Middle Ground (12 page)

“You’re dehydrated,” he said. “That’s why your head hurts.”

“How do you know my head hurts?” I asked.

“Everybody’s does the first couple of months. It’s part of the transition process.” He ordered a bottle of water from the machine, uncapped it, and handed it to me. I put the coffee down. My lips were parched, and staring at the water made me realize how thirsty I was. I took it and slammed the bottle down in a few gulps. The water was so cold and refreshing, I could feel it slide down my dry throat, all the way to my stomach. The pressure in my head was already starting to lift. I stood up and ordered another bottle and grabbed my coffee.

“Thanks,” I said, and hugged the cold water to my chest. My throat felt a little better.

“No problem.”

“What’s your official job here?” I asked. “The detention-center know-it-all?”

He grinned. “Something like that. I’m just a privileged veteran.” He watched me carefully, like he was waiting for me to do something. He took a step closer while I uncapped the second bottle of water and inhaled it in five easy gulps. I wiped my mouth and when I looked back at him, he was right next to me, close enough for us to touch.

“What are you staring at?” I asked.

“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

I wanted to laugh at the suspicion on his face. He’d just helped me out. “Why would I be afraid of you?”

“Because I’m standing so close to you. Doesn’t it freak you out?”

“I haven’t showered yet,” I said. “Maybe you should be the one freaking out.”

He didn’t smile, and I studied him seriously this time. He was a head taller than me and his eyes were intense on mine, but he was hardly intimidating. His eyes gave him away. They were compassionate. If I felt anything, it was that he was genuine.

“No,” I answered. “I’m not afraid of you. Should I be?”

He seemed puzzled by my response. “You should get back to your room. People aren’t supposed to hang around out here,” he reminded me. “If you leave your room for more than ten minutes, the Eye starts to wonder.”

My headache was starting to lift. Before I walked away I managed a weak smile.

“How long have you worked here?” I asked.

“How long is your sentence?” he asked, ignoring my question.

“Six months.”

He nodded. “That’s pretty standard.”

I shook my head. “I can’t wait that long,” I said.

“You’ll adjust,” he said, and turned to unlock the storage closet.

“I’m getting out of here,” I announced. He stopped and turned back, probably to see if I was serious. “I can’t wait six months,” I said, to remove any doubt. “I’ll find a way out, or my friends will break in. Whichever happens first.”

He frowned. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. You know it’s my job to report those kinds of remarks.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not thinking straight. I guess it’s that tablet they gave me. The Cure, right?” I stopped when this memory came back to me. For a split second I had clarity. I could see the compact in Dr. Stevenson’s hand. I could taste the tablet in my mouth. Just as quickly, the image disappeared, covered in a fog. But I knew what I saw.

He froze suddenly and stared at me.

“So, they are drugging us in here, aren’t they,” I said. It wasn’t a question. It was a fact.

“How do you know about that?”

“I remember,” I said. Judging from his look of disbelief, I wasn’t supposed to remember.
Anything.

He backed up slowly, opened the storage closet without another word, and disappeared inside.

I turned the corner, walked down the hall to my room, and shut the door. I leaned against it and regretted being so outspoken. I hadn’t even been here twenty-four hours and I was already getting written up. My father would be so proud.

I expected the routine of a detention center to be tough, disciplined, and militant. I imagined people shouting orders at us, waking us before dawn to march us in line, forcing us to adhere to a strict schedule. But after spending a few weeks at the DC, I’d come to discover that their idea of structure was a life of chronic isolation.

My days fell into a mundane routine. The detention center limited the use of computer programs. I had access to the three DS classes I needed to finish and was restricted from socializing or entertainment sites. My only social contacts were a few DS professors and tutors. Movies, music, and books were limited and censored. I was allowed to use only two programs: one to design the wall screens of my personal prison cell (how liberating) and the other to fill out countless questionnaires meant to help me find myself (and lasso all that negative energy with a rope and pull it free).

My counseling sessions still ended in nightmares; they became expected villains that infiltrated my mind, invaders trying to break into my consciousness and rob me of my sanity. Sleep came in sporadic waves and was usually plagued with dreams that were so real I woke up screaming but that I forgot within a few seconds. The few times I tried to make sense of them, the memories were blocked, as if they were behind a gate in my mind that I couldn’t lift. All I could remember were my feelings.

You can’t control your thoughts when you sleep. I was learning my mind had a mind of its own—and I had a feeling that was what the DC was determined to manipulate.

I tried to distract myself. I designed two digital windows in my room because the walls were suffocating. I could display any climate I was in the mood for: clear and sunny weather, overcast, heavy rain, light mists, a blizzard. I could even place a tornado along my path, and speakers brought it all to life with the sound of hail and wind and the clap of thunder. I liked the idea there was a force outside the detention center stronger than the force inside. A tornado could take out this entire place in one gust. It could pulverize anything in its path. It made me think something could set me free.

I knew I was weaker. Skinnier. Tired. I knew my walls were starting to crumble. But I refused to accept it. Sometimes denial can be your greatest ally.

***

One morning a message blinked on my screen informing me I had a counseling session in twenty minutes. I checked the box indicating that I’d received the notice. I went to the session alone. I did everything alone. When I opened my door that morning, there was another inmate coming out of the bathroom at the end of the hall. My first instinct was to avoid her, but that was quickly replaced by desperation. I needed to talk to someone, to remind myself there were human beings living on the other side of my walls.

“Hey,” I called out to her. I shuffled toward her and her spine tensed as if I’d jolted her with a Taser gun. She froze with her back to me and I stopped halfway down the hall. Her arms went rigid and her back was stiff and straight. Her hands shook next to her sides and I could have sworn I heard a whimper.

“Sorry if I scared you,” I said to her back. “You’re just the first kid I’ve seen in here. You don’t have to talk to me.” She lowered her head, pivoted slowly on one foot, and took a quiet step toward what I assumed was her room. She moved so carefully you would have thought someone was holding a gun to her head and threatening to shoot if she made a sound. Her hair was mangy and fell past her shoulders. I took another step down the hall and she peeked at me through stringy clumps of hair. This time I was the one who froze. The skin on her face was pale and gaunt and her eyes were sunken. She looked like she was fighting a disease and the disease was winning. But more than any of that, what stopped me was the terror in her eyes, the way she looked at me like I was about to attack her. There was hate there too, a territorial warning to leave her alone.

She slid inside her room and shut the door. I realized I wasn’t breathing and suddenly my lungs kicked in, clawing for oxygen. I stumbled forward and the elevator doors opened and I ducked inside, grateful to escape that hallway and that girl and that stare, that awful, hateful stare.

Dr. Stevenson was waiting for me when I walked in, the seat already pulled down. She moved quickly to unwind the cord around a MindReader.

“Lucky for you I had an open session today.” She handed me the MindReader and told me to put it on.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.

“What do you define as wrong?” she asked me.

Great,
I thought.
Mind games, just what I need.
“I haven’t broken any rules,” I said. Then I remembered what I’d said to that staff worker. He probably ratted me out.

“Students normally have only one counseling session a week, but the Eye has informed us you’ve been leaving your room several times a day. You even addressed another girl in the hallway on your way down here.” She opened up a compact, revealing the orange tablet. I took it and placed it on my tongue.

“Didn’t the staff tell you, no talking to other students?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” I said honestly. But I couldn’t argue anymore. My mind started to float out of my head and toward the ceiling. My thoughts were light and I didn’t have the energy to reach out for them and yank them back. I could see the screens and then I was standing in the hallway on my floor. I recognized it because all the room numbers were in the 400s. I looked around, confused, wondering what the point of the session had been if she’d kept me only a few minutes. That was supposed to be a punishment?

I heard something rattle, and a wheelchair turned the corner and came toward me. I recognized the same gray-haired doctor pushing the same girl I’d seen a few weeks ago, with her head down and her hair falling over half her face. I walked toward them and as the wheelchair approached, the girl suddenly stirred and sat up straighter. She reached her pale arms out like she needed my help. I leaned down, and just as I did, she sprang out of the wheelchair and leaped at me, like a jumping spider.

The hair was swept away from her face to reveal skin that was so thin and tight it was translucent. I could see the outline of a skull underneath. Her eyes were black holes. I screamed and backed against the wall as her fingers reached for my neck; she opened her mouth, and the skull’s teeth came at me. I shoved her shoulders away, but all I felt were bones. I tried to run but my feet slid and slipped and I fell to my knees. The girl was behind me, clambering after me. Her nails clicked against the hard ground. I crawled and scrambled toward my room, screaming for someone to help.

Something chased after me, hissing and pulling at my ankles. Pointy skeletal fingers clawed at my skin, gashing my legs. I heard an animal behind me growling and snapping its teeth, and I kicked and jabbed my way to my room. I slammed the door shut with my foot, panting and whimpering on the cold floor. The animal hissed and cried behind the door, clawing at the metal. I leaned back on my shaking arms, trying to catch my breath. My heart was thrashing. I pressed my hand against my chest and focused on my breaths and that’s when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I heard something flutter. I turned and there was a girl standing in my room, next to my bed. I recognized her. It was the girl I’d tried to talk to in the hallway.

“It’s you,” I said, my voice shaky. “What are you doing in here?” She smiled at me. But it was a maddening smile. Her sunken eyes were black. She started to laugh and the laugh turned into a snarl as she lunged at me, her arms raised above her head and a silver blade clenched between her hands. I reached up and caught her skinny wrists and the blade stopped an inch from my forehead.

***

I shot straight up in my bed and barely caught the scream in my throat. I panted for air in the blackness. I instinctively grabbed at my chest to feel my drumming pulse, to remind myself I was alive. I wiped sweaty hair out of my eyes and rolled up into a tight ball and started to cry. I cried because the images were still there; they were real, as if I were living someone else’s memory. I curled up as small as I could. Maybe if I made myself tiny enough I’d disappear completely. Maybe then I’d be left alone.

I turned my wall screen on and looked for a program to design rain. I turned my ceiling into a thick gray storm front. My speakers sprinkled the patter of drops around my ears. It sounded like a chorus of tears. I let it drown me. I rolled up again and felt freezing cold, but the cold was not outside or around me. The cold was inside. I was chilled to my core, like my chest was an icebox. My thoughts hung like jagged icicles.

When I couldn’t stand the headache any longer, I forced myself out of bed and changed into clean scrubs. I put my hand on the metal door handle and was about to push down when an image flashed in my mind. A girl’s skeletal face. A knife diving at my head. I snapped my hand away from the handle like it had burned my fingers. I pressed my hand to my heart and felt it hammering as if it were right there directly underneath my skin, as if it had escaped its cocoon of ribs. Then, as quickly as the image had seized me, it dissolved, leaving me feeling merely scared and vulnerable. I rested my forehead on the door and tried to kick the feeling out of my mind.

“What the hell is happening to me?” I whispered, my palms flat against the door. In my mind, buried deep inside, I knew that wasn’t a memory. I knew it was just a nightmare, just fiction. I couldn’t let my fears run my life. I forced myself to move. I forced myself to fight back.

I opened the door a crack and listened for any unusual noise but heard only the humming of the lights and the churning of the food station around the corner. I remembered the hot coffee, and it made me think of my mom and Baley, my chocolate Lab, and home. I clung to that memory of love and support and let it swallow me. For a moment I felt brave. I wanted more of that feeling—maybe it was hope, or love. I followed it and held on to it like a rope and let it guide me.

I moved down the hall with as much life as a zombie. I dragged my feet to the food machine and ordered three waters and slammed one of them in a few desperate gulps. Already, the details of my dream were blurred. Mentally, it was fading. But my body was still jolted by the shock. My shoulders were tense with panic.

I heard steps approaching and fear made me jump. My half-closed eyes flew open and my pulse hammered. I grabbed the counter. My first instinct was to hide. I recognized the tall, gangly staff worker as he came around the corner, but when he saw me he kept his distance, as if he knew better than to approach me too fast. He gave me a few seconds to calm down. It looked like he was used to this kind of reaction.