The Gifting (Book 1 in The Gifting Series) Page 12

  Chapter Eleven

  Genocide

  That night, my nightmares return.

  I’m standing in the middle of a crowd of people with angry faces, holding signs I cannot read. Babies cry somewhere off in the distance and standing before the angry mass is a man and a woman. The man wears a white coat and the woman, maroon scrubs. He has fine black hair and slanted eyes and she is petite and fair.

  I don’t know why I’m here—in this crowd.

  But then I see something. The skeletal man with greasy hair and white eyes. He stands in the crowd, his spindly fingers spread wide, a dark web escaping from his fingertips, only instead of hovering over Pete, the web sticks to an expressionless man wearing a trench coat. He’s like a marionette on a string. The web controls his arms and his legs, moving him away from the crowd, closer to the Asian doctor and the petite nurse.

  When the man pulls a grenade from his coat pocket, my throat closes with fear.

  I want to yell at him to stop—to shake off the black web and put the bomb away before people are killed. But babies wail and shock keeps me immobile, and before I can do or say anything, the man pulls the pin and there is an explosion of massive heat that sears my skin. I throw my arm over my eyes, but there is no fire. Just me. Sitting up in bed. Panting. Sweating. Blinking. Thinking about Dr. Roth and his hypnosis. Wondering why, after weeks of no nightmares, I had one now.

  As soon as I catch my breath, I throw off my covers and peel off my sweat-dampened pajamas. The red numbers on my clock tell me that I slept through the alarm. I slip into a pair of ratty jeans with holes in the knees, an Orange Crush t-shirt, and the same hooded sweatshirt I wore outside on Sunday—when I saw an imaginary snake almost attack my friend. I brush my teeth and rinse my face and pull my hair into a ponytail, all the while forcing the memory of that nightmare away. I will not attempt to figure out what it means. I will not let myself worry about it. People have nightmares all the time. They are simply brain activity in the midst of sleep. It’s part of being human.

  I hurry down the stairs and find Dad in the kitchen, reading the paper with a furrowed brow.

  “Late this morning?” Mom says, dressed and pressed and beautiful as always.

  “Slept through the alarm.”

  I squish my feet into a pair of unlaced Converse All Stars by the sliding glass door, grab a Pop-Tart from the cupboard, yell at Pete to get a move on, and we hurry out to the car.

  At school, I fist my hands in my front pocket, trying to push away the sense of foreboding that has settled over my shoulders while Leela jabbers about Bobbi’s Halloween party on Friday. When I step inside Mr. Lotsam’s classroom, we grab two seats to the right of the horseshoe of tables, directly across from Luka. There’s an empty seat beside him. For a brief moment, I imagine a confident version of myself taking the empty spot and smiling at him. I imagine a world where he is my boyfriend and I am his girlfriend. I envision us walking down the hall together, holding hands while everybody stares.

  I blink away the daydream, hang my bag on the back of my chair, and pull out my notebook, prepared to resume our previous discussion about the growing population of immigrants and refugees in America. Students file in, filling up the chairs. Summer takes the one next to Luka. As soon as the bell rings, Mr. Lotsam breezes inside the class with a stack of magazines. He plops one in front of each of us and writes two words on the board.

  Fetal Modification.

  A collective groan overtakes the shuffle of notebooks and papers. One I silently agree with. I dread this conversation. People never agree. Our entire nation is up in arms over it because of a heated, indignant minority. The government-mandated pregnancy screenings and the dramatic increase of fetal modification over the past decade is one of the few news topics Dad doesn’t even talk about at home. Mom told me once that when she went to school, inclusion was all the rage. I can’t imagine. In all my seventeen years, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve encountered a person with defects. I look down at the magazine in front of me and the one in front of Leela. They are different, but both have relevant headlines.

  The Benefits of Government-Mandated Pregnancy Screenings

  Anti-Fetal Modification Groups Picket at the White House

  My magazine has a picture of B-Trix on the cover, an internationally renowned pop star from England. All the boys are in love with her, all the girls want to be her. People legitimately hyperventilate at her concerts. Like, for real, need-a-paramedic hyperventilate. A couple months ago, she became the official spokeswoman for a pregnancy screening advocacy campaign. The commercials air so often, I can recite each one from memory.

  Without saying anything, Mr. Lotsam points a remote control at the television mounted above his desk and a reporter talks inside the flat screen. Another fetal modification-clinic bombing occurred earlier this morning.

  “Two people died in this explosion. Dr. Chang and Mindy Lucas.”

  The victims’ faces fill the screen and every last drop of warmth drains from my cheeks. The babies crying. The people with signs. The web of black mist. The man in the white coat and the woman in scrubs. The grenade. The explosion. I stare, dry mouthed, at the television. At these two people—Dr. Chang and Mindy Lucas—and blink, as if blinking will make them change. As if blinking will make them not be the people from my nightmare.

  As the reporter talks, it’s as if I’m detached from my body, listening from the bottom of a well. Dr. Chang was forty-two years old with a wife and three children. Mindy Lucas was thirty-one and newly engaged. They died in my sleep and now they are dead in real life. I scratch my eczema, hating the burn, and search for an explanation. Like maybe I saw them before bed. Or maybe Dr. Roth planted this into my head as some sort of hypnotic experiment. But the explosion happened this morning.

  Mr. Lotsam points the remote at the television. The screen goes black. “This is the fifth fetal modification clinic bombing this year. I think it’s time we engage in a healthy class discussion.”

  Some students fidget, visibly uncomfortable. Some scoot to the edge of their seats, as if this discussion is long overdue. Most look indifferent. I look at Leela to see which category she falls into. She squirms and fiddles with her necklace. I glance at Luka. He wears an expression I’ve never seen him wear before. He is not bored or excited or uncomfortable. He is seething. In fact, he glares at those letters on the board as if they spell the most offensive swear word in existence.

  Jared, his bulk too large for our small chairs, raises his hand, but doesn’t wait to be called on. “If you ask me, it’s smart.”

  Mr. Lotsam scratches his soul patch. “Elaborate.”

  “The pregnancy screenings.” He flicks the headline on the magazine in front of him. “I mean, these kids would be born with severe birth defects. How is that fair to them or their parents? They wouldn’t have any quality of life. Their parents would be wiping their butts when they’re fifty years old.”

  A ripple of snickers follows the comment.

  But I don’t join. I’m too mesmerized with Luka, whose knuckles have turned bone-white. His anger gives him this air of danger that accentuates his appeal. It’s a thought I’m sure Dr. Roth would love to unpack.

  Five other hands raise into the air, including Leela’s. Mr. Lotsam calls on her. Her fingers wrestle, reminding me of my mom, but I have to give her credit, because despite her nerves, she looks directly at Jared. “That’s discrimination. Who’s to determine the quality of life?”

  “I think doctors are able to determine that, Leela.” Jared says the words with a flat sarcasm that makes the class snicker again.

  Summer sets her elbows on the table and addresses Leela. “You’re just saying that because you’re Catholic.”

  Leela’s ears turn red.

  My hackles rise. I shift forward in my seat. I’ve never given much thought to the pregnancy screenings or the fetal modification clinics, but Summer makes me want to open my mouth so I can tell her to shut hers.

&nbs
p; “You’re only regurgitating what your parents tell you,” Summer continues. “How about having an original thought for once?”

  “Let me guess,” Luka says in a voice so low, it simmers. “Your parents are pro screenings?”

  Summer’s sneer melts away. Something inside me cheers.

  “She brings up a good point though,” Jared says, rising to Summer’s defense. “The religious people are the ones doing all the bombings. This is exactly why the government nixed all the religion. Isn’t killing killers”—he finger-quotes the word—“a little ironic?”

  The conversation erupts. Kids interject and interrupt and Mr. Lotsam has to give several reminders to raise hands and disagree respectfully. Even the students who looked indifferent earlier have opinions—the majority of which seem to be in support of the government-mandated screenings. Apparently, I’m the only one without an opinion. Or maybe I’m too consumed by Luka to take the time to form one. A muscle ticks in his jaw as the conversation escalates, until finally he raises his hand and the entire class hushes. Even Mr. Lotsam looks curious, eager.

  “Doctors are human. They make mistakes. Screening pregnant women and aborting—” Several students grimace at his choice of word. Aborting is no longer politically correct. It puts a negative spin on a positive thing, doctors like to say. “—every fetus they think may have a disability is genocide.”

  The accusation is so potent that Mr. Lotsam raises his eyebrows. “Genocide?”

  Luka raises his eyebrows right back. “If you ask me, it’s a modern-day holocaust.”

  “That’s a bold comparison.”

  Luka doesn’t back down. He doesn’t reconsider. And beside him, Summer looks absolutely miserable. As if she wishes for nothing more than to take back her words. I can almost see the cogs in her brain working, trying to think of a way to get back into Luka’s good graces. After so much chatter, the room is eerily quiet.

  A Filipino boy—Max, I think?—who always wears a black leather jacket breaks the silence first. “The Nazis were killing people. These doctors are curing women of defective fetuses in the first trimester. That’s hardly murder.”

  With that, the spell Luka cast breaks. The class breaks out into arguments again.

  Mr. Lotsam holds up his hands. “All right, we definitely have opinions. Let’s get on to our assignment and see if any of these opinions can be further shaped or perhaps even changed.” He has us open up to the articles in our magazines and write down arguments for and against the pregnancy screenings. He encourages us to play devil’s advocate. When we finish, we gather into groups of four and share our arguments with one another. Leela and I pair up with two others. I don’t let myself look at Luka. I don’t let myself hope that he might want to be in my group. I do my best to focus on the assignment.

  But my mind has returned to last night’s dream. I have no idea what to make of it.