Page 53 of This Vicious Hunger
“Don’t lie to me.” She’s panting. How have I not noticed how thin she’s grown? The circles under her eyes are no trick of the dark; the green-blackness that covers her hands like a pair of gloves has spread beneath the end of her white sleeves. “Don’t coddle me, Thora. This is no joke. I’m not just an experiment. I’m a living, breathing, real-life goddamn woman. I’m tired of waiting.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I will not continue to do this. I will not staycooped up here, watching the sun from my tower and giving my everything to these plants when I will never see a return. Once upon a time I believed that Florencia could save me, that her science could ignite the world—and I would be free. It’s never going to happen. Instead I’ll die here, nothing more than a glorified gardener, not even able to touch the woman I…” She stops.
“The woman you what?” I prompt. It isn’t gentleness that flows in the static air between us. “Don’t act like this is our fault. Making me feel guilty isn’t going to get a cure any faster.”
Olea’s gaze narrows and she licks at the cut on her hand again. The liquid that drips between her fingers looks too thick, more like sap than blood, and it glazes her teeth when she bares them.
“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty.”
“Yes, you are. Can’t you see? It’s what you do—”
“That’s not fair!” Olea exclaims. “You’re acting like I’m the one making you do this. I’m not. I’m…” Her expression shifts as she realises what she’s saying. “I’m…”
“I know you feel trapped,” I say gently. “And you’re lashing out at me because I feel like the safe choice.”
“You’re my only choice.”
I freeze. Olea’s eyes grow wide. I open my mouth to reply, anger already burning bile in my throat.
“That’s not what I meant,” she blurts.
“What did you mean, then?” I say coldly. “You’re right. How could our feelings be mutual when I’m your only friend? Besides, you hardly know me,” I say.
“That’s the point!” she cries. “I want nothing more than to know you the way you want to know me. Don’t doubt me when I say that, Thora. You’re… you’re the brightest part of every night. But don’t you see? I want to know you, but if this carries on Inever will. I am trapped here. I will die here. So why not move things along a little and save us both some hurt?”
“Olea,” I growl. Panic threatens to engulf me, but it is anger in my voice. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. Without a cure, I’m going to do the one thing I possibly can to take some control, Thora. I’m going to end it. And in the nicest possible way, you won’t stop me. It’s better for you too.”
Horror curdles in my stomach as the full realisation of how deadly serious she is settles in. She has spoken before of this option, but I never thought she would need it—now that she has me. I push the hurt from my face as quickly as I can. This isn’t about me.
“Just a little more time. The garden needs you—”
“Don’t,” she says. “The garden doesn’t need me any more. The catalogue is a disguise for my real use—as a human guinea pig to test Florencia’s potentially winning antidotes. They don’t hurt me like they do the rats.” She scowls. “We all know that’s why I’m still here, why I can never leave the garden. It’s got nothing to do with safety. She’s protecting her investment.”
“Do you really think she wouldn’t let you leave?”
“She hasneverlet me leave.”
Rage shakes within me. I know Petaccia cares about her research above most things, she’s made that clear, but above even her ward? The girl she is supposed to look out for? How can this place besafewhen Olea is so eternally lonely? Does she even understand how unwell Olea is becoming?
“She used to visit me often when I was a child, you know,” Olea says sadly. “But then she stopped. And now she’s rarely evenhere, travelling the world, doing her work and leaving me behind again and again. Everybody leaves. One day, you will leave me too.”
“I’m not Florencia,” I argue fiercely. “I know people have treated you badly before, but I know the truth and I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Olea goes quiet. She stares at her hands, examining her fingernails. Then she looks at me, and there is so much hopeful love in her eyes that it breaks me. Maybe I started out as an escape for this girl, but that look… You can’t convince me she doesn’t feel the way I do.
“I hate that I can’t see your whole face behind that scarf.” Olea closes her eyes and sighs. “I feel so cut off from… everything.”
“Then we change that.”
“What?” she demands, her wounded hand dropping away from her mouth and leaving tiny specks of blood—a blooming blue-green glow in the leafy fronds.
“Do you trust me?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
