5. Life Number Seven

The scream cut through the dormitory like a blade, raw and animal, a sound that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than flesh. Elara was on her feet before she was fully awake, her heart hammering, her hand reaching instinctively for the key and the data relay hidden beneath her uniform.

The dormitory was in chaos. Curtains were being torn aside as vessels scrambled from their beds, their faces pale and frightened in the dim glow of the night lights. Attendant Mora was standing near the door, her usually placid face creased with something that looked like genuine alarm. And from behind Sorcha's curtain, the screams continued, one after another, each one more terrible than the last.

"She is in labor," someone said, and the words spread through the room like fire through dry grass. "Sorcha is in labor."

Elara pushed through the crowd of vessels and pulled aside Sorcha's curtain. The older woman was on her bed, her body twisted in agony, her hands gripping the thin mattress with a ferocity that turned her knuckles white. Her face was slick with sweat, her hair plastered to her skull, and her dark eyes were wide and wild with a pain that seemed to go beyond the physical.

"Get Doctor Voss," Elara said, turning to Attendant Mora. "Now."

But Attendant Mora did not move. She stood frozen in the doorway, her empty eyes fixed on Sorcha with an expression that Elara could not quite read. It was not concern. It was not fear. It was something else, something that looked almost like calculation.

"The medical wing is closed during the night shift," Attendant Mora said. "Protocol requires that we wait until morning."

"She cannot wait until morning," Elara said, her voice rising. "She is in labor now. The baby is coming now."

"Protocol requires—"

"I do not care about protocol."

Elara pushed past Attendant Mora and ran into the corridor. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting long, wavering shadows on the mint-green walls. She did not know where she was going. She only knew that she had to find someone, anyone, who could help.

She ran past the double doors and into the administrative wing, her bare feet slapping against the cold linoleum. The corridor was dark and silent, the offices on either side locked and empty. But at the end of the hallway, a light was on, spilling from under a door that she recognized.

Jasper Thorne's office.

She pounded on the door with both fists, not caring who heard her. "Thorne," she called out. "Thorne, I need your help."

The door opened, and Thorne stood in the doorway, his dark hair disheveled, his pale blue eyes alert despite the late hour. He was still wearing his dark suit, though his jacket was unbuttoned and his tie was loosened. Behind him, on his desk, Elara could see papers spread out in neat rows, and a tablet displaying what looked like medical records.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It is Sorcha. One of the vessels. She is in labor, and the attendant says the medical wing is closed, and she will not get help, and—"

"Slow down." Thorne placed a hand on her shoulder, and the weight of it was surprisingly steadying. "Where is she?"

"The dormitory. Her bed is next to mine. She has been pregnant for months, and now the baby is coming, and no one will help her."

Thorne's jaw tightened. "Wait here," he said. "I will find Doctor Voss."

He strode down the corridor, his footsteps echoing in the silence, and disappeared through a door marked "Staff Only." Elara stood alone in the hallway, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her hands trembling at her sides. The scream from the dormitory echoed in her mind, a sound that she knew she would never forget.

She did not wait. She turned and ran back the way she had come, back to the dormitory, back to Sorcha.

The scene had grown worse in her absence. Sorcha was no longer on the bed. She was on the floor, her back against the metal frame of her bunk, her legs drawn up to her chest. Maeve was kneeling beside her, her young face white with fear, her hands fluttering uselessly in the air as if she wanted to help but did not know how.

"Something is wrong," Sorcha gasped, her voice ragged and broken. "Something is wrong with the baby."

Elara knelt beside her, taking her hand. Sorcha's grip was crushing, her fingers digging into Elara's flesh with a strength born of desperation. "Help is coming," Elara said, though she did not know if it was true. "Thorne went to find Doctor Voss. Just hold on."

"It hurts," Sorcha said, and her voice was very small now, almost childlike. "It hurts more than the other times. Something is different. Something is wrong."

The other vessels had retreated to their alcoves, their curtains drawn tight, as if they could shut out the reality of what was happening by pretending not to see it. Only Maeve remained, her pale blue eyes fixed on Sorcha with an expression of helpless terror.

The minutes crawled by, each one heavier than the last. Sorcha's contractions came in waves, each one more intense than the one before, and with each one she let out a cry that seemed to tear at the very fabric of the air. Elara held her hand and whispered words of comfort that felt hollow and useless, and Maeve kept watch at the door, waiting for a help that did not come.

And then, finally, the double doors swung open, and Doctor Voss strode into the dormitory, her white coat billowing behind her, her iron-gray hair pulled back in its usual severe bun. Jasper Thorne was behind her, his face unreadable, and two nurses followed, pushing a gurney.

Doctor Voss knelt beside Sorcha and performed a quick examination, her movements efficient and impersonal. Her face, as always, betrayed nothing. "The baby is in breech position," she said. "We need to move her to the medical wing immediately. Prepare the surgical suite."

The nurses lifted Sorcha onto the gurney, and she cried out in pain as they moved her. Elara started to follow, but Doctor Voss held up a hand.

"Vessels are not permitted in the surgical wing," she said. "You will remain here."

"She needs someone with her," Elara said.

"She needs medical attention, not sentimentality." Doctor Voss turned and followed the gurney out of the dormitory, her white coat disappearing through the double doors.

Elara stood motionless, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Thorne lingered in the doorway, his pale eyes meeting hers for a brief moment. "I will stay with her," he said quietly. "I will make sure she is treated properly."

And then he was gone, and Elara was alone with Maeve and the silent, curtained alcoves and the lingering echo of Sorcha's screams.

The hours that followed were the longest of Elara's life. She sat on the edge of her bed, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on the door. Maeve sat beside her, her young face drawn and tired, the locket with her daughter's photograph clutched in her hand. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say.

Dawn came, gray and cold, filtering through the high windows of the dormitory. The bell rang at five-thirty, but no one moved. The vessels lay in their beds, their curtains drawn, a silent protest against the routines that governed their lives. Attendant Mora did not come to enforce the schedule. The corridors were quiet, the facility holding its breath.

And then, just after seven o'clock, the double doors opened, and Doctor Voss walked into the dormitory. Her white coat was spotless, her expression unchanged, but there was something in her posture that made Elara's blood run cold. Something tense and coiled, like a snake preparing to strike.

"The baby has been delivered," Doctor Voss announced, her voice carrying through the silent room. "It was a difficult delivery. The breech presentation caused significant complications. The infant sustained oxygen deprivation during the birth process."

She paused, her pale gray eyes scanning the room. "The infant has been classified as non-viable. In accordance with the Order's medical protocols, it has been euthanized to prevent unnecessary suffering. The remains will be disposed of in the facility's medical incinerator."

The words hit Elara like a physical blow. Non-viable. Euthanized. Disposed of. She felt the air leave her lungs, felt the room tilt around her. Beside her, Maeve let out a small, choked sound and pressed her hand against her mouth.

"What about Sorcha?" Elara demanded. "Where is she?"

"Vessel 139 is recovering in the medical wing," Doctor Voss said. "She will be returned to the dormitory when she is stable. Her fourth contract has been fulfilled. She will be transferred to the Paradise Wing for final processing once her recovery is complete."

The Paradise Wing. The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Elara thought about Sorcha's records, the list of names and dates and destinations. She thought about the note in her trunk, the cramped handwriting warning about the harvesting. And she thought about what Thorne had told her, about the women who were processed and the organs that were sold and the bodies that were used for experiments that no one on the mainland would ever approve.

"No," Elara said, her voice shaking. "You cannot send her there. You cannot—"

"I can, and I will." Doctor Voss's voice was cold and final. "Vessel 139's contract is complete. Her future is no longer your concern. I suggest you focus on your own responsibilities, Vessel 247. Your pregnancy has only just begun."

She turned and walked out of the dormitory, her footsteps crisp and efficient on the linoleum floor. The double doors swung shut behind her, and the silence that followed was absolute.

Elara sat frozen on the edge of her bed, her mind reeling. The baby was dead. Sorcha's baby was dead, euthanized like a defective product, disposed of like medical waste. And Sorcha herself was being sent to the Paradise Wing, to the harvesting, to the same fate that had claimed Thorne's mother and countless others before her.

Maeve was crying, soft, hitching sobs that she tried to stifle with her hand. Elara put her arm around the younger girl's shoulders and held her, but she could not cry. The grief inside her was too big for tears, too vast and too deep to be expressed by something as simple as weeping. It was a grief that felt like rage, a grief that felt like fire, a grief that demanded action rather than surrender.

She thought about the data relay hidden in her uniform. She thought about the key to the storage shed, the radio that Anya had kept hidden, the signal that might bring help from the mainland. She thought about Sorcha, lying alone in the medical wing, her body broken by the delivery that had killed her child, waiting to be transferred to a fate worse than death.

And she made a decision.

That night, when the dormitory was dark and quiet and the other vessels were asleep behind their curtains, Elara slipped out of her bed and padded barefoot across the cold linoleum floor. Maeve was waiting for her near the door, her pale face ghostly in the dim light.

"Are you sure about this?" Maeve whispered.

"No," Elara said. "But I am doing it anyway."

They moved through the corridors like shadows, avoiding the surveillance cameras that Elara had spent the past week memorizing. Thorne had given her a map of the facility's blind spots, sketched on a piece of paper that she had hidden in her trunk. The kitchen corridor was the first waypoint, a narrow passage that connected the dormitory wing to the service areas. The cameras there went offline for ten minutes during the midnight shift change, a gap that Sorcha had told her about, a gap that she was now gambling her life on.

They reached the kitchen without being seen. The door was unlocked, as Sorcha had promised, and they slipped inside and into the darkness beyond. The kitchen was a large, industrial space, its stainless steel surfaces gleaming in the faint light that filtered through the high windows. At the back of the kitchen, a door led to the storage shed.

Elara pulled out the key that Sorcha had given her, the old, rusted key that was supposed to open the shed. Her hands were trembling, and it took her three tries to fit the key into the lock. But finally, with a soft click, the door swung open.

The storage shed was small and cramped, filled with shelves of canned goods and cleaning supplies. But in the corner, hidden behind a stack of old crates, was the radio. It was an old model, its casing cracked and yellowed with age, but when Elara turned it on, a faint hum filled the air, and a green light flickered on the control panel.

"It works," Maeve breathed.

Elara adjusted the frequency dial, her fingers moving carefully over the worn surface. She did not know what frequency the mainland rescue services monitored. She did not know if anyone would hear her signal. But she had to try.

She pressed the transmit button and spoke into the microphone, her voice low and urgent. "Mayday, mayday. This is a distress call from Aethelgard Island. We are prisoners here. Women are being held against their will and subjected to forced surrogacy and medical experimentation. We need immediate assistance. Repeat, we need immediate assistance."

She released the button and waited. The radio hissed softly, a wash of static that seemed to fill the small shed. For a long moment, there was nothing. Just the static, and the sound of Maeve's breathing, and the pounding of Elara's heart.

And then, cutting through the static like a knife through fog, a voice.

"Distress call received. Please identify yourself and provide your coordinates. We are dispatching a response team to your location."

Elara felt a surge of hope so powerful that it almost brought her to her knees. She pressed the transmit button again. "My name is Elara Sennett. I am a prisoner on Aethelgard Island, along with approximately sixty other women. We are being held by the Holy Order of the Eternal Cradle. Please, you have to help us. They are killing us."

"Coordinates confirmed," the voice said. "Help is on the way. Hold on."

The transmission ended, and the static returned. Elara sat back on her heels, her hands shaking, her eyes filling with tears. Maeve threw her arms around her, and for a moment they clung to each other in the darkness, two young women who had been through too much and had finally, finally found a reason to hope.

But as they left the storage shed and crept back through the kitchen and into the corridor, a shadow detached itself from the wall and stepped into their path. Attendant Mora stood before them, her round face as placid as ever, her empty eyes fixed on Elara with an expression that was impossible to read.

"I have been watching you, Vessel 247," she said, her soft voice carrying through the silent corridor. "I have been watching you for some time. And I have just alerted Doctor Voss to your activities. She is waiting for you in the Paradise Wing."

Behind her, two orderlies in dark uniforms emerged from the shadows, their faces hard and expressionless. Elara turned to run, but it was too late. Hands closed around her arms, strong and unyielding, and she felt herself being lifted off her feet.

"Run, Maeve," she shouted, but Maeve was already gone, disappearing into the darkness of the corridor like a ghost. Attendant Mora did not seem to care. Her eyes were fixed on Elara, and her smile was cold and empty and utterly without mercy.

"The Paradise Wing has been waiting for you, Vessel 247," she said. "And now, finally, you are going to see it."

The orderlies dragged Elara down the corridor, away from the dormitory, away from the kitchen, away from everything she knew. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, and the walls changed from mint green to pale gray, and the smell of antiseptic grew stronger and stronger until it was all she could breathe.

They stopped before a set of heavy metal doors marked with the same strange symbol she had seen before, the circle within a circle, the lines radiating outward like the rays of a stylized sun. The doors swung open, and Elara was pushed through them and into the Paradise Wing.

The first thing she saw was the white. The walls were white, the floors were white, the ceiling was white. And then she saw the rows of beds, stretching on and on into the distance, each one occupied by a woman whose eyes stared at the ceiling with a vacancy that was more terrible than any expression of pain.

And lying in the bed nearest to the door, her dark eyes open but unseeing, her body still and silent, was Sorcha.

Elara screamed, but no one came to help her. The orderlies dragged her deeper into the ward, past the rows of beds and the women who lay in them, past the machines that beeped and hummed and kept their bodies alive while their minds drifted somewhere far away. And at the end of the ward, standing beside a gleaming surgical table, Doctor Voss was waiting.

"Welcome to the Paradise Wing, Vessel 247," she said. "I have been looking forward to this."