Page 7 of Afflicted

She glares at me. “How so?”

I take another step out of the cubicle. “Come on, he’s one of us.”

Larry latches on to this and looks at them with wild eyes. “She’s right, I am, I’m one of them and you can’t just get rid of me like this! I have people here, who care about me. I can be of use, I can cook and clean and help with the medical equipment. Before all this I was a lab -”

“Off.” The woman points, and two feeders grab Larry, lifting him almost off his feet as they carry him outside.

“Hey!” I move to go after them, white lines floating through my vision. “Hey, where are you taking him?”

I follow them out of the building, making it to the bottom of the stairs of the clinic before a hand grabs me. I look up into the face of the staring man, and flinch.

“Where are you going?” He asks.

I gesture after Larry, who’s screaming and begging for them not to hurt him. “Wherever they’re taking him.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t want to do that, trust me.”

My heart begins to pound in my chest, and I notice the man’s rusty eyes flickering to my chest. “They’re going to kill him, aren’t they?”

“He’s aged out,” the man replies, his voice so neutral it’s almost cold. “His veins are no good. Time to be replaced.”

I shake my head. “You can’t just kill someone,” I say, realizing as the words leave my mouth how stupid they are. They can do whatever the fuck they want. They don’t care about us. We’re assets, bloodbags. Nothing more.

I look over to where they dragged Larry away, and there’s a high pitched shout. I jump involuntarily. I look back up at the man, who’s just staring at me again.

“It’s just how it is,” he says to me, his hand still on my arm.

I try to yank my arm out of his grasp, but his grip is like iron. “Let go of me.” I say in a low voice.

For a second his grip becomes tighter, and I almost think he’s going to draw me closer. But then his hand falls away from me, and he straightens up. “Go back to your dorm.”

“I’m not going back to that fucking dorm,” I snap, and storm off in the direction of the garden. Before I can even reach the edge of the building, a gunshot rings through the air. I don’t know if it’s shock, or the lack of blood, but the ground sways beneath me. I try to steady myself, but suddenly my feet have left the ground.

I hate draining week.

CHAPTER4

JULIET

Rain drumsagainst the tin roof above me, and for once a cool breeze moves through the dorm. Everyone is at lunch but I’ve been put on bed rest for some dumb reason. I’m not going to question it because I’m alone and I’m so happy. I’ve been able to just lie here and read while the rain drums down, and it’s blissful.

After I collapsed yesterday the rest of my draining was canceled for this week, and I’m on an extended break. Thank god for that. Bruises are blooming on my skin from the botch job the feeder did, and I don’t even want to think about how bad they would be by the end of the week.

I glance over at Larry’s bed and feel a pang. I can’t believe they just killed him. I should be more upset about it, but I guess the feeders’ blase attitude is fueling my own. You care less and less about the sanctity of life when the whole world’s gone to shit and everyone’s dead.

A breeze blows a sheet of rain against the glass behind me, and I tilt my head to catch a glimpse of the overcast sky. I wonder what the rest of the world looks like now. I know the big cities are all destroyed. The Affliction traveled so fast there, wiping out whole populations in months.

My parents took Kaden and I to Paris once, when we were 12. It was beautiful. I remember making myself sick eating macarons, the green ones were my favorite. It’s all gone now, I bet. I wonder if there’s some colonies out in the French countryside, like this one, where they farm free range humans for the feeders. There has to be, right?

The door at the end of the dorm opens, and a feeder walks in, gesturing for someone to follow him. A young man walks in, messy dark brown hair hanging over his forehead. He ambles along behind the feeder, a sports bag slung over his shoulder.

I sit up in bed, and the man smiles at me as he approaches.

“Hey, I’m the new arrival,” he says jovially. The feeder stops at the bed next to mine, Larry’s old bed, and the man throws his bag down. They really didn’t waste any time replacing Larry as quickly as possible.

“This will be your bed,” the feeder says, “there’s a locker underneath for your things.”

“Yeah, thanks,” the man says, sitting down on the bed and leaning back on his hands. He smiles at the feeder. “You can go now.”

---