I clench my teeth but then remember my promise to myself the night before. I have to play along. “Yes, well,” I say reasonably, “it could have been the medication you gave me.”
She stops and lowers her needles. “I suppose. But maybe we won’t need them this morning. Dr. Beckett would like to see you.”
“Okay. But any chance I can get out of these restraints on a permanent basis? They’re rubbing my wrists raw.”
Kell’s face flinches and she looks down toward my arms. “Poor thing,” she says, examining the skin. “I’ll check on your progress and see what I can do. The answer will be up to you, of course.”
It’s so hard to keep my sarcastic tongue from lashing out at her. Because if it was up to me, not only would I not need to be tied down, I wouldn’t be in this horrible place. I want to spit in Nurse Kell’s face, tell her how cruel she is. I just lower my head.
“I’ll try my best.” I sit there passively, but inside I’m boiling over. “Why do you do this, Kell? What’s in it for you?”
She seems genuinely surprised by the question, and sets her knitting aside. “I’m saving lives. I’ve even saved yours once.”
Does she really think that? I look her over, seeing that she does. Her round face, her short, curled red hair isn’t sinister. She could be someone’s doting grandmother. “You know what they’re doing to us,” I say, my facade falling away. “They’re changing us against our wills. They’re ruining our lives.”
Nurse Kell’s small green eyes weaken. “I know you think that, honey,” she says, “but you’re wrong. I’ve been a nurse for thirty years, and nothing, nothing could have prepared me for what happened when the epidemic started. I don’t think you realize—”
“I lived through it,” I interrupt.
“Yes, you were sick and lived through it. Which means you never saw it clearly. Those infected have thoughts that are skewed and false. I pulled a butter knife out of a fifteen-year-old’s throat. That’s when The Program decided spoons were a better option in the cafeteria. I got on a chair and cut the sheet a thirteen-year-old hung herself from, spirals carved with her nails into the soft flesh of her forearm.” Kell’s cheeks glow pink and she leans closer. “I buried two grandchildren in the past year, Sloane. So don’t assume that I don’t know about the epidemic. I know it far better than you do. I’m just a person willing to do what I can to stop it.”
I’m speechless. She’s a human being after all. “Why are you at this hospital?” I ask finally. “Why did you request to be my nurse here?”
She smiles and reaches to brush my hair behind my ear. “Because I’ve seen where you started—I saw the darkness in your eyes. I’m not going to give up on you until you’re well again.” Her expression tells me she thinks this is a noble cause and that I should be grateful. Maybe if they weren’t my memories she helped erase, I’d see her good intentions.
Inside I’m screaming, Thank you for ruining my life! I can barely keep my voice steady when I murmur, “Thank you for saving me,” instead.
After our heart-to-heart, Nurse Kell helps me dress. I’m in a fresh pair of yellow scrubs with fuzzy slipper socks when she calls in the handler. He’s the one from last night, and my anxiety eases slightly, even though I’m not entirely sure why. He could be just as horrible as all the rest.
“Asa,” Nurse Kell calls to him as he pushes in the wheelchair. “Can you bring Sloane to see Dr. Beckett? He’s expecting her.” The handler doesn’t respond, but he does take my hand to help me into the chair, an unusual show of kindness that catches me off guard.
“It’ll all be better soon,” Nurse Kell says as she gently straps down my wrists. Then she steps back, and Asa steers me from the room before I can respond.
The handler is gliding me through the halls once again, like a continuation from last night, but this time our pace is slower. He’s taking his time. There are several patients walking freely, but none of them is Lacey. I look for her, both dreading and needing to see her. To see what’s left of her.
“I want to show you something,” Asa says quietly, pushing the button that opens a set of double doors—ones that don’t lead to the therapy wing. I glance over my shoulder at him, trying to discern why he’d be sneaking me around. He reminds me of Realm, so I don’t argue. We begin down a quiet wing where the white walls fade to a dusty gray.
“Any chance this is the way out?” I ask, trying to lighten the heaviness that’s fallen on his posture. Asa doesn’t look at me, only straight ahead.
“Not exactly.”
My heart thumps hard, and I face front again. My ease is starting to evaporate, quickly replaced with anxiety. Asa’s pace slows as we approach another set of doors. “This is where they keep them,” he murmurs.
“Them?” It’s obvious this part of the hospital isn’t in regular use. It’s quiet—mausoleum quiet—and the air smells lightly of urine. Fear is about to get the best of me and I begin to tug on the restraints, subtly at first, but then more aggressively. I don’t know where he’s taking me. I don’t know what’s happening!
And then suddenly we stop. We’re in a large room—much like the leisure room, but instead of distractions and card games, there are a few scattered wheelchairs with people in gray scrubs. They’re all facing a window, or in one case, facing a black-and-white painting on the wall. Several of them have a white patch over their left eye.
“What’s going on?” I ask in a shaky voice.
“Doctors found that color disturbs them this soon after surgery,” Asa murmurs. “Noise, too. They keep them isolated until their minds are a bit steadier.”
I spin around in the chair, the pressure on my wrists enough to make me wince. “Are you saying these people have been lobotomized?”
Asa nods, meeting my gaze. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Sloane. This is what this facility does. You’re one of the untreatable—this is what’s going to happen to you.”
The world starts to close in on me, and I search the room once again, trying to make sense of it. Although lobotomy was always a threat, I didn’t know it was definite. I never pictured it like this. I don’t think I believed it could happen to me. “But I’m cooperating,” I say in a small voice. “I’m telling them—”
“They’re extracting the information they need, and then you’ll end up here. They all do.”
I blink and feel a warm tear slip over my cheek and drip onto my thigh. I’m stunned, horrified, traumatized by what Asa is showing me. I don’t know what to do. I’m so goddamn afraid, I can’t think.
“You have about a week,” Asa says, “before they’ll bring you down here. The longer you can hold out on the information, the more time you buy yourself. I just wanted you to know the stakes, Sloane.”
A week. I have my life for one more week. How does someone process this information without spiraling into complete madness? What does he expect me to do? I can’t just bust myself out. This is almost like another form of torture.
“Why did you bring me here?” I murmur, staring again at the backs of heads, the slumped shoulders, the empty souls.
“There’s someone here I thought you should see.”
James. I try and leap from the chair, searching for him, but I am immediately pulled back by the restraints as they bite into my skin. Please, no. Please.
Asa bends down, his cheek close to mine as he reaches past me, pointing to one chair across the room. From the profile I can see it’s an old man, and I sputter out a relieved cry because it’s not James. The handler turns, the bristle of his scruff tickling my skin.