn’t expect anything different from this bed. Still, I laid back and let out the breath I was holding. The ceiling was the same as the rest of the cell – gray and boring. At least it made a difference from white.

  They wouldn’t keep me around for too much longer anyway. I wouldn’t have a chance to grow accustomed to my cell before they took me apart like a jigsaw puzzle and placed my organs in containers they could freeze and preserve.

  A mist started to flow through the vents in the ceiling while I was studying the surface. It whispered around the cell, growing thicker and accompanied by a faint hissing sound.

  I didn’t get a chance to panic.

  My eyes closed.

  There were no dreams or, mercifully, nightmares while I slept. I was out cold in nothing but darkness until I was pulled away by a noise in my cell.

  When I opened my eyes again, my shackles were gone. I could finally stretch my sore limbs, feel their aches in earnest. It was a delicious burn of freedom.

  The noise sounded again, a rattle in the distance as it bounced off the walls. I sat up, letting my feet dangle over the edge of the bed. My sore foot felt the most pain but I was used to that. They didn’t call me a Defective for nothing.

  Footsteps padded closer, making the sound fall into place – it had been a door being unlocked and opened. I stood up, my body shaking with all the possibilities of what was about to happen.

  An older man stepped into view, sizing me up quickly as he came to a halt. His white beard made him look older than what he probably was. Still, his wizened eyes said he had notched up quite a few decades.

  “Hello,” he said.

  I didn’t reply.

  “I am Doctor Wagstaff,” he continued in a pleasant tone. He must have missed the fact I wasn’t up for a pleasant conversation. “I am here to examine you. Do I need to have you tied up again or will you allow me to do my job? Either way it will be done today.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was be bound again. My wrists and ankles were still smarting from the way the ties had dug into my skin earlier.

  Earlier?

  Yesterday?

  A week ago?

  There was no way to tell how long I had been knocked out by the mist.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I muttered. Maybe it was the drugs in the mist making me less argumentative. I was certain they probably had a concoction for that.

  He smiled kindly, like he might do for a human patient. He was trying to win me over, make me feel safe in his presence. I was not going to be reeled in and fooled.

  “Good, good.” He looked off to the side and nodded his head. The gate rattled open just enough for him to slip into the cell. It closed again behind him.

  He was barely taller than me, combined with his beard, he had the overall appearance of a friendly gnome. If it wasn’t for his white coat and the fact he would contribute to my death, I might have liked him.

  “Please lie down on the bed and I’ll start my examination,” he said, gesturing to the bed in case I wasn’t aware of what it was called.

  I followed his order and lay down. Doctor Wagstaff wasted no time in getting down to business. He pulled my T-shirt up and started pressing on my belly. He poked and prodded until my stomach was sore and I wished for it all to be over.

  “You can sit up now,” he said gently, kindly, nicely, like we were friends. “I have to run a few more tests on you. I’m going to take your temperature and then some of your blood. The needle will prick a little but it won’t last for long, I promise.”

  I nodded my understanding so he didn’t feel the need to keep explaining. Although, I did really appreciate the way he was telling me what he was doing. Humans normally left me in the dark, never saying a word because they didn’t have to explain anything to a Defective Clone.

  Doctor Wagstaff was different.

  And, despite my sensibilities, I found myself liking him.

  He was a smiling assassin.

  I sat patiently while he inserted a thermometer into my ear and waited for a beeping noise to tell him it had finished its reading. Then I watched him extract a syringe from his bag and take my blood.

  It did sting a little.

  But only for a moment.

  Just like he said.

  “What is your disability?” he asked, his eyes meeting mine and not searching over my body to find it himself.

  “My left foot… isn’t normal,” I admitted.

  He bent over to crouch on the floor, lifting the hem of my jeans so he could get a better look at my foot. I couldn’t help flinching. I hated it when people looked at my foot, hated it even more when they touched it.

  My defect was the one part of me that physically set me apart from humans. It screamed to everyone what I was, that I wasn’t only just a clone, but a Defective.

  It was ugly.

  It was shameful.

  I hated it.

  Doctor Wagstaff’s hand lingered just over my skin. “Do you mind?”

  My mind screamed ‘Yes!’ but I only managed a small nod of consent. He was going to do it anyway, asking was only a preliminary formality.

  His hands were warm as they slid around my ankle. I shifted my stance until my other leg took my weight, allowing him to lift it off the ground. He gently and slowly turned my foot in a circle, finding everything that was wrong with it. The bones clicked and argued under the taut skin.

  “Thank you,” he said, returning my foot to the floor and standing to face me. He stared at it for a while longer while the silence lingered in the air.

  When he was finished, he looked in my mouth and then told me to stand straight so he could look all over my body. He tapped my bones, listened to my heart, and inspected my fingernails. He talked me through the whole thing. I’d never had a human say so many words to me all at once before.

  “You’re in very poor health,” he concluded as he placed all his tools back into his bag.

  I wasn’t sure if he was expecting me to answer him. I shrugged, not knowing what to say.

  “They don’t treat you well in the village, do they?” he asked.

  That was an answer I could respond to. “No, the humans don’t. But I haven’t been in the village for a little while now.”

  “Oh? Where have you been?”

  “All over.”

  He smiled kindly and nodded, like he could understand I had gone through something terrible and my situation wasn’t going to get any better.

  He didn’t need to say it out loud.

  I heard it loud and clear.

  “Do you know what is going to happen to you now?” he asked. I shook my head. “You will be restored to full health. I will start you on a series of vitamins and a regular eating plan. It will take some time, as I imagine you haven’t been in the habit of eating proper meals?”

  “No,” I croaked out, soaking up every bit of information he offered. I had been denied this my entire life, I didn’t want him to stop now.

  I needed to know.

  It’s what I had craved since getting caught.

  He continued. “If we try to feed you too much too quickly, you will simply vomit it back up again. I will do it slowly so we have the best chance of getting you into a suitable state.”

  “And then?”

  “Then, I’m afraid, it is up to President Stone.”

  “What will she do with me?” I asked in a small voice, still afraid of hearing the truth spoken aloud. I knew what she would do, I’d known my entire life. But hearing it spoken somehow made it more real.
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br />   Doctor Wagstaff sighed as he closed his bag. “She will most likely order your organs to be stored for potential use later. It is far easier keeping track of jars than a living clone. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I replied.

  “No, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am sorry about your situation.”

  “Will it be you, when my time comes?”

  “I will be involved, yes. However there will be a scientist to assist me in the preservation process.” He picked up his bag and stood at the door, giving a head nod again until it rattled open. The doctor stepped outside and it closed, locking me in once more. “Enjoy your remaining time and enjoy having regular meals. I will check back in on you regularly.”

  I slumped on the bed when he was gone, feeling more alone than I ever had before.

  I even missed Doctor Wagstaff. Which was absurd considering he just told me he would be the one to kill me. My murderer had been kind and gentle with me. Honest, too.

  It was strangely comforting knowing my killer was kind. That he wouldn’t relish or take delight in my death. He would do his job and he would do it diligently, but he wouldn’t celebrate in the act itself.

  What was I thinking?

  I needed to get the hell out of here.

  It didn’t matter that Doctor Wagstaff would be polite when he ended my life and cut me into pieces. I wouldn’t give him the opportunity to do it in the first place. I couldn’t.

  I did not give up.

  I fought.

  And I would keep doing it until my very last breath.

  The first step was forming a plan. I needed to find a way out of the cell so I could regain my freedom. While I still had blood pumping through my beating heart I would think of a way.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t even know where I was. Blanketing my sight with a hood was a smart move on behalf of the guards. I had no idea where I was or where my cell was in position to the building where I was being kept.

  My mind reeled. I had to think back, remember everything I had felt and heard when they brought me here. There had to be a clue, something I could use in my escape.

  And, after I escaped, I would save Rocky and Reece, too.

  We would all survive this.

  I retraced our steps in my mind, starting from when they pulled me from the vehicle until the time they dumped me in the cell. I had heard many footsteps and few voices. That had to mean there weren’t many people around.

  So it was a secure facility. Otherwise there would have been more voices, unpredictable noises that the guards couldn’t contain. This was stable, controlled.

  President Stone had ordered me into her captivity. Could I be in a place under her sole command? In what buildings would she have a cell ready for prisoners?

  There were several she had at her disposal. The parliament building, her private estate, the actual prisons. I could discard the last one, I was fairly certain I was the only prisoner here and the actual jail would have been far louder.

  The parliament building did have cells, they used them regularly for political crimes. If a councilor did the wrong thing in session they were punished with orders to go to the cells to cool off. Their crimes were printed in the newspaper so they could be publicly shamed for going against the president.

  I doubted I would be held somewhere so public. The press had access to the parliament cells and Stone wouldn’t want me televised. Not when I was her disgraceful Defective Clone.

  That left the president’s own estate. What she had on her private property was anyone’s guess. All we knew was that it was a sprawling estate with large, decadent buildings speaking of a wealth little else could aspire to.

  It was a building that could easily house a cell and keep her prisoners away from the public’s watch. She made the laws anyway, she could do whatever she wanted, but some business was private.

  Like dealing with her Defective Clone.

  Having a Def was a shameful thing in Aria. It meant there was something wrong with your genes, something so terrible you couldn’t even produce a perfect copy of yourself.

  It was so terrible that a Maker was forbidden from purchasing the production of any further clones after a Defective was created. Their genes were damaged, they couldn’t risk more Defs.

  I was President Stone’s first and only clone.

  Which was why she had hunted me so severely.

  I was her dirty little secret, even though not very well kept. Nearly everyone in Aria knew about my existence, the record reward for my capture was enough to tip everyone off.

  I had to be on her personal estate. Security would probably be as tight as in the other buildings, but I could orientate myself with the surrounding areas now I had an idea.

  Her home was in the Hills suburb of the city. Other mansions surrounded it, along with lush green forests and parklands. It was a beautiful area, hiding something so ugly.

  It would be easier to make a run for it in the suburb than in the middle of the city where the parliament building was located. That was one thing to work in my favor.

  I thought back to when I first arrived. There had been stairs, I remembered them clearly. There was no denying the incline where I had been tipped, the footsteps slowing so they could fit in the staircase together without dropping me.

  The cell was probably located underground. It had no windows and Stone would want to keep me away from anywhere she was. The president wouldn’t want a constant reminder of her failures.

  There was only one flight of stairs, I was pretty certain of that. We would have driven in on street level, and taken one flight down. That meant I only had to go up one to be able to escape.

  It almost sounded easy.

  Pity about the steel bars blocking me from my freedom.

  I casually edged up to the pieces of metal caging me in, hoping there were no cameras on me. It was probably stupid to think Stone wouldn’t have me under surveillance but that was the least of my immediate problems.

  Doctor Wagstaff said I was in poor health, he was right. I was little more than a skeleton covered in a thin layer of skin. Finally, something that might work to my advantage.

  My arm went through the gap between the bars easily, so did most of my leg. My shoulder got stuck, so did my hip. I tried harder, pushing myself against the bars and willing myself to be thinner. My bones needed to exhale, get that little bit smaller so I could squeeze through.

  But it wasn’t going to work. The bars were too close together for me to escape. Which was exactly the point, no doubt. I disentangled myself from the steel and slumped on the bed.

  The door was out.

  I wouldn’t be able to break through the concrete walls – especially if I was underground. With no tools and little time, it would be an impossible feat.

  My gaze fell on the vent in the ceiling. Drugged mist had filtered through it before, which meant it had to be connected to something. If it wound its way through the building, maybe I could do the same?

  I stood on the bed and looked up, standing on my tiptoes to get a better view. My hands braced against the wall, the only thing stopping me toppling over.

  The tips of my fingers brushed the grate, the wire woven in perfect little squares. It was amazing they were so uniform, so well interlocked. It was a work of art.

  Also impenetrable.

  My fingers weren’t small enough to fit between the squares and it was secured too close to the ceiling to get a grip on the grate. I jutted my fingernails around the edges, trying to do anything to get a hold of the thing.

  After dozens of grunts, five sliced fingers, and one bleeding thumb, I gave up.

  The grate wasn’t moving.

  I flopped down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling in frustration. The security guards did too good a job of making sure whatever was in the cell remained inside.

  There wasn’t even a crack in the concrete. The whole cell screamed that it was a finality. Nobody got out without permission from those
above.

  I didn’t get a chance to lie around for too long before a door creaked open in the distance. It thudded closed a few seconds afterwards and footsteps approached.

  All my energy was gone and I didn’t want someone seeing the state of my hands so I slipped them under my legs and stayed on the bed. After the doctor’s visit, I was relatively certain they weren’t about to kill me just yet.

  They had to fatten me up first.

  Make me healthy so my organs were ripe for harvest.

  A member of the President’s Personal Guard stopped in front of my cell. He was dressed in a black uniform, from head to foot. All he needed was a helmet for his look to be complete.

  He glared at me, a tray of food in his hands. “Stay where you are, Def.”

  I sat up and scooted to the end of the bed, leaning against the wall as far from him as my cell would allow. He took the items from his tray and placed them on the ground. The entire time he didn’t take his eyes off me.

  He also wasted no time. The minute the last item was on the floor he high-tailed it out of here. Good. I didn’t want any of them lingering, it only led to trouble.

  My stomach was so hungry it was hurting. I hurried over to the bars and pulled in the food – just in case they changed their minds and took it back again. I sat against the far wall, protecting the food like it was the most precious thing in the world.

  They had given me a small carton of milk and a sandwich with a peculiar tasting spread on it. It was a simple meal and only small but I didn’t care. I would have eaten whatever they put in front of me.

  Doctor Wagstaff had warned me I needed to build up to eating bigger, more substantial meals. I knew he was behind the food being delivered. I trusted he was giving me what I needed, and nothing more or less.

  The sandwich spread smelled funny, like an earthy scent mixed with some kind of vitamin. It tasted nothing like anything I had eaten before. Still, it wasn’t bad. Just different.

  I ate it all eagerly.

  The guard had left me with no instructions for the wrapper and milk container. I left them in a neat pile on the other side of my cell, hoping it would be sufficient to satisfy them.