Free Promised by Caragh M. O'brien Page B

me!” Gaia said.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” Evelyn asked. “Is Leon with you?”
    Gaia decided impulsively that it was better to tell than to keep his arrival secret.
    â€œHe’s with the caravan in the unlake,” Gaia said. When the girl looked confused, Gaia wondered how many in the Enclave had not yet realized that hundreds of refugees were amassing just below Wharfton. She hadn’t thought such oblivion could be possible. “Haven’t you seen us outside the wall? You have to help me. I need to talk to your father, now!”
    Evelyn took a step closer, her white dress and bright hair dimming as she passed under the arch. “Sergeant Burke, what on earth are you doing? Bring her to the Bastion at once.”
    â€œI have my orders from Mabrother Iris directly,” Sgt. Burke said.
    â€œIris,” Evelyn said, almost on a hiss, though the man’s name had an obvious impact. Evelyn paused, biting her lips in a cautious line. “Don’t worry. I’ll speak to my mother.”
    â€œNo, please!” Gaia said, resisting again. “Don’t let them take me!”
    But the guards lifted her bodily and swept her into the prison.

 
    CHAPTER 7
    the vessel institute
    S ERGEANT B URKE AND HIS men delivered Gaia to a small office, strapped her to an examining table, gagged her, and shoved up her right sleeve. A young doctor entered with a tray. Wordless, he pushed her sleeve up a bit more, swabbed the skin at the crease of her elbow, and inserted a needle into her vein, flicking a little glass vial as it filled with her blood. When she tried to protest, he ignored her and, with indifferent efficiency, fit another vial to the needle in her arm. She watched the purple blood gush into it, and then, with quick fingers, he capped off the vial, pulled the needle from her vein, and put a cotton swab and bandage over the wound.
    He pushed her sleeve up still farther, swabbed a new area, and injected her arm with a syringe. What are you giving me? she tried to ask, despite the gag. He simply bandaged that place, too. He set his thumb on her chin. Curiously, clinically, he inspected her scar without ever meeting her eye. Then he loosened the neckline of her blouse, set the cold circle of a stethoscope to her chest, and tilted his head, listening. Gaia tried again to protest, but as before, her words were muffled.
    One of the guards laughed. “She’s a chatty thing.”
    â€œEnough of that,” the doctor said, and the guard went silent.
    The doctor listened another long moment, moving the stethoscope twice more, then he twitched her blouse back into position, picked up his tray and left.
    â€œThat’s one way to handle her,” said Jones, grinning.
    â€œYou’re a sick one, Jones,” Sgt. Burke said.
    Sergeant Burke and his guards released her from the examining table only to bind her hands together before her and carry her struggling down the dim hallways of the prison. At the end of a short corridor stood a thick wooden door, with a large V carved into its heavily bolted surface.
    She recalled sharply that V cell was where Leon had been tortured, and her eyes rounded with fear. She turned desperately to Sgt. Burke, but he signaled for the men to dump her inside.
    â€œI don’t know how long you’ll be here,” Sgt. Burke said. “It could be a minute, or weeks. When they want you, they’ll send for you.”
    As the door closed behind him and the lock clicked, Gaia scrambled to her feet and backed against the cold masonry of the wall. With her tied hands, she clawed to pull her gag loose so she could suck in a big breath. She bit the strap that contained her wrists, ripping at it until it came loose, and then she hugged her arms around herself, panting, breathless.
    It was a stone-walled room with no furniture, and at first, she thought it was empty. A drain, covered with a black grate, lay in the center of the floor, which