The horrible taste never seemed to leave Brodhi's mouth. His throat was dry and every time he swallowed the taste caused more bile to rise in the back of his throat. Both he and Sawyer were emptying the contents of their stomach, which had quickly turned to a green colour, all over the floor. It seemed to disappear into the floor. Little did they know that Cendrowski and Kirby were examining it to see how well their vaccine was working.

Brodhi hit his shoulder on the ground hard when he toppled over. It felt like he had been on his hands and knees vomiting for hours. He wished that there were a clock somewhere. He didn't know if it was night or day. He didn't even know how many days have passed since they came to the hospital. When he passes out he doesn't know how long he is unconscious for.

Brodhi lied on the ground as his muscles ached. He heard Sawyer groan as he toppled over onto the ground. He had been trapped in this room for what felt like forever with Sawyer, and he knew nothing about him.

"Who's Eden?" Brodhi asked him hoarsely.

He could hear Sawyer heavily panting near him. Brodhi has one through spurts where he the air felt like it was pressing down on his chest making it difficult to breathe. Both of their bodies were sprawled out across the floor. The cool tiles provided relief to their burning hot flesh.

"She's my little sister," he said between deep breaths. "Lynn? She your wife?"

"My girlfriend," he told him. Sawyer assuming that they were married meant he wasn't from the Slums. Rats never got married. He couldn't be a Brighty, they wouldn't experiment on one of their elite this way. He had to be a Grey. "Juno is my baby."

He started chuckling at himself. A pain spread through the muscles across his chest.

"I have a baby," he said still with a slight chuckle. "I don't even know what she looks like. It would be a she, wouldn't it? Juno's a girl name, right?"

"Yeah, Juno would be a girl's name," Sawyer agreed with him. "Is that why you're here? For your baby?"

"Kind of," Brodhi said raising his stiff arms up into the air. He stretched them up over his head and felt relieved and in pain at the same time. "Lynn was terrified about giving birth, especially after my mom died. Cendrowski told me she could give birth in the hospital and I was willin' to help him. I wouldn't have if I knew this is what happened."

Brodhi swallowed and his parched mouth filled with a disgusting flavour. He couldn't remember the last time he had drank anything and he was craving a sip of water. His throat burned with every breath.

"What about you?" he asked.

"Hmm?" Sawyer moaned. He was obviously off in his own train of thought.

"Why are you here?" he repeated.

"I've spent most of my life in hospitals," he told Brodhi. "I had a lot of medical problems. Couldn't breathe, hear, see, or heal right. If I were a Brighty everyone would be bragging about how they fixed me, but because I'm a Gray all my family got was bills. We lost all of our money and were almost kicked out to the Slums until I met Cendrowski. He offered both my sister and I jobs. We thought we were saved. Apparently not."

Brodhi couldn't stop thinking about Lynn or Juno. He wanted to know what she looked like. If she had Lynn's red curls or his dark coarse hair. He wondered about how tiny she must be right now. If those doctors have her in a room with this Virus, like Brodhi and Sawyer were trapped in, there would be no way her tiny body could withstand that. He had to get out and get his family before one of them died.

--

One tiny glimpse of her baby was all that Lynn got before they took her away from her. She had been asking the nurses repeatedly to have her baby whenever they came to inject her with the liquid that caused the aching in her stomach to go away. She begged them to let her see her, but the nurses asked liked they didn't even hear her.

She was trapped in a room with another girl. She looked to be a couple years younger than Lynn and seemed to be scared of everything. She flinched anytime a door opened or if one of the nurses came closer to her. Lynn couldn't really blame her. The nurses came in with large white suits and a plastic dome over her head. She had no clue why they were wearing it.

Their beds sat opposite from each other in the room. Lynn stared at the girl, there was nothing else to do and she hoped it would keep her mind off of her daughter. She had on the same blue gown that she did. Lynn was happy the gown was way too large. It hid all the weight she had gained from the pregnancy. The girl was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed underneath her. Her short, dark blonde hair had fallen from behind her ears as she was looking down and fiddling with her fingers. She looked so small and Lynn guessed that they must have been around the same height.

"What's your name?" Lynn asked, her voice cracked because she hadn't talked since the last nurse came in hours ago.

The girl looked up and brushed her hair behind her ear. She looked around the room before settling her hazel eyes on Lynn.

"Eden," she said quietly.

Lynn lifted her lips in a faint smile trying to make the girl feel better. She had no idea what was going on, but didn't want her to panic. "My name's Lynn."

Eden quickly flashed a smile and dropped her head back down. She continued to twist her fingers together.

"How old are you?" Eden asked.

"Twenty-one," she said. "You?"

"Sixteen."

Eden collapsed down on her side and curled up into a ball on her bed. She kept staring at Lynn and curled her toes in and out. Lynn sat on her bed with her back up against the wall. Her hands still cradled and rubbed her stomach. It was a motion she was accustomed to doing, and even though her baby wasn't with her, she still subconsciously did it.

"I hope they give you your baby back," she told Lynn.

"Me too," she said quietly, continuing to rub her stomach.

The door to their room opened and the young doctor walked in. He had on one of those odd suits that the nurses were wearing. Lynn remembered him from when she first came in with Brodhi. It was Kirby. He had some kind of technology and was looking at them with a smile.

"How are you girls feeling?" he asked them in a voice way too peppy for Lynn.

"I want my baby," Lynn snapped.

"Juno is being taken care of. Don't worry," he told her.

Lynn curled her fingers into the sheets on her bed. She wanted to jump out and attack him, but she was scared that they'd hurt her somehow. She needed her baby, but her baby also needed her.

Eden sat up on her bed and tucked her short hair back behind her ears. She was staring at the doctor intensely, like she was going over every detail in his weird looking suit.

"I need to ask you two a few questions about your symptoms," Kirby told them.

"Symptoms?" Eden asked with fear in her voice. Lynn had never heard the word before, but from the scared look on Eden's face, she knew it couldn't be something good. "Why would we have symptoms?"

"This room has been infected with a strain of the Virus."

"What?" they both yelled out.

"Don't worry," he said chuckling. "Well you probably shouldn't worry."

Lynn scrunched her eyebrows together and looked at the man disgusted. He had just infected them both and now was laughing. She hated to think that one of these doctors were in charge of taking care of her baby.

"Why shouldn't we worry?" Eden asked, her voice was cracking. "We're going to die now."

Kirby took one hand off of the piece of technology in front of him. He held it out in front of him and slowly started walking forward. He looked like he was trying not to scare her off. His back was now to Lynn and she wanted to jump on him and rip holes into that ridiculous suit he was wearing. She wanted him to die like he was killing them.

"Because it most likely won't kill you," Kirby started to explain. "So much research has gone into the vaccine we have given you. I don't mean to sound too full of myself, but I know what I am doing?"

Lynn looked over Kirby's head so she could see Eden. The girl appeared to be healthy and Lynn didn't feel sick. She's heard the horror stories about what happens to people infected with the virus. The constant pain and vomiting. There was even a few stories that people's hair and teeth had fallen out.

"Where's Brodhi?" she asked him.

"Your husband?" Kirby asked, turning around so he could look at her. "He's in another testing room. See, you girls are testing whether the vaccine works before the subject is infected. Now the other study, the one the boys are testing, sees if the vaccine works after the subject has been infected."

She furrowed her eyebrows as she didn't understand a word he just said. She wanted Brodhi and Juno and to get out of this hospital. She wished she never complained to Brodhi about how scared she was to give birth.

"I want my baby!" she couldn't stop herself from snapping.

"If you and your husband both make it out of these trials alive, we will give you your baby and let you leave."