Captives (29 page)

Mason desperately wanted to rank a twenty.

“Looks like it’s broken, Levi.” Ciddah released her hold on his neck. “Come back in a few days if you’d like to have your nose reset. I don’t like to set the cartilage until the swelling has gone down. Later on, if your nose looks crooked and you’re interested in reconstruction, we can set up an appointment with the Cosmetic Center.”

“I don’t care,” Levi rasped.

“Maybe later, then. Mason, finish cleaning him up.” She left the room, blonde hair swaying. All business again.

Mason pushed away his confusion with Ciddah, got some fresh gauze, and resumed cleaning the blood from Levi’s cheeks and neck. Levi needed a shave. “They have stores here. G.I.N., which Ciddah says stands for Get It Now. Anyway, you can use your ID to buy razors and soap. They have special cream to shave with too. Keeps away the rash.”

“Penelope said the women are in a place called the Highland Harem.” Levi fixed his bloodshot eyes on Mason. “Jordan says they’re going to make them have babies. Explain
that
, Dr. Mason.”

Mason grunted, still somewhat confused at the process. “They call it surrogacy. With the thin plague, most Safe Lands nationals are sterile,
so they reproduce by using a medical procedure, selecting those who are still healthy enough. Ciddah explained it to me. They harvest seed from the males—”

“The Donation Center?”

Mason shuddered. “Yes. Did you?”

Levi choked on a breath. “No!” Another cough. “Did
you
?”

“Not
yet
.” Mason thought of those all-knowing eyes on the top floor of City Hall. “I had to get clever. But the task director general is watching me. It’s important to the survival of their people that they get us to comply. They need uninfected nationals to repopulate their city with uninfected people. Without us, they’ll die.”

Levi groaned and shifted his head on the exam table. “Wish they’d die quicker.”

Ciddah came to mind then. Mason didn’t want someone so smart and beautiful to meet that fate. “Well, despite the reason they’re doing it, the whole process is pretty amazing.” He wiped away a bit of crusty blood on Levi’s cheek.

“Amazing?” Levi’s eyes flashed. He grunted, pulling against the restraints until his face and neck were flushed purple. “They’re going to make Jemma pregnant, and you’re amazed?”

Mason hated this side of Levi, the part that reacted in anger like their father. He stepped back and tossed the bloodied gauze toward a trash can. “I’m just saying the technology is amazing. I don’t want anything to happen to Jemma or anyone else.”

Levi closed his eyes, breathed in and out, silent for several calming breaths—a trick Jemma had taught him to calm down. Mason sent a silent thank you for her wisdom. Levi opened his eyes and said, “So if
you
visit the Donation Center, Jemma could carry
your
child?”

“I …” The question knotted Mason’s thoughts. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible.”

Levi lifted his head off the exam table as if trying to sit up, but the restraints caught him again and his head slapped back against the table. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course not!” Mason glanced over his shoulder, saw the empty
doorway, then whispered to Levi, “I’m trying to learn so I can help the women. I have a … plan … to deal with the donation issue, should it arise again. You and I need a way to communicate. And you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got two Xs already.”

Levi choked out a cough. “Two? I only had one this morning. How’d they change it?”

“It’s a computer chip. They just change it. Three Xs and you’ll be liberated.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. But liberated people go away and don’t come back.”

Levi panted in a breath. “I’ve got some radios in my backpack. I’ve just got to find it.”

“What building did they put you in?”

“Larkspur. It’s in the Midlands, I guess. Haven’t gone there yet though …”

Leave it to his brother to get in a fight before even spending one night inside the compound. “I’m in the Highlands, at the Westwall. I’ll send you a message. I’m pretty sure all messages are read, so I won’t say much. But send one back, okay? Don’t write anything you don’t want the enforcers to see. If we can message each other, we can communicate. Maybe we can use a code or something.”

“And I can tell you if I get the two-way radios—”

“Mason?” Rimola knocked on the doorframe. “Ciddah needs you in exam four.”

“I’ll be right there.” He turned back to Levi. “Keep in touch.”

Mason found Ciddah in the exam room standing over a girl who was crying.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

“Sorry.” Mason stopped on the other side of the exam table and glanced at Ciddah, whose wide blue eyes were focused on the patient.

“This is my third miscarriage.” The girl couldn’t have been more than eighteen.

“Your best bet is to keep trying,” Ciddah said. “And next time you conceive, come to the harem right away. I can’t promise we could have
done anything to save the baby, but we do have methods to assist with delicate pregnancies.”

The girl’s words came out in a mournful sob. “I promise.”

Ciddah swept a strand of hair from the girl’s face. “I’m going to give you a med that will help your body recover, and might even help prepare you to carry a child again.” She motioned Mason to follow her to the counter against the wall.

In a very soft whisper, she said, “Mason, what I’m about to give her is going to hurt her—a lot. I’m going to need you to grab her and keep her as still as you can once she inhales.” Ciddah then reached into a drawer and removed a small disposable vaporizer.

They returned to the patient’s bedside, and Ciddah administered the drug. As Mason held the girl’s arms, he looked up to see tears welling in Ciddah’s eyes.

As soon as the girl was still and breathing steadier, Ciddah left the exam room. Mason jogged after her.

“You interested in Rimola?” Ciddah asked without turning around. “I hear she’s gratifiable.”

Mason stopped in the hallway. “What? No. I barely know her.”

Ciddah glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. “What’s
that
matter? She’s attractive, you’re attractive …” She continued down the hallway.

I’m attractive
? Mason started after her again, killing this bizarre line of questioning with one of his own. “Do you know why that girl miscarried?”

“They all miscarry these days,” Ciddah said as she turned into her office. Mason stopped in the doorway. Ciddah settled behind her desk and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “The plague weakens the body so much that women can’t carry a pregnancy to term. I’ve been asked to explain this to you. I think now is a good time. Have a seat.”

Mason moved a stack of papers off one of the chairs in front of Ciddah’s desk and sat down. Ciddah didn’t speak, simply stared at him, and a Bible verse came to mind: “Who is this that appears like
the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?”

The thought embarrassed him. Why suddenly wax poetic over a woman he’d just met? A confusing woman. He stared at his hands, unable to look at her again until she finally spoke.

“The thin plague ravages the immune system,” Ciddah said, “which in turn affects the reproductive systems in both men and women. What you told your outsider
friend
about Safe Landers being sterile is not completely true.”

A rush of heat seized Mason. “You heard that?”

“Some nationals are sterile. Some are not, but their donations are too weak to survive fertilization, which amounts to the same thing. And some women just don’t have the strength to carry a child to term, even with the help of fertility stims. You were also mistaken about pregnancy. Many women become pregnant in the Safe Lands, but they always miscarry. There hasn’t been a child born to a Safe Lands national in over three years.”

“But Kendall Collin —” Mason said.

“Kendall is an outsider. Like your women, she came to the harem uninfected. But the male donor was infected, so her child will be too.” Ciddah’s eyes were suddenly hard and angry. “I’m not a member of the Safe Lands Guild, but I do know that outsiders are brought here to save our people. We’re dying. And if you and your outsider friends refuse donation, we have no chance of survival.”

Mason sat up tall in his chair. “Your government holds our people against our wills. We don’t owe you anything. And we’ve survived, uninfected, all these years by having a wiser way of life.”

Ciddah huffed and shook her head. “So
you
say. But you can’t imagine what it’s like for a woman to lose a child.”

Mason
could
imagine, actually, more than most men. But he didn’t see her point. “What does that have to do with us?
You
can’t imagine what it’s like to have your freedom taken away.”

“There’s freedom in the Safe Lands,” Ciddah said simply. “If you comply.”

Mason scooted to the edge of his chair. “Forced compliance is the opposite of freedom.”

She raised her eyebrows and looked down her nose. “Not if you choose it.”

“Choosing compliance over death is not freedom,” Mason said, grabbing the edge of her desk and leaning up against the smooth glass. “It’s blackmail.”

Her tone became heated. “You’re a healthy male. It’s your duty to donate!”

Mason didn’t know what to say. Clearly Ciddah was upset. He realized he’d practically climbed onto the end of her desk, so he sank back in his chair, wanting to understand. “You resent me because I won’t donate?”

“Because you’re selfish and narrow-minded.” The words felt like a slap, and Mason didn’t know why. “Thousands of women desperately want to bear a child, yet since it’s not your
belief
to donate, you refuse. And you leave hundreds brokenhearted.”

Mason took a few short breaths. “I’m sorry women have to experience that kind of pain. But it’s not my wish to mate with hundreds of women.”

Ciddah growled. “You don’t have to! Don’t you get it? The Surrogacy Center does it for you.”

Couldn’t she see how awkward
that
statement was? “Yes, but it’s still my child. My children.”

“No, it’s not,” Ciddah said, softening her voice. “Children belong to the nation, are raised in the nursery and boarding schools until they’re fourteen.”

Wait, this was what Kendall Collin had been talking about. She’d said that she wanted to hold her child, and Ciddah had said that the child belonged to all of them, but Mason hadn’t understood fully until now. “What of their mothers?”

“Surrogates are given six weeks of rest, then they return to their lives.”

Questions tumbled in Mason’s mind. “What about bonding? What about breastfeeding?”

Ciddah wrinkled her nose. “Bonding is a myth. And breastfeeding isn’t sanitary. Plus, the plague passes through a surrogate’s milk. All infants are given formula. There’s no reason for the mother to stay with the child. The true reward of giving birth is knowing you helped your community survive.”

“The mothers never see their babies again?”

“Surrogates can apply for a revealing. And when a child comes of age, if the child also applies for a revealing, they can meet. Male donors may also apply for a revealing. But both surrogate and child, or donor and child, must apply before a revealing is granted.”

To never know family? To have no parents or siblings? How horrible. The Safe Lands had many good things—excellent medical care, the technology to do things Mason had never imagined—but they were misguided about so many more important things.

Mason looked directly into Ciddah’s eyes. “So you’ve grown up all alone? Never saw your parents together?”

“Like I said, no one does. It’s not how things are supposed to work.”

“In my village,” Mason said, “a man and woman grow fond of one another, spend time with one another, and if they decide they’d make a good match, they appeal to the elders for marriage. If the elders grant their request, a three-month waiting period begins. Then the man, if he hasn’t already, must choose a trade and build a home. And the woman, if she hasn’t already, learns a trade as well. Both are mentored by an elder as to how to be a good husband or wife. At the end of the three months, the man stands before the entire village and announces his intention to marry.” Unless, of course, no one wanted him, and his parents arrange the marriage.

Mason went on. “If no one objects, the wedding is scheduled. Then the mentoring elder joins the couple in marriage and they are declared man and wife. Should they have children, those children live with them in their home until they’re old enough to choose a spouse of their own. That’s the way of my people.”

Ciddah’s cheeks pinked, and she folded her arms. “Some of that sounds comforting, but isn’t it a lot of work to have to have two tasks? Raising a child
and
working a trade?”

“My mother never complained. And she was a doctor
and
taught school.”

Ciddah shook out her hair, something Mason now realized she did when nervous. “You’re of age. Did you appeal to your elders to marry?”

Mason didn’t want to mention Mia to Ciddah. It hadn’t been his idea, anyway. “No.”

Again she tossed her hair, this time with a flutter of eyelashes. “Why not?”

Now that Mason
could
answer. “I didn’t feel … I hadn’t found the right woman yet.”

Ciddah transformed before him then. Gone was her honest anger and vulnerability and personal questions. Her eyes became distant again, her posture stiff. “You must think my people cold and lazy to only work one task.”

“Some of them, yes. But not all of them. Not you.”

She came back to him then, instantly softening at his compliment. “Have you witnessed a birth? A natural birth?”

“Hundreds —of animals.” He chuckled. “But only one human birth.”

This time Ciddah leaned over her desk. “Tell me about it. Please?”

Was she serious? She’d never seen one? Heat crept up the back of Mason’s neck. “It’s … difficult to describe.”

She slapped her palm on the top of her desk. “Mason Elias, you exasperate me with your modesty. Just tell me what you saw!”