Stung - By Bethany Wiggins Page 0,29
forehead. “After that they’re either kicked out or …” Bowen mumbles something so fast I can’t understand him.
“Kicked out or what?”
The color drains from his tan cheeks and he whispers, “Offered medically assisted suicide. Put to sleep. Terminated. They say it’s painless.”
Heavy numbness settles over me. My mother is dead. That’s why he didn’t want to tell me. “And my father? Would they let him inside the wall even though he was disabled?”
Bowen tilts his head to the side and frowns. “Your father? I thought that …” He clears his throat. “No wheelchairs inside.”
I turn to the plants and quietly pollinate, letting the reality settle in, letting silent tears wash over my face. My mom and dad are dead.
A long time passes, maybe hours. Bowen and I have pollinated nearly all the plants, and my tears have finally stopped falling. “What is the lab?” I ask, sticking my paintbrush into a flower.
“The lab is the place where they test different strains of antivenin in search of the cure. On, you know, the beasts. Sort of like animal testing.”
My eyes grow round, and I look up from the tomato plant. “Wait a sec, I’m going to a lab to be their human guinea pig?”
“They test insane, beastly humans, Fo. Not regular people.”
“But I am a regular person. I’m not a beast!” I say, panicked.
He studies the paintbrush in his hands as if it’s the first time he’s seen it. “You’re a Ten. You could turn any second. Break my arms from my body. Shatter my skull with your bare hands.”
“Tear your beating heart from your chest and eat it?” I say.
“Yeah. That, too. Charlie, my old friend, was torn in two by a beast.”
I take a step toward him. He darts backward and holds the remote toward me, his eyes scared.
“I’m not like that, Bowen.” My voice trembles.
“Well, you’ve got to cut me a little slack, here,” he mutters, slowly lowering the remote. “Guardians don’t live all that long.”
“Guardians?”
“A guardian is the person in charge of taking the beasts to the lab. That’s me. I’m the guardian at the south gate of the wall.” He points to the lines shaved into the side of his head—four of them. “Four lines mean I rank higher than anyone in that camp except Micklemoore. And it’s because I’m a guardian.”
“Are you my guardian? Or the militia’s?”
“The militia’s. I’m guarding them from you,” he says as if I’m stupid for asking. As if it’s obvious. But the way I see it, I need protection from them.
“How long have you been the south gate guardian?”
His mouth thins. “I’ve been guardian since Sunday.”
“Only three days?”
“Two and a half days. It’s Tuesday.”
“So, why did you become a guardian on Sunday?”
He tilts his head to the side and frowns. “They shut the gate at eight p.m. like usual. And then, first time in the two and a half years since I’ve been posted at the wall, they rang the bell and opened the gate after eight p.m. Had a piece of paper signed by the chief medical officer dated that day, stating Dreyden Bowen was to become the new south gate guardian. I wasn’t aware the CMO even knew my name. But get this. They appointed a new north gate guardian at the same time. Richard Kimball. Remember him? He was in a grade above us and lived a block away.”
A boy’s face flickers in my memory: blond hair, pale-blue eyes, and freckled skin. He tried to kiss me when I was in first grade and he was in second. “I remember him. So, what happened to the old guardians?”
Bowen shrugs. “I can’t say for the guy at the north gate, but ours was thrilled. Not only is he relieved of the worst job in the world, but he gets to live inside the wall. He was a guardian for only four days.”
“And the guardian before him?”
“Got his beating heart torn out of his chest. He lasted eighteen days.”
“Seriously?” I say.
He glowers at me. “Do you think I’d joke about something like this?”
I shake my head. “Then why don’t you resign? Or do a different job?”
“Because I am stuck in this job until I die. Or qualify to live within the wall.”
I start dusting pollen again. Bowen does the same, careful to always stay two steps behind me, always have me within view, and always have the remote in his free hand.
After we’ve dusted four more plants, I turn to him. “Why don’t you just run away?”
He looks over