Chapter 15

“Rain?” he repeated, his blue eyes wide as he spoke her name.
“Yes.”
The alarms were still sounding in the hall, and the announcer came on again to remind them not to speak to one another. “We expect to be fully operational again in fifteen to twenty minutes,” the voice explained. Rain sighed and sank to the floor, being sure to keep her dress pulled down. It was going to be a long fifteen to twenty minutes, and she doubted that was accurate. Chances were, it would be longer.
“I’ve read about that.” He was looking off in the distance, at the wall, as if there was a window there, and he could see outside. “Sometimes, when it comes down hard, I can hear it on the roof.”
She realized then what he meant--the rain. “You’ve never seen it?”
24C shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything, Rain.” He looked back at her, his eyes sad. “I’ve never been outside of IW--and there are no windows.”
Rain felt her stomach twist into a hard knot. The thought hadn’t occurred to her. He had to be about her age, and he’d never been outside. Never seen the sun, felt the rain.
“What’s it like?” he asked, the sadness in his eyes melting into hopefulness, like her words could show him.
“The rain?” she clarified, and he nodded. “Well, if it’s warm outside, it’s refreshing. It can be fun to stand outside in a downpour on a summer day. If it’s cold, well, then, the rain is cold. That’s not much fun, especially if it splashes down your back.” She realized most women ran through the rain with umbrellas or rain coats, trying not to get wet. They didn’t stand around and take a soaking just to experience it. As a matter of fact, the only reason Rain had ever stood in a summer rain shower was because Mist insisted she do so.
“And the sun? What’s that like?”
“Warm,” she shrugged, wishing she could say more. “In the morning, when it first comes up, the sky can turn all shades of pink, orange, and red. It’s beautiful. Sometimes it does it at sunset as well. There’s nothing like the first warm day after a cold spell, though. And then, the moon, that’s beautiful, too. Especially when it’s full and bright. The stars are like little lights that twinkle in the heavens.”
He had his head tipped back so his face was to the ceiling, like he was looking at it, except his eyes were closed. A small smile lit his face, and Rain couldn’t help but be reminded of the angels she read about in a book once. They weren’t allowed to read too many religious texts because so many of those books praised men. But there was one story she’d read, where God had chosen a woman to have a special baby, and the Bible said an angel came down to tell the woman. Rain imagined, if that angel had been a man, 24C must resemble him.
He opened his eyes and looked at her, and Rain dropped her gaze, hoping he couldn’t read her thoughts. She found herself turning red again. A sensation of wings flapping in her stomach had her hand flying there, and she tugged at the hem of her skirt, pulling it down toward her folded knees.
“Thank you, Rain. I appreciate that.”
“Sure.” She wished she could say more, maybe tell him about snow, something she had very experience with herself. Maybe she could tell him about the wind. But he looked content with what she’d described, and part of her wanted to avoid seeing that expression on his face again. While the feelings it brought her were pleasant sensations, they were foreign, and she didn’t know how to handle them. “So… you don’t do much but wait, then?”
He nodded. “Pretty much. We get up at the same time every day. Eat the same protein mixture for breakfast. Go to the workout facility so we can keep our bodies in top physical shape. Have our first round of injections, eat more protein. Then, we have a few minutes to talk to one another, usually with Mothers present, though sometimes they get distracted, and we can speak in private. We go back to the workout room, have a few minutes to rest before our second round of injections, and then we go off to our little waiting rooms where we sit and wait for our number to come up. After that, if we were chosen at least once by a woman, we get meat instead of the protein mixture. If we weren’t, we have the protein mixture, and then we are rinsed off and deposited in our sleeping quarters for a few hours. There are three different shifts of about thirty of us going through that experience all day until IW shuts down for the night.”
So much of what he’d said sounded horrific, Rain didn’t even know where to begin. She’d imagined a group of guys hanging out most of the day, relaxing, discussing how much fun they’d had having intercourse with various women. “You… don’t even get real food?”
He shook his head. “Not unless our number’s chosen. Then, it’s like a steak or a pork chop or something like that. Nothing else. I’ve always wondered what chocolate must taste like.”
He pronounced it incorrectly, with a SH sound at the beginning, but Rain kept herself from laughing. Even in the new alphabet, the one the women had used to replace the old alphabet after the Claiming, some of the letters had multiple sounds associated with them. She’d heard that was a big problem in the old alphabet, and that’s why it had been replaced, but clearly, it wasn’t perfect. “It’s pronounced chocolate,” she said, hoping she sounded informative and not rude. She let her mind go to a place it never had before. Maybe the old alphabet had been replaced so that old texts, the history they weren’t supposed to learn, would become obsolete.
“That’s how you say it? Really?” His eyebrows raised. “Oh. I’ve only ever seen it in a book.”
“Yeah.” She smiled at him supportively. “It tastes wonderful. Sweet, smooth.” She wondered if he even knew what sweet tasted like if he’d only ever had a protein mixture and steak. “What do you drink?”
“We take hydration pills.”
Rain raised an eyebrow. “No water?”
24C shrugged. “I’ve gotten it in my mouth in the shower once or twice, and we are allowed to rinse our mouths after we clean our teeth. But no.”
She shook her head, unable to comprehend what it would be like not to drink anything. So many women said they couldn’t get by without their coffee. “Do the injections hurt?”
He nodded. “But you get used to it.”
Her eyes went to his legs for a second, but she realized if he was bruised on his thighs, where she assumed the injections were given, she wouldn’t be able to see from here.
“They go into our glutes,” he explained, clearly seeing her looking. “So we don’t wince if a woman squeezes our legs too tight.”
“Oh. Right.” The injections were meant to make them more responsive to a woman. “Do they... work?”
He nodded. “Most of the time… it’s the only way I’d react at all.”
“Really?” That was also shocking. The idea that men wanted intercourse all the time just wouldn’t fade from her mind.
An avalanche of questions flooded her brain as she imagined what it would be like to live back there, behind that wall, but he had several questions, too, and she let him ask them. Rain explained how they lived in dorm rooms, four girls to a room, and that she’d be allowed to have her own quarters in a few years, when she was twenty-five, if she wanted. She told him about the cafeteria where they got their food and about school. He seemed excited at the idea of sitting in class and listening to lessons all day. She also mentioned exploring in the forest with Mist but not about the old house or the cellar they’d found.
“Is she your best friend?” he asked. “Mist?”
Rain nodded, but she must not have been too convincing because he raised an eyebrow. “We had an argument recently.” She tried not to let the sadness that washed over her show on her face. “I’m sure we’ll work it out.”
“You will.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ve never really had a friend before, but I can imagine it’s a pretty spectacular thing to have.”
She couldn’t help but smile, even though it hurt her heart to hear him say he didn’t even have a single friend. Fixing things with Mist was important; he was right about that, and she’d find a way to do that, as soon as the doors unlocked, assuming everything was the same once she was out. Whatever was going on out there, it was odd, and she just hoped everyone was okay.