Defect (12 page)

Alex comes up beside me and knocks his shoulder into mine. “Good job, Eve.”

“Oh, thanks.”

I smile
, and he places his arm across my shoulders. I feel like I’m being watched and when I glance up, Will’s looking at me again; actually, he’s looking at Alex’s arm that rests across my shoulders. A frown tugs one corner of his mouth down.

“Should we go to lunch?” I ask, and let Alex steer me from the gym.

That night, I make sure to shower when the bathrooms are at their busiest. I’m trying not to be afraid of
Kane, but that doesn’t mean I have a death wish. When I make it back to the dorms, Lexi is standing in the middle of a group of girls, reading from a file. I stop dead in my tracks.

“The patient
was the result of an illegitimate pairing,” she reads. “Her mindscan results were inconclusive.”

Lexi has my file. She must have taken it from Will’s room. I imagine them lounging on his bed, reading it together, laughing.

“
Mother was mentally insane and was discharged from the program. Father was …”

I lunge for the file.
“Give me that!”

Lexi holds it up over her head
. I jump and swing my arms reaching for it, but it’s no use. “What? I think we deserve to know who’s staying in the dorms with us, don’t you ladies?”

A few of the girls nod their heads.
“Let her read it,” someone says.

She holds it up out of my reach and continues reading. “Brain activity
– normal,

intellect
– normal, mental determination – high.” She snaps it closed and tosses it to me. “This is boring.”

I grab for it, but the pages slip through my hands and f
lutter to the floor, scattering at our feet. I bend down to pick them and find that Sam, Sabrina and a girl named Bailey have bent down to help me gather the pages. They hand them to me, and I stuff everything back inside the file.

I hear the word
inconclusive
being whispered around me and feel eyes pricking my skin.

“Are you okay
?” Sam asks, looking concerned.

I nod
and stand up with the file. “I just want to be alone right now.”  She nods and lets me walk past.

Clutching
the file to my chest, I head through the dorm, through the bunker and out into the hallway. At this time of night it’s deserted, and I slide down the wall to the floor. In the dim light, I study each page of my file. There are fourteen pages total. I pour over every word.

The first page is a transmission of my mindscan, dated on my sixteenth birthday.
My answers to the questions before the mindscan started are the first things listed. My favorite color: midnight blue, my favorite food: chocolate. These words now seem meaningless, immature, like they are part of a life that doesn’t belong to me.

F
arther down the page there are little jagged lines that show my heart rate, my brain activity, my breathing, but I don’t know what I’m looking for. The words printed at the bottom of the page stare up at me.
The mindscan had no affect on her brain.
That seems like a strange way to phrase it. I didn’t think the mindscan was supposed to affect your brain, but rather just see what was in there.

All the results of the tests I completed with Dr. Nolan are there. I scored average on most of them. But my sense of self-preservation is marked as low. That strikes me as odd. It implies
that I don’t care about guarding myself from risks. Then I remember all the times I’ve stood bold in the face of danger, refusing to be vulnerable, and I decide that maybe it’s accurate after all.

I see Will’s messy handwriting scrawled unevenly across the pages
of notes on my physical tests.
Physically weak, but determined to succeed. Sense of drive is high. Acts with courage when faced with challenges,
his last entry says. Maybe he knows me better than I know myself.

I also learn that my father’s name was Reid Elway. I whisper it aloud in the hallway, but it sounds foreign on my lips.
There are no details of what became of him. Like they could stamp out someone’s whole existence when it didn’t fit in with their plan.

The door to the
bunker opens and Sam peeks out, spotting me on the floor. Alex is behind her. She comes and sits down beside me. Alex sits on my other side. No one speaks for the first few minutes. I close the file and place it on my lap. Even though there’s nothing all that interesting, I still have the sense to guard it from their eyes.

“They all acted like I was diseased when they heard the word inconclusive,” I whisper.

“Psshhh,” Sam says. “What the hell do they know?” She reaches over and squeezes my knee. “They’re no different from you or me.”

Sam’s words are laced with confidence, but it does little to convince me. I know I am different. I was starting to see that every day that I stayed here. There is something different about me
– my mind – that makes me a target.

Alex takes my hand from my lap and
sets it in his, pressing his palm to mine. I have the sense to pull my hand away, but I don’t. I know that them being here means they don’t care about some stupid test result, and for that I’m grateful. I release a sigh and let my head rest against Alex’s shoulder. Though I know I shouldn’t encourage him, in this moment I just don’t care.

After lights out, I’m still too wound up to sleep. And If I am to survive here, I need to
strengthen my abilities.  I slip out of bed and head down the hall. Though I was timid the first time I stepped inside the gym, now I am sure-footed. Even in the darkness, I walk straight for the weight benches shoved in the corner.

I select two ten pound dumbbells, but they feel too light. I take the fifteens instead. I curl them up, straining on th
e first repetition. These will do. I press them over my head. I stand in the darkened gym lifting weights. This is not the life I imagined for myself. I should be in the co-ed school, finishing my education, selecting a future career, looking forward to dating. I won’t let the tears come; I push harder and let out a grunt each time I push the weights over my head. I let my mind go blank. It won’t help thinking of home, thinking of what my life was supposed to be. When I can no longer lift my arms, I replace the weights and walk back to the dorm. 

I walk silently th
rough the hall. At this time of night it’s dark and quiet. But instead of feeling peaceful, it gives off an eerie vibe. I turn the corner and stop dead in my tracks, realizing I’m not alone.

In the hallway up ahead,
I see the silhouette of a man leaning against the wall. I stop and hold my breath, slinking into the shadows so he won’t spot me. I can’t see who he is, because of the girl draped over his body. Long blonde hair spills down her back. Lexi.

I just want to get past the intersecting hallway without them spotting me. Not to mention I’m horribly embarrassed
watching Lexi try to seduce someone in the hallway.

My hearts thumps erratically
, and I watch as the guy tips his head back against the wall, letting his eyes fall closed. Even though shadows conceal his face, there’s something familiar about him. My eyes snap shut, refusing to see more. I hear the rustle of clothing and my eyes fly open again to see the girl suggestively lower herself in front of him until she’s kneeling on the ground on her knees.

Sensing that they are quite wrapped up in each other, I dart past the intersection and continue
down the hall, when a whispered word makes my heart stop.
Lexi
. Will’s voice. Whispering her name.

The sweat on my back turns cold.

He lets out a low, tortured growl.

My stomach twists uncomfortably.
I turn and jog for the dorms, no longer caring if my footsteps give me away. I just need to flee.

As the
challenge moves closer, the one that will have a big impact on our ranks, I’ve noticed people have been stealing bits of rope from the gym, stuffing extra food into their pockets at lunch and trying to hoard supplies they think no one will notice missing. I think of the backpack in my locker and become worried that I’ll be in trouble if it’s discovered. I’m fairly certain I’m not supposed to have it.

The day before the challenge, we forgo our afternoon training and sit on the floor of the gym to listen to the official rules.
O’Donovan – affectionately nicknamed O’D, Dirty D and Big D – stands in front of us.

“This challenge combines everything you’ve been training for, which is why it is worth the most to your ranking. There will be a physical aspect, strategy and survival skills.” O’Donovan scans the faces of the recruits. “We’ll release you into the woods in waves so that you will be on your own.”

O’Donovan clears his throat and continues. “There will be staged obstacles that you must get through. And the most important thing is you must find your way back to the compound within thirty hours. If we have to use your chip to locate you – it’s automatic disqualification.”

After a moment, O’Donovan turns and leaves. Without training to occupy us, people mill about the gym, and some head back to the dorms.

When Sam and I make it back to the bunker, people are almost in a celebratory mood. It feels like the last day of school, when you’re both excited and not sure about what’s coming next or how you’ll fit into it.

Jake comes over to where Sam and I
sit on the floor. I haven’t actually spoken to him, but after watching he and Sam stumble around the gym because they’re watching each other, I feel like I already know him.

“Hey,
” he says. He’s got dark, disheveled hair and kind blue eyes.

“Hey,
” Sam says back, but her voice is unsure.

“You’re Eve, right?” he asks
, looking to me.

I nod and reach a hand up towards him. He gives it a quick shake and then lets it drop.

His eyes rest heavily on Sam. “I’m putting together a little going away party tonight in the basement – the old weapons room. It’ll start around nine. Hopefully … I’ll see you there.”

“Yeah, sure,”
she says.

When
Jake walks away, I ask her, “What did he mean a going away party?”

“After this test, those who don’t score well will probably be leaving. There’s always a few who get their assignment after one of these big challenges since they wouldn’t be able to move back up in the rankings.”

“Oh.” I consider it and wonder if I’ll be one of the people leaving. I’m not sure how I feel about that, which I’d prefer – to be assigned to a job somewhere in the compound or stay in training where I can try and learn more about my past.

That night, I dress in
jeans and layered long sleeve T-shirts since Sam says it will be cold down in the basement. I shake my hair free from the braid it’s dried in and finger comb the waves. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt pretty, but when I look in the mirror, the effect is better than I could have hoped for.

After lights out, we creep out of the dorm in small group
s, tiptoeing through the darkened hallways, trying to keep quiet. But we’re still teenagers, and girls giggle while the guys make echoy sounds under their palms.

Sam takes my hand and pulls me ahead. I have no idea how she seems to know her way around here so well. She leads me down a
dimly lit stairwell, and we enter a huge, damp-smelling basement. Once we’ve stepped away from the stairwell, it’s completely dark, and she feels along the edge of the wall, pulling me after her until we’re on the other side of the basement. Sam stops, and her hands roam the wall looking for the doorknob. When she pushes the door open, light spills out, momentarily surprising me.

The party is in full swing. I have no idea how, but the lights burn bright
overhead, and there’s even music playing. Music like I’ve never heard before. It’s nothing like the mindless, soft melodies I’m used to. The beat is fast and the voices are filled with emotion. It stuns me for a second, but then I recover and look around the room.

There are about dozen of us, and people sit on turned over crates, or stand near the speakers, tapping their feet, nodding their heads in time with the music.

“Sam.” I tug her sleeve. “Aren’t we going to get in trouble for being down here?”

“Nah.”
She walks toward where Jake is standing, and I stay close to her. “The instructors know about this place. It’s not a big deal.” She shrugs.

A slow grin spreads over Jake’s face when he spots Sam. Not wanting to be a third wheel, I head over to Sabrina and Alex who sit on a set of worn couch cushions that litter the floor.

“Where’d the music come from?” I ask, sitting down beside them.

“It’s
probably been here since this place was built. There were stashes of music and some books Jake found the first time we came down here.”