Imprisoned (25 page)

I knew a first-aid kit was stored in a cabinet near where the knives were kept—I guess in case someone sliced off a finger—and that area usually had people around preparing food.

Maybe if I needed to
use
the first-aid kit, I could take some of the supplies. I decided I would wait until the next day, when things were really busy, before purposely hurting myself. I would also need something sharp to cut myself on. I considered using the knife Piper had taken, but I would probably need to show Mrs. Coleman what I had cut myself on so that wouldn’t work.

Then I remembered that there was one pot that had a small piece of metal sticking out. I’d almost cut myself on it earlier. The next day I’d set that pot aside and wait for the right moment.

Caught up in my plans, I’d forgotten to try to take some power bars for Beth, and when I looked at the pantry, several people were in there, organizing the shelves. My shift was ending and I had failed to get the bars.

I had two choices: one, I could give her the four bars hidden in my box spring. Or two, I could not give her anything and see what happened. Not sure what to do, I decided to wait until later to make a decision.

When my shift ended, I went to my room. I had half an hour until class started. As soon as I’d made sure I was alone, I reached into my box spring and pulled out one of the power bars, then held it to my nose. It smelled delicious. I unwrapped it slowly, forcing myself to enjoy the anticipation. I took a small bite. Even though I wasn’t even hungry—the appetite suppressant worked remarkably well—I found myself craving the stupid things all the time.

It was almost like I was addicted to them.

Ignoring the warning bell that rang in my head, I took small bites, savoring each one, until the power bar was gone. As I stuffed the wrapper in my backpack—I didn’t want anyone to find it in the trash—I realized that now I had fewer bars to give Beth. Assuming I decided to give her any, which was doubtful.

When I got to Math class, I felt really sleepy and had a hard time staying awake. In English class it was even worse, but since the teacher had hit me with a book the last time I’d fallen asleep, I forced my eyes open even though they were drooping.

Finally it was time to go to dinner. Billy walked with me to the elevators. “Are you feeling okay, Morgan?”

“Yeah, just tired.” I paused. “Any luck with getting it?” I knew he’d know what I meant.

“Not yet, but soon. What about you?”

“I have an idea how to get it tomorrow.”

“Good.”

We dropped our backpacks off in our rooms and met up again in the cafeteria. The gang was all there when I got to the table. I set my two power bars and bottle of milk on the table and slid into the seat next to Piper.

“Tomorrow you get to eat real food, right, Morgan?” Piper asked.

“Yeah.” I looked at their bowls of soup, and though I looked forward to eating something besides the power bars, I hadn’t minded my limited diet the last two days.

After dinner Piper and I went up to the sixth floor. She had homework—as did I—but I had to get in my workout. I changed into shorts and a t-shirt, stopping to have one of the three remaining power bars—it would be good for my energy, I told myself—then headed to the gym on the fourth floor.

After my warm-up I got on the elliptical, and as I moved my body I felt pretty good. Better than I’d felt before. I wished I could listen to music while I worked out. As I sped up, I thought about some of my favorite songs and closed my eyes as I heard the songs playing in my mind.

“How’s it going, Morgan?” Austin said as he stood next to the elliptical machine.

I opened my eyes, but for some reason I didn’t feel panicked at seeing him. It was like it didn’t even matter. I enjoyed the mellow feeling and smiled at him. My smile must have been inviting, although I didn’t mean it to be.

He smiled back. “I’m looking forward to Alyx getting out of here, aren’t you?”

I knew he was referring to my promise that I’d take her place, but the thought didn’t even bother me. I shrugged and his smile grew. I knew something was wrong with me, but I couldn’t seem to control my mood. I just didn’t seem to care one way or the other about Austin and what the future held.

“When you’re done here, I want you to spend thirty minutes on the stair-stepper.”

“Okay.” I had no fight in me. I was surprised at myself at how fast I’d agreed, but I couldn’t seem to work up any concern at my apparent change of heart.

What’s wrong with me
? Then, as a vague idea of the cause of my indifference slowly came to mind, it drifted away before I could grab hold of it. Almost immediately I’d forgotten what I’d been worried about and changed my focus to the music inside my head.

After my workout I took a quick shower, then headed to the counseling session. My mind seemed a little clearer than it had in the gym, but I still felt much mellower than I usually did at these meetings. I sat next to Billy, but before we had a chance to talk, Mrs. Reynolds arrived.

After we said the pledge and sat down, she smiled at us. “Everyone’s blood work came back with the expected results, so all is well.”

I wondered what that meant. What was “expected”? No one asked and I didn’t want to call attention to myself so I kept quiet. Then she looked at me, which sent my heart racing, despite my previously calm mood.

“You’ve been eating your power bars, haven’t you, Morgan?”

“Yes.” I nodded vigorously but didn’t mention that I’d had more than what they’d given me, courtesy of the kitchen storage closet.

“Very good. Tomorrow you can go back to your regular meals and you’ll only get one power bar per meal.”

“Only one?” My eyes widened at my outburst. I hadn’t meant to be argumentative—I’d seen often enough that that was a bad idea when it came to Mrs. Reynolds.

“Is that a problem?”

“Well, no. I guess not.”

She smiled and something about it bothered me. Like she knew it would be difficult for me to cut my intake in half, but was happy about it. As we went through the rest of the meeting, I only half-listened, obsessed with how to get more power bars to make up for the forced cut-back. I knew I would have to steal more from the pantry in the kitchen, but worried that I would eventually get caught. What would they do if that happened? Not let me have any? That wasn’t acceptable either.

Chapter Twenty Eight

After the counseling session I went back to my room, and as I worked on homework someone knocked on my door. I opened it and found Beth standing there.

“You have something of mine.” Her arms were folded across her chest and her tone made her anger clear.

“I wasn’t able to get any extra today,” I lied, thinking about the two power bars stashed only feet away.

“So our deal is off then?” A small grin lifted her mouth, like she was all too happy to cancel the deal.

Her pronouncement, plus the look on her face, reminded me of why I’d made the deal in the first place. “No.” I shook my head. “I just have to get some. I promise I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”

“This is your last chance. Don’t disappoint me.”

“I won’t.” I watched her walk away, then closed the door and sat on my bed, inches from the two power bars I’d hidden. Why not just give her the two I have? I thought. Because
I
want them, I argued.

As I considered my change of heart—a few days ago I’d made this deal and didn’t care about not having any power bars, but now I was desperate to get more—I wondered what it was about them that had made me change my mind so drastically.

Exhaustion washed over me as I thought about all the bad things happening to me and I decided to think about the power bar situation in the morning.

When I got to the kitchen the next morning, I reminded myself that I needed to try to get first-aid supplies. Even so, I kept thinking about stealing more power bars, for both Beth and myself. At one point nobody was near the pantry so I walked over there, but when I glanced inside, I saw two of the adult workers organizing shelves. I was about to walk away when I overheard what one of them said

“Why don’t we ever have any of these power bars?” the younger of the two women said.

“That would be a bad idea.”

Intrigued, I knelt down like I was tying my shoe and listened to their conversation.

“Why? The kids really seem to like them.”

The older woman laughed. “Of course they do. They made the bars that way on purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

“This new kind has something a little extra. Well, two extra things, to be precise.”

“I don’t understand,” the younger of the two women said.

“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this—.”

“Now you have to. You’ve got my curiosity piqued.”

“Okay, but you have to keep it to yourself.”

“Of course.”

“The government added something to these new ones that make the kids crave them.
And
something to make them more compliant.”

I finished retying both shoes, but couldn’t drag myself away, so stunned was I by this information. The bars were addictive? Now it all made sense. The women continued talking and I listened.

“How can they tell if it’s working?” the younger woman asked.

“It’s a little early—they only introduced these new ones last Friday—but I understand they’re doing blood work on some of the more troublesome kids. You know, to see how much of the chemicals are in their system.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good. That should make the kids easier to deal with.”

I stood and walked to the sink, my thoughts tumbling around in my head. I’d eaten nothing but those drug-laced power bars for the past two days. Not only that, I’d eaten more than I was supposed to. I thought about the evening before, when I’d been in the gym and had felt so mellow and even kind of foggy-minded. Now it all made sense. I was under the influence of some government-sanctioned drug.

What kind of effect was the drug having on everyone else? And why were they cutting back my power bars? Was it to see if I went through withdrawals? My blood work must have shown a really high level of the drug since I’d eaten nothing but the power bars on the day of the blood draw.

Anger at the inhumane treatment we were getting washed over me. Then I thought about what the woman had said—only the more “troublesome” kids had blood drawn. Obviously I fell into that category. Was that why Alyx wasn’t punished like me? Because she wasn’t a criminal and they just wanted to use
us
for testing?

Even though Alyx hadn’t been forced to only eat the power bars, I was still worried about the effect of the drugs on her and my other friends—especially Piper and Billy. What would the drugs do to them? I needed to convince them to stop eating their power bars before they became addicted. But would they believe me?

Now I felt even more urgency to escape this place. Between drugging me, making me participate in bizarre games, hitting me when I didn’t exercise right, and treating me like a criminal, this place was no camp for overweight kids. It was just a government-run prison. I reminded myself that F.A.T. stood for Federally Assisted Thinning, but the only thing they assisted in was cruel and unusual punishment.

Wanting to do everything I could to accelerate my escape, I scrubbed the pots and pans, waiting for the pot that had a jagged edge. When it finally arrived, I set it aside. Ten minutes before the breakfast crowed arrived—our busiest time—I sliced my hand on the jagged edge of the pot.

Sharp pain made me cry out and I dropped the pan back into the sink. Blood dripped onto the floor and I called to Mrs. Coleman. “I cut my hand.”

She glanced my way. “Oh dear.” Then she looked back at the chaos around her as everyone scurried around getting the food finished and set out. Then she did something I had only hoped for. She said, “You know where the first-aid kit is. Get your cut cleaned up.”

Relief swelled within me. Finally, finally, something was going my way. Holding one hand against the cut, I hurried over to where the first-aid kit was stored and pulled it out, then took it over to a corner well away from all the activity. I ripped open a package of gauze and pressed it against my hand, then grabbed antiseptic, alcohol wipes, more gauze, and several large bandages and stuffed them in my pockets, making sure my shirt covered the bulkiness. Only then did I clean my cut and put a Band-Aid across it.

After throwing away the trash, I closed the first-aid kit and put it away.

“Are you okay?” Mrs. Coleman asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll have Sadie do the dishes the rest of today and you can take her place.”

“Okay.” Sadie was only one step up from me. Her job involved getting things for the people who were cooking, cleaning up after them, stuff like that. Still, it was better than washing dishes, and most importantly, I’d gotten the first-aid supplies.

After my first shift, Piper and I picked up our food—in addition to my one power bar, I got a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit—and sat at a table by ourselves.

“Guess what?” I asked her.

“What?”

“I got the first-aid supplies.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Really?”

“You didn’t really think I accidentally cut myself, did you?”

“I don’t know. I guess I thought you did.”

“No. It was on purpose.”

“That was smart.”

“It also hurt. It’s gonna be hard to cut out the chip.”

She frowned. “Are you still planning on doing that?”

“Of course. Aren’t you?”

“I told you. I’m not so sure now. I think I might have been a little quick in saying I had to get out now. It’s really not so bad here.”

I thought about what the women had said about the power bars and wondered if they were affecting Piper—making her more compliant, making her not want to leave now. I watched as she picked up one of her power bars and began unwrapping it. I reached out and put my hand on hers, stopping her.

“What are you doing, Morgan?”

“Don’t eat that.”

She laughed. “Why not? It’s good.”

My mouth watered as I thought about eating one myself, but I willed the thought away. “There’s something wrong with them.”