Chapter 17: The Receiving Line

The dress belonged to Ruth's sister, and it was forest green and a size too long.

Maren stood in the Institute's lobby at ten to seven, holding the hem off the floor with one hand.

The white evening gloves came to her elbows.

In the back seat of the car, Ruth had cut the thumb and first two fingers off the right one.

Ruth had used the sewing scissors from her handbag.

"If you're going to do something foolish," Ruth had said, "you might as well be able to feel it."

Owen was asleep on Ruth's sister's couch in Beaverton.

The girl Maren had freed from cell eleven had eaten three bowls of soup and not said a word.

Maren had promised Ruth she would call by nine.

Hester came across the marble floor in black silk, with pearls at her throat.

The red cord hung under the pearls, and the keycard lay against her collarbone.

"You came," she said, and took both of Maren's gloved hands. "I knew you would."

"Where are they?"

"Safe. Come and see."

Hester led her into the glass atrium, where the staff tables had been replaced by round ones with white cloths.

Four girls sat in a row of chairs at the foot of the stage.

They wore matching white dresses with ribbons at the waist.

Their hands lay in their laps and their eyes were open, but none of them looked at anything.

A woman in a nurse's tunic stood behind them.

"Sedated?" Maren asked.

"Relaxed," Hester said gently. "They'll cooperate much better this way, and the donors do like cooperation."

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