Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One) (24 page)

The candles burned out before the door opened
again. Another man came in and, without even pausing, pushed her
over roughly and shoved the needle into her neck. This follower had
a faint smell of rosemary. He let go, gravity dropping Jenny onto
her back hard. The door slammed behind him. Jenny wished he lit a
candle before he left.

She couldn't measure the time that was passing.
It all seemed like one long moment from the time they took her to
the present. Everything blended together, yet time seemed to be
slowing down. Being alone stretched time even further. She had
nothing to focus on but the cross on the ceiling. She tried to take
in her surroundings, to try to figure out where she was and why,
but she could hear very little. The injections seemed to dull her
ability to sense the living, so she had to rely on the muted
footsteps that passed her door. They seemed to be regular, and she
guessed there was some kind of guard to make sure no one came in.
Or to make sure she didn't go out.

After what seemed a very long time, the door
opened again.

“Good morning, Jenny,” Sully said
cheerfully. “I trust you slept well.” He chuckled.
“My apologies. You don't sleep, do you? Your brother told me
that.” He went about the room, lighting candles, then came
and leaned over her. “I've got a surprise for you today. A
treat. A girl is going to come in and wash you – you really
do look a mess – and then we'll get a little sustenance in
you. You have to keep up your strength, cupcake.” His face
disappeared and Jenny heard him mutter something. He appeared in
her line of sight once again. “This really is incredible,
Jenny. We have so much to learn from you. Every cut healed
overnight. Nothing more than small scars, which I assume will be
gone by tomorrow. Astonishing.” Jenny felt his rough fingers
trace over the place where he had sliced on her collarbone.
“Astonishing,” he said again. “At any
rate,” he said taking his hand off her, “you are
probably looking forward to a bath. But to be on the safe side, I'm
going to need to give you another injection.”

After the shot, Sully brought in a woman who
sloshed as she walked, as though carrying a bucket of water.

“Thank you, Brenda,” Sully said.
“Be gentle with her, will you? She looks like a devil, but I
assure you, she does have some angelic qualities.”

Brenda grunted. “I'm not doing this for
you, Heathen. I'm doing it for Daniel.”

“Whatever gets the job done,” said
Sully. Jenny heard the door slam as Sully went out.

Brenda didn't speak a single word as she washed
Jenny's naked body with an ice-cold rag, which she dipped in the
bucket in between cruelly scrubbing her skin raw. She went out when
she was finished and Jenny was alone again.

She thought of Declan.

When Sully came back, he wasn't alone. A man
with a deep, booming voice was arguing with him. Jenny thought
there might be a third person, but she was still foggy and couldn't
be sure..

“I want to put her up,” the loud man
was saying. “I don't care who you say she is, she's no
different than the rest. We need to make an example. And I want to
do it again. The last time was...well, in a word, it was
exhilarating.” He laughed. “I don't think I've ever
felt so alive. We are doing God's work here, Sully. There is no
room for nepotism.”

“It's not nepotism,” said Sully, his
voice tight. “We need to figure out the logistics. If we can
find out how it works, the possibilities are endless. And you
shouldn't have done that last one. She was alive. We said no
living.”

“She was a sinner,” said the man.
“God spoke to me through her. She asked for repentance and
that is what she got. Her sins were cleansed on the cross. And what
do you mean by possibilities?”

“We could live forever, Daniel,”
Sully said breathlessly.

Daniel laughed. “That's not in God's
plan,” he said.

“How do you know?” said Sully.

“Because we are mortal,” said
Daniel. “We are put on the earth to prove ourselves worthy
for Heaven. And then we ascend to paradise. Science is a tool of
the devil, my friend. You'd best remember that.” There was an
awkward silence and then Daniel spoke again, his voice less harsh.
“I'll give you some time. I know how you like to punish them
for their sins. I'll allow that. But in the end, she goes up just
like the rest.”

The door slammed as Daniel left and Jenny could
hear Sully breathing heavily. “Fuck!” he said and glass
shattered against a far wall. Jenny guessed that he threw one of
the candles. Sully's breathing steadied, and after a while, in a
newly-composed voice he spoke again. “Have a seat, will
you?” A second person walked across the room and sat in the
chair.

“Is this going to hurt?” said a high
male voice. A boy, very young from the sound of him.

“A little,” said Sully. “But
it's for a good cause. This is Jenny here. Do you see
her?”

“I- I'm not supposed to look,” said
the boy.

“Why?” said Sully. “Because
she's not wearing clothes?”

“Yes,” said the boy, sounding
embarrassed.

“That will change,” said Sully.
“Give me your arm.”

“I don't want to.”

“Do it anyway,” said Sully, an edge
to his voice. A skinny arm came into Jenny's view, a larger hand
holding the arm by its wrist. There was a flash of silver and then
the boy was crying and something hot was dripping onto Jenny's
lips. A hand wrenched her jaw, opening her mouth and she tasted the
blood. A heat spread through her body, and for a moment, the fog in
her head lifted. She felt Sully's strong pulse and the boy's
faster, panicked one. She smelled the fear. Sully took the arm away
and the fog returned.

“That's enough,” said Sully. There
was a sound like tape. “There now, stop crying. It's not even
bleeding anymore.”

“Can I go?” said the boy.

“Please do,” said Sully. The door
opened and closed again and Sully walked back over to her. His face
appeared in her line of sight again. “That was for you,
Jenny. My gift to you. So you don't get hungry.”

He cut her again, over and over. He didn't talk
this time, just sliced into her skin all over her body. It went on
much longer than it had the previous day, but Jenny felt better
able to handle it. She didn't cry, she didn't try to scream. After
the first dozen cuts, she could feel a little clarity coming back
to her. As Sully made his last cuts, she was able to move her eyes
down to watch him, moving them back to the ceiling before he saw.
When he was finished, he leaned over her. “Tomorrow is going
to be different,” he said. “We're going to take a look
inside. Do you understand?” He walked away and she followed
him with her eyes. She moved a finger tentatively. Her muscles were
slow to respond, but they were responding.

“Your brother didn't handle it very well,
but I have loftier hopes for you,” Sully was saying.
“After all, it's already inside of you, we just want to take
a peek at it.” Jenny flexed her fingers, making a loose fist,
opening and closing her hand experimentally. She had no strength,
but there was movement. She froze as Sully turned, coming back to
her with a syringe. Her eyes went back to the ceiling.

“I'll bet you're wondering about a few
things,” said Sully, standing beside her. “I'm not
proud of some of them. I couldn't have Munro hanging around all the
time. He was too strong, too unpredictable. Willing to kill anyone
who got near you. I had to drive you apart, Jenny. You are too
special for him. Lucy was all too eager to work with me. I didn't
even have to convince her. She talked you into going into the
subway alone, where I had Joshua ready to turn you. I knew the old
rotters in that car couldn't kill you. They would just infect you.
That's how it works. You have to be infected to make it work. In
return for Joshua's help, I supplied him with enough food to feed
his people for a month.

He leaned over and studied her eyes.

“I still wasn't sure that would be enough,
though. Munro kept saying you weren't dead, that he was going to
find you. So I tried a different tack. I tried to make you think
that he killed all those thumpers in the subway. I just wanted to
create enough doubt that you wouldn't trust him. I didn't kill
them, mind you. I didn't have to. Daniel took them out before I
could do anything, but Munro had already been there. Joshua was
dead. Daniel's people took care of the rest, and I wrote your name
on the walls so you would think Munro did it.” He sat, the
chair creaking under his weight.

“When that didn't work, I asked my dear
old friend Lucy to distract him. And believe me, she tried. She
tried over and over. But that son of a bitch just would not let you
go. It was maddening. And then I thought to myself, who am I to
break up a love this strong? To intervene in something so strong
that it survives death. You can't fight science, Jenny. And I am
nothing if not the epitome of scientific discovery. I know this
isn't the path you chose. But sometimes we have to take the path
that is given to us, not the one we want. It's unfortunate. But you
have to trust me, cupcake. It'll all be worth it in the
end.”

Seeming to be satisfied with what he considered
his own personal explanation, he stood up and pulled her arm gently
to roll her on her side. Jenny moved her arm toward him. She had no
power, but she had to try anyway. She grabbed Sully's wrist that
held the syringe. He jumped, startled, his eyes opening wide. He
opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

“I'm going to rip you apart,” Jenny
said, her voice a hoarse growl.

Sully finally collected himself enough to wrench
his wrist away, quickly jabbing the needle into the back of her
neck before she could force her muscles to respond again. She went
slack and Sully let her drop back onto her back again. She heard
him shuffling away, his breath coming in wheezes. And when the door
slammed behind him, she could feel his heart beating fast on the
other side of the metal door.

Thumpthumpthumpthump.

If she could have smiled, she
would have.

For making Sully nervous, Jenny got three shots
that night instead of two. The injections seemed to wear off more
quickly, and they didn't obliterate her senses as much. But she
wasn't certain that she would survive the next day. Sully said he
wanted to take a look inside. Jenny thought of Casey, lying on the
slab with wires and metal sticking out of his back. Would she end
up the same way? It was alarmingly familiar. She remembered lying
face-down on a slab herself ten years earlier, being opened up by
her grandfather. Was that what made her different from the others?
Why her blood was red and she healed more quickly?

Sully came in, he had two people with him. Jenny
could hear Daniel's voice from outside the door. She felt three
heartbeats.

“...so the boy finally had a change of
heart,” Daniel was saying as they entered. “Realizing
he could be doing something real with his life. Something
pure.”

“Well, you have to start somewhere,”
said Sully. “Here she is. What do you think,
Ezekiel?”

A set of footsteps came toward Jenny and
stopped. “Why is she naked?” said a familiar voice.
Zeke.

“Well, she's not a person, son,”
Daniel laughed. “It's not as if she knows she's not wearing
clothes. She's evil incarnate, just as the others are.”

“And the scars?” said Zeke.

“Sully likes to satiate his curiosity, and
I must say, I find his work to be very interesting.”

“I'm sure you do,” said Zeke.
“Why can't she move?”

“A clever concoction. Also from
Sully,” said Daniel. “He is quite innovative. She gets
a shot every few hours, I believe...?”

“Every six hours,” said Sully.
“Though she has started acclimating to the dosage, so we've
been injecting her every four hours.”

“Can I do the next one?” said
Zeke.

There was a heavy silence, then Daniel laughed
loudly. “See there, Sully? Father and son bonding, is what
that is. God is good today.”

“He certainly is,” said Zeke.

“Come back in four hours,” said
Sully. “She's just been injected, but I guess it wouldn't
hurt to let you do the next one.”

“What do you think of her, son?”
said Daniel.

“I think she's an abomination,” said
Zeke. This got a chuckle from Daniel before Zeke spoke again.
“I have an errand to run. I hope you don't mind if I run out
for a while.”

“An errand?” said Daniel.

“I promised to meet a guy about a
gun,” said Zeke. “But I'll be back in four
hours.”

“A gun?” said Daniel. “Well!
When it rains it pours, doesn't it? You just decide you're on board
and you throw yourself into it, Ezekiel. Well done, boy. I was
worried about you for a time, but things are looking up.”

“I'll say they are,” said Zeke.
Jenny heard the sound of a muffled embrace and the door opening and
closing again.

“Do you think it's wise to bring him here,
Daniel?” said Sully.

“Don't question me,” said Daniel.
“That's my son.”

“Stepson,” Sully said.

“This is your last day,” Daniel
said, lowering his voice. “Get your jollies off all you want
by the end of tonight, because tomorrow that evil bitch is going up
on a pole.” The door clanged shut again.

Sully was silent for a long while before he
walked over to her. His face came into view. “You're not
going up on that pole, cupcake. Don't you worry. I'll figure
something out.” He stroked her cheek, sending a wave of
revulsion through Jenny's body. “You are perfect, Jenny. Do
you know that? I can cut you over and over, I can slice you to
ribbons, and you just keep coming back to me, just as perfect and
pristine as before. You are a marvel.” He sighed. “You
know, before I met Daniel, I only experimented on rotters. It was a
scientific endeavor, to see how long they can live without food or
sustenance. It turns out to be about a week! Can you believe that?
Everyone's so afraid of them, and yet, they're so very
fragile.”

He clapped his hands. “Anyway, enough
about me. Let's get started. I've got a girl outside who has agreed
to feed you. And then we have some work to do.”

The girl made less of a fuss than the boy, so
Sully let her bleed longer. Jenny was nauseated for wanting an
innocent girl's blood, but she was going to need the strength when
Zeke returned. There was always the chance that Zeke really was
siding with his stepfather. He'd said self-preservation was his
only priority. But it sounded like he was coming back to help her
in four hours. She just needed to stay alive that much longer.

After the girl left, Sully eased Jenny onto her
stomach, her cheek against the cold metal of the slab.

“I know this must bring back some
unpleasant memories,” he said. “But I need to look. I
need to see how he did it. All the work I did, and those government
bastards wouldn't give me what they gave you. Not just Anna and
Frank Bierce, but everyone. They just used me. They didn't even pay
up after I switched them out. Ungrateful pieces of shit.”
Sully was babbling now, muttering to himself long strings of
syllables under his breath that Jenny couldn't understand. He kept
muttering as he cut into her. She felt what little air left in her
lungs being pushed out. She wanted to scream again. He was cutting
deeper than he had before, pulling her skin back with wet ripping
noises. The pain was incomprehensible. She felt hot tears falling
from her eyes and pooling on the cold metal. She felt Sully's
clumsy fingers poking her insides, sending waves of anguish through
every nerve in her body.

“This is impossible,” Sully
whispered. “All your organs are in perfect
condition.”

Jenny prayed to a god she didn't believe in,
prayed to every god that anyone had ever believed in. In her mind
she swore to believe in anything if she could just move. Right now.
To move and crush this monster poking at her insides. If she could
just rip Sully's heart out before he touched and tainted any part
of her, she would be a true believer. But nothing happened. She
couldn't so much as bat an eyelash. And Sully kept cutting, and he
kept ripping, and he kept touching. She felt violated with his
hands inside her body, touching parts that he had no business
touching.

The world went black for a while, but when Jenny
came to, Sully was still at it. He was pressing on something that
made her feel as if she had swallowed a live wire.

“My God, it's beautiful,” Sully
said. “It's so elegant. How did he... How? Bierce couldn't
have done all this on his own.”

Jenny's vision went red and she felt one eyelid
flicker. Then she felt herself losing her hold. She fought it at
first, but she was so tired. It was easier to let it take her. To
sink into the black like a comfortable cloud.

She woke up annoyed. Her head hurt and someone
was forcing something into her mouth. She tasted blood, and managed
to swallow. The pain in her head eased, but her back was on fire.
The blood stopped and she saw Sully turn his back on her. He'd
given her his own blood. She was lying on her side, her face toward
the door. Sully crouched down in front of her.

“I did it,” he said, excitement in
his voice. “You're not dead. I opened you up and I didn't
kill you.” He had a cloth pressed to his arm where he had cut
himself. Jenny blinked at him and he frowned, dropping the cloth.
Jenny stared at the gaping wound and remembered the vials of blood
in the garbage can back at the museum.

“Blood,” she said, her voice barely
a whisper.

“I gave you all I could,” said
Sully, backing away. “I'd better give you another
injection.”

“You took...my blood,” Jenny said.
“At...the museum. It was missing because...you wanted...you
wanted it. For yourself.”

Sully smiled at her, grabbing a syringe off the
table.

“We're going to live forever,
Jenny,” he said. “You and I together. I'm getting you
out of here tonight. Do you trust me?”

“No.”

He stopped, looking at her with a crestfallen
look on his face. “Well, that's disappointing.”

“Let me...go,” she said.

“I can't do that,” he said.
“They're looking for you now.”

“I'll tell Declan...to leave you
alone.”

Sully laughed. “This isn't about Munro.
Your mother's people are looking for you. I killed one, but they're
like ants. Where there's one, there are bound to be others. I have
to take you away.”

“Why?” She moved her finger. Sully
didn't notice. If she could just keep him talking until her
strength returned. He seemed to like to talk. He wanted to share.
Jenny didn't care why, she just wanted out. She wanted to live.

“They can't get you, Jenny,” he
said. “Don't you understand that if they find you, they could
stop this. All this gorgeous chaos. It's a perfect world now. I
won't let them stop it.”

“Who?”

“The government,” said Sully, as if
that were a stupid question.

“You think...my mother works
for...government?”

“Not of her own volition, no doubt. She's
a prisoner. But prison won't stop Anna Hawkins. She has followers.
Many followers. You've already met one. I used to follow her too.
Before the men in the high towers even knew she existed. I was one
of theirs after she rejected me. And then they turned on me,
too.”

“The government doesn't exist,” said
Jenny. “They're gone.”

“They're not gone,” said Sully.
“They're waiting.”

“For what?”

“For all this to blow over. The rotters,
the infected, everything. And then they're going to swoop in to
save the day. The funny thing is that they started it.”

“They set my mother up?”

Sully smiled. “No, I set your mother up. I
volunteered.”

The door opened, the hinges squealing, and Zeke
stepped toward Sully.

“What is it?” said Sully.

“I said I was going to stop by,”
said Zeke. “What did you do to her?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” said
Sully. “I thought you were supposed to know
everything.”

“Not everything,” said Zeke.
“Only some things. For example, I know how you'll
die.”

“Me?” said Sully. He laughed.
“I don't think you've got that right.”
“It's pretty disgusting,” said Zeke.

“Is that a threat?”

“Oh, it's not me who kills you,”
said Zeke. He pulled out a gun. “But I can make the rest of
your life pretty unpleasant.”

“Is Declan here?” said Jenny.

“He'll be here soon. Are you
okay?”

“No,” she said. “But I will
be.” She moved a leg slowly, flexing at the knee. Then a
hand, bending it at the wrist. “You get that gun from
Beacon?”

“That guy can make some bullets,”
said Zeke. “Color me impressed.”

Jenny almost smiled. “Good to know.”
She pushed herself up, the pain in her back making her stop to
close her eyes and wait for it to pass. “Shoot
him.”

“What?”

“Shoot him in the kneecap, I need your
help.”

They felt the vibrations before they heard the
deafening explosion from somewhere outside. The room shook like a
fun house floor. Dirt and plaster rained down on their heads.

“Sounds like he's right on time,”
said Zeke.

“Shoot him,” said Jenny. “But
don't kill him. You know how he dies, don't you? Is it how I think
it's going to happen?”

“Probably,” said Zeke.

“Good. Shoot him. He's going to hurt one
of us if you don't.”

Zeke cocked the gun.

“You don't have to do that!” Sully
said, panic rising in his voice.

Thumpthumpthumpthump.

“Sorry, man,” said Zeke. He pulled
the trigger, the gunshot deafening for a moment, but nothing
compared to Sully's screams afterward.

“Now come help me,” said Jenny.

Zeke came around, peeking at her back.
“Jesus. I should have stayed. It's worse than when I saw
it.”

“You saw my back in a vision?” said
Jenny.

“Yeah,” said Zeke, shouting to be
heard over Sully's shrieks. He took his jacket off and wrapped it
around her. “I should have stayed.”

There was the muffled sound of gunfire, another
explosion further off. Jenny smiled at him. “You brought the
cavalry. Who is it?”

Zeke smiled. “Everyone.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean Munro went to Expo with the cute,
mean dead girl.”

“Trix?”

“Yeah, her. Munro told them what was going
on, about what you were. And they all came. Every single
person.”

“You should have told me Casey was going
to die,” she said. Zeke helped her down from the table.

“Then you wouldn't have gone through
it,” said Zeke.

“I would have avoided all this,”
said Jenny.

“But you can't,” said Zeke.
“You had to go through it. I told you that.”

“Why?”

“Because of what's to come.”

There was shouting outside the door, followed by
gunshots. Then screaming, followed by silence. Sully had stopped
screaming too and just sat staring at her, his eyes glazed over.
Jenny blinked red away.

“The blood, I need to get out of
here,” she said.

“We can't,” said Zeke. “I'm
supposed to keep you safe. It's my only job.”

“Tough job,” said Jenny.

“You fucking little weasel,” said
Sully. “I knew you couldn't be trusted. I'm going to cut you
next. ”

Jenny tried to force away the red in her vision,
but it kept creeping back in.

“How many people have you killed just
because they were near me?” she said. She could feel the hate
rising up from deep in her belly. And something else, too: grief.
Casey. He had killed Casey just because he could.

“I lost count,” Sully said.

“Grayson,” said Jenny. She let go of
Zeke's arm. She was feeling stronger. She walked over and picked up
a long scalpel from the small table, watching her reflection
flicker in the candlelight.

“Who?” said Sully.

“Fisher,” said Jenny, walking toward
him, the smell of his blood pulling at her. “Did you kill
Rosie?”