“Oh my god.” Rose jumped to her feet. “Do you think it’s chloroform or something? I mean, why, though?”

Derrick shrugged. “No idea. Maybe they just want to touch my sweet abs while I’m under,” he tried to joke, but the reality was too creepy for real mirth. What they could be doing to him while he was out was too dark to consider.

Rose folded back onto the bed, grabbing his left arm. “Derrick, what is this?”

He pulled his arm back and stretched it out. There on the inside, in the bend of his elbow, was a blue bruise and, in the center, a bright new scab. “Isn’t that just where they give me the meds?”

“You don’t mainline antibiotics. Not like that.” Rose was starting to panic. “Are they taking something from you instead of putting something in?”

“Only as much as we need. We’re not greedy,” the man said.

They jumped. Neither had heard the door open. Neither had seen the Chief leaning against the doorway, and so neither one had bothered to lower their voice.

“You’re taking his marrow?” Rose stood, blocking Derrick’s prone body with all the stretch and muster of her small frame.

“Oh, silly girl. No, no. I’m not some colonial monster.” She could see the Wives pooling behind him like half-erased ghosts. He smiled, big and full, showing so many teeth. “We’re not stealing marrow. We’re simply borrowing blood.”

CHAPTER 19

MOCCASSIN TELEGRAPH

French

A WEEK INTO KITCHEN DUTY AND STILL NO ONE would talk to me. I got a lot of eye rolls and subtle shoulder checks, but no words were exchanged save for the orders I gave. I kept delivering meals to the isolation ward residents, and that became a reprieve from the rest of my day. I got to know many of the residents by their first names, so at least there was that.

“Kirby. Soup today, not too cold this time. Sorry, no utensils again, but at least you can drink it.”

“Marsh, come grab your tray. I don’t want it falling again. I can’t get you another, and you don’t want to get reported.”

“Shell, last chance before they take you in. Please eat everything, Shell. You need to eat.”

Saying the names felt like medicine, felt healing and precious. I wasn’t supposed to know them, but some of those who still had voices had whispered them to me the first few days, missives pushed through the metal delivery slots where I slid in the plastic trays. Some breathed them from the dark like sighs; others spat them through the openings, the whites of their eyes glinting with an inner fire. The names haunted my dreams at night, and I woke up with them rattling around in my mouth, stuck in my teeth.

I made sure I said them at each meal. It was probably the only time they heard them, and I knew that after even a few days in isolation, we needed to be reminded of who we were. We forgot. We were always so close to the underlying condition of death that our minds could tip off the brink if we were not called back by name.