The Building That Wasn't, page 15
She tried to think back through everything she heard in the dream, but the details were failing her, and the harder she tried to think, the worse her head ached. Her hands clutched at her forehead and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply. It hurt—like someone was repeatedly pounding a pickax into her skull.
Everly slowly pulled herself out of bed and nearly collapsed from a sudden wash of dizziness. Stumbling back to her feet again, she looked around and saw her bedroom tilt, everything around her flashing in and out of focus. Everly rubbed roughly at her eyes, and when she opened them again, everything was calmer. Breathing deeply, she stood back up, but was hit with the same instant dizziness as before, accompanied by a wave of nausea.
She stumbled toward her door, intent on getting out and finding her dad. He was mad at her, she remembered. But he would help her. She would be okay.
Everly looked down at herself and was startled to realize that she was still wearing the too-big gray scrubs that Luca had given her. And then she remembered that her dad wouldn’t be mad at her.
Her dad was dead.
Everly pressed her hands against her forehead, squeezing her eyes closed. What was happening to her? How had she forgotten, if only for an instant, that her dad was gone?
Everly staggered out of her bedroom, but when she reached the living room, she realized that a man was standing at the open front door. At first, she thought it was Richard, and she was certain she had been thrown back into the dream. But then she blinked heavily and saw that it wasn’t Richard at all.
It was Jamie.
The shock of seeing him there, in her home, combined with the spinning in her head made Everly fall back against the wall she was standing near. She looked up with dizzy eyes at Jamie, who stood with his hands in the pockets of his red uniform, watching the scene that unfolded before him impassively.
Everly tried to ask what was happening but found that it was exceptionally hard to speak. She swallowed thickly, focusing on her words, then tried again.
“What are you doing here,” she croaked out, blinking back tears she hadn’t noticed rising to her eyes.
And then her dad was there. She blinked and he vanished, but then she blinked again and he had returned, sitting by her side. He looked pained, unsure of himself. Her father’s expression held a rage that was so rare and intense that it frightened her. He held Everly tightly, and in a strangled whisper said, “Evs, why did you do it?”
Not able to summon the will to speak, Everly just shook her head, confused.
Her dad took a shaky breath. “Why did you go to that place? Why—” He shook his head, looking down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Everly swallowed thickly, then spoke, words slow and drawn out. “No,” she said to her dad. “Why did you go? Why didn’t you tell me?” She felt her head drooping back against her dad’s chest, and it was an effort to keep her eyes open.
Ridiculously, her mind chose then to trickle back to something she’d read in one of Richard’s journals the night before, while waiting in Luca’s room for him to return.
Mary has been coming by with her husband these past weeks, he had written. I think I shall have to resort to telling her the truth, though she might very well have no reason to believe me. She cannot remain at the Eschatorologic.
Everly looked up at the specter of her dad. “What happened to Mom?” she asked in a croaking whisper.
But then her dad was gone again, and she was alone on the floor in her house, with Jamie still looking down at her with cold eyes.
“You have to come back with me, Everly,” Jamie said in a voice void of emotion.
Confused and disoriented, Everly leaned her head back against the wall and eyed Jamie as he stepped farther into her house. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t find it in her to ask him what was happening. So instead, she could only watch as he slowly approached her.
“You shouldn’t have spent so much time in the Eschatorologic,” Jamie said.
Everly wanted to deny it, to say that she had been here all night, at home, but the words would not come, and she could only look beseechingly up at him, praying that he would leave her house, leave her alone. He steadily met her eyes with his own cold, hard ones, and she felt an urgent panic rising in her throat.
“You ran out of time,” Jamie went on in that same monotonous voice, unsympathetic to the desperation that was overtaking Everly. “Now your energy’s all used up. You have to come back.”
She wanted to shake her head, to say no, to fight back. It didn’t make any sense, and she didn’t understand why Jamie had come here, why he was telling her these things.
Jamie sighed deeply, looking annoyed at Everly for not understanding. “You’re dying,” he said bluntly, peering into her eyes, and Everly shook her head violently, trying to turn away from him. He grabbed her chin, and while Everly tried to make a noise of protest, Jamie didn’t seem to care.
“I know you can feel it,” he murmured close to her face. “None of the enhanced could survive much longer than this.” He frowned slightly, still holding Everly’s chin. “I would try to explain it to you, but suffice it to say that your type uses up all your energy by the time you turn twenty-five. I guess happy birthday is in order.” He paused, looking at her carefully.
“You can feel it now, can’t you? The pounding in your head, the heaviness that won’t go away. The hallucinations. You can stay here, if you want, but I promise you won’t outlast the week. You need to come with me, Everly.”
She wanted nothing more than to deny all of it—to pull out of Jamie’s grip and to say that he was wrong, that she was okay. But she could feel it—whatever it was—pulling her down. She thought she saw her dad again, standing behind Jamie with a concerned expression on his face, then a woman with fair features and long blond hair briefly standing next to him, a hand on his shoulder and a frown on her mouth, but then Everly shook her head and they both vanished. Something was very wrong, and though Everly would have given anything for it to be a lie, a part of her knew that Jamie was telling the truth.
Before she could decide anything—before she could know for sure if she would have gone with him or fought against his words and stayed behind—the heaviness within her reached a peak. She felt herself falling, sinking, and right before she collapsed into darkness, she realized that she had heard his voice before.
Jamie’s.
He had been the man in that woman’s room on the hundredth floor the other day—so cold, so dark, so empty.
And then she sank far and fast into a deep, dark oblivion.
Chapter Thirty
Everly Tertium entered the building for the last time tossed over the shoulder of a very tall man dressed in blood-red scrubs.
She was not awake to bear witness to her final entrance.
Well, her final entrance for now.
Chapter Thirty-One
Everything was in flashes.
She was on the ground. There were hands around her, a voice in her ear, a whisper, a sob. Hers? She didn’t know.
Then it was all black and nothing and gone.
She was in a car, she thought, but she couldn’t open her eyes, she couldn’t move her head, she could barely breathe.
And then more arms and she felt rocking and everything hurt.
Needles, thorns, nails piercing through her blood, her skin, her bones, her soul. Digging deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. She wanted to scream, wanted to fight, but she couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t, she couldn’t do anything, and she couldn’t breathe she couldn’t bear it she couldn’t—
But then, with no warning, it all stopped. The relief, so sudden and so blissful, was too much, and Everly succumbed once more to the darkness, giving herself over more willingly this time, free at last from the heaviness, the anguish, the pain. Free.
Everly woke up and had no idea where she was.
Her head hurt, but not like it had before. It was now nothing more than a dull thud at the base of her skull, and she rubbed at her eyes, breathing deeply, trying to remember what had happened.
Jamie. She remembered Jamie. He had come to her house, he had told her . . .
Something about energy.
And she remembered something Richard had said, how people didn’t leave the building. She wondered why no one had told her, why no one had warned her.
Or maybe they had, and she just hadn’t been listening.
But then another thought hit her and she sat up with a jolt.
That voice, the one of the man who had come into the woman’s room upstairs—the man who had . . . hurt her. Brutalized her. Jamie’s voice, she was sure of that now. Only, he had never spoken to her like that before—so inhuman, so dark and careless. She shuddered at the memory and wrapped the blanket that had fallen to her waist up to her shoulders.
The blanket. The gray blanket. She looked at it, at the bed she now realized she was in, then up and around the room, seeing it for the first time through her tidal wave of thoughts. It was small, empty, gray.
She was back in the Eschatorologic.
A sob escaped her mouth. She hunched over on the bed, and the thin gray blanket slid to the floor. With her hands covering her face, she could feel now, even through the bed, the low thrum that constantly pulsed throughout the building, and so she knew it was true. She was back.
A jolt went through Everly, and she put a hand against the small of her back, pressing into the fabric of her shirt. Relief spread through her as she found the flat bump of the stolen journals, still nestled against her back. Quickly, she pulled them out, shoving them under the thin pillow on the bed.
Besides the bed, there was no other furniture in the room, but Everly did notice a small pile at the foot of her bed, and walking over she saw that it was a set of clothes—the same gray uniform that everyone else in the building wore, the same uniform she was still wearing. Except the borrowed outfit from Luca still felt too large and billowy on her, too much like she might disappear inside the clothes if she tried hard enough. So, as her breathing evened out, Everly studied the new uniform, before deciding to put it on. It fit her perfectly.
Everly looked around her room. Her cell. There was no telling what came next, what was about to happen to her.
But she was all out of choices.
She went up to the door, gripped the handle tightly in her hand, and twisted it.
Part of her was surprised to find it unlocked—she had thought that maybe everyone here would be locked in, trapped, and thought that certainly they would do the same to her.
Though, she supposed, what would be the point? If what Jamie said before was true, she couldn’t leave, anyway. The building had become a prison for her, whether there was a lock on her door or not.
The hallway beyond her door was painted a bright, dazzling green, and it was entirely empty. No one else was nearby that she could see, and so she started off walking in one direction, set on finding out, at the very least, where in the building she was. From the brightness of the color surrounding her, she would guess somewhere on the first basement level—the floor where Luca lived—but she needed to be sure.
Before Everly could make it very far, she saw a tall, lanky figure coming toward her from around a bend. It was Jamie, she recognized, and a part of her recoiled in—what? Shock? Fear? Anger? He was the one who had brought her here, the one who had trapped her in this building of nightmares.
But she had nowhere to run, so she stood her ground, watching as he approached. He was smiling, she noticed, and it made her stomach turn, the way he could pretend like that. The way he could act like everything was normal, like it was all okay. Like maybe he had done her a favor by lying to her, by dragging her here.
“Everly,” he said as he got closer, lifting a hand in greeting. “Good, you’re awake. I was just coming to get you.” His smile faltered slightly. “How did you get out?”
Everly didn’t know what he meant, so she shook her head slightly, but Jamie shrugged.
“Well, come on. There’s much to show you, much to do.” He waited expectantly. There was no part of Everly that wanted to go with him, that wanted to be anywhere near him. She wanted to run far and fast in the opposite direction, until the memory of his cold words and the bruises he had left on the woman upstairs had faded.
In that empty hallway, though, she had nowhere else to go. She understood that she did not truly know this man—she had no idea how far he’d go should she refuse him.
And there’d be no one to rescue her. She was all on her own.
She had no other choice. So as Jamie started walking down the hall, talking as he went, Everly was yanked along behind, as though an invisible leash were tied around her throat.
“Unfortunate business, what happened yesterday,” Jamie said amicably, “but I hope you understand. You see, the way old Richie describes it, enhanced persons have a limited lifespan out there in the real world. At age twenty-five, the brain stops developing, and at that point with the genetic anomaly, it basically shuts down. There’s too much energy, and nowhere for it to go anymore.”
“But I’m not twenty-five,” Everly protested, still gripping her head. The pain had subsided, but the echo of it still lingered. “Not for another few months.”
“That’s just the thing,” Jamie went on. “Spending time in the Eschatorologic exerts more energy than you think. It speeds up the process, basically. When you’re inside, it’s no big deal—not now, anyway—but it shortens the amount of time you have in the outside world. So, you spent some time in here, and it shortened your time out there. Spending the whole night in the building must have clinched the deal.” He chuckled darkly.
“I don’t understand,” Everly said. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying congratulations, you’re the newest resident to the Eschatorologic.” He said this with a certain amount of pep in his voice that made Everly nauseous.
“You mean . . . I can’t ever leave?”
“Nope. Sorry it had to be this way, but I hope you understand. Laws of nature and everything. Nothing we can do about it.”
Her head was spinning. None of this made any sense—she was trapped in the building because . . . because she’d gotten too old? Because her body couldn’t handle her energy anymore? What did any of that even mean?
“So, all of the people here—this happened to all of them?”
“More or less. You see, it’s inversely proportional. The more time you spend in the building, the less time you have outside, but not in a one-to-one kind of sense. For a lot of the residents who are brought in young, they spend a few weeks here and that’s that; they become permanent residents of the building, as they wouldn’t survive more than a day out there. We’re still working out the exact math on it, but it’s not pretty to try and play around with. It can get messy quick to have someone out there who’s out of time.” He gave her a pointed look and she shuddered, remembering what that morning had been like. Or . . . yesterday morning? Everly realized she had no idea how long she’d been unconscious.
“What about you?” Everly asked Jamie. “And Richard—I’ve seen both of you outside the building.”
Jamie nodded, smiling somewhat woefully. “Neither of us are enhanced. It makes no difference if we stay or leave. It’s the genetic makeup of your body that keeps you here. Don’t try to ask me more than that,” he said, holding up both hands and laughing a little. “You’ll need Richard to get into the nitty-gritty of it all with you.”
“Where is he?” Everly asked. “You said he wasn’t available yesterday.” Which had been strange, but this was worse: being told she couldn’t leave, and not even having the man who’d dragged her there in the first place present to tell her himself.
“Unavailable,” was the only answer Jamie provided. “Not to worry, we have you covered in the meantime. Which brings us here.”
They had moved from one green-painted hall to another and now stood in front of an equally green door.
Jamie knocked twice, then brought out a large set of keys. After unlocking it, he cracked the door open to reveal a young man with bleary eyes and dark hair that stuck out in every direction. With a combination of shock and what might have been relief, Everly realized that it was Luca.
Blinking, Luca noticed Everly standing behind Jamie, and his face showed his own confusion, replaced almost immediately by what she thought was sorrow, though it was all so quickly wiped away that she couldn’t be sure. Luca then looked at Jamie without saying anything.
“Mr. Reyes,” Jamie said, gesturing behind himself. “This is Everly, though I believe you two have already been acquainted.”
Everly had a moment of panic, thinking that he had found out Luca helped her the day before, that he was now in trouble because of her. But then she remembered the surveillance room, the emergency, the boy on the camera feed.
“She’s new to the building,” Jamie was saying, “but she will be staying with us now. I need you to show her around, teach her how things work. Have her shadow you for now, until we give her an assignment of her own.”
Luca nodded once, glancing back at Everly again with a question in his eyes.
Jamie didn’t seem to notice; he clapped his hands. “Good. Skip morning roll, I’ve told the runners that you’re going to be showing Miss Tertium around. I have work to get to, but I trust her in your hands, Reyes. Do this, and the Warden will be pleased.”
This didn’t appear to comfort Luca much; he remained silent as Jamie walked away, disappearing around a corner at the other end of the green hallway. Luca and Everly looked at each other, not sure where to begin.
“So,” Luca finally said. “Caught, huh?”
Everly nodded slowly. “It would seem that way,” she said. She looked at him sharply. “What does it mean? He said—” She halted, words jammed in her throat. “He said I can’t leave. Ever.” A hysterical laugh tried to escape Everly, but she shook it off, searching for some other explanation in Luca’s eyes.
