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Yet while the reading was interesting, she must have dozed off at sohts had di space was a jumble of unfamiliar shadows She stood up and was about to head to her bedrooe sound pierced the silence Clarke froze It al She forced herself to take a deep breath She should have known better than to read about va down the hallway, but then another sound rang out--a shriek that sent shivers down her spine
Stop it, Clarke scolded herself She’d never make it as a doctor if she let her mind play tricks on her She was just unsettled by the unfa would be back to normal Clarke waved her palm across the sensor on her bedrooain--an anguished , Clarke spun around and walked down the long hallway that led to the lab Instead of a retinal scanner, there was a keypad Clarke brushed her fingers over the panel, briefly wondering if she’d be able to guess the password, then crouched down and pressed her ear to the door
The door vibrated as another sound buzzed through Clarke’s ear Her breath caught in her throat That’s iain, it was even clearer
It wasn’t just a screaers flew over the keypad as she entered the first thing that caea It was the code her mother used for her protected files The screen beeped and an error e appeared Next she entered Elysiu to bedtie after the Cataclys for words she’d filed away Her fingers hovered above the keypad Lucy The naists ever discovered There was a series of low beeps, and the door slid open
The lab was er than their entire flat, and filled with rows of narrow beds like in the hospital
Clarke’s eyes widened as they darted from one bed to another Each contained a child Most of the kids were lying there asleep, hooked up to various vital h a feere propped up by pillows, fiddling with tablets in their laps One little girl, hardly older than a toddler, sat on the floor next to her bed, playing with a ratty stuffed bear as clear liquid dripped fro into her arm
Clarke’s brain raced for an explanation These had to be sick children who required round-the-clock care Maybe they were suffering from some rare disease that only her motherof y her m kne to cure, or perhaps her father was close to inventing a new treatment and needed twenty-four-hour access They must’ve known that Clarke would be curious, but since the illness was probably contagious, they’d lied to Clarke to keep her safe
The saain, this time much louder She followed it to a bed on the other side of the lab
A girl her own age--one of the oldest in the roo on her back, dark-blond hair fanned out on the pillow around her heart-shaped face For a moment, she just stared at Clarke
"Please," she said Her voice treirl’s vital monitor SUBJECT 121 "What’s your name?" she asked
"Lilly"
Clarke stood there aardly, but when Lilly scooted back on her pillows, Clarke lowered herself to sit on the bed next to her She’d just started herand hadn’t interacted with patients yet, but she knew one of thea doctor was bedside o hoirl pulled her knees to her chest and buried her head, saying so too muffled for Clarke to lanced over her shoulder, wondering why there wasn’t a nurse or ahappened to one of the kids, there’d be no one to help theirl raised her head but looked away from Clarke She chewed her lip as the tears in her eyes receded, leaving a haunting emptiness in their wake
When she finally spoke, it was in a whisper "No one ever gets better"
Clarke suppressed a shudder Diseases were rare on the ship; there hadn’t been any epidemics since the last outbreak they’d quarantined on Walden Clarke looked around the lab for so, and her eyes settled on an enor a large graph Subject 32 Age 7 Day 189 34 Gy Red count White count Respiration Subject 33 Age 11 Day 298 6 Gy Red count White count Respiration
At first Clarke thought nothing of the data It made perfect sense for her parents to monitor the vitals of the sick children in their care Except that Gy had nothing to do with vital signs A Gray was a measure of radiation, a fact she well knew as her parents had been investigating the effects of radiation exposure for years, part of the ongoing task to determine when it’d be safe for huaze settled on Lilly’s pale face as a chilling realization slithered out of a dark place in the back of Clarke’s mind She tried to force it back, but it coiled around her denial, suffocating all thoughts except a truth so horrifying, she aler limited to cell cultures They’d moved onto hu these children They were killing the, an L-shaped space surrounded by trees