The Gender End by Bella Forrest (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

gas masks, too? But they wore them all the time… even in Patrus. The greater visibility in this room meant that the toxic mist was much thinner here. Had Elena sent them into the caverns without any protection?

My whole body was shaking now—a sensation I hadn’t felt since some of the tests I’d been given in the Facility—and I couldn’t spend any more time contemplating. I could run if I needed to. Back into the mists.

Hoping it would work, I tossed the vial into the middle of the room, retreating. The glass broke, and several of the other boys turned toward the noise, converging on it. They raced to the spot, and then paused, their masked heads cocking back and forth. I had time to wonder whether Ms. Dale and Dr. Tierney had tested the serum, which was supposed to negate the effects of Benuxupane in the bloodstream within moments.

Those closest were the first to fall, but after a few moments, they had all collapsed.

I relaxed, letting the suit’s cover disintegrate, and sucked in a deep breath of relief as the fire faded to a tingle, like a thousand pins and needles were using me as a pincushion. I shook out my arms and legs and proceeded to the middle of the room, first to check that each of the other boys was okay, and then, one by one, to take off their masks, removing the camera headset combinations underneath and breaking them apart. I recognized quite a few of them from our time in the Facility together. It filled me with feelings—some sad, some angry, some that I didn’t have a name for—to see my brothers lying there, their faces weary and dirty. Maybe now they’d get a chance to rest and heal.

There were ten boys in total. Four of them were older than me, in their early twenties, at least. I supposed I should call them men. The six younger ones, however, were the first to start to wake up.

I stood in the center of the room, waiting as they slowly climbed up to their feet. Some of them were looking around, confused and bewildered, while others were rocking back and forth, shaking and crying as if they were in pain.

“Who are you?” Colin demanded, and I remembered him as one of the boys who had turned quickly on Viggo.

“Tim,” I replied simply. “We brothers.”

Colin sneered and looked around, squinting as though just waking up.

“How did you get us here, traitor?”

“Not traitor,” I informed him. “I Tim. Your brother.”

“No!” another voice shouted, and I turned to see a boy named Matthew pushing forward through the small group now standing up and milling around, his eyes dark and angry and confused. “You tried to hurt Desmond. She helps us! She gives us medicine so we—”

“She dead. And she lie.”

Matthew flushed red, his hand balling into a fist, and I took a step forward, my gaze menacing.

“Queen using you,” I announced in a low voice.

“No!” insisted Matthew, his face going red, and I took another step forward, crowding him.

“Desmond using you. She work for queen. You work for queen. She send down here—no gas mask. Danger. Queen don’t care. You tool. Just like gun. You kill for queen. You die for queen.”

“You’re a liar,” Colin screamed, and I felt his movement and turned, elbowing him in the jaw and knocking him down, the momentum of his charge at me carrying him a few feet away.

“How you get here?” I asked as he slowly picked himself up. “Where you one hour ago? Who you with? What you eat? Can you ‘member?” More than anything, right now I wished I could talk as quickly and easily as the other boys, but the words… still weren’t coming to me. I pushed the frustration deep down. My words would reach them. They had to.

Colin looked at me with anger as he slowly picked himself up, but Matthew was looking around the room in alarm.

“I don’t remember,” he said.

“Because Benuxupane,” I told them. “Tamed you, make you like dog. We not dogs, we people, and we not slaves. I show you, we—”

Just then one of the older boys sat up, so suddenly it was like someone had put a coin in him to play music, like the jukebox I’d seen once—a long, long time ago, before Violet had tried to smuggle me to Patrus. The young man’s head jerked around the room, and his gaze landed on us. He stared for a moment, his expression shifting from blank to very angry, and I took a step away from him as he climbed to his feet, his breath coming in long, slow growls.

“We help you,” I said, but the growl grew louder and he simply swung at me. It was easy to dodge him, and he stumbled past me, clutching his head and moaning… but the four other older boys on the ground were getting up in a similar fashion. Slowly, their eyes clouded with pain and anger.

I knew then that I wouldn’t be able to convince those boys… those men. I could see in their eyes that they just wanted to hurt everyone around them. Just like the wardens at the water treatment plant. I looked around at the younger boys, who were also gazing on their fellows with confusion and panic, and shouted, “That way!”

Then I planted my feet and turned. I could buy them time to run away. I sidestepped an incoming blow and landed a kick to the closest one’s shoulder, knocking him to his knee, his hand coming down to stop him from toppling over.

Jumping up, I stepped on his back and spun off it, extending my leg. A shudder ran up my leg, letting me know I had hit my target, and I landed on my feet. The second boy was down, grabbing his jaw. The third boy grabbed me—too much was happening at the same time for me to react to everything—and I gritted my teeth as I felt