A Perfect Blood

mesh for balance while Gerald fished the key from his pocket. There was only one, and Gerald had it.
    “On your knees, facing the wall,” Gerald demanded, and shoulders slumping, I turned my back on them and dropped to my knees. I don’t know what movie he’d been watching, but it was effective. No big loss, I thought as I heard the door open and Winona totter in. Even if I did manage to get out, I wouldn’t get anywhere. Not with them standing around watching.
    Hearing the door shut and lock, I stood and turned, reaching to take Winona’s thick hand. Her eyes met mine in thanks, and I helped her to her side of the cell and supported her until she was down. They really didn’t need to cage her. She could barely stand.
    Chris put the bottle of sedative in her purse with a couple of syringes. “I doubt moving three people is going to come up,” she said. “We’ve never had a subject live longer than three days.” She looked at Winona. “This is what, day two?”
    “Winona is healthy.” Why are they scaring her like this?
    “And that’s why she was puking all night?” Chris gestured for Jennifer to get her coat.
    My heart pounded as the distasteful woman sauntered closer until only a few feet, some twined wire, and a canyon of morals separated us. “If it should come down to it,” Chris said, her words crisp and mocking, “your surly nature might outweigh your blood, and we’ll take Winona instead. Maybe you should be nicer.”
    I jumped when she smacked the door, my face burning when she laughed. “The last person who hit my cage died under a pack of dogs,” I said, but she’d already turned away.
    “Okay, let’s go,” she said, and my anger turned to hope when Eloy stood up from the monitors. They were all leaving?
    “Rachel?”
    It was Winona, and I turned to her, almost impatient until I saw her fear. My thoughts jumped back to what Chris had said. After a moment of hesitation, I went to her. “It’s okay,” I said, sitting so I could see if they took the dart gun. “You’re not going to die. You were just getting rid of something you couldn’t digest anymore.”
    “Maybe I should die,” she said, and I stiffened. “I mean, what good am I now?”
    I shoved my first response down, and settled myself more certainly beside her, rubbing my legs, aching from disuse. “Don’t talk like that,” I said, watching them bundle up with hats and thick coats.
    “You sure they can’t escape?” Chris said as she tugged on her gloves, and Eloy rattled the door.
    “I can lock them in the bathroom,” Gerald said, and Chris snickered.
    “At least then she would stop whining about potty breaks.” Her head came up. “Okay, let’s go. We have a small window and I want to use it. I’ve been stuck down here for two days.”
    She was halfway to the edge of the light, and Jennifer and Gerald fell into place behind her, talking between themselves, their tension rising. Eloy was last, and I wondered at the look he gave me as he left.
    Slowly their voices became faint, and with a thump that seemed to shake the air, the lights went out. Winona sighed, and I looked at her in the glow from the TV monitors. I could see them on the monitors at the stairway. Then even that light went off and the monitors glowed a dull gray of nothing.
    “Couldn’t leave the light on, huh?” I said sarcastically.
    Winona moaned as if in relief. “I’d rather have them off,” she said, surprising me. “The light was hurting my eyes. That annoying humming stopped, too.”
    I wondered if she was hearing the electricity in the wires. Jenks said he could. It was how he’d found that worn spot in the church’s wiring last year before it burned the place down.
    My chest hurt. Damn it, I was going to get us out of here. Somehow.
    Standing up, I squinted at the ceiling where the wire mesh met it, wondering if there was a weak spot. I hadn’t looked yet, knowing I’d never be able to take advantage of it if they knew I’d found one. Fingers looping into the mesh as high as I could reach, I gave a tug. Nothing.
    Winona sniffed, and I moved a foot down and gave it another shake. My thoughts kept going over the last half hour: the conversations being said without a word, that look Jennifer had given me when Chris whispered in her ear. What bothered me the most was that Eloy hadn’t protested their going out and grabbing someone else. He knew that putting three people in this cage was a mistake. Someone would die if