Page 43 of The Captive Missing

“You’ve seen the bodies? You know they’re dead?”

“I know they aren’t here anymore. Where else would they be?” Mandy’s eyes scanned Val’s face a moment before continuing. “You’re bad news, not good, and whatever reason you’re really back here I just want to tell you one thing. Stay. Away. From. Charlie.”

Hopping off the bed, Mandy sauntered out of the room.

Val’s mouth hung slack. Sitting heavily in her small wooden chair, her head began a steady pounding. Cambric was killing its captives? And no one on the outside knew about it?

In all her decades of living at The Agency, Val had never heard of a single captive being murdered, nor of any going missing for that matter. The ones who couldn’t conform, like Bee, were eventually transferred to different work. They were sold to other agencies or trained as D1s. What happened to them after that was anyone’s guess. But the transfers were widely known and well documented. Val had seen the transportation vans herself.

Shifting in her chair, she ran absent fingers over the black screen on her desk. It flickered to life. Peering once more into it, she noted the time. Over an hour had passed already. Rising from her chair, Val went to inspect the meal schedule listed on the back of her door. It seemed all of her meals were slated early. Breakfast was at seven, lunch at eleven, and dinner at four-thirty.

Almost automatically she moved to the small closet and pulled down one of two sets of workout clothes. Each one was identical to the next. Cambric wanted them to look the same, feel the same, think the same. But they didn’t. Even with all of the training and breeding and manipulation. At their core, each captive was still persistently different. Would the next step to conformity be eliminating the outliers?

Giving her head a slight shake, Val changed into the clothes and stepped out of her black heels. Kneeling down, she laced up her running shoes and headed out. At the end of the hall she held her arm under the scanner fastened next to the elevator. The doors dinged open.

When she got to the gym, she presented her forearm to the guard who swiped a black wand over her tracker until it too gave up a beep. This routine of tracking and beeping would repeat everywhere she went. It would happen in the cafeteria, in the showers, in every elevator and at all entrances to every building. Though the sound still caused her stomach to clench, she knew that in time she wouldn’t notice it at all.

Even without Charlie present, Val followed the routine he had mapped out for her. She stretched on the mat, did crunches and leg lifts, worked with two separate machines and then finished on the treadmill. Out the window, the children swam in the pool.

It was the boys turn again, and that same brazen kid was running around on the wet cement. His golden locks curled a bit at the ends, someone at Cambric had let it grow to just below his ears.

Squinting, Val judged him to be about eight or nine-years-old, with a Cheshire Cat grin and personality to spare. Already, his good looks made him stand out. She could tell by the way the other boys laughed at the things he said that they liked him.

Frowning now, Val studied his features and fought the familiarity that played there.

“Hey, Val-” A female voice had her looking back. “Long time no see.”

“Oh! Amber!” Val felt a genuine smile fill her face as she stepped down from the treadmill.

When the two women embraced, it was a heartfelt hug. They rocked to and fro for a minute, tears collecting at the backs of their eyes. Sniffling, Val held her old classmate at arm’s length. Amber gave her a grin filled with perfect white teeth. Her tightly curled black hair sprang out all over her head, so much so that a slate-gray bandana hardly kept it out of her mocha-brown face.

“Where have you been?” Val asked. “I haven’t caught even a glimpse of you.”

“Were you worried?” Amber laughed.

“Not at first, but then I’ve been hearing things…”

“Ahh.” Amber glanced over her shoulder. The guard was watching. “Shall we go for a run?”

“Sure.”

Calm as you please they stepped up side by side and adjusted their treadmill controls to match. Picking up to a light jog, they paced in silence for what seemed a long time. Val studied the guard’s reflection in the window pane, and when he buried his nose safely back in his book, she felt a flood of relief.

As her gaze drifted back out the window, she tracked to that boy again, following his movements around the pool.

“Notice anyone familiar?” Amber panted quietly.

“That boy,” Val admitted, inclining her head.

“He’s one of Gabe’s.”

Val grimaced, letting the fleeting slice of emotion work itself against the dullness of her brain. Gabe had well over thirty children… that he knew of. Had he ever come to the workout room and watched them? Had he ever wondered which was his? No. Val shook her head. He had never been on good enough behavior to earn a workout here.

For another few minutes they ran. They ran until perspiration rolled down Val’s forehead, and she had to swipe it out of her eyes. In that time, she counted four more boys that had his same coloring, same characteristics and features. The youngest appeared to be about five and the eldest about ten.

Punching abruptly at the machine, Val switched it off and stepped back. Her legs were wobbly. Her lungs heaved as she tried to walk away from that feeling. That angry, consuming feeling. The one that wasn’t something she was used to. It was a fresh, new type of torrent that filled her blood. And though the drug worked to dull it, the effect only went so far. Placing her hands on top of her head, Val cruised dizzy circles around the room, trying to cool down.

Amber maintained her position on the treadmill. Lowering her speed gradually over time, she was walking comfortably by the time Val had collected herself. Though she shouldn’t have had to collect herself at all. She had overdone today. That’s why the flood of hot energy had consumed her just then.

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