Chapter Text
When she turns back after several blocks, Sarah can still see the outline of the hotel towering above the neighboring buildings. She can see the room she and Rachel shared on the top floor. She can almost imagine that Rachel is on the east-facing balcony, staring out and wondering where Sarah had gone. But she scoffs and turns, knowing that Rachel wouldn't really care.
Bloody Rachel, she thinks with a vehemence she doesn't actually feel, feeling the fierceness of Rachel's need for balance and "getting even." Sarah knows that what she did last night was unforgivable, but she's sick of being stationary. She's restless. Whether or not she's back at one hundred percent - or even seventy-five - is not relevant. She has to move, she has to have a purpose.
Rachel doesn't understand that.
Rachel hasn't had to do terrible things out of necessity. Rachel has never watched the life drain out of someone's eyes because of something she's done. Rachel has never faced down her own demons, her fears. Rachel has not stared hopelessness in the face. Rachel has always just resigned herself to waiting and looking down on those who scramble around trying to find themselves. Rachel has never even tried to search.
Sarah, using the tempo of her feet striking pavement as an anchor, drifts back to the hospital from several weeks ago. The day they escaped. She thinks of the acrid smell of blood pervading every room she'd ever been in but theirs. She thinks of the bloodied fingernails and the leaking eyes and the pale, flaccid skin of everyone they met.
When Sarah had been taken to the exam room, mere days after Rachel almost died from whatever shit they'd given her, she had been plotting. When Dr. Nealon finally came in, he was unrecognizable. His face was gaunt and his skin was graying and his eyes were droopy and leaking yellow pus, and he seemed to be coughing every other word, blood seeping through the paper mask over his mouth and nose. He instructed the nurse to inject her, and Sarah just moved.
The needle went in the crook of her elbow, but Sarah wrenched free before the plunger could go down. She kicked out hard, catching Nealon square in the chest, throwing him completely off balance. He slammed into the wall behind him, cracking his head on the plaster. She remembers the slamming of her heart against her ribcage, the burning racing up her elbow - she remembers the fear of wondering whether or not she moved in time.
The nurse lunged for her, and she grabbed the nearest object: a metal tray with surgical instruments on it. There was an ear-splitting clang as the tray smashed into the nurse's face with enough force to send her sprawling. Sarah didn't stop; she drew a lot of attention. She snatched the fire extinguisher from its hook on the wall, tore Nealon's passcard free of his shirt, and ran.
Anyone who came near received a blow to the head. With each strike, Sarah flinched. With every hit, Sarah's lip grew less steady, her vision less clear, her motions less precise. With every victim, she lost her rage. The only thing keeping her going was desperation.
Now, weeks later, she stops walking, getting a waft of that same death-smell of blood and pus and sweat. Her pack lands on the ground with a thump, and she manages to pull her hair back out of the way just before she vomits. She notices bitterly that not only is she puking her guts up, she's crying as well. Bloody hell, she thinks, spitting into the ditch and rinsing her mouth with bottled water.
She can still feel the give of a skull on the other side of a weapon. The sensation is embedded in her hands, in her arms, in her chest. Her fingers are shaking. And she can't help thinking Rachel wouldn't understand. And also Rachel can't know. Because Sarah is a murderer, whether these people meant her harm or not, she's a murderer. A criminal.
Rachel had spent so much time looking down on Sarah for her recklessness, her abandon. Obviously, Rachel knows that those people they had passed - those corpses - were Sarah's handiwork. Rachel had smirked and nudged the body of an orderly with her foot; the contempt was so palpable there. It makes Sarah sick again.
She heaves and heaves and wonders, as the bile burns her teeth and tongue - the teeth that have clicked against Rachel's, the tongue that has danced with Rachel's - how that bitch could be so cold. Sarah tells herself that Rachel just doesn't understand, that Rachel has spent her whole life devoid of a healthy interaction with people, that Rachel doesn't understand attachment and empathy. Rachel's coldness masks a child; Sarah knows that, and it makes leaving her behind that much harder.
But then Sarah thinks about the other girls at the hospital that Rachel had mentioned before: Danielle and Janika. She thinks about what almost happened to her and Rachel.
After her daring escape, Sarah stumbled through the halls. She'd gotten turned around at some point - perhaps on purpose, she doesn't remember - and the tears in her eyes were clouding her vision. She clipped corners with her hips and elbows, peering through every door she saw. When she drew closer to her wing, she slowed. The name cards had been scratched off the doors, but it didn't matter. When Sarah found the room, she stopped.
The lights were off in that corner of the building, making it doubly hard for Sarah to see into the room. There might have been a shape on far bed, but she couldn't be certain. She swiped Nealon's passcard and yanked on the door handle. The second the door opened, she was blasted with a concentrated wave of that same stench. It was strong enough to make her gag.
She tiptoed into the room, leaving the door hanging open behind her. "Hello?" No response. She approached the figure on the bed, keeping her knees bent and her center of gravity low. Her head was pounding in time with her heart as adrenaline continued to gush through her system. She fought to keep her breathing quiet, just in case.
When she reached the bed, Sarah immediately turned away, burying her face in the crook of her arm and relinquishing her grip on the fire extinguisher, which clattered loudly against the floor and barely missed her toes. The girl in the bed was dead. Her eyes were open, but the color in her irises had leaked away and the rims of her eyes were caked in yellow crud. There was blood dried in the formation of now-flaking streams around her nose and mouth, and her teeth were still stained red. Her fingernails were bloodied and peeling, and blood had seeped through and spread across the sheets beneath her. Her stomach had ballooned outward, and Sarah didn't have any inclination to wonder why.
Sarah merely tugged the sheet free of the other bed and threw it over the girl. She could feel herself shivering, could feel the disgust and the fear. She remembers wondering if this would be their fate - hers and Rachel's - if they stayed. Her stomach rolled, and she fled to the bathroom to empty what little there was to empty. So much death in one place; she was suddenly so very glad to be leaving.
When she returned to the main room, she saw what remained of the other girl. And she was struck by the sad fact that she didn't know which was Danielle and which was Janika. The other girl was hunkered down by the door. There were bloody scratches on the metal from where the girl had apparently tried clawing her way out. Sarah didn't notice it on the way in. The armchair was toppled on its side across the entryway, and Sarah noticed the dents and discolorations in the wall and the door.
This girl hadn't been dead as long. The blood was fresher, and her abdomen hadn't expanded nearly as much. There were scratches on her face and neck, presumably from her own hands. There was somehow blood all around her, smeared onto the floor, her clothes, the walls. Where did it come from? Sarah thought it better not to ask. Instead, she ran. Back to Rachel and back to the prospect of escape.
Sarah shuddered back to the present, wondering how much more dry heaving her already unhealthy body can handle. She decides to take the time to eat breakfast, ripping open a can of sardines and trying not to lose those, too. She combats the developing headache with a few mouthfuls of water and reminds herself again and again why she's going back.
For Beth. For Alison. For Katja. For Cosima. For Tony. For the other kids DYAD had herded together because of stupid shit like when their birthdays are and what medication their parents took for in vitro. For the kids who, if Sarah's suspicions are correct, are currently at risk of being killed by the same people who insist that they're helping. If the scientists are even still alive.
If Sarah has her way, the scientists and the kids and Rachel will all still be alive by the time she gets to DYAD. That could take weeks on foot. She needs a car.