Page 11 of Spread Me
“What?”
“I’m in. I’ll take the job.”
Kinsey half laughs, startled, and doubly startled to find herself delighted. “I didn’t offer you the job y—”
“When do I start?”
Kinsey eyes Mads. “You can read Weatherman, right? You’ll know when it’s safe for us to go outside?” She wants to be able to tell her team to leave. She wants to be able to tell them to run.
“Kind of,” they reply warily. “Domino has tried to teach me a few times. It mostly just looks like static to me, though. I’ll look at it again when we’re done with… whatever this is.” They’re next to Kinsey, staring through the wire-reinforced window. “I don’t understand why you two were in the exam room in the first place, and Ireallydon’t understand why Domino has to stay in there.”
“It’s not like that door locks,” Kinsey says. “They can come out whenever they want.”
Mads glances at the layers of fresh duct tape that crisscross the exam room door. Kinsey isn’t sure how much sheused. Most of the roll is gone, but maybe there wasn’t that much left to begin with. She couldn’t be sure, that’s what she kept repeating to herself over and over as she tried to make a seal over the door, to cocoon Domino inside with the specimen. She needed to make sure.
They didn’t try to fight her, didn’t try to escape. They just stood there, asking her over and over to tell them what they’d done wrong.
“The thing is,” Mads says in a voice one might use to try to pacify a loose baboon, “I don’t see the problem you’re saying you saw.”
“I’m not crazy,” Kinsey snaps.
“I didn’t say you were crazy.”
“That’s what people say when they think you’re crazy,” Nkrumah chimes in. She’s standing far from the exam room window, her back pressed to the opposite wall.
“I’m with Mads,” Jacques says. He’s halfway between Nkrumah and the window. His hands are stuffed into his pockets. Every time he speaks, the smell of wintergreen mouthwash drifts across the little vestibule. “She’s crazy.”
“I didn’t say she’s crazy,” Mads says, sharper this time. “I just said that I don’t see the… the lips.”
“Mouths.” Kinsey doesn’t look away from Domino. They’re staring out through the window with wet, beseeching eyes, radiating innocence.They’re tricking everyone,Kinsey thinks. It sends waves of fury washing through her. “They were covered in mouths, Mads. You tell me what medical condition makes that happen, andthenI’ll calm down.”
“Psychosis,” Saskia says mildly. “Could cause this, I mean.”
“Putting that social work minor to good use,” Jacques mutters. He always gets a little mean when he’s stressed.
Saskia smiles as if she doesn’t hear the sarcasm in histone. “Yes, I am. It’s okay, Kinsey. Lots of people experience hallucinations. You’ve been isolated here with us for so long, and that fever was no joke—nobody would fault you if—”
“I didn’t hallucinate it,” Kinsey interrupts. She doesn’t add that she never got the fever. They don’t need to know that part. “I didn’t.”
Saskia shrugs. “How would you know if you were hallucinating? You’d reality-test by asking people you trust if what you saw was real, right?” The question sounds genuine. Sincere. That’s how she is—brisk, but earnestly nonjudgmental. Kinsey knows that Saskia genuinely wouldn’t think less of her if this thing with Domino really was all in her head.
And she’s got a point. If Kinsey’s not sure what she’s seeing, she asks her team. That’s always been the case. When she thinks someone might be pissed or depressed, she asks Mads to look at it. When she needs to send a dubious email to corporate headquarters, she turns to Nkrumah. When she isn’t sure if it’s safe outside, she gets Domino’s take.
But this is different. This time, she doesn’t need anyone’s confirmation, because she doesn’t doubt what she saw. Not in the slightest.
“Tell you what,” Nkrumah offers. “Let’s take another look. We’ll all look, hard as we can, with absolutely no prior assumptions about what we might see. And if there are no lips—”
“Mouths,” Kinsey insists.
“Right. Mouths. If there are no mouths, we’ll let Domino out, and we’ll talk things over as a team. Okay?”
Kinsey chews the inside of her lip for a moment before the feel of her lip between her teeth reminds her too much of what she saw under Domino’s shirt. She looks at herteam—Mads, giant and reasonable; Jacques, blurry-eyed but loyal; Saskia, anxious but faithful; Nkrumah, self-assured and honest to a fault.
They’re all she has. The world is a hundred miles away, across an expanse of sand that would kill her without noticing she’d ever been alive. If she can’t lean on her team, she’s already done for.
She nods once. “Okay.”
They gather close to her, crowding in around the window. Domino hasn’t moved. Their expression hasn’t changed. That, Kinsey thinks, should be proof enough. Domino is constantly in motion. They always have something to say. But now they’re silent as they watch and wait for everyone else to decide whether or not they’re a monster.
