Sever - A Wattpad Featured Story

Jade - Chapter 24 - Now

The corridor is cold enough to see my breath billowing in front of me as I creep towards the sound of incensed voices. Breathe Jade. You can do this.

Woah.

As I pass the first of the lock-up garages, I suddenly jump back in surprise. The girl they brought in after me—the heavily pregnant one—is up close to the glass panel of her makeshift cell, her dark face pressed against the glass so her lips seem larger than they are.

'Help,' she mouths.

I rattle her door handle. It's freezing, and locked tight. Even if I could smash the reinforced viewing window, she'd never fit through.

'Help me,' she mouths again, edging further back and cradling a perfect beach ball bump.

So young. So pregnant. I rattle the door handle again.

'I'll come back for you.' It's all I can offer. And it's empty. Meaningless. I can't break through locked doorways and I can't save people.

The voices ahead are loud and garbled, oozing out of a room whose entrance is on the side of the corridor, at the far end. I motion towards the stench of beer and cigarettes. The bare bulbs overhead are still, casting shadows on the bare breeze block walls as I walk.

'I said calm it!' a voice is shouting as I nudge around the edge of the doorframe. I search for Blue amidst a sea of padded jackets and woollen hats. He's standing at the far side of the room by the door, facing the crowd, and he's addressing his audience like a leader. 'Calm it!' He says, again.

When they brought me here, the room seemed vast, but counting eleven people across it's widest point, it is really only a small storage space. Despite the cold, the tension sends a hot sweat up my spine.

'We're getting sidetracked,' Blue says, running his hand through his blunt hair. 'Exposing these girls will get us nowhere.'

'It will bring shame on Prosper,' a female voice rings out. 'Show them up for who they really are. Plant the seed of doubt to all those zombies who blindly follow them, show them that it's possible, that we don't need to be shackled by Prosper anymore!'

The crowd roar.

'Kate, that won't help what we're trying to achieve here,' Blue says.

'That's not what you said when we came here,' another voice yells. This one is a male voice. Gruff. Old. 'You wanted them to pay. We all want them to pay!'

Amidst another round of jeering, one of the padded coat men nearest to me picks up a grey plastic waste paper bin and beats it. A hollow drum sound resounds.

I edge into the doorframe. Blue is climbing onto a chair, waving his hands in a downward motion to calm the crowd. It's a wooden manoeuvre. There's pain in his movement, which is concealed all but for the crease of his brow.

I'd never considered the effect that the birthing scheme and the baby crisis would have on men, but the few women here make up a minority. Certainly men have to pass the tests, but they aren't subjected to the same level of scrutiny as women. Their involvement starts with a pen and ends with a plastic cup. Perhaps they were denied entry at the Clinic for mundane reasons too? And a few have got a goddamn low IQ, Dr Jenkins had said.

'We all came together because we believe,' Blue continues. 'We're lucky we've had help to enable us to be here. Ridley has a sponsor, who told us about this place and in return we must provide them with research and information. That was the deal. We are here to establish the facts which will change the world. But the minute we hurt these girls, we cross that line. We can't expose them. We have to learn from them, and we have to find out what they want with them. Ultimately, we have to be able to give life.'