Mortal - Chapter 20

 Premise: In this young-adult dystopian novel, people can no longer die. But they still feel pain, and suffer--and it's maddening. Because of the chaos that ensued, the US Government created a program to figure out how to kill people. When Garrett, a teenager, falls into a coma for weeks as a result of an experiment, the Program sets its malicious sights on him.

This is the twentieth chapter of the novel, Mortal. Click here for the beginning of the story. Or, click here to view all chapters.

Edward’s angry— and it’s that sarcastic kind of anger that can’t help but make you want to punch the man. But I’m resigned to it. I am numb, both physically and mentally, and simply swallow his bitter words like a reluctant child who secretly knows his parents are right. Edward seems to only direct his anger towards me which I don’t quite get. Lucy is in the corner of the upper lobby with her arms crossed and shoulders hunched over her gaunt body. She doesn’t speak, like I don’t—like I can’t.

Bern’s back. He has ordered me not to speak. He’s holding ice packs to my throat like some kind of freezing brace. There’s a small twitch below his left eye, and he looks much older since the creases of frustration and confused helplessness have yet to fade. “One day,” I hear him mutter in disbelief under his breath, “I was gone for one day…”

I blink in response. So much had happened in one day. From a horrifying conversation with the Secretary, to being strangled by a stranger. And Lucy. I slowly turn to her, careful not to move my neck. She’s not even looking in our direction, but staring into the wall. I’m mad about the situation, but I’m not angry with her. I can’t be. And I know that she is terrified.

“So let me get this straight, Captain Butterfly,” I hear Edward chime speculatively. I jerk my head back to him, towards his voice, and quickly regret it as a shivering wince staggers through me.

Bern puts a hand on the side of my head, “Try not to move,” he says softly. I tilt my chin in acknowledgment and look up at Edward reluctantly. The rain only lacerated the butterfly’s flesh on my face as it is obviously still recognizable, and I resent the name, for it brings back that short moment of past when I felt what it was like to be normal. And all because of Lucy.

“You and Luce go to Turkey Kettle, for some reason spend the night in the park, and get attacked by an actor?” Edward’s brow is raised and the giddy desire to hear a good story clouds out the disapproval in his eyes.

I nod slightly, “The actor was a Corpse,” I croak, and attempt to clear my throat. It feels raw and swollen. I hope it’s just because of the ice…

“And what would make you think that?” his words are tight in a sneer, and only when I look up at him again, do I realize that he is feigning this annoyance. His blue eyes are no longer piercing me, but boring into the crumpled body of Lucy.

“Tattoo,” I whisper softly. He must know something too, something about Lucy and VitCorp.

“Did he say anything?” his eyes drift to mine and ours lock in a conflict of emotions. Uneasiness quivering in both our gazes.

He did. Only hardly, but enough to keep the words somewhere in my mind, tinkering at its meaning every now and again. If you want to hide, run towards. I do want to hide, he knew that. But it’s his advice that confuses me. I want to hide from the Secretary. What would going to him help in any way at all? “Yeah,” I say, “But it made no sense at all. He sounded crazy.”

“What did he say?” Bern asks eagerly, gripping my shoulder tightly. I shiver, and turn to Lucy, “I couldn’t understand a word,” I mutter.

Her eyes flicker up to mine and hold there, a spark of intensity in her dull eyes. She knows that’s not true. But she nods slightly, and I am assured that my secret is safe for now.

Edward stares at me suspiciously, fingering the sapphire ring on his finger. Bern lets go of my shoulder, and slaps his side in frustration. “This doesn’t make sense. Why is this long-since-buried corporation after you?” he demands with a sigh.

“I don’t know,” I respond numbly. My jaw pulses.

Bern looks to Edward with raised eyebrows, “Edward?”

“We’re not discussing this,” Edward snaps coldly, clenching his hand into a fist. Startled, I blink repeatedly, and watch Edward head towards his office.

“Seriously?”  Bern gapes at him. “We—“

“Let it go, Doctor,” Edward orders before slamming his office door behind him.

Bern combs a hand through his hair. He begins to pace around me, and sighs to himself, “What the hell?” Then he thinks better of himself and rests a trembling hand on my shoulder. I wonder what’s making him so anxious. “I’m sorry, Garrett. I’m beginning to think this is more than just an—an alliance between them. I…” he looks above my head, towards the elevator, “I gotta go.”

“Bern,” I stumble on my cracking words, but Bern leaves without another word.

I scratch at my neck as I am reminded of the stifling sensation of not be able to breathe. Edward clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, and I’m beginning to wonder if he thinks this story isn’t worth all…whatever you call this.

I hear Lucy stir behind me, and I trail her with my tired eyes until she’s standing in front of me, with her back hunched to the side and wet hair in her face. “How are you?” she manages to say after a moment. It sounds like I wasn’t the only one strangled.

“Fingers crossed that I won’t die,” I flash a smile at her, and my chest warms when a dry giggle escapes her.

“You’ll jinx yourself,” she responds as she sits in Edward’s vacant seat and moves it closer to me so that our knees bump together.

I watch her as she pulls her damp hair away from her face, revealing her large, glowing eyes. She wants to say something. I know she does. But she’s not ready yet.

“And you?” I ask, carefully leaning forward and clutch her hand in mine. She flinches from my touch, but her hand soon relaxes into mine. “Will you survive?”

She stares at me like she’s just figured out a three-hundred year old mystery. “It’s funny,” she mutters as she lowers her gaze to her lap, and her other hand presses against my hand holding hers. “We know that our bodies can never die. But what people don’t seem to know is that now our souls can.”

My stomach tightens at her morbid realization, but I continue to push her, knowing bit by bit she’s opening her shell to me. “They couldn’t die before?”

She shakes her head bitterly, not meeting my gaze. “No,” she finally voices. She grips my hand tighter, so that it is almost painful, but I let her hold last. “Every day, Garrett. Every day we make so many mistakes. And each mistake chinks away at our soul. They can’t survive an eternity of that. They just can’t. There’s a set amount of good in this world, but the evil is endless.”

“Luce,” I grimace, angry that someone let her come to this conclusion, and let it remain attached to her creed. It’s possible…that she is right. But believing in that won’t change a damn thing.

“And Garrett,” Lucy’s lip trembles and her voice is scrawny and breathless. She finally looks up at me, her eyes welling with tears, “My soul is broken.”

I stare at her for a moment. I can feel my eyes widening as I try to understand what she’s saying. I don’t have to think much before pulling her into a tight embrace, attempting to squeeze the anguish out of her entire being.

She buries her head into my neck, and her body is wracked with silent sobs. I feel warm tears slide down my collar-bone and I begin to stroke her back, not knowing what else to do. She hardly knows me. I don’t know her, but she’s trying to let me.

“Lucy,” I sigh, hoping I sound comforting and not bewildered. I awkwardly pull away, and cup her chin with my hands, wiping away a stray tear with my thumb. A shiver runs down my spine when I remember Addison did the same comforting motion when I had clearly lost my sense of reality. I can only hope that Lucy isn’t going through the same tortured experience. “What are you saying?” I ask gently, lifting my eyebrows.

She sniffs and blinks rapidly, jerking her chin away, and I let my hands fall. “Sorry,” she mutters, rubbing her eye with a clenched hand. “I didn’t mean to…fall apart like that.”

I watch her collect herself before I try again, “Why do you think your soul is…broken?”

“I’ve done some things…” she says distantly, “I lost myself a few years back, and I don’t know if I ever got back to where I was before.”

I squirm in my chair. I am overwhelmed. I don’t understand why she’s telling me this. I met her only a few days ago, and we only became civil yesterday. I bite my lip hard when I realize something’s changed. But what? “Why are you…” I trail as I search for delicacy, but to no avail. I flutter my eyes, “Why are you telling me this?”

A laugh that sounds more like a gasp escapes her. With the back of her hand, she wipes away the remains of her tears. “Last night,” she takes a deep breath, and exhales, puffing out her cheeks, “You asked me what I knew…what I knew about VitCorp. And I told you that I would explain if I thought it would help. And after,” her eyes lower to my bruised throat, and a shiver runs through me.

Lucy’s elbows fall to her knees and she sighs, rubbing her temples, “This can’t keep happening. And if I can, in any way, help prevent it…” she gazes up at me, a strong fervor of determination shading the once prominent frailty in her eyes, “I will.”

I rip off the ice pack taped to the side of my neck and place it carefully on the table. I tap my foot, without pattern, against the floor, and I hesitate to meet her focused stare. She’s going to tell me about whatever connection she has with VitCorp. My head buzzes with anxiety, and I begin to wonder if I even want to know anymore. I like her. I like her enough to think I can trust her without knowing everything about her. And I think…she likes me too. I don’t want to ruin this. With Abel gone, she’s the only person I know that I can trust for the sake of me.

I clear my throat, “You don’t have to do this.”

Her eyebrows scrunch towards her big eyes and a forming frown tightens her jaw, “Wha—why?”

I bite the inside of my lip before saying, “This…” I shake my head slightly, annoyed with myself for having such trouble finding the right words to say, “Your past. It’s obviously been…dark. Mine too. And I know how hard it is to come clean…” my face reddens at the last words, and I expect her to be angry.

Lucy blinks at me. She only looks surprised before her face darkens and grows ashen, “I know. But you did anyways. I can too.”

Her hand reaches for mine and squeezes slightly. If not for the way her voice shattered as it left her lips and the hesitant tremble in her fingertips, I would have thought she wanted to comfort me. I know better. I press my hand against hers before dropping them to my knee.

I watch her eyes. They never look at me for more than a second before they part to a random piece of furniture in the room. But they always return to look back at me. I nod, reluctantly, giving her my approval to speak.

“You know what it was like,” she breathes. The words stick together as she tries to get them to leave her tongue quickly. “How it still kind of is now…” she glances up at me warily. “People began to panic. The thought of never escaping, always trapped, with all their sins…was too much for some. You know what it was like,” she says again like she really didn’t want to explain anymore, “People tried to kill themselves. And they always failed. So they tried again.”

My eyes widen slightly, and I’m thankful that Lucy is no longer looking at me, but analyzing a silver paperweight on the coffee table behind me. Did she try to kill herself? Did she try again and again? I can’t stop myself, “Lucy…”

She seems to know what I’m thinking and jerks her head to the sound of my voice. “Oh. No, Garrett. I didn’t try to kill myself. I…” she looks to her lap, “There were times that I’ve wanted to…but I’ve never tried.”

I lower my head slightly to see her bowed head. Her lower lip, jutted out and trembling, her clenched jaw, her blotchy pink skin. But the look in her eyes, that is what tears at me. The look of nothing.

“Those people have hope,” she says.

Lucy. The girl who plays naïve is playing no more. The girl who forgets will not forget anymore. She who knows, who understands most, wants no explanation, demands no answers. These are the signs, I wince internally, of a broken girl.

I want to scream at her, to tell her to snap out of it. She is wrong, and she’s still stumbling towards the direction of more wrong. I want to tell her that she is young and strong, that she doesn’t need a hope for death but for life. That those people are wrong because they didn’t have enough hope in themselves, that they could redeem their own sins, their own lives.

I squeeze her hand tighter instead.

Lucy glances down at our hands and her lip tilts upwards in a sad—pitiful, actually—half-smile.

“And the rest coped in other ways. My father…he kind of just left. I haven’t seen him since I was seven. And my mom, she volunteered a lot. She thought by helping others she could help herself.” Lucy looks up at me, shaking her head with a wry smirk, “It’s not supposed to work like that.”

I press my lips into a firm line and wait. My eyes flicker to the floor as I feel the urge to give her some sense of privacy.

“So I spent many weeknights with my grandma. I called her Babu.” A chuckle rattles her throat, and I look up at her, shocked by the light-hearted sound and see that she is smiling and there’s an odd glint in her green eyes. “She was this crazy, old Russian lady,” but her eyes suddenly dull, and the smile fades from her face, “She is this crazy, old Russian lady.”

Acting on a spontaneous feeling, I urge, “Tell me about her,” fascination threading my words.

Lucy bobs her head in agreement and a silent sigh of relief escapes me when I see that she is smiling again, “She had this accent…oh my gosh, Garrett. This heavy accent. I remember when I was younger, asking her over and over again to repeat what she was saying. Sometimes it helped, but usually she would just get annoyed and…I swear it sounded like she was speaking some alien language. And so I eventually got annoyed with it all and simply agreed with everything she said, not knowing a word of it. Thank God, I finally got use to it and could understand something.”

She rolls her eyes, and the action and her story is so genuine that a smile forms at my lips, and a small laugh vibrates against my aching throat. I wince in response to the pain, but I don’t care.

“While I was at her apartment, we would make these quilts. Tons and tons of quilts. And it was such a bore, Garrett. I’d rather play with my dolls than stitch pieces of cloth together just so it can sit in a dusty box for an eternity. But she wouldn’t let me. She would say, ‘It’s wery important that ve make sese blankets, Lucinda. Wery important.’” Lucy laughs at her poor imitation of her grandmother and with her free hand, pulls her wet hair over one shoulder and smiles at me mischievously. “So I learned. Babu didn’t have very good eyesight, so I would sit in the very corner of the room with a blanket over my lap and my dolls underneath. I would play with them in secret and every now and again rattle the blanket and shout, ‘Babu, I finished stitching a patch! Babu, my fingers are tired! Babu, I just made the most perfect stitch, if only you could see!’ and she would look at me with these squinty eyes and say, ‘Verk harder, Lucinda. Lucinda! Vhat are you even doing? Ah! Forget it.’”

“Sounds like a pain,” I comment with humor.

Lucy raises her eyebrows, “Oh, she was.”

My teeth crack through my growing grin, “I was talking about you.”

Lucy’s eyes narrow. “Garrett? Just…shut up. Anyways, even though she could be so damn frustrating I loved her. I spent more time with her than my own mom. She cared for me more than my own mom. So I loved her more. And I thought she loved me.” She lifts our gripped hands to rest against her cheek as she leans towards me, her elbows resting against her knees.

“I thought she did anyway…” her voice trails into quiet doubt, and I know this harmless anecdote was about to turn into something much more disturbing.

“My grandmother…” Lucy starts again, her eyes pale and distant, “Wasn’t able to find a coping mechanism like my mom. She wanted to die. She asked me to kill her.”

My stomach tightens in dread. I can’t help think of my own situation, or rather, the one that turned out to be my situation. Images of my father’s blood pooling onto the carpet, and the glint of my mother’s crazed eyes as she holds a knife towards me bombard my thoughts, and I flinch internally. I brush my knuckles against her cheek lightly, in hopes of comforting her.

“I was twelve,” Lucy states with disbelief, blinking hard, “And my grandmother wanted me to become a murderer. Her murderer.” She glances up at me, and it looks as if she were expecting something, “Of course I said no. I couldn’t…I-I wouldn’t. She didn’t like that. She threatened to beat me…whip me with a belt. When she finally realized that didn’t faze me, she found something that did: She promised she would never speak to me, never take me in again. And I loved her,” Lucy says exasperatedly.

She pulls our hands away from her face and releases mine, so that it falls limply by my side. She scoots her chair backwards, so that we are no longer touching, and she wraps her arms around herself, tightening, squeezing herself together. She won’t look at me, and by the way her white face twitches, I have a feeling I won’t see her gaze for quite some time. “It was ironic. Because since then, I dreaded going over there. I hated it. I learned to hate myself every time I walked through that little, creaky door.” She hisses as if she’s a tea kettle, releasing the pressure that’s building up within her.

Wide eyes look past my shoulder, “I remember having to…” her hands lift, and she turns her stare to look quizzically at her trembling fingers. In a quick movement, her hands clamp into fists at the memory, and her face contorts, her eyes scrunching shut. “Quilts,” she breathes shakily, “I hate quilts.”

I recoil from the flaring imagination her words abandon me to. I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood. What lengths was she pushed through? What did this sick, old woman force her to do?

Lucy inhales, the wrinkles of pain smoothing in her face slightly. “I lost myself,” she finally says softly. “And I couldn’t hide it very well.” She shakes her head, “I didn’t want to hide it. What I needed was it to stop.”

“And so naturally, Garrett,” she looks at me, and I begin to feel my resolve to remain strong for her begin to crumple. “VitCorp found me. That’s how I know about VitCorp. I was a patient there. A few days after my thirteenth birthday, I was submitted to the ward of the criminally insane.”

My head reels, and I have to grasp the armrests in order to keep me from falling out of my chair from a titled sense of gravity. Lucy lowers her eyes, her pale cheeks flushing a bit. She’s ashamed. She thinks I won’t be able to look at her the same way anymore. Will I?

“Does Edward know?” I ask without even thinking. I realize after pondering the spoken words, they sound, I sound, heartless, cruel. I should be telling her things like it’s okay, and that there was no harm done, and that she’s alright, but I’m so flustered by her unexpected secret that I wouldn’t even know if I was lying or not, and I can’t compose my own thoughts well enough to consider her feelings in the matter.

She blinks at me, before bobbing her head, “Yes.”

My teeth graze my lower lip, but not before the word shoots out, “How?”

“Once I was released, I came to him. I made a trade. I would tell him everything I knew about VitCorp in exchange for my welfare. A home, means of getting food and clothing, anything of the necessity.”

“This internship,” I add.

She nods. “We’ve been joined at the hip since. He’s like the older brother I’ve never had. He takes care of me. Once I was committed, my mother wanted nothing to do with me. And my grandmother…” she abruptly shuts her mouth, jaw clenching down on her wistful words.

I glance towards the door to Edward’s office, my eyes narrowing. I can’t help but feel our situations are very similar. That Lucy is only still around because Edward isn’t quite finished with using her. She seems to know what I’m thinking, and I wonder if that can be considered evidence reflecting Gild’s poor character, or if I’m just easy to read in my shock-ridden state.

“I trust him,” Lucy says firmly, her eyes glinting adamantly. “You should too. He’s helped both of us so much.”

I do trust him. I’ve never felt otherwise. But the trust is limited. I can trust him with Project Eden, but not with myself. I grunt in response, blinking back the whirling thoughts that aren’t patient enough to give me a moment to even collect myself.

“You’re so bitter,” Lucy remarks with a smile that is clearly forced.

“I’m not,” I deny, shaking my head wearily. “I just…can’t…”

“Trust,” she answers for me.

I sigh and run a hand through my hair, “So has Edward ever used this story?”

Lucy shrugs slightly, “He did a short column about it once it was disbanded, but nothing else. He always thought there was something more to it, something so blatantly missing. I guess he was right.” Her eyes lock onto mine for a moment, then flicker away sheepishly.

“Who else knows?” I finally ask as my head starts to pulse with a heavy ache, and unintentionally my words carry: Who else has been keeping this from me?

A subtle, but most certainly noticeable flinch quivers through her stony face. She bites her lip and reluctantly says, “Only...Bern.”

“Bern?” I ask, “Why him? You’ve only known him…” And then I realize something terrible, and I’m not quick enough to hide the steely glare that bores into her. I grimace when I see her shrink in her chair. “You’ve known him longer,” I say coolly, composed.

“Not really,” she whispers, pressing her back so hard into the chair that she’s beginning to slip out of it. “A couple days after Edward hired him, before I found you, I accidentally left my medicine out.” Lucy looks to her lap, “He knew what it was, so we had to tell him.”

Nausea swells in my stomach, and I jump to my feet. I’m trapped. And I feel the burning instinct to run. Lucy…she’s insane. She’s taking medication to keep her from unraveling. She calls herself broken. Then what am I? No better off? I broke the day Eden pointed a gun at me. The Secretary, Dr. Long, everyone…thinks I’ve lost my mind. Have I?  Since my coma, I’ve pushed these thoughts to back of my mind, focusing my full attention on escaping, VitCorp, Lucy’s secrets. Were those just ploys…to escape this? I stare at Lucy who’s watching me with wide, desperate eyes. Do I have any reason to be suspicious of VitCorp, of Eden, of anything? Or is it just in my head?

Lucy, she’s forcing me to finally face this, and I begin to tremble at the thought of finding out I am crazy, just like my parents…just like her.

“Garrett…” she breathes worriedly.

I scrunch my eyes shut in response, clenching my hands into fists. Should I be on medication? Should I be in an insane asylum? Would I stoop so low to try to kill another human being? Will my soul also become broken?

I can’t ignore the aching feeling anymore, and I leave the room swiftly towards the bathroom, the look of hurt in Lucy’s face unmistakable. But I don’t care right now, I can’t.  My sanity’s in question, and although I don’t know why, I need to see it.

For the first time in years, I fully look at myself in the mirror. I want to look away, but I make sure I don’t, digging my fingernails into my palms, and biting the inside of my cheek. Am I broken? Am I broken? bludgeons through my head as I stare at my painful reflection.

I need to know.

My face is thin, almost sickly. Tight skin clings to my cheek bones and jaw line. There’s a slight curve in the bridge of my nose from where Joe hit me. My eyes are dark, almost empty, and I think I am the only one that can see the crazed fear radiating from within.

I see the fading butterfly on my face, and I hate it. My hands lunge for the sink, and I quickly bow over it, splashing cold water onto my face, scraping away the paint with my nails. Am I broken? I look up to the mirror again, and a meager sense of relief fills me when I see that the butterfly is gone, the only trace of it left is the splotchy red across my face.

I straighten my back and examine my face a little further. Putting the curve of my lip and the slight curl of my brown hair to memory. I anxiously glance towards the locked door, expecting someone to enter. I side-step closer, and double-check that it is, in fact, locked—it is.

I return to the sink, and close my eyes, inhaling deeply. Am I broken?  My eyes snap open, and I ferociously grab at my shirt, yanking it over my head before I toss it to the corner of the bathroom with a soft flop.

Immediately my shaking fingertips go to the scar on my chest. It’s still healing: Pink and rough to the touch, but it’s cool against the pads of my fingers. And I trace it, both with my eyes and fingers, and follow the curve.

I hear the gun shot. My fingers curl into my palm which quakes slightly with the quickening beat of my heart. Am I broken?

I groan in frustration, trying to fight the curdling fear that sticks to my stomach, stiffens my chest and flashes blearily in my head. My hand presses harder against my heartbeat, and I stagger away from the sink.

I hear the oppressing ring in my ears, and I’m scared I’m going to lose it. I can’t bear the thought, it’s stifling. Am I no better than my parents? Whom I have held the grudge against with bottled-up, stinging rage? I feel myself swaying slightly, and lower myself onto the wooden floor, resting my head against the cabinets. Still, I hold my hand against my heart, but in a feeble attempt to calm the aching roar in my head, I dig my other hand into my forehead, sucking in air through my trembling mouth.

Is Lucy really that crazy anymore? Bern, my parents, Project Eden, they’ve all tried to kill. Am I crazy to think that it’s still wrong? Am I broken? My knees push against my chest as I shudder involuntarily. Will I one day think that it’s not? Will I try kill out of cold calculation? Will I try to kill out of love, pity, hope? Will I finally welcome death, hiding from the insanity, the chaos, the pain and run towards it?

Am I crazy?

I don’t know, and this brings tears to my eyes.