Page 19 of Savage Surrender

My leg is bleeding from the tines now.

A different woman holds a scratchy fabric against my shoulder and murmurs to the one taking notes. The other paints a few streaks of cool liquid on my skin, steps back, and points at my cheekbone. The three of them consult in voices too quiet to catch. The fuck off sits right there on my tongue.

One guard along the far wall is watching me with an intensity that makes me uncomfortable.

“So if I refuse to cooperate, my own biology punishes me.”

“Your body was designed for this.” Montgomery picks up his fork. “I didn’t design it. I simply understand it better than most.”

I scoff. “You designed plenty. So what is this for?” I ask, and he raises one eyebrow.

I gesture at the women. “The fitting. The gala. All of this bullshit. Why are we doing all of this?”

He looks pleased.

“The gala is for you.”

The hair on the back of my neck rises. “For me?”

“Twenty-four years in the making.” He lifts his orange juice. “The scientific community has waited a long time to understand what I’ve accomplished. The gala gives me the opportunity to present those findings.”

By findings, he means me. My life. My suffering.

I’m the presentation.

Everyone begins packing up, and I have yet to touch a thing on my plate.

“Twenty-four years of data points,” I say.

“To the day.” He’s pleased that I understand. “I couldn’t have planned the timing better myself.”

Of course he could. He planned all of it.

He planned me.

“The fitting will continue this afternoon,” Montgomery tells me. “We still have a great deal to accomplish before the gala.” He finishes his orange juice and blots his mouth with exacting care. “I encourage you to eat, Bianca. It’s going to be a long day.”

He pushes away from the table and leaves me here to stew.

One of the women left a fabric swatch on the table. Baby blue. Must be close to the exact shade of the dress I wore to Whitney’s graduation party.

I pick up the swatch and let it fall. It settles onto the table while I imagine what happens when the masterpiece jumps off the pedestal and stabs its creator in the throat.

6

FREDDIE

The new guard at the east door has a thermos with a dinosaur sticker, and he drinks his coffee with a grimace like it’s a punishment.

The guards are my assignment. Tristan has cameras, Owen is stripping the rooms for anything useful, and Weller is turning our scattered discoveries into a plan. I got the humans because I’m the only one who isn’t on their shit list.

I have their shifts, rotations, and the slow churn of who covers what memorized to the minute. Who gets bored. Who follows every rule. Who hesitates before obeying. Any escape we build has to pass one of these men, so I need to know them better than their supervisor does.

“Okay, I have to say it.” I lean against the doorway with both hands visible. “That coffee smells like three-day-old ass.”

“Nobody asked,” he says without lowering the thermos. “Get back inside.”

He’s in his mid-fifties and built. FARROW is stitched above his chest pocket. He’s Tommy’s replacement, Tommy being the genius who got his wrist bent in half.