Justin Cronin - The Twelve

“Prevailing opinion. Meaning yours.”

“Mine and Eustace’s.” For a moment, Nina’s expression seemed to soften. But only for a moment. “Don’t take it so hard. You got what you wanted. Be happy.”

“What I want is to get her out of there.”

“Which is what we’re counting on, Sara. And we’ll get her out, in time.”

“When?”

“I think that should be obvious. When all of this is over.”

“Are you blackmailing me?”

Nina shrugged off the accusation. “Don’t misunderstand me—it’s not something I’m particularly averse to. But in this case, I don’t have to.” She looked at Sara carefully. “What do you think happens to those girls?”

“What do you mean, ‘girls’? My daughter’s the only one.”

“She is now . But she’s not the first. There’s always another Eva. Giving Lila a child is the only way Guilder can keep her calm. Once they reach a certain age, though, the woman loses interest, or else the child rejects her. Then they get her a new one.”

A wave of dizziness filled Sara’s head; she had to sit down. “How old?”

“Five or six. It varies. But it always happens, Sara. That’s what I’m telling you. The clock is ticking. Maybe not today, or even tomorrow, but soon. Then off to the basement she goes.”

Sara forced herself to the next question: “What’s in the basement?”

“It’s where they make the blood for the redeyes. We don’t know all the details. The process starts with human blood, but then something happens to it. They change it somehow. There’s a man down there, a kind of viral, or so it’s said. They call him the Source. He drinks a distillate of human blood, it changes in his body, something different comes out. You’ve seen what happens to the woman?”

Sara nodded.

“It happens to all of them, but it’s slower in the men. The blood of the Source rejuvenates them. It’s what keeps them alive. But once your daughter goes down there, she’ll never come out.”

A storm of emotions roiled inside Sara. Anger, helplessness, a fierce desire to protect her daughter. It was so intense she thought she might be ill.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“When the time comes, we’ll tell you. We’ll get her out. You have my word.”

Sara understood what Nina was asking. Not asking: telling. They had maneuvered her perfectly. Kate was the hostage, and the ransom would be paid in blood.

“Hate her for it, Sara. Think about what she does. The moment will come for all of us, myself included, just like it came for Jackie. I’ll go willingly when I’m asked. And unless this thing comes off, your daughter is on her own. We’ll never be able to reach her.”

“Where is it?” Sara asked. She didn’t have to be clearer than that; her meaning was obvious.

“It’s better if you don’t know yet. You’ll receive a message the usual way. You’re the linchpin, and the timing matters.”

“What if I can’t do it?”

“Then you die anyway. And so does your daughter. It’s just a matter of when. I’ve told you about the how.” Her eyes were looking deep into Sara’s. There was no compassion anywhere inside them, only an icy clarity. “If this goes according to plan, it will be the end of the redeyes. Guilder, Lila, all of them. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

Sara’s mind had gone utterly numb. She felt herself nodding, then saying, in a faint voice, “Yes.”

“Then do your duty. Do it for your daughter. Kate, is that her name?”

Sara was dumbstruck. “How did you—?”

“Because you told me. Don’t you remember? You told me her name the day she was born.”

Of course, she thought. So much made sense now. Nina was the woman from the birthing ward who’d given her the lock of Kate’s hair.

“You may not believe me, Sara, but I’m trying to right a wrong here.”

Sara wanted to laugh. She would have, if such a thing were still possible. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

“Maybe so. But those are the times we live in.” Another searching pause. “You have this inside you. I know it when I see it.”

Did she? The question was meaningless. Somehow she would have to find the strength.

“Do it for your daughter, Sara. Do it for Kate. Otherwise she has no chance.”

The things they were doing were endurable. Not without pain, and pain’s cousin, which was the anticipation of it. But able to be borne. For a long time they asked her nothing. They made no demands of any sort. This was simply the sort of thing they liked to do, and they would go on doing it, taking their dark pleasure, which Alicia did not surrender easily. She silenced her cries, she bore it all stoically, she laughed whenever she could, saying: Do your damnedest, my friends. I’m the one who must be kept in chains. Do you think this fact, in and of itself, is not a kind of victory?

The water was the worst of it. Strange, because Alicia had always liked the water. She’d been a fearless swimmer as a child, diving deep into the grotto at the Colony, holding her breath as long as she could, touching the bottom as her ears thudded and watching the bubbles of her exhaled breath ascending from darkness into sunlight far above. Sometimes they funneled the water into her mouth. Sometimes they pulled her down from the chains, strapped her to a board, and dunked her headfirst into an icy tub. Each time she thought, Here goes , and counted the seconds until it was over.

Her strength had ebbed discernibly as the days passed. A slight downward adjustment on the whole, but enough. They offered her food, pasty gruel of soy or corn and oversmoked strips of meat hardened to the consistency of leather, their unstated intention being to keep her alive so that they could enjoy themselves for as long as possible, but without the others… well. She made a silent vow: when at last she tasted human blood, the unambiguous final act of her transformation, the blood would be theirs. To surrender her membership in the human race was a heavy thing, but there was some consolation in this thought. She would drink the bastards dry.

There was no way to gauge the march of days. Left to herself, she adopted the mental practice of retracing events of her past, moving through her memory as if it were a hallway of pictures: standing the watch at First Colony; her journey with Peter and Amy and the others across the Darklands to Colorado; her strange, arid childhood with the Colonel. She had always called him “sir,” never “Daddy” or even “Niles”; from the start he had been her superior officer, not a father or friend. Strange to think of that now. Her memories of her life carried a range of emotions, grief and happiness and exhilaration and loneliness and to some degree love, but the feeling they shared was of belonging. She was her memories, and her memories were her. She hoped she’d get to keep them when all was said and done.

She had begun to wonder if all they had in mind for her was an endless repetition of their painful ministrations when the rhythm of her captivity was disrupted by the arrival of a man who bore the appearance of being in charge. He did not introduce himself, and for at least a minute he didn’t say anything at all, just stood before her where she was suspended from the ceiling, examining her with the expression of someone reading a puzzling book. He was dressed in a dark suit and tie and stiff white shirt; he didn’t look a day over thirty. His skin was pale and tender, as if it never saw the sun. But it was his eyes that told the real story. Why should she be surprised?