She dreamed it was raining. The water was crystal clean and perfectly cooled and it hammered down upon her hard and heavy. But, like everything good in life, it never lasted. As soon as the rain was done and the blackness cleared and Hunter woke up in a dimly lit room, she felt the pain as though she was being burnt all over again.
Hunter didn’t know where she was. It was white and cold like the institution, but she wasn’t in a cell or a surgery room. Then suddenly, she remembered: This was the infirmary where she visited Will a day ago. Her bed had a plastic mattress and metal bars on the side. Thin curtains were pulled across both ends and directly opposite her was an identical empty bed. She could hear soft voices from somewhere in the room, and they echoed.
As soon as she tried to move, she let out a shriek of pain. Her entire body was heavy and thickly coated in bandages. Someone heard her cries and a moment later, a nurse was fussing over her, telling her to relax and take deep breaths and try not to move. Hunter was so confused and she tried to speak, but the woman inserted a tube into her mouth and trickled cold water down her throat. Hunter swallowed it greedily and almost choked.
“There there dear,” said the woman. Her face was becoming clearer now. She was old with saggy skin and frizzy gray hair twisted in a bun on top of her head. Her eyes were kind but blank, like a ghost. Perhaps she is a ghost, Hunter thought. “Everything will be alright. You’ve been unconscious for a day and a half now, but your skin is patching up quite nicely. I’m pleased to tell you that it won’t be a matter of days until you’re up and healthy again.”
Hunter didn’t care about that; all she wanted was more water. “Please…” she breathed.
The nurse smiled and fed her more. As she did, she kept talking, telling her it would be alright and the world was all sunshine and lollypops. The whole charade was far too forced for Hunter to believe. She expected Dr. Wolfe to arrive any second now to gloat of his successes.
But it wasn’t Dr. Wolfe who arrived. It was Dr. Rosenthal.
That night, he came to visit her. She was drifting in and out of sleep. The infirmary had grown darker and someone down the way was snoring. She heard his footsteps and saw him appear at the end of the bed. He looked almost as worse as she imagined herself to be.
After a moment in which he leaned on the post at the end of her bed and stared in the dim light from the back of the room, Dr. Rosenthal shook his head and wiped a finger under his eye.
“Joshua would kill me… if he saw I’d let this happen to you,” he muttered. She could have sworn his old voice broke in a sob.
Hunter wished she could see him clearer, even sit up and comfort him if that’s what he needed, but she literally could not move on the bed.
“Dr. Rosenthal, it’s not your fault,” she croaked. “It’s that bastard Dr. Wolfe who did this.”
“I know,” he replied. “I’ve tried to put an end to it, but it’s like provoking a serpent; I’ve only made him angrier and more reckless. These demonstrations, they’re not for our benefit. They’re for his. He wants to feel in control, to show off. And those new scientists, they’re… they’re afraid of him.”
“So the recruitment isn’t going so well then?”
Dr. Rosenthal removed his glasses and wiped them on his coat as he took a seat in the chair beside her bed. Painfully, Hunter turned her head to face him.
“Not at all. That scare in Death Cave 1 had most of them running for the hills.”
Hunter’s heart started pounding. “Wh… what scare?”
He fixed her with a knowing look. “You’re not as sneaky as you think, you and William. I know you were there when Jack broke free. I know William was listening in on mine and Dr. Wolfe’s conversation about destroying him.”
“How-”
“It doesn’t matter. What’s important right now is getting you away from here. Things are becoming far too dangerous. I should never have let him go this far. When you are well, Hunter, I need you to lead the others out of this place.”
Hunter sighed. “Dr. Rosenthal, I’m with you one hundred percent on the escaping part, but… I just don’t see how.”
“That’s where I’m going to help you,” he whispered. “The nurse has given you a lotion I made with some of William’s DNA in it. You should be completely healed within a matter of days. And then the demonstrations will be over, Dr. Wolfe will be busy with the new recruitments – or what’s left of them – and I will provide a suitable distraction for you and the others to scurry out of here. You have the map, you have the key to your restraints should you run into any trouble. I need you to step up and get them out of here, all of them, before it’s too late.”
Her mind was throbbing from so many ‘but’s and ‘how’s. Dr. Rosenthal didn’t seem to be in the arguing mood, however, because he reached out and gently ran his finger down her cheek. The touch made her flinch, but she felt no pain. It was just a memory, and it faded quicker than the tingling sensation that ran through her.
“I want to tell you Hunter,” he said and again his voice was wavering. Seeing this wonderfully gentle old man on the brink of tears was enough to bring them to her own eyes. The salt ran into her burns and it stung. “I’m proud of the woman you’ve become. We don’t know each other as well as I wish, but the day I said goodbye to you all those years ago was the day I realized that I had made too many mistakes in my life. I couldn’t change the past, but I could work towards a better future. And when you returned here, I knew this madness with Dr. Wolfe had to stop. Even if…” he took a shaky deep breath, “even if it’s the last thing I do, Hunter, I will set you free. But you need to be a hero. For the others, understand me? You will start a revolution. And with revolution comes war. But you are already prepared, my dear. You are strong and you have courage, I have seen it numerous times already. You are prepared to fight the evil in this world, because you have love flowing in your veins. Not an evil flame, Hunter, but love.” Ever so gently, Dr. Rosenthal rested a hand over her heart and dropped tears on her bandages.
Hunter sniffed, wishing she could sit up and hug him tightly. His words bound firmly to her heart and she knew, with dreadful sorrow, that they would be the last she ever heard from this man.
“It seems I’m not the only one who believes so,” he sniffed and reached for something on the bedside table. When he sat back, Hunter saw it was a leather-bound book. Will’s Bible. “Dear William was here several times, when the guards weren’t watching. He so badly wants to believe in love, but I don’t know if he’s ever truly experienced it. It is a sad thing, to live without love. But when you have it,” Dr. Rosenthal raised one eyebrow at her, “it needs to be shared with another.”
Hunter couldn’t take her eyes off the Bible, feeling warm inside again knowing that Will had not only woken up, but visited her even when it was forbidden.
Dr. Rosenthal opened the Bible. His eyes sparkled as he read the words, “‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ That does sound very much like William, doesn’t it?”
Hunter responded only with a small nod. It sounded exactly like Will.
The doctor smiled and placed the book back beside the nurses’ salves and fixed her again with his shimmering blue gaze.
“Promise me, Hunter, that you will leave this place as soon as the opportunity presents itself and never look back.”
“When?”
“The day you’re released from this infirmary,” he said.
“But where do we go? I have no idea what continent we’re on.”
“You’ll know once you’re outside. Go to this address–” He slipped a piece of paper into her bandaged fingers “–and go nowhere else. It is safe, I can assure you.”
“But… then what?”
He blinked through the darkness at her. “That, my dear, is up to you. You’ll find anything you need at this address and instructions as to what I advise you do next, but you are free from then on. Now do you swear you’ll do as I ask?”
Hunter nodded, her breath coming out in sobs that made her chest ache. “Yes sir.”
“Good.” Dr. Rosenthal stood slowly on his feet, wiping a hand over his beard and smiling down at her, his eyes like twinkling stars. “Good girl.”
“Dr. Rosenthal, wait. What about the others down in the Death Caves? What about Jack?”
A sadness settled over the old man’s face. “I’m so very sorry Hunter. I’m afraid Jack can’t leave with you. Or Alfie, or any of the others. They are too unstable, too dangerous. It’s too risky.”
“Why?” she said through her teeth, angry but at no one in particular. “I thought you were going to work towards a better future. Jack is not a killer, you just need to give him a chance.”
“No, dear, I can’t. Because Jack cannot be helped.”
“But I can’t just leave-”
“You must.” His voice pleaded with her.“I am sorry, I know how you cared about him.”
Once again, Hunter opened her mouth to ask how in hell he did know, but Dr. Rosenthal whipped up a hand.
“There’s one more thing I’d like you to do for me Hunter.”
She bit back a sob. “I’ll do anything.”
Dr. Rosenthal smiled, dipped his head and whispered, “Forgive him,” before slowly blending back into the shadows.