Two soldiers whispered to each other, one almost pushing the other toward the door. “I’ll take care of this little brat, Jerry. She’s mostly faking. I’ve seen her do this before. She can make herself get sick. She does it to make everyone feel sorry for her.”
The other guard had his hand over his mouth. “I don’t think so, Vern. She looks really sick to me. I’ve just never been good with this. It reeks in here. We should at least open the window.” He made a move to do so, but Vern blocked him.
“I’ll do it. You go on out before you hurl, man. I don’t want to clean up your mess. Just go down the hall and drink some water. Get some air. I’ll cover for you. Take fifteen.”
Jonquille had always been able to hear false notes in voices, and there was something wrong with Vern’s solicitation. He wasn’t in the least concerned with Jerry. Vern had “bad” energy, and it was coming at her in waves. He was excited in a bad way. He wanted Jerry gone. Jerry was genuinely concerned for Flame, but felt sick and wanted to get away. His energy was low. Jonquille watched through the grille as he turned his head away and staggered out the door. Vern stood in the door frame until Jerry had gone all the way down the hall and then he stepped fully into the room, closed the door and slowly turned to face Flame.
Flame was sick again, leaning over the bed, vomiting, mostly bile, not looking at the guard, but Jonquille could see the man’s face. He looked as evil as he felt. She had no idea what he wanted, but she was certain it wasn’t something good. Flame was completely incapable of protecting herself. She was far too sick. Jonquille didn’t understand what this man would do to her, as sick as she was, but she knew she was the only one who could stop him.
The guard stepped up to the side of the bed as Flame once more took the wet cloth and wiped at her face.
“It’s just you and me, you little brat. You’re going to be real quiet. No screaming, you hear me? If you aren’t, I’m going to hurt you like you’ve never been hurt.”
Flame didn’t respond at all. She fell back against the pillows, her face dotted with beads of sweat. She didn’t seem to have heard him.
The soldier slapped her hard. “You little bitch. Don’t you ignore me when I’m talking to you. You can fool your nurses into being sorry for you, but you can’t fool me.”
Flame’s head rolled to the side with the vicious slap, and her breath burst out in a long, ragged rush of air. Her gaze jumped to Jerry’s face as he caught her hair in his fist and dragged her head up so she was forced to look at him.
“Yeah, kid, you see me now. You’re going to cooperate and you’re going to keep your mouth shut. You keep silent or I’m going to sneak into all the rooms and slit your little friends’ throats one by one. I’ll tell them you sent me. Understand? Nod your head if we have an understanding.”
Jonquille had already loosened the grate. She allowed it to drop sideways slowly, so that the entire metal plate dangled sideways from one screw. She could pull it back easily from the little wire she had attached to it from one of the many trips she’d made earlier. The room was shadowy, not completely dark, but dim enough from the single light they’d left Flame to recover alone from her bouts of sickness from the chemo drugs. Those shadows suited Jonquille. She was able to slip out of the vent and, using the setae on her hands and feet, climb up the wall and over the ceiling until she was behind the guard.
He dropped Flame’s hair and moved to the foot of the bed, unfastening his belt as he did. “You might not like this so much, but it’s going to feel real good for me. Whitney doesn’t need sex, doesn’t even think about it, but someone like me, I gotta have it. You were running around the compound with all that hair, jumping rope right in front of us. Flirting with us.”
Flame shook her head in protest, holding up nine fingers, trying to mouth her age to the guard. He ignored her, catching at her ankles and yanking her down to the edge of the bed.
“Makes no difference to me how old you are. You’re all the same, right?” He opened his cargo pants and took out his heavy erection, one hand circling the base while the other went to grasp her panties.
Jonquille slid down the wall behind him and crept close. His energy was sizzling now with excitement, building the charges in her body. She was a mere shadow and he was so excited, his entire attention centered on what he was about to do, that he didn’t notice they weren’t alone until she deliberately reached up to the wrist where he had wrapped his fist around his eager cock.
Jonquille had only one real chance and she took it. The enemy was so wrapped up in the sensations of his body he didn’t notice her sliding into position beside him. He barely noticed when she put her hand over his wrist. Her fingers were so small that she was able to position them exactly over his pulse and that artery she needed that would take the burst of energy straight to his heart when she released it. It would really be his energy as well. In a sense he would be aiding in his own death.
Flame saw her when the guard didn’t. Her eyes went wide in shock and she even shook her head, afraid that the evil guard would hurt or kill Jonquille as well. Jonquille ignored her, took a deep breath and pressed down with all her might, pouring her strength and will into her fingertips, right into that pulse point. The moment the guard was aware of her and his adrenaline spiked, she met the charge with her own so the two merged into a blast much like a jolt of lightning—or an electrical surge. She jumped back as the guard went down hard, landing on his butt, clutching his chest.
“Jonquille.” Flame whispered her name. “What did you do?”
Jonquille knew she didn’t have much time. She skirted around the dying guard and climbed onto the bed. “I came to help you. You’re so sick and I can’t stand it.”
Flame shook her head. “You have to get out of here before someone sees you. No one can ever know that you were here tonight. Never tell anyone, not even one of the other girls. Do you understand me? I mean it. Whitney can never know you did this.”
Jonquille already knew that. She ignored Flame’s fierce protection of her. They all treated her like she was a baby or didn’t have a brain. She was smart. Smarter than some of the way older girls, but she wasn’t going to point that out to them and hurt their feelings. She put her palms over Flame’s body and immediately felt the difference in her cells.
Her breath hissed out of her. Whitney had introduced a different kind of cancer. This wasn’t going to be healed with the chemotherapy he was using. He was making her suffer needlessly. Did he know it? Jonquille could only surmise he did. She began to fix what she could. It was a slow process, and the cancer had spread.
Flame suddenly caught at her and shook her, dragging her back to the awful-smelling room. It reeked of vomit, urine and death. Jonquille was terribly weak. So much so that she collapsed on the bed, feeling as if she couldn’t move, couldn’t lift her arms. Flame had tears running down her face.
“Baby, listen to me. I’m too weak to get you to the vent. You have to do it now. I know you feel like you can’t move, but you don’t have a choice. They can’t find you in here. Get to the vent and pull the grille up. Go, Jonquille. Hurry. Go.” Flame poured command into her voice.
Jonquille rolled off the bed to the floor and continued rolling until she was at the wall where the grille hung down. She forced one arm over her head and pulled with the setae. Fortunately, it didn’t require strength to use setae to climb. She managed to make it up to the vent and slide inside feetfirst, pulling the grate closed behind her so she could twist the screw into place. She laid her head down and waited.