I Am Margaret (23 page)

THE CARD

There was a very white ceiling above me. I stared drowsily up at it for a while.
Something tells me everything is not right
. Why
is everything not right
?

Jon!

I sat up and pain leapt from both temples, meeting in the middle of my brain. Sinking back on one elbow, I closed my eyes, swallowed hard and stayed that way until the pain receded slightly and I was fairly sure I wasn’t going to be sick.
Won’t hurt, will it
,
Major? Liar!

I opened my eyes again.

I lay on what appeared to be a hospital bed, in a tiny, white, windowless room. A hospital-style bedside table stood on the side nearest the door, a key sticking out of the lock, and that was literally it. My aching brain was sluggish. Not the room we’d been taken to for our medical examinations in our first week here… but it must be part of the sick bay.

Jon
…

Throwing back the blanket, I slowly swung my legs over the side of the bed and levered myself to my feet. My head pounded unpleasantly but remained attached to my body, so I wobbled to the door. Card locked. Of course. I was really, really starting to want one of those cards.
Lord?

There was no window in the door. I poked all around it but it fitted seamlessly against the frame. Tugging and prodding the card reader and even thumping it achieved nothing, of course. How long had I been unconscious? Was Jon already packed away in the freezer?

I
was
sick then, barely grabbing a basin out from under the bed in time. I knelt over the bowl for some time, retching and crying in fear. Jon…
Where do all good little reAssignees go?
Finchley had said. The Major had belatedly realized that the easiest way to avoid Jon’s organs being wasted was simply to have him dismantled at once…

Stifling a fresh outburst of weeping, I shoved the basin under the bed, found a cloth to wipe my face, and forced myself to lie back down. I couldn’t get out of the room and the headache would pass faster if I rested. And when I did get out of the room, there was more chance of doing something if I could move quickly without throwing up. I drew the blanket back over my nightdress-clad body, shivering. I ached all over and I felt exhausted.

There would be nothing I could do
… I flung the thought away from me and stamped on it.

Terror for Jon or no terror, I was dozing by the time the door opened. Finchley stepped into the room. Just Finchley. He shut the door behind him. I hastily put back the blanket to free up my legs. I didn’t like his smile. I didn’t like the way he looked at me. I didn’t like that it was just him.

“Feeling better, sweetheart?” He strode towards the bed and I slipped off the other side, which put me pretty much with my back to the wall. “Warden says to take you to Doctor Richard for a test. You having been such a naughty girl. But the Doc’s just expecting you sometime this morning. So I don’t see why we can’t spend a little while getting to know each other first.”

I glanced up, searching the ceiling corners. Finchley laughed so hard you’d think I’d done something really funny.

“No cameras in here, sweetheart. Counts as a bedroom. For once the Really Wet Board have done something right, eh?”

My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. Bane had taught me some hand-to-hand stuff, but… Finchley was so big. I swallowed, fighting back panic.
You’re in trouble, Margo, but panicking won’t help.
Perhaps I should let him come right up to me and then shoot him with his own weapon. Yeah, and how stupid was he?

Not that stupid. He drew the nonLee from its holster and locked it inside the bedside cupboard—put the key in his pocket, and smirked at me.

“Wouldn’t want you to spoil the party, would we?”

He began to walk around the bed towards me.
Lord, Lord, Lord… help? What do I do?
I was trapped in this little room with him and I couldn’t get out, not without… With immense effort, I managed not to stare at the gray badge hanging around his neck in its holder. He hadn’t taken that off. So… how? I’d have to let him come close… I’d probably only get one chance… I wanted to bolt, but I had to wait. My trembling fingers knotted in my nightie.

He lunged and grabbed me, shoving me back onto the bed. The badge dug into my chest. I could take it, but how to get away? I twisted, struggling, but he wrapped an arm around me to hold my arms down. Worried about his eyes. His other hand was all over me, octopus-like, and his legs pressed hard against mine, so kneeing him in the crotch was out. But what’d Bane said?

‘Oh, forget about the old knee in the crotch, Margo, it’s expected. If anyone ever bothers you that badly, just grab their bits, good squeeze and yank, they’ll let you go and you can blush later.’

My mind managed one plaintive, panic-stricken
Lord? Not really?
but my hands were already moving. My right hand put Bane’s advice ruthlessly into practice and my left snatched the badge off over Finchley’s head as he doubled over with a sound like a burst balloon. Shoving him off me, I dived over the bed, and fumbled for a breathless, back-tingling second as I got the card the right way around and swiped it through the reader.

The light flashed green and I yanked the door opened—I could already hear him stumbling across the room—I leapt through, not daring to look back, and slammed the door shut behind me. Gasping for breath and shaking like a leaf, I took stock of where I was. The sick bay corridor. Finchley began to hammer on the door. I didn’t have long if I wanted to keep my prize. With the shadow of his hands lingering on me, I felt I’d paid enough for it.
You got off very lightly, Margo
.

Turning, I began to run down the corridor, my bare feet pounding against the cold floor. I would have to be very, very fast. As soon as they spotted me on the monitors... Here was the stairwell door—swipe the card—the stairs flew by beneath me. Top floor—swipe card again. From lower down came the bang of doors; raised voices… Sprinting along the corridor and swiping the card yet again, I hurtled into the dormitory.

“Margo?”

“What…?”

“Are you all right?”

I ignored everyone, dashing to my bunk and diving up onto it as though distraught. I’d no breath for sobs, real or otherwise, but I draped myself over my chest to hide the fact I was lifting the lid and taking out my purse. Stupid thing to bring to the Facility, but such was habit. I fumbled with the cards in it… ID, blue and yellow; Bank card, black; Loyalty card, red; Library card! Gray! I switched it with Finchley’s pass card and had the purse back in the chest before the first would-be comforter made it up onto the top bunk.

“Margo, what happened?”

Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Evading all the outstretched arms, I slid from the bunk and reached the trash chute before the door opened, winding the cord around the badge holder as the Menace, Finchley, Dwight, and two other guards spilled into the room. No point trying to look upset—if I looked how I felt, that would do fine.

“Give it back, bitch!” wheezed Finchley.

“
What,
this
?” I yelled, holding up the holder; making sure they all saw it held a card. “Why don’t you go and
get
it, you rapist bastard!”

I yanked open the trash chute and threw it in before they managed anything more than a dismayed lurch forward.

“No!” wailed Finchley. Then the Menace grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the doorframe, which unfortunately for him was made of cinder blocks and metal like everything else.

“What did she just call you?”

“
He tried to rape me, the filthy pig!” I shrieked. I was acting now—sort of—it was scary how easy the hysterics were. But I
couldn’t
try to calm down; it mustn’t even cross anyone’s mind that I might’ve done
anything
other than run straight back to the safety of the dormitory before throwing the badge away in revenge. And as I couldn’t try to get hold of myself, I began to cry; big, loud, messy sobs from right down inside, the sort that leave you hardly able to breathe so you feel you’re going to suffocate in misery.

As the other girls converged on me I could hear the Menace laying into the cowering Finchley.

“
You little turd, if I ever hear anything like this again you’ll be in the dole queue, you hear me? For the rest of your life. D’you have any idea what a rapist guard would do to my record, you little idiot? D’you have any idea how much flack the Wets would give me if they heard about this? You keep your hands
off the merchandise,
you hear me?”

Oh, she was a charming woman, no mistake.

She hadn’t finished—she slapped him, once, twice, thrice across the face—before realizing that my horde of comforters had fallen silent and were watching avidly. She dragged him off, then, their voices floating back along the corridor.

“
How dare you do this,
today
…”

“You’re not going to tell the Major, are you? Please, please, Captain, you’re not going to tell him, are you?”

“
Oh,
I will
, if you put so much as another foot wrong…”

“
Please, please don’t,
please
don’t tell him,
please
…”

“Oh, don’t piss yourself, you little…”

The stairwell door clicked closed behind them.

The sight of Finchley being bitch-slapped by his superior was delightful—I’d have to at least stop crying before I could work on forgiveness, and I was finding it an awful lot harder to stop crying than to start. Eventually I found myself seated on a chair at the table with an array of chocolate and sweets laid out in front of me, and an entire heap of cherished soft toys piled in my lap.

“
I’m all right, really,” I managed at last. “I’m fine. Thank you, you’re being so kind, but I’m all right. He didn’t really manage anything. I was just shaken up.”
And Jon’s probably dead and there was nothing I could do to help him…

“Let me get this straight,” said Rebecca, looking rather thrilled, “you kicked him in the goolies and then you grabbed his card and legged it?”

“That’s… that’s pretty much it.” At the thought of precisely what I’d done to Finchley, heat flooded my already tear-warmed cheeks. Bane would’ve laughed. Actually, Bane would still have been pounding Finchley’s face into a cinder block and I’d be trying to stop him. I hope.

Bane… I wanted him with me so much it was like a physical ache. And the next time I wrote to him, would I have to tell him his friend was dead?

Jane had wormed her way up on my right.

“We got inspected, you know, while you were gone.”

“Inspected?” I was hardly listening.

“
Yeah, by the RWB. They looked around and asked if anything bad had happened to us here—Bethan started crying and they were all like, ‘what is it, what’s the matter?’ and I was afraid they’d get it out of her—about the execution and everything, then she’d have been for it, so I said, ‘They’re going to cut us up, what do you
think
’s the matter with her?’ And they went very pink in the face and went away again.”

“Oh. Great. I’m glad Bethan wasn’t in trouble.”

“Margo! Wake up! Don’t you see? Jon’s probably…”

She broke off as the tramp of feet came from outside. The door clicked open and a couple of guards tossed a broken white cane into the room, then shoved a gangly russet-haired figure after it and slammed the door again.

“
Jon!”

Chocolate, cuddly toys and chairs went flying in all directions as I hurtled down the room. I flung my arms around him and as his head turned towards me my lips accidentally landed right on his. I only just managed to control my instinctive recoil, but Jon slid one hand into my hair and returned the kiss as convincingly as anyone could’ve wished.

He didn’t kiss like Bane, blazing-fierce and adoringly tender all at once; Jon’s lips caressed mine as though he’d slip through them, merge himself with me, make us one. It was too intimate and I couldn’t respond, but when we broke apart, it required no effort to wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his silky hair.

“Jon, you’re all right. You’re alive.”

I found myself repeating this self-evident fact several times before I managed to draw away and get hold of myself. Actually... definitely alive, but not quite as all right as he’d been earlier that morning. His lip was split and swelling, he’d a black eye, a bruised cheek, and one wrist nestled in a tubular bandage.