Edgewood Series: Books 1 - 3 (85 page)

“But what if it doesn’t happen?” I was already feeling the pressure; now it was escalating, like a ball of stress climbing from my chest to my throat.

“You’re going to do fine,” Carly said firmly. She leaned in and whispered. “There’s something I need to tell you. Once when you were a baby, Mom and Dad were out of town and I was babysitting you, and I took you with me to meet up with David at the old train station late at night. We fell asleep and David woke up when the lux spiral hit. He had you in his arms when he went outside to see what it was. I think that’s why your powers are so great. You’ve been exposed to it twice.”

Carly didn’t know that I’d heard this story from David already. I tried to look surprised, but I guess I didn’t have the right reaction because she felt the need to repeat herself.

“Twice, Russ,” she said, making a peace sign. “The first time as a little baby. Who knows how long the power has been inside you, growing, growing, growing?” She was still whispering but her voice was excited. “It’s probably been in every cell of your body, building this whole time, but lying dormant, just waiting. And then, when you saw the lux spiral this past spring, it activated every bit of it, like someone had flipped a switch. Boom!”

I nodded.

She said, “You’re probably the first person in the history of the world to get exposed to it as an infant and then again as a teenager. I’ve never told this to anyone.”

In the rows ahead of us, people were gathering up their things, preparing to get off at the next stop. “Thanks for telling me that,” I said. “That’s pretty incredible.”

“You must have been three months old that first time, but David said you had a look of awe on your face. Like you’d been touched by something great.”

Something shook loose in my memory and pushed its way forward. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Maybe because I had a piece of it clutched in my fist?” No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I realized my mistake. Carly hadn’t told me that my infant self had gotten hold of a piece as it dropped from the sky. David had been the one who’d given me that piece of information. Confused, Carly did a double take. I watched her face and it didn’t take long for her to realize that I shouldn’t have known that fact.

“Time to go.” I felt a tap on my shoulder and glanced up to see Dr. Wentworth in the aisle looming over me. “Quickly now.”

I was saved, for now. But I knew my sister, and there was no way this was going to fade from her memory. The subway slowed to a stop and we got up to follow the doctor out the door. Not one person pressed forward or grumbled. Instead, every single passenger filed out courteously. I was learning that everyone in PGDC was orderly and polite. This was the world as it should be.

Security at the hospital was crazy intense. We walked hallway after hallway, going through multiple doors and up an elevator. Signs everywhere said:
Authorized Personnel Only
. Dr. Wentworth had a laminated card that hung from her neck which allowed us access through the first set of doors. After that, she entered numbers into a punch pad in the elevator in addition to using the card. When we exited the elevator we faced another locked door. This time, she lined her eyes up in front of a recognition scanner. A woman’s voice said, “Maxine Wentworth, welcome. Please state today’s password.”

Dr. Wentworth spoke each syllable in a clipped, clear way. “Russ Becker.”

My name was today’s password? Carly caught it too—she grinned and jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow just as the door slid open. Dr. Wentworth strode forward, her heels clicking on the linoleum, and we followed down a long hallway, past a nurses’ station to the president’s room. We walked in without even knocking.

The room was nicer than your average hospital room, much bigger, with the kind of decor you'd see in a luxury hotel, but the bed in the middle was set up exactly the way I'd seen it in countless movies and TV shows. The air had a faint antiseptic smell reminding me of Lysol. In the middle of the room was a large hospital bed, and in the bed, under a thin sheet, lay President Bernstein looking worse than I'd expected, completely pale and tiny in the midst of all the medical equipment. Up close, I saw that her curly, black hair was threaded with silver strands. Unconscious, she didn't look like our leader, the one who inspired confidence with her rousing speeches and assured manner. Wires and tubes snaked from her body to the various monitors measuring her vital functions.

“How is the president doing?” Dr. Wentworth asked the doctor who stood alongside the bed. He hadn’t looked up when we walked in, seemingly engrossed in reading something on a clipboard. He had horn-rimmed glasses and wavy hair slicked back with an abundance of product. I could even see the comb lines over the top of his head. He was shorter than me and wore a blindingly white jacket with a stethoscope slung around his neck, like a kid at Halloween wearing a doctor costume.

“About the same,” he said, sighing, but then he looked up, saw us and smiled a greeting. "But it looks like help has arrived." He extended his hand. "Russ Becker?"

For a second I thought he was saying that
his
name was Russ Becker, which would have been a really amazing coincidence, but before I could make a comment about it, which would have made me look really stupid, I realized that wasn't the case. "Yes, I'm Russ," I said, reaching out my hand.

“I'm Dr. Karke,” he said. "We've been looking forward to your arrival. I've heard good things about all you can do. I can’t wait to see you in action."

“Thank you,” I said.

Dr. Wentworth introduced Carly to him and they exchanged small talk about our plane ride and how we were enjoying our stay. Dr. Wentworth was telling him that we'd spent our first night at the hotel but that we'd be transferring to a luxury suite tonight, which was news to me, but I wasn't interested in being part of that conversation. Instead, I was drawn to President Bernstein. I found myself walking around the bed, trying to determine where to start. Every cell in my body buzzed with electrical anticipation. I sensed all the electricity in the room keeping her alive, and I instinctively knew it hadn’t been enough to keep her here the whole time. Somehow I knew President Bernstein had crossed over the line from life to death and back again.

“She died already?” I said, interrupting the conversation in the room.

“What did you say?” Dr. Wentworth's head whipped back in my direction.

“The president. She died and you brought her back with the paddles?”

Dr. Karke hesitated, then said, “That's right.”

“I wasn't told that,” Dr. Wentworth said sharply.

Dr. Karke shrugged. “It happened. We acted quickly, did what we had to do, and stabilized the president. The details are in the patient notes.”

I walked to the head of the bed. “More than once?” I looked at Dr. Karke, whose face flushed red. “You had to revive her twice?”

Embarrassed, he didn’t meet my eyes. “Yes, it happened twice.”

Dr. Wentworth looked at me in amazement. “How did you know that?”

I didn’t answer. Not that I didn’t want to, just that I was afraid to break my concentration. Once I locked in to heal someone, that was it. It required everything I had and more. I went to the head of the bed, and stroked the president's hair, something that wasn't necessary to heal her, but something I felt compelled to do. Touching her established a connection between us. It said,
I am here. I will help you
. From that brief touch I could tell that President Bernstein’s essence was in there, lingering inside her damaged body. I guessed from the concerned look on the two doctors’ faces that they wondered if she was too far gone to save. Dying and being resuscitated twice was a lot for a body to go through.

“Can you help her, Russ?” This from Carly who stood right at my elbow.

I gave a quick nod, before extending my arms over the president’s body. I heard the squeaky wheels of a cart being pushed through the doorway—one of the medical staff making a delivery, I assumed. Both doctors spoke at once.

“Not now!”

“Get out!”

Whoever it was pulled the cart back through the doorway and out into the hall. My palms pulsed with energy as I tried to detect the area that needed healing. I held my hands about six inches above the president’s body, and slowly went from head to toe and back again. The trouble spot, the worst of it, was her head, but that wasn’t where the problem ended. Her entire body had been affected. To me, her organs felt stressed. Every muscle was weak. Her empty stomach churned and her heart strained to pump blood to her extremities. Without these machines and the medicine she’d been given she would already be dead. Part of her spirit yearned to go; but the other part, the warrior part, struggled to stay. I knew all of this, but I wasn’t sure
how
I knew all this. I just did.

After making an assessment, I concentrated on her head, holding my hands on either side above her ears. I felt a pressure on her left side and intense pain, like a terrible, horrible headache. The pain medication had dulled it, but it was still there underneath. I focused all my energy and emotion on fixing the president. I knew from past experience that I couldn’t let my thoughts muddle the process. Words and ideas didn’t matter to energy. I ignored the fidgeting sounds of the other people in the room. Dr. Karke cleared his throat and shuffled his feet at one point. I heard it, but I didn’t let it break my concentration. My palms moved from her head to her heart and when I felt my energy depleting like a balloon running out of air, I did one last swoop over her arms and legs, before quitting. “I’m done,” I said. I shook my fingers loose and stretched my arms.

“Already?” Dr. Wentworth said, not hiding the disappointment in her voice.

“Yes.”

“But it’s only been fifteen minutes.”

“That’s all I can do for now,” I said, flexing my fingers. “I feel like I’m going to have to do this in stages. The damage is too great to fix all at once.”

The two doctors stared down at the president’s still form. Dr. Wentworth glanced up at the monitors hoping to see some indication that my work had helped, but everything looked the same.

“Could you please try again?” Dr. Karke asked. “We need to have the president fully recovered by the night of the Presidential Bash.”

“I understand that,” I said. “Believe me, I want to see President Bernstein healed as much as anyone.” Maybe more, since everyone was counting on me. “I’m not refusing to do more. I
can’t
do anymore. I’m depleted. You know how a bucket can only hold so much water and after it’s all poured out, you’re not going to get another drop out of it no matter what you do? That’s how it works for me. I can only do it until I’m done.”

“But would it hurt to try a little longer?” Dr. Karke asked, looking to Dr. Wentworth for back-up. “I told the first gentleman that I’d have good news for him today.” A note of desperation tinged his words. He wrung his hands.

I felt for him, I really did. I just couldn’t help him.

“You heard what my brother said,” Carly said, speaking a little louder than necessary. “His bucket is
empty.
When he can do more, he will.” She turned to me. “When do you want to come back again, Russ?”

“I don’t know. Maybe tonight?” I said. “By this evening I think she’ll be ready for more.” As I said this, I felt a frequency of awareness in the air and sensed that the president could hear everything being said. I leaned over and said, “President Bernstein? My name is Russ Becker. I’m the one who alleviated the pressure in your head. You get some rest. I’ll be back tonight to do another session. Hang in there, you’re doing really well.” She didn’t respond in any way, but I knew she understood.

“Could you two excuse us?” Dr. Karke said to me and Carly pointing to the door. “We need a few minutes to confer.”

Once we were out in the hallway, I heard him say to Dr. Wentworth, “What the hell was that? I thought you said he could heal her!” Dr. Wentworth shushed him and said something in my defense. I couldn’t quite make it all out, but I caught something about test results and data and allowing more time.

Carly put her hands on her hips and frowned. She said, “I don’t care if he is a doctor, that little man is a complete dick.”

“Cut him a break. He’s not so bad,” I said. “Just disappointed.” I knew the feeling. I was disappointed in myself.

“You are way too nice,” she said.

“Not really.”

Shaking her head, she turned her attention to her purse, unzipping the top and rummaging through the contents. When she located her pack of gum, she popped a piece into her mouth. “I was ready to tell him we were done and going home. Ingrate.”

“Don’t even talk like that, Carly,” I said. “We’re not going home.” A pretty nurse smiled at me as she came past pushing a cart. She hesitated in the president’s doorway, and when Dr. Wentworth called to her, she went in.

“It just makes me mad that they’re second guessing you.” She snapped her gum, a habit that drove my mother nuts.

“That’s his job. He’s just doing what he thinks is best.” I leaned my back against the wall and rested the sole of one foot flamingo-style. “I actually feel sorry for him. Now he has to tell Mr. Bernstein that his wife isn’t miraculously recovered like he promised. That really bites for him.”

“He shouldn’t have promised it.”

“Yeah, he shouldn’t have promised it. But he did.”

Carly leaned in and quietly asked, “Do you think you can fix her? In time for the Bash?”

“Yeah, I think I can.” I thought about how her brain woke up after my energy infusion. President Bernstein wanted to get better, but every part of her body was fatigued and strained. “I’m going to try my best anyway.”

Russ

That afternoon I found myself in Layla Bernstein’s bedroom. Most guys my age would think this was a dream come true, but for me, it was just part of the job. After we found out we were going to the White House, the three of us dressed appropriately: Mallory in a flowery dress with a ruffle around the v-neckline and Jameson and I in button-down shirts and khaki pants. When we first arrived, a Secret Service agent directed us into a small sitting room with the kind of furniture preferred by elderly women. The agent assured us Layla would be with us shortly, and then departed, leaving us to wait alone. Mallory and I sat in stiff upholstered chairs, while Jameson took the loveseat across from us. On the cream-colored wall behind him hung an oil painting of a bonneted woman who looked down on him in disapproval.