The Bleeding Crowd (16 page)

Dahlia frowned. “You think I look like a
lesbian?”

“I don’t know.” Heather crossed her arms.
“What does a lesbian look like?”

Dahlia paused, looking at Heather in the
orange light. She was about average height, maybe a couple
centimeters taller than Dahlia, not much more. Heather’s shoulders
were wider, better defined than hers, but not beyond the realms of
femininity. She probably would have had the same physique if she
had spent more time trying to tone up. Considering it all, Heather
was pretty with her dark hair coming to her shoulders with a little
curl to it and delicate features. Dahlia sensed an odd sort of
familiarity to her now that she could study her.

“Do I know you from somewhere?”

“I’d doubt it.”

Heather waited for her to pull the shirt on
before inspecting her. Carefully Heather tucked a loose strand of
hair back into the collar before stepping back and nodding. “Keep
your head down, don’t move too much so your hair stays in place and
don’t say anything. Just follow me. The shirt should help people
not notice you, but if you draw attention, well, the rest of you
isn’t exactly in uniform.”

Dahlia nodded with apprehension, stopping as
she felt her hair try to slide free from the collar.

Waiting for another beat before picking up
the bag, Heather rolled her shoulder and then followed another turn
in the tunnels. At the end of that tunnel, a dull white light
shone. As they neared it, Dahlia could see that it came from a
cavernous room that opened up from the end of the tunnel with
little, if any, finesse. The floor dropped off sharply at the end
of the tunnel and a short set of stairs led to the level of the
room. A number of other tunnels branched out from there as if they
were spokes in a wheel, but the main purpose of the room seemed to
be to house the pyramidal shape in the middle with a crescent
cylindrical box at the top.

“It’s the hub,” Heather whispered, nodding at
the top of the pyramid. “That’s the control center that got
blown.”

Dahlia nodded.

Heather moved to the floor at the bottom of
the stairs, waved at the woman sitting at the desk on top of the
pyramid and moved off to their left at a diagonal to reach another
tunnel. This one wasn’t plain like the other; instead it was wide
with a line of cells separated by metal bars. The lights weren’t
orange, but still buzzed oddly. The entire place appeared Spartan,
not at all up to her standards.

Another woman with dark blond hair caught
Heather as soon as they were out of sight from the pyramid. “What
took so long? That her?”

“Yes,” Heather said, walking to one of the
cells. There were only half a dozen men in there, sitting on the
floor.

A man stood, moving to the bars. “Do you have
her?”

Heather urged Dahlia forward.

She surveyed the small group. Two younger men
were huddled in the back corner looking too terrified to focus on
anything that was happening. Three more had risen when she and
Heather appeared and watched her with a mix of apprehension or
hope. Ben was leaning against the wall to the right, staring at
something just in front of his shoes.

Dahlia took a breath before looking at the
man at the bars. “So, what am I supposed to do?”

“Abel’s got a gash on his leg.” One of the
standing men pointed to a man at the bars.

“It’s doing fine.” The man at the bars waved
the other away. “We need our chips out.”

Dahlia nodded. “I’m not a surgeon. I have no
idea how those chips are placed. It’s about as likely that I’d
accidentally kill you as help you.”

“Fifty percent chance of getting out of here
is better than what we’re looking at now,” another man said.

Dahlia looked at Heather. “How long do we
have?”

Heather shrugged. “It’s about three or four
hours until sunrise. Best case scenario, we’re long gone before
that.”

Dahlia bit the inside of her cheek. “I
suppose, if you’re all willing to take the risk... I don’t think we
need standard operating procedure... no one’s planning on suing for
wrongful death I take it.”

“Who would prosecute you for us?” Ben spoke
at last.

She looked at him, watching his eyes slide
away at once. “All right then. Who wants to be the guinea pig and
go first?”

Nobody moved. All of the men lowered their
eyes as if afraid she would single them out.

“I will.” Ben pushed himself off the wall and
met her eyes in challenge. “You’re a good enough doctor from what
I’ve seen.”

Pulling her shoulders back, Dahlia nodded and
turned to Heather. “Okay. I need a blanket and some water and get
them out of there. I can’t very well work through those bars.

Heather nodded for the other guard to get the
supplies and opened the cell.

“Can we work in the hall?” Dahlia frowned.
“I’m not a fan of willingly stepping into places that someone could
lock me in.”

“I’m not going to lock you in.” Heather
looked at her.

“It’s just the principle,” Dahlia said.

“They’ll see you if you’re in the hall.”
Heather frowned and then sighed. “How about you go in there, but I
let you have the key while you’re in there? Is that
satisfactory?”

Dahlia nodded, letting Heather pull the door
open before taking the key and directing her to place the bag near
the bars of the cell. When the other guard returned, she set the
water by the bag.

Dahlia knelt and meticulously set some jars
near her knees. She looked at Ben, watching him steadfastly avoid
her eyes. She looked away.

“Take off your shirt.”

He did so in silence.

She glanced up, her eyes never getting as far
as his face before looking away. “Lie down. I’m going to use a mild
topical anesthetic to numb the site some. It should help a little,
but to be honest, this is probably going to hurt like a bitch.”

“I’ll survive I’m sure.” Ben lay down,
staring at the ceiling.

She looked at some of the other men. “Hold
onto his shoulders in case he jumps. He mustn’t flinch.”

No one moved, and then everyone took their
places, almost ceremoniously, around Ben as if he had offered to be
a sacrifice to some archaic higher power. Dahlia poured a little
water on her hands, rubbing them together before pouring a bit of
rubbing alcohol on her palms and the scalpel. She strove to pull
her nerves together enough to keep her hands from shaking.

“Everything all right?” the other guard
asked.

“Just, gathering myself,” she said, taking a
deep breath.

“We’re—”

Heather placed a hand on the other guard’s
shoulder, hushing her. Dahlia heard the woman shift uneasily, but
nothing else made a sound. She released her breath slowly and
shifted the scalpel in her hand before touching the edge of the
scar with her other hand. She pressed her finger directly next to
where the scar started. Ben tensed some, but then forced himself to
relax. Bringing the scalpel down to just above the scar, she waited
for her hand to still before cutting. At the first stroke, he
jerked, but remained silent, the vein in his neck protruding some
as his friends held his body still.

She cut as far as the scar went, trying to
ignore the look of pain on his face, wiping away the pooling blood.
Not far below the skin, she saw something thin, silver, and
metallic. She studied it for a second, not wanting to wait too long
while he bled.

She looked at Heather. “Is there a
light?”

Heather shook her head.

Dahlia released a breath and wiped the blood
away again, trying to keep the site clean before the blood could
congeal. With care, she used the flat edge of the scalpel to press
the top of the chip down a little to see its broad edge. Ben
inhaled sharply, his head jerking back, but he didn’t complain.

“It doesn’t look too deep.” Dahlia wiped
again. “I mean, it’s deep, but not—”

Ben let out a ragged breath.

She looked at his face. His eyes were closed,
scrunched up so that his forehead and the corner of his eyes were
deeply wrinkled. He was slowly blanching, all the color draining
out of his face. It looked scary. Painful.

She picked up the tweezers, rubbing them with
alcohol quickly before turning back to him. “All I can really do is
pull. It’ll hurt. Might kill you. I really don’t know.”

He didn’t attempt to answer.

Dahlia wiped once again and slipped the
tweezers on either side of the chip, pulling gently. It didn’t
move. She released a breath and jerked her hand back.

The chip followed, sliding out roughly.

Ben gave a hoarse yell, the man closest to
his head covering his mouth.

Dahlia glanced, just quickly enough to see
the sweat coming off his forehead, his skin so pale that it looked
green under the buzzing lights. She didn’t ask how he was. She knew
more than enough, and, if it was worse than it looked, she really
didn’t want to know. Quickly she cleaned the site and bandaged it,
trying to staunch the bleeding as quickly as possible. She pressed
on the site for longer than needed until she could fight off the
feeling of urgency and then sat back on her heels. Ben continued to
breathe in ragged gasps.

She nodded the men away from holding him,
touching his face gently before freezing. Her hand dropped
awkwardly, and she placed her hand on her thigh. “Try to breathe
deeply for me.”

Ben swallowed, but forced himself to breathe
more slowly.

She paused. “Can you move?”

He stayed still for a long moment before
nodding shortly.

“Move your fingers if you can,” she said.
“Then your toes.”

He did what she asked in slow motion.

“Is he okay?” one of the younger boys
ventured to ask.

“Seems to be.” Dahlia took a needle and
pricked his big toe.

He flinched. “What the fuck was that
for?”

“Reflexes,” she said. “Don’t move so much;
you need your strength.”

“I think I’m doing pretty well considering
the circumstances.”

“Well, you aren’t dead, so there’s that,”
Dahlia said. “Someone help him sit up.”

“I can do it myself.” He pushed himself up,
arm shaking only a little.

Dahlia frowned, but didn’t berate him. “I’d
give you pain pills, but they’d make you loopy. I think we should
wait until we’re not in mortal danger for that.”

Ben nodded, focusing on the gauze that
covered his shoulder.

“If you can lift your arm, you can put your
shirt on,” Dahlia said, looking at the other men. “Who’s next?”

By the end of the seven men, Dahlia was
pulling out chips within a few minutes. It wasn’t any less painful,
but at least it meant less time to suffer. The youngest boy cried.
The rest had given the same muffled shouts as Ben, a couple
whimpering as they moved away from the blanket.

Dahlia rinsed the scalpel and tweezers,
paused a moment, and then packed everything away. She stood and
looked at the guards. Heather watched her along with the other
guard from the hallway.

“I assume you know a way out of here?”

Heather nodded. “Are we good to go?”

“I suppose.” Dahlia looked at the men.

The light grew a little brighter.

“We need to go.” The other guard looked at
the roof. “The camera’s going to go back online soon enough. We
need to get as far away from here as possible as soon as
possible.”

Heather nodded once. “Check the hallway.”

Despite the fortress-like look of the prison,
with Heather and the other guard’s keys, it wasn’t hard to get out.
Heather and the other guard were expected to be there, and with the
systems half running they were able to shepherd the men out of the
tunnels and into the forest without so much as running into anyone
who would question them about it. They kept moving until the last
lights from the city were gone leaving them in near darkness.

* * * *

Ben looked at the sky. It would be dawn soon.
He pressed a hand to his shoulder, wincing. The wound still
throbbed, but he’d survive. He’d had worse. Dahlia caught the
corner of his eye, moving between the men checking their arms. He
waited for her to reach the end of the line before moving off a
little. He looped around, ending up beside her.

“It might be time to drug some of the guys,
especially the younger ones.”

Dahlia started, and spun to face him. “Oh,
most of them seem okay. Anyway, Heather’s friend has my bag. I
didn’t get her name.”

“Des?”

“If that’s the other guard.” Dahlia shrugged.
“There’s Vicodin in there if someone needs it, not a lot, but...
if... Ask around, one pill to each one who needs it. You can find
the right bottle, right? V-I-C-O—”

“I got it.” Ben cut her off. “You don’t have
to stay. We’re not far out of town. Heather can show you the way
back.”

She shook her head. “I stole from the
hospital. I took a lot from the hospital. Between that and, well,
they’ve probably found your chips by now. Paired with me
disappearing and everything else, they’ll put it together pretty
fast.”

“You know I didn’t send Heather to—”

“I know,” Dahlia said. “I made my
choice.”

Ben nodded, sticking his hands into his
pockets. “Thank you.”

Dahlia pressed her lips together. “Someone
came to me for help. Asked me for medical help. It was my
professional duty to help them.”

Ben didn’t respond.

“Dahlia?” Heather moved towards her.

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to need your comm unit. There’s
a GPS in it.”

Dahlia set her hand on her hip, sliding it
against her waistband. “I... I must have lost it somewhere last
night.”

“All the better.” Heather nodded. “We don’t
want it here. All the guys okay?”

“I...” She didn’t move her hand off her
waistband. “Yes. Yes, they’re fine. I think I need to go sit down.
If any of the guys need something for the pain, give them a
Vicodin. They’re in an orange container. One pill each.”