What's Left of Me (16 page)

Eighteen

<
A
ddie?>

Her name was the first thing that entered my mind as I woke. When we’d been children—before the doctors, before the fear—we’d almost always called to each other as we emerged from shared dreams. It had happened less and less as the years passed, until the habit faded away completely.

We lay very still. I stretched in the fog of our mind, reaching for Addie. She couldn’t still be asleep, but sometimes she got up slower than I did.

<. . . Addie?>

She didn’t answer. I searched harder, fear’s sharp, cold blade peeling away my slumber.

Memory and awareness hit me all at once. Hospital. We were at the hospital—the clinic. We’d been in the hallway. There had been a nurse. And now? Now what?

My voice rang out and echoed back with the tremor of déjà vu. This was the second time I’d called Addie’s name like this—scrabbling through our mind for a shred of her existence.

The first had been more than a month ago, when we’d drunk the drug-laced tea. Refcon, Ryan had called it.

What’s it usually for?
I’d managed to say. It had been one of the later sessions, when I had better control of our tongue and lips. Ryan had said something about specialty care and psychiatric wards.

Psychiatric wards. Psychiatric hospitals.

Nornand Clinic of Psychiatric Health.

Here.

I screamed.

No reply. I was alone. This was not Hally’s home. No Ryan sat beside us, talking to pass the time.

I forced our eyes open.

Wherever we were, it was dim. There were no windows. A yellow glow lined the bottom of the door, but that was all. I closed our eyes again.
<. . . Addie?>

But I didn’t hope for an answer, and none came. She was gone. For how long? At Hally’s house, it had never been more than an hour. But at Hally’s house, I’d never fallen unconscious along with Addie, either.

I couldn’t think about it. The more I thought about it, the more nauseated I felt.

It was okay. Maybe we’d already been unconscious a long time. Maybe Addie would be back soon. I’d just lie here on this bed and wait.

I didn’t let myself think about what I’d do if I kept waiting and waiting and nothing happened.

Our chest moved gently up . . . down . . . up . . . down. Our eyes stayed closed. I kept my distance from the hazy darkness that had swallowed Addie. Usually when she came back, I’d feel her pressing at the edges of it, folding away the emptiness like a blanket, flowing into the space next to mine. All I had to do was wait until the drug wore off and she woke up.

I wouldn’t think about anything else. I wouldn’t think about why we were here, why they had done this to us, why they had lied. What we would do once Addie was awake.

No. I’d wait until she came back. Until we were whole again. Then we could worry about things like that together.

Our breathing was calm, smooth. The breathing of a girl asleep. For all our body knew, we
were
asleep. Addie was, anyway, and that was all that mattered. How long had it been since my anger could quicken our breaths, my fear make our heart pound, my embarrassment make us blush? Of course, usually when I was angry, frightened, or embarrassed, Addie was, too, so it wasn’t such a big deal.

Or so I—

A siren sliced through my thoughts. Our eyes snapped open.

A light on the ceiling flashed red—red—red—

My mind went blank, then overloaded.

A fire? A gas leak?

Our breathing caught.

Something was wrong.

Nothing. Nothing but that wild, keening siren and the flashing red light.

Maybe someone would come. Yes—yes, definitely. Someone had brought us here. They would know. They would come. They would save us.

Because Addie was asleep, and I could not move.

Our eyes flickered frantically to the door, but the crack of light stayed clear and uninterrupted. No one stood in the doorway. No one was here.

But they would come. They had to.

I thought I heard a stampede of feet—distant voices calling, yelling. People evacuating. People running. Running away from us. It was the Bessimir museum all over again; the day of the raid all over again.

But she didn’t wake. And we just lay there.

More voices, right by our door this time. Murmurs, then footsteps moving quickly on.

I cried.

I’d spoken before. I could do it now. If only I could concentrate.

Our mouth stayed shut, our tongue still. Not a sound. On and on the siren wailed. On and on the light flashed. Red-white-red-white-red-white-red—

A noise gurgled from our throat, followed by a word—a weak, whispered word:

 . . . Help.

“
Please. Please
—help!”

Our body trembled. I sucked in breath after noisy breath, crying as loudly as I could, “Somebody! In here! I can’t get out!”

Someone should have heard. Someone should have come. But nobody did.

Only a few minutes had passed since the alarm started. Not long enough for everyone to leave. Not long enough for us to be here alone.

Right?

I screamed, forgetting words. Our throat stretched at the unfamiliar sound—Addie never screamed like this. No one was coming. No one was going to come.

I shouted one last time.

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t going to move us. And I couldn’t.

But I would have to.

I focused as hard as I could on our fingers. On curling them. On bending our elbows to prop up our body. In the darkness, with our head immobile, I couldn’t tell if I was really moving or just imagining it.

I didn’t realize what was happening until our nail snagged in the bedcovers.

No time to think about it. No time to stop. Our heart pounded so hard it couldn’t possibly stay in our chest for long. Either it would burst or I would burst—and neither option was promising.

I flexed our fingers, searching for a way to push ourself up. Our arms wouldn’t work properly. They twitched on either side of us, bent like chicken wings, jerking as my control waxed and waned. With a silent scream, I lurched forward and sat up.

The world spun. I wanted to shout or laugh or cry. There wasn’t time for any of it. The siren wailed; the light flashed.

I had to get out.

Standing was no less awkward. Our muscles were strong—I just couldn’t control them. I swayed, then fell back onto the bed and had to start over again. The second time was a bit easier than the first.

Finally, sweat running down the back of our neck, I took my first step.

My first step in almost three years.

No time to celebrate.

Second step.

Third.

Fourth.

I wobbled. Cried out. Fell.

I grabbed the side of the bed and pulled ourself back up. Balancing was the worst part. How far apart was I supposed to put our feet?

I fell twice more before reaching the door.

Our hand gripped the doorknob. I pressed our cheek against the cool wood and closed our eyes. The door. I’d made it to the door.

Now what?

Would someone find me in the hallway? Or would I have to walk all the way outside?

I shuddered. Actually shuddered, our body reacting to my disbelief.

No way I could make it outside.

Just go into the hall
.
Just go into the hall and call for help again. Someone will hear you. Someone will come.

Our hand slipped slightly, then tightened again around the doorknob. I twisted it. For a second, the door didn’t move. Fear weakened already shaky legs. Was it locked? But no, no—I twisted the knob a little farther, and the door swung open. We swung with it, riding the momentum outward into the hall, clinging on for dear life.

And then someone was there. Someone was holding us up. Someone was pushing us, pulling us, dragging us back to the bed. Back to the bed? No, no—that was the wrong direction!

“We have to leave,” I said. “The siren. The fire—the—”

“Shh,” he said. “Shh . . .”

“Ryan,” I cried. I almost smiled, though he obviously didn’t understand. “Ryan, it’s me! Me! Eva.”

“Shh,” he urged, over and over again. We were back by the bed now. He half pushed, half set us onto the mattress. His movements were stiff, his jaw tight.

“I moved, Ryan,” I said, laughing. Laughing. Gasping. “But we have to go. The alarm—”

“There’s no fire.” He held me down when I tried to stand.

“Then the gas leak, or whatever—we have to go. The alarm—”

“Is a trick,” he said. “They tricked you.”

Tricked me?

I laughed again, louder. “What?”

“To make you move. To bring you out.”

A rubber stopper slammed into our windpipe, stopping my breathing so sharply I saw starbursts.

To make me move? To bring me out?

The laughter started up again, a weak, incessant giggling. I couldn’t hold it back. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

Ryan looked at me, the light still flashing above his head, casting red and white shadows on his face. He wasn’t laughing. He didn’t even smile.

I laughed for him, laughed until I could barely breathe. “I moved, Ryan. I walked. I
walked
!”

“Yes,” he said, and he sounded so grim.

A strange, giggling headiness clouded up my mind. If Ryan hadn’t been gripping our shoulders, I might have fallen down.

“I moved,” I said again, just to make sure he’d heard correctly. I laughed and laughed. I felt full of bubbles, full of clouds.

And then I grabbed the collar of Ryan’s shirt—grabbed him and pulled him closer and felt his arms tighten around me. The laughter went putrid in my throat.
“I won’t let them cut me out,”
I said breathlessly.
“I won’t. I won’t.”

Addie and I sat with the light on.

The brightness was enough to alert someone in the hall, but neither of us suggested turning it off. We’d had enough darkness for one day.

They’d let us call our parents, but only for a few minutes, and a nurse watched us the entire time. She’d pretended to dust and tidy the already impeccably clean room, but we knew she was listening. Even if the nurse hadn’t been there, we couldn’t have told them about the forced drugging, about how they’d tricked us. If we told them, we’d have to explain how I’d moved. We’d have to say that yes, their fears were true, that Mr. Conivent had been right. That we were still defective.

Not that they wouldn’t learn soon enough anyway. The doctors would tell them. They would have to if they wanted to keep us here.

But they didn’t seem to have said anything yet. First Mom, then Dad had come on the phone. How are you? How was the flight? Was it exciting? Is the food okay? Did they find you a nice room?

Just before the nurse began coughing meaningfully and looking at us, Dad said, “I suppose it doesn’t matter so much, right? It’s only one night.”

“Yeah,” Addie whispered. She’d been whispering since she woke up. “That’s right.”

The nurse came over and murmured that the hospital had rather busy lines. They couldn’t afford to have one taken up so long. Which seemed silly, but what could we say?

“We’ll call again tomorrow,” Dad promised.

They didn’t let us go back to the other kids, claiming we were Overstrung and Exhausted and Too Nervous.

You need rest,
they told us, walking us through the halls.
Your room’s all ready for you now.
We’ll bring you dinner.

And they’d all but locked us in our room.

Silently, Addie unlaced our shoes and climbed into bed. There was a wall around her half of our mind, a shield that had started forming as soon as she’d woken hours earlier and felt Ryan’s arms wrapped warm around us. A nurse had dashed in the door a second later, her face livid, her dark eyes huge. She’d pulled Ryan away, yelling about staying with the group and listening to directions. He hadn’t fought her. But his eyes had never left our face.

Addie said now, staring at the ceiling. It looked nearly identical to the walls, a plane of white interrupted only by the harsh overhead light. This room was tiny and Spartan, containing only a bed and a nightstand. The bed nearly stretched from one wall to the other, and there were no windows. At least our duffel bag had been waiting for us, like the nurse had promised this morning.