I pulled the words together and my hand tightened around the powder-crusted pills that burrowed into my palm like they knew, just as well as I did, what my fate would be if I didn’t find a way to swallow them in the next few minutes. I clenched both my fists tightly, trying not to look suspicious. But how do you do that when a Superior is peering at you with sharpened eyes? When you appeared from death?
My eyes flitted from his face to his wheelchair and back again quickly, but he saw me taking in the surprising detail. Superior Grant was in a wheelchair. The small muscles around his mouth and jaw tightened slightly. He looked off sitting there lower than I was. Uncomfortable. I squirmed under his gaze like a rock was on my chest, pinning me under his stare and his authority.
I struggled because my energy was still wrapped around the being dead part. It wasn’t quite awake or responding. I moved my hand to the glass surrounding me as if it were tied to my side with elastic, tracing the bloodied handprint above me and avoiding Grant’s black expression. I needed to ignore the enormity of my predicament for one more second. Drawing my finger over each part of the large, reddish brown-painted hand, I wondered if it were my blood or someone else’s. Was it yours, Joseph?
My eyes darted towards the wheels of his chair as they squeaked with movement, and Grant bent his head down to catch my gaze. “They’re dead,” he said flatly as he pressed back into his chair and awaited my reaction. Something squelched inside me, a splitting, but not all the way. I watched his countenance, the way he stared at me, his lips twisting like they weren’t sure what face to make. The splitting stopped like a half-undone zipper. My heart didn’t explode inside me because I could see the twitch in there, the irritation. His fist tight as an un-budded pinecone. I bit down on my lip to stop myself from smiling. He was a liar. They got away.
I let out all the air I didn’t realize I’d been holding onto, so overjoyed that I almost forgot I was minutes from dying. My body jerked, my toes pointing straight down and my head hit the table. I closed my eyes slowly and tried to hang on. Be far away from here, I prayed and added, just be.
Grant wheeled back a little, almost as if he were afraid of me, then shook his head and grasped his jaw in his hand. Our eyes slid to the vacant, open window letting the wind blow the fluorescent light around like a solitary swing in a playground. I pictured Deshi and Joseph climbing out that window, Joseph’s expression as he looked back at me lying there, dead, and I gulped air that stung like a mouthful of thumbtacks.
Grant ran a hand through his neatly cropped, greying hair.
“Let’s get you out of there,” he said in that awful twang like rubber bands over violin strings. The sound was muted through the glass, but it still smarted. I nodded in reply.
The pills stabbed into my skin. Grant seemed unaware of the urgency of my situation. He moved in a considered, slow manner. Unless he was just playing with me and waiting for me to die.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, thinking in seconds, because that was all I had left. If Grant didn’t know about the pills, there may have been a reason. And if that was the case, I couldn’t let him see me take them.
I rolled to my back and stared at the ceiling; shiny, tinfoil pipes wound their way out of the room like worms. Escape was next on my list, but living was first priority. Grant wheeled backwards to the control panel, eyeing me like a bug pinned to a corkboard, my wings spread painfully wide, never to flap again. Not a butterfly—more like a dull, tatty moth with uneven coloring.
His finger rose and punched a button with a sharp tap. The glass coffin lifted, and the seal between the world and me broke with a clean suck. The cool air wisped at my bare arms and something feathered over my body, raising goose bumps on already shivering skin. I drew my knees up and covered my chest when I realized it was my clothing that had just slipped from my body. My hands brushed over a thick, plaited scar crossing my stomach. I shuddered as I remembered the knife going in and my life bleeding out so fast, the feel of being sliced open.
My clothes were torn from someone making way for all the needles. They were also somewhat singed, and when I drew my arms up, the fabric slid off me like pieces of burned cardboard. I was shedding my skin like a cricket. The image made me cringe.
When the glass lifted, I glanced around. A blood-soaked curtain splayed dramatically on the floor like a fan dipped in paint. I made a move towards it, but the tubes and needles twisted and splintered in my skin, halting me. With my spare hand, I started pulling the needles out with little ceremony, small, red dots forming all over my skin. I pulled a long one from my scalp and Grant winced slightly, but he made no move towards me. If anything, he was avoiding looking at my thin, naked body, my dark, legs swinging over the edge of the metal table like an underfed bird ready to take flight. When the needles were out, lying in a circle around me, I reached out to grab the curtain as I teetered on the bench. A spasm flowed through my arms again. You’re going to die.
Grant cleared his throat and I snapped my hand back to my body, unsure of what to do.
“By all means, please, cover yourself up. No one wants to see that,” he said, waving his hand at me as if I were a dead animal you stepped over and tried not to look at. He held up one knobbly finger, and I expected him to pinch his nose.
“I warn you not to run, child. The guards are outside the door. And I may seem incapacitated, but I am not. Dear.”
The ‘dear’ part was spat out, flung at me with as much condescension as he could manage.
“Oh… kay,” I mumbled, my fingers gripping the edge of the table as my body rolled and rippled.
I moved mechanically, grasping at what little control I had. My arms and legs were spastic with energy, shivering and wobbling like a newborn fawn. My eyes darted to the open window. A chill waved in with a misty rain. My feet hit the cool floor and I wanted to flee—kick his chair over and catapult through that window—but my body couldn’t do it. Not now. I was too weak. And definitely too naked. I wouldn’t survive the cold. I shuddered and bent down to scoop up the curtain. Before I could grasp my fingers around the corner, Grant was in front of me, handing the heavy fabric over with his eyes averted. I cautiously took it, so heavy in my hands.
This was my chance to take the pills. I turned away and brought the curtain, all crusted and wet in places, around my shoulders. The cold blood kissed my bare skin and my stomach rolled. With my back turned, I tried to lift my hand to my mouth to swallow the pills, but he clamped his hand over my arm and swung me around to face him. I snapped the curtain closed around me, and my body convulsed. I tried to contain it, but my limbs flung out, my hands opened, and the pills fell. His eyes were on my face, eyebrows arched. The pills landed in a fold of the curtain, out of sight. My mouth went dry as I started to panic. I had a minute or two at best.
Grant gripped the arms of his chair in alarm at the way my body was behaving, almost like he wanted to get up and help me. “Are you all… right?” he asked carefully.
Think. I bowed my head, feeling the poison churning through my veins, turning me blue from the inside out and eating at the lining of my body. I hunched down, pulling the curtain closer, the pills rolling under the cloth and to my feet. “I… I just need to use the bathroom,” I stammered, my voice crackled and burnt.
He sighed with confusing relief, and his wheels creaked away from me. “Guards!” he barked.
As Grant turned his head and yelled, I picked up the pills, slammed them in my mouth and swallowed, my eyes watering as I forced them down my throat.
The door crashed open like they had been waiting for him to shout out. Grant groaned in irritation. They moved swiftly towards me, grabbed me under the arms, and pulled me to my feet. I coughed from the sudden movement, the bitter taste of the pills grating the inside of my mouth.