Folsom (End of Men, #1)(58)
“She could try again,” my mother says. “Now that they have a supply from him. The doctors might be more successful…”
Pandora doesn’t say anything. I imagine her nodding, taking a sip of her drink thoughtfully. My back pressed against the wall, knees bending, I clutch at my chest squeezing my eyes closed. If I knew where they had him…
What? I ask myself. What could you do?
It’s then that I remember the night in my bedroom; a stranger sitting on a chair at the foot of my bed. My mouth opens and I find myself nodding like someone has just suggested something to me. Kasper. The button. After the scare with the baby and then playing house with Folsom, I didn’t remember to give it to him, and I was so shaken the day I had to come to the mansion, I didn’t think about it then either. How could I forget? I’d left it among my things at the house. In a drawer or…under the mattress? It feels like a lifetime ago that he placed it in my palm. If I pressed it, would Kasper come? Would they do the same thing to him if he was caught helping Folsom? Pressing it would no doubt put him at risk. I have to be entirely sure it’s something I’m willing to do.
The next day over breakfast I ask my sister to accompany me to our childhood home to pick up some odds and ends.
“Why? You can send someone to get what you need, or you can order it new.” She’s eating her usual breakfast of grapes and yogurt smothered in honey, her face resting on her hand. She’s never been a morning person and this ritual of fruit and sourness is something she’s done since she was a child. It takes me back to those early days when we were still friends.
“I miss home,” I say. “Besides, I don’t want people rifling through my things, you know how people steal…” This is a sore spot for Sophia, who complains to my mother every week about her things mysteriously going missing. I know I’ve hit the jackpot when her eyes light up.
“All right,” she says slowly. “I guess I could grab some things too.” I smile at her as sweetly as I can, my cheeks aching from the effort. We leave with one of the governor’s escorts around noon. The air is humid, clinging. I fall into the backseat already needing a nap. That is what pregnancy is: napping, and eating, and throwing up. The house is a ten-minute drive from the Governor’s Mansion; I open my window so the air can blow on my face. For the first five minutes, neither Sophia nor I say a word to each other, both staring out of our respective windows.
“I heard that Langley didn’t get pregnant.”
Her head swivels around to look at me, and then she slowly looks away.
“You heard right.”
“She must be pissed that you’re pregnant and she’s not.” I look over at her this time and find her looking down at her stomach. She is carrying smaller than I am, probably due to the fact that she hardly eats. She stares at it like she’s never seen it before—an alien attached to her waist—and then reluctantly she shakes her head.
“She isn’t happy about it,” Sophia says. “She tried with Jackal too…a few years ago.” She chews on her lip like she’s said too much. I nod sympathetically.
“She’s not been as lucky as us. It’s no wonder she’s hanging around you all the time.”
Sophia shakes her head. “That’s not the reason Langley is always there.”
“No?”
“She’s to be Pandora’s chief administrator.”
Well, there you go, just a little bit of poking and I got my answer.
I look at Sophia in alarm. “What happened to Damaris? She’s served with Pandora both terms.” I can’t believe I haven’t even thought of her until now. Timid and unassuming, Damaris is always tucked behind Pandora like an extra appendage. Except I can’t remember the last time I saw her.
Sophia shrugs. “She got pregnant this season right behind us and didn’t want to continue working. She transferred to the Green Region.”
Another Folsom baby. I put my hand on my stomach and Sophia’s eyes follow.
“That’s really strange, don’t you think?”
Each season with an End Man, all the successful lottery pregnancies move out of the Region and we get an influx of the other Regions’ lottery pregnancies in an effort to prevent incest. It’s rare for anyone in a powerful position to move out of a Region, though, especially while pregnant. The Region wants to hold onto all the babies.
“It’s what he does, Gwen. You know that,” she snaps, done with this conversation.
“That’s not what I meant…” I shake my head and try to not outwardly shudder in front of her.
It’s hard to think of Folsom having sex with beautiful women—any women, really—but Damaris…it’s really hard to imagine him having sex with a woman who never looks quite clean and has long hairs hanging out of her moles. I cringe at my naiveté—I thought the men were just sex machines who were constantly turned on by the act of sex itself, no matter what the women were like. I remember my shock about the pills—the thought that they relied on pills had never crossed my mind. Hot and ready. That’s how I perceived the End Men. But that’s how we were taught to perceive men—the reason we are in this mess in the first place. For thousands of years, we were held beneath their thumbs and now we’re liberated from them, while also desperately needing them. So stupid.