Savage Drift

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT} JOSIE

I try to think. Where could Mario be? He hadn’t come home.

Had he tried to come back to the room and failed?

Had he knocked and we didn’t hear him?

First I run back to Excellence. He would have tried to get back to the room.

He would have been in pain from his arm and his ribs, if they had ended up cracked.

He’d have a terrible headache from being sedated and would be thirsty.

I sprint through the courtyard. Dawn is breaching the horizon now, bringing a peachy light to the courtyard.

I don’t care about being seen. I have to find Mario.

I burst into the lobby.

Still empty.

I push into the Men’s hall. People are up now, a few coming out of their rooms.

“Hey! Look who’s here,” says one of the lowlifes I had fought my way through.

I weave my way down the hall, looking in the rooms.

Someone puts a hand on my arm.

“Union is looking for you,” Patko says. “You’d better get out of here.”

I shrug him off.

“Has anyone seen Mario?” I yell. “The old guy who takes care of us?”

“Ain’t seen him,” says the maggoty one. “But I can take care of you good, rabbit.”

I push past him and head back to the front hall.

Not there.

Where would you go, Mario? Where would you go?

Maybe Plaza 900. Head for a crowd, try to find someone to help him. Try to get help from Cheryl, maybe. Or get a drink of water.

I make my way to Plaza 900.

“Hey!” a guard yells. “What the heck?”

“Sorry,” I yell, trying to sound meek. “My friend’s missing.” And I keep running.

The guard lurches to his feet, starting after me slowly, but gaining momentum as his bulk accelerates.

I hit the front doors to Plaza 900. Locked.

I pound on them.

A sob tears out of me.

Mario is injured and somewhere on campus and it is my fault.

The guard comes into my peripheral vision. “You’re not allowed to be out, miss. You’re gonna get in trouble.”

“Please,” I plead. “My friend is old and he got turned out of the clinic and I think maybe he’s in there.”

“Well, you’ll know when it opens, won’t you?” He grabs my arm and pushes me toward the Virtues. “Which one are you from?”

“Please,” I beg him. “He’s old and alone and hurt.”

I see a spark of conscience flash across his eyes.

“And he’s very kind. Please let me try to find him.”

“Aaugh, go on. I didn’t see ya,” he says, and turns his back on me.

I spin away from him and head around the other side of the building.

There have to be more doors going in.

I see two steel-gray doors. One of them is ajar.

A white truck is pulled up near the double doors.

A white-uniformed man brings out four flats of dinner rolls.

I nod to him, like I am somehow supposed to be there, and dodge inside.

“Hey, miss!” he calls.

And then I am in the giant kitchen. It smells like old Sloppy Joes and there are patches of grease on the counters and floor. The steel counters are cleaned off only in spots. Trash is on the floor in places and food, too. It looks like the kitchen staff are doing the best they can and failing. Like all of us.

Mario isn’t in the kitchen and he isn’t in the dining room. I am looking along the floor and in the corners.

I ignore the “heys” and questioning glances from the workers.

I can’t find Cheryl, but see another one of the ladies who liked Mario. What was her name? Josefina? No.

“Have you seen Mario?” I ask her. “The man I come in with—”

“No, m’ija, he missing?”

I nod.

She hugs me. Says something comforting in Spanish.

I tear myself away from her.

I have to find him.

Mariana, I remember. That was her name.

I go to the lobby of Plaza 900.

Not there. Not in the restrooms, Men’s or Women’s. I look in the stairwell.

Someone must have taken him in, I tell myself. He must be in the room of some good-hearted person and maybe they’re sending word to the kids right now.

I start back across the courtyard. That has to be it.

Maybe he is in our room right now, while I am tearing around the campus, overreacting.

I enter the front hall of Excellence and a man grabs my wrist. It is a bald, fat man, one of the men who had assaulted me before.

“Girly, your grandpaw showed up.”

“Where?” I ask him, spinning around, grabbing his sweaty hand in both of mine. “Please tell me!”

“Ladies’ room,” he says, jerking his head toward the two restrooms off the front hall.

“Thank you!” I shout as I push away from him.

My poor Mario is on the floor, under a vanity counter right next to the door.

His body looks shriveled and tiny. Weak and endangered.

His head is lying on the floor. There is a little stain, made from drool and blood, near his mouth.

“Mario!” I say, too loud, and then I regulate my tone. “Oh, Mario…”

He is very hurt.

He needs quiet, and in the stillness, now I hear his breath. The inhale strains but the exhale is worse. Windy. A wheeze.

How, how, how could they have let him go?!

I kneel down.

“Mario, Mario,” I murmur. Tears run down my cheeks. I brush them away. I put my hand on his shoulder.

I see his arm has been set in a light cast.

He opens his eyes.

“Ha,” he croaks. “Josie.”

He closes his eyes again.

I put my hand to his forehead and then his face. It is cold and the skin feels papery and loose.

“I’m going to take you back to the clinic,” I whisper.

He wheezes.

“Thirsty.”

I get up and, of course, I don’t have a cup. I rinse my hands at the tap. The soap is long gone.

I cup a little cold water in my hands.

I kneel again, my bruised knees on the cold tile, and try to get the water into his mouth.

His lips against my fingers feel dry and thin.

His breath smells like old blood and I can’t stop crying.

“I can carry you very carefully,” I say.

“No,” he says, and he looks at me. In his eyes, he is telling me he means it.

“Josie,” he gasps.

“Yes, Mario?”

“The doctor told me…”

A gasping inhale, the wheezing exhale.

“The experiments.”

The experiments? What? He draws another breath.

“Experiments people go.”

“The people they send away for medical experiments?” I ask, trying to do the talking for him.

He closes his eyes, yes.

“Army takes ’em.”

He is trying to warn me about letting Venger send me away.

“I know, Mario. I won’t let Venger send me there, I promise.”

He purses his lips.

“You Sam Rid.”

What?

“You Sam Rid.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mario.” I cry. I want to tell him how much I love him. I want him to live. “Let me take you to the clinic!” I beg.

“Listen,” he says, his blue eyes snapping.

“U-S-A-M-R-I-I-D.” He spells it out.

“Okay,” I sniffle.

“Where they do tests. It’s in Maryland.”

I get chills then, my flesh creeping up my arms, all the goose bumps rippling up my limbs, climbing toward my heart.

Mario is telling me to let Venger send me away, because whatever that string of initials is—it is in Maryland, close to Niko’s family farm.

His dying thoughts are to get me free.

“Get sent there.”

“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

I lay down on the floor, so I can be right facing his face.

He smiles at me.

His face is the only thing I see now, and I know mine is the only thing he sees, too.

It is cold on the floor and Mario is dying. I try to get as close as I can. I want to give him some of my body heat.

“Good girl. Always good.”

My eyes are leaking onto the tile now.

“Mario,” I say. “Thank you. You saved me. You did it. I’ll go to USAMRIID. You got me free. Okay? You saved me.”

His breaths are slowing, stretching painfully. A long, weak rasp.

“Do you know that? Do you know that you saved me?”

His eyes aren’t on me now. They are focused somewhere past my head.

I see bubbles of blood in his mouth, coming up to the front of his lips, starting to make their way down his jaw.

I dab at them with the hem of my shirt.

“No, Mario, don’t go,” I cry.

“Good girl,” Mario tells me.

His lips say, “Always good,” but there is no sound from his voice.

And his breath hisses to nothing and he is gone.