Caleb’s features are a white blanket over bone—it appears reform has damaged him even more than any of us. A dark shadow covers his unfocused eyes, his cheekbone swollen from a beating, probably at Harding’s hands. For a split second, his gaze meets mine, and we communicate our grief wordlessly. A tiny flinch of his face and my gut wrenches, aching to find some way to fix this, some way to put things right—
Clink, clink, clink…
The glass vial of Composure slips from my trousers on to the floor, and Harding grins, his teeth flashing in the grey dormitory. “I finally have you, Miss Chase.”
He drags Caleb up by his collar, so his feet barely touch the ground. He reaches into a pocket and produces a small vial of black ink-like liquid.
A jolt of electricity fires along my muscles, demanding I take action. Now.
I jerk towards Caleb, but Ike holds me firm, pushing me down until my knees buckle. I kneel on the floor with his hand on my back. He taps me on the shoulder two times.
To hell with his orders. I will not sit here and watch my brother slip away. I strain and fight against him, and Harding smiles even wider.
“You really are resistant to Compliance, then.” He opens the vial and holds it over Caleb’s face, pausing at his lips. “I wonder what happens between you two in the storeroom. Maybe she secretly enjoys it?”
He stares at Ike for a moment, who grunts with the effort of holding me down. “She’s a struggler,” he says through gritted teeth.
Harding barks a laugh. “Never knew you had it in you, Miller.”
Another two wardens approach at his command. One helps Ike hold me down, while another grabs Caleb’s arms behind his back. He orders Harris to search for the vial I dropped.
The vial of Oblivion still dangles perilously over my brother’s mouth. “So it turns out that your friend here—” he motions to Dani, rocking on her bunk, “—is now useless to me. Which leaves me with little option.”
I hold my breath as a drop of black liquid splatters from the vial on to Caleb’s cheek. He stares at me, wide-eyed, his entire body trembling. “Please,” he whimpers to Harding. “We don’t know anyth—”
“Quiet!” Harding barks, and Caleb’s mouth snaps shut.
Harding pauses, pointing a finger at my brother and waving it in his face, while raising his eyebrows at me. “You should follow your older brother’s example, Miss Chase, and learn some respect.”
He moves away from Caleb, towards me, and I relax ever so slightly. The further that vial gets from my brother’s lips, the happier I’ll be.
“He’s telling the truth,” I whisper. “Dose us with Honesty if you need to. You’ve done it before.”
Harris, who is scrambling around the floor near me, frowns at this. It’s an odd thing for him to disapprove of, considering how willingly the wardens throw syrups down our throats to make us do their bidding. But something about this revelation piques his interest.
Harding ignores the accusation and looks up at the ceiling. “I think that’s a lie. I think you know more than you’re letting on. You’re just trying to worm your way out—”
“Just dose me already!” I practically shout it, straining against Ike and the other warden, who twists my cuffs, pinching my wrists painfully. “I’ve got nothing to tell you!”
Harding paces, his measured footsteps echoing around the hushed dormitory. The other inmates either hide in their bunks to stay out of trouble, or watch us with wide eyes and open mouths.
“You already tried ordering me,” I continue, breathing deeply to keep my voice from trembling, “and I had nothing to tell you then—”
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“Sir,” Harris says. “Sorry to interrupt. There’s nothing here.”
Harding frowns. “I heard a glass vial drop.”
“Even so, sir, I can’t find anything.”
Harding turns to me, with the resigned finality of a disappointed school teacher. “More lies, Miss Chase?”
“I… I haven’t said anything.”
“What have you dosed yourself with? Who smuggled it in for you? What information are you hiding? No, don’t bother answering me any more. Everything that comes from your mouth is a lie. You’d even go to the extremes of dosing your friend—” he points at Dani, “—so that they can’t tell me what they know!”
“I what?” I yank my hands so hard that Ike loses his grip on me, but the other warden holds firm. “You really think I would put someone I love in that state to spite you? Even if I could get my hands on that shit—” I glare at the Oblivion in his hands, just inches away from me now, if only I could reach it, smash it on the ground… “—I’d never use it on anyone. You’d have to kill me first!”
Harding comes close, reaches around my head and yanks my hair back. Raising the vial over my face, he holds it over my mouth and pauses. “Kill you? Oh no, Miss Chase. I wouldn’t kill you.”
He pushes the vial closer to my lips, nudging at them. I press them together tightly, and again he gives me a satisfied smirk. Leaning right in, he holds me still and puts his mouth against my ear. His ragged breathing sends tremors of revulsion down my spine. “You know something. Something Frank is planning. You might be his girl on the inside now, but you’re not invincible. You want me to hurt you? I’ll hurt you. Just remember, you could have stopped this.”
He stands abruptly and I screw my eyes shut, waiting for him to force the vial into my mouth like he did in the storeroom days ago.
But his footsteps move away.
I open my eyes just in time to watch him grab Caleb by the chin and mutter something too quiet for me to hear over the blood pounding through my skull.
Caleb opens his mouth wide, like a child at the dentist, but his eyes remain wide open and locked on me, terrified.
Our eyes stay locked together until the last drop of Oblivion slides down his throat. His eyes—my brother’s eyes, so warm and full of life—morph into a dull, muddy grey. He doesn’t focus on me anymore; he doesn’t focus on anything. He just looks right through me, like he’s not with us.
The pounding in my ears shifts to a high pitched ringing. All other sounds are underwater—distant and vague. Someone gives me an order, but I just stand and gape, helplessly staring at the place where my brother used to be. First Dani, now Caleb. How many good people does this world have to lose because of me?
My chest hits the ground as the wardens push me down. Harding speaks again, but I can’t hear him over the piercing, animal shriek that comes from somewhere deep inside my gut. He reaches into his pocket and produces another black vial, and this time, I know it’s for me.
And maybe a part of me wants it, craves it. Maybe the quiet peace of Oblivion would be preferable to this torture.
He speaks to Caleb again, who’s now slumped on the floor like a rag-doll. My brother looks up innocently and opens his mouth again, like a child taking their medicine.
“No!” I wheeze, barely able to breathe with the weight of a warden’s knee digging into my back. “No! I don’t know anything! Harding!” My voice rasps into silence, leaving me gasping.
A second vial of Oblivion trickles down Caleb’s throat, and this time I hear it all—the gurgle as he chokes on it, the sigh of breath that leaves him after, like relief, or resignation, or maybe both.
My vision blurs, and the weight on my back suddenly eases. Ike drags me to my feet, pulling me close to him. I gasp for breath, bent double with my hands cuffed behind my back.
Harding comes close, places a finger under my chin, and tilts my head back.
“Like I said. You could have stopped this. You still could. What is Frank planning? Where is he?”
I shake my head, lost for words. There aren’t any that could convince him, anyway. “I don’t know.”
Harding’s jaw tenses. “Alright.” He stomps back to Caleb and grabs him roughly by the back of his neck, and reaches for a third vial.
Harris approaches him cautiously, hand held out. “Hey, boss, you might wanna stop there—”
“Back off, Harris.” Harding barks at him.
Imitating the lion-tamer I’ve channelled myself more than once, Harris backs up. “Yes, sir. I’m just sayin’. Maybe he’s had enough?”
“She knows!” Harding points at me, his face beetroot red, spittle flying from his whiskered lips.
Harris nods. “This ain’t the way, sir. This ain’t the way.”
“The hell it ain’t.” Harding smashes the vial into Caleb’s teeth, not even waiting for him to open his mouth. Black liquid oozes over his lips and into his mouth. He coughs and splutters, his black saliva merging with the tiny shards of glass that fly from the back of his throat.
Finally, he falls face-first, gurgling and foaming at the mouth, yet oddly calm. He isn’t really there. It’s the shell of Caleb.
But I don’t believe that, not really. After seeing Dani come back by some miracle, I know the truth—he’s in there, somewhere, trapped in a black inky prison. He might not speak, or emote, or cry out for help… but he’s there.
I should scream or do… something—anything. But I’m trapped inside myself too, screaming at my body to react, to fight, to lash out. Once again, I’m left powerless, frozen to the spot. But I can’t blame Compliance or any other damned syrup from Emotiv’s shelves this time.
This was all me. I could have stopped this.