The overwhelming feeling of despair poured over me, coating me in its intoxicating sensation of hopelessness. More death. It was inescapable, and I was both a fool and a coward for thinking that perhaps I could evade its impact.
One thing had made itself abundantly clear: death was shadowing me closely.
“Can you walk?” Rowan gritted out.
“Barely.”
“Good enough.”
Rowan dragged me by my arm down the hallway. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t fight. All I did was try not to let my legs lose all their support and crumple under my weight.
We eventually reached Rowan’s quarters, and he put in his sequence of numbers. He didn’t bother to hide it from me again. Then he pulled me inside and pushed me to sit on his bed. I watched silently for several moments as he paced the length of his room. Eventually, he stopped and looked at me with the same fury as before—but this time it was aimed at me.
“What were you thinking?” he exclaimed.
“Excuse me?”
“You closed your eyes, and all but asked them to kill you!”
“They had me on my back, four to one. What would you have had me do?”
“Fight back! Literally anything other than accepting the situation!”
“You told me I would lose my hope. Well, maybe I have.”
“Bullshit. Not you. Everyone else, yes, but not you. You’re different.”
“You seem to think that I possess some sort of divine strength. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Rowan, but I’m human. I’m not invincible. I break,” I said on a choked exhale.
Rowan threw his head back and sighed. Then he walked over toward me and rested his hands on my shoulders.
“Isaac wasn’t your fault.”
I shrugged my shoulders in classic Rowan fashion.
“It wasn’t. It’s the transfusions.”
I met his eyes, doubtful and wary.
“What do you mean?”
“They are altering your very essence, Mavis. They do it under the guise of strengthening you, but most of the time, they just create monsters. Whatever they’re manipulating in your blood makes a portion of people turn psychotic. I’ve seen it time and time again. That’s what happened to them. It wasn’t you, or because they feel you betrayed them. They lost their sanity and were bound to hurt someone at some point.”
“Is that what’s going to happen to me?”
“Do you feel out of control, like you’re bursting with unresolved energy?”
“No.”
“Then I doubt it. It usually surfaces around this time, and if it hasn’t affected you, then it probably won’t.”
I let out a breath I’d subconsciously held too long.
“I definitely don’t feel stronger.” I rolled my shoulders back. They were sore from tensing them so much. I paused mid-stretch when a thought occurred to me. “Is that why they only take younger people in the Cullings?”
“They take those aged thirteen to twenty, not only because they are younger and more resilient, but because it’s easier to manipulate DNA when the body is already going through so many changes. It makes you—”
“The perfect guinea pigs,” I answered for him.
