Bayou

Chapter 1 ~ Necessary

Chapter 1

Danny stuck the needle in my arm, and the pinch was nothing compared to the burn. He was always apologetic while he killed me, like a doctor administering a vaccine to a child. Listen, kid, this hurts me more than you. But it wasn't a vaccine, and it didn't hurt him. He was the scientist. He had position and power; pumping poison into me and countless others secured that for him.

Danny hung the bag, connected the tube, and the fun began. Drip. Drip. Drip. My hands fisted; muscles twisted, as neon green snaked its way into my system. We didn't know what it was. We didn't know where it came from, or why the government wanted it tested. We just knew it hurt like hell: boiling blood, torching organs, devouring us like liquid gangrene. I'd done two bags the day before and barely made it home. It was only half full today, a kindness I'd pay dearly for later.

Six more women made up my group, all at various stages of deterioration. I'd been around longer than any of them. Danny kept me whole. The rest weren't so lucky. I watched them come and go, one after the other, healthy to half dead to replaced.

Lita, the girl in the next chair, was close to the final stage, and she'd noticed the favoritism I received. I avoided her gaze. I was an enemy, a traitor. I'd found a loophole and sold my soul to jump through it.

"Why does Willow only have half a bag?" It would be a miracle if she made it through the week. Festering sores coated her arms, her neck, her face. They filled the spaces where no hair covered her scalp. Angry, oozing craters marred her near translucent skin as if her body were a war zone. A war already finished. A war she'd lost. The fight should have been gone from her, but her question stole the moisture from my mouth. We didn't get to ask questions. We didn't get to say anything. I knew her rage. How it built over time, pressurized by the knowledge our world was fucked beyond repair. It was a dangerous mindset we all avoided. It didn't help. It only sped up the process.

The atmosphere charged as Danny stopped to stare at her.

Lita took a slow, rattling breath. "I have two kids who need me. I'm doing three bags. I'll barely be able to fill the ration tickets you give for this, let alone make it home and get them fed." Her voice broke and lifted. "They go to bed every night alone, with their mother passed out. I hear them trying to wake me, but I'm too weak to open my eyes. If I'm doing more, aren't I more necessary? Shouldn't I at least receive more tickets than she does?"

Danny shook his head. "These are trials. You knew that when you signed on. The amount we need to administer will vary, and the payment isn't based upon changes in the research."

"Bullshit!" She yanked against the straps binding her wrists. "Nobody chooses to do this; we have to!"

"Stop it," I hissed.

Her gaze met mine, wide and wild. She scanned the other women locked to identical chairs, their faces, their doses, as if it were her first time seeing. She shouldn't have opened her eyes. She shouldn't have let it sink in. Her heaving breaths quickened. "This isn't right," she said, scrutinizing the group again, pleading with the wrong people.

Heads lowered. Eyes averted. She was already dead, buried too deep to be heard.

"You just sit there," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "We all just sit here!" Her gaze centered on Danny. "Undo my straps. I want to leave."

"For safety reasons, I cannot—"

"I want to leave!" Realization slackened her jaw, crumbled her features, because she knew it was over. She'd collapsed beneath the weight. Now the world would crush her, and the rubble would bury her children. She'd never make it home. She'd never get them fed. They'd never need to wake her again. "I want to leave. I want to leave." She seemed hypothermic. The way she shook. The way she stuttered.