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

Viggo’s voice like a thirsty person hearing the sound of running water. He was peering at me through a set of bars that separated us, his hands wrapped around them. The weight of his concern for me was pressed into the lines of his face, and without even thinking about it, I twisted on the cot I found myself on and reached for him.

“What happened?” I asked, relieved as my fingers stroked over his.

He reached out and grabbed my hand, pulling it through to his side of the bars and pressing it to his lips.

“I don’t know,” he replied, moving closer to me. “But everyone’s here.”

Everyone who’s left, I found myself thinking, and I swallowed and looked around. Sure enough, there was Owen, Amber, Logan, and Tim—all ensconced in cells like mine.

Tim was the first team member my eyes sought after Viggo, and I immediately noticed the dark purple bruises on his face and neck, so purple they looked like they had been painted on. He waved at me as I noticed him, and I waved back, offering him a nebulous smile.

Owen sat across the hall from Tim. His face was scratched, and there were bandages on his side and shoulder. He sat with the wall at his back, his expression unfocused, lost in thought. He blinked after a few moments and looked over at me, offering a tremulous smile of his own, but he looked downtrodden and raw. I could tell he was hurting over Thomas, and felt my own pain flaring up in my chest in response to his.

Amber was pacing the tight confines of her cell looking extremely frustrated, and I noticed she was favoring one side, as if the other side of her body were bruised and tender. There was also a dark bruise forming around her left eye, causing it to squint almost shut.

Logan was next to her, her cell sandwiched between his and Owen’s, and he sat on his own bed, watching Amber pace back and forth. He looked fairly well, besides a bruise on his face. I suspected when the wardens discovered the two of them, they had been less than gentle taking them in. Much like they’d been with Tim and me.

Amber continued to pace, then suddenly kicked one foot out, rattling the cell door.

“We saved you from Elena!” she bellowed angrily, clearly addressing some unseen guards or cameras, and I flinched at the loud noise. “The least you can do is give us a proper room!”

Her voice reverberated down the halls, but other than that, there was no sound.

“Amber?” I whispered hoarsely, pressing the heel of my hand to my eyebrow. “Can you give me… an hour or two before you do that again?”

“There’s food on the floor, Violet,” Viggo said softly, pointing to a tray in front of the door. “It was hot, but now, uh, probably not. Also water. You need to eat.”

I shook my head, a wave of nausea hitting me, and lay down instead, curling up toward him. His bed was directly on the other side of the bars, and he lay down next to me, his hand reaching out to take mine.

“You need to eat,” he insisted.

“In a little bit,” I replied, tears beginning to prick my eyes. “Viggo… Ms. Dale… She—”

“I know,” he said, his face forlorn. His eyes were red-rimmed, and I could feel the pain radiating off of him. He clutched my hand a little tighter. “Violet… Thomas… He—”

“I know,” I whispered back, and then suddenly I couldn’t stop the tide of tears as they tore through me. I felt the loss of Ms. Dale and Thomas like a knife through the heart. Something special had been taken away, and I felt its absence, my world diminished, two people smaller, and that was a lot.

I cried for a long time. Viggo whispered to me and comforted me all the while, and I hated the bars that separated us. I needed to feel his arms around me, holding me when he said everything was going to be okay, even though none of us could be certain. We were in a prison, after all.

Once the tears had passed, I looked around and sniffled.

“Where’s Morgan?”

“We don’t know,” Owen said, his back to the bars and to me, but his voice carrying his concern. “Tim said she was carried away and they were giving her medical treatment, but then they knocked him out, so…”

I looked over at my little brother, still relieved to see him alive. He was sitting, his back pressed to a wall, on the other side of Viggo’s cell. I grimaced when I once again noticed the angry, deep purple, almost black bruises that seemed to cover his whole throat from when Elena had held him over the edge of the building. He scrubbed his eyes when I looked at him, fidgeting with obvious worry.

“Morgan pale. Breathing not good. They say intubate. That’s tube—”

“Down her throat,” Logan said irritably, and I felt a moment’s levity at the sight of Amber reaching through the bars to smack him on the head.

“Don’t take this from Tim. Let him talk,” she chided, and Logan glared at her, rubbing the back of his head. A moment later her hands went back through the bars and pushed his aside, feeling his head for injuries. “I didn’t actually hurt you, did I?”

“No,” Logan said, leaning into her touch with a sigh, his long hands coming back to wrap around hers and pull them to his shoulders. “And I deserved it. Sorry, Tim.”

“Is okay,” Tim replied with a shrug. He met my gaze and sighed. “Last I saw. Sierra okay, but… other boys taken away too. Somewhere different. Don’t know more.”

“None of us do,” Amber said sadly, pressing her face between the bars. “We don’t know anything that’s happening.”

“How long have I been unconscious?” I asked.

“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon,” Viggo informed me, and I turned my attention back to him. “You’ve been out for almost twelve hours. They checked