What's Left of Me (19 page)

Slowly, silently, the man brought Addie and me back to the row of seats. We were a doll in his hands, crafted of plastic and artificial coloring, every joint stiff. He shoved us down into a chair, and we did not rise again as Eli, cornered and captured by Dr. Wendle and a pair of nurses, was carried flailing and screeching into one of the examination rooms.

Twenty-two

K
itty was quiet that night after the lights clicked off. She curled up facing the wall, her knees almost pressing against her chest, her hair spilling like ink across her pillow. In less than half an hour, her breaths had slowed and evened.

We couldn’t shut our eyes, let alone sleep. I heard echoes of voices that weren’t there. Eli screaming. The board official’s words in our ear. They’d ended up not even finishing the testing. Instead, the doctors and the board members had disappeared somewhere with Eli, leaving the rest of us with a disgruntled nurse who shoved us in our bedrooms, muttering that her shift was supposed to be over.

No one had dared venture back out. Even if the nurse had left and wasn’t sitting in the main Ward, someone else was sure to hear a door open . . . and who knew if they would tell?

Addie said. She grasped Ryan’s chip in our hand, our eyes fixed on the slow pulse. Maybe it comforted her the same way it comforted me.

I didn’t need to ask who she was talking about.

She flipped onto our back.

I said.

Addie’s frustration buffeted against me, and I knew she wasn’t going to just let the matter drop. But before she could speak again, the chip in our hand began to pulse faster.

For a moment, we just stared at it. Then, without a word, Addie pushed back our covers and swung our legs over the side of the bed. The icy floor raised goose bumps on our skin.

Kitty didn’t stir. Addie crossed the room, our nightgown gleaming white under the moonlight, our bare feet whispering against the ground. By the time we reached the door, our chip was solid red. She twisted the door open, took a step—and almost crashed into Ryan.

Addie crushed our knuckles against our lips to hold back a yelp of surprise. Ryan wasn’t quite fast enough. He managed the first startled syllable of Addie’s name before she shoved our other hand against his mouth, dropping our chip in the process. Luckily, the corridor was carpeted, and it didn’t clatter.

We stood absolutely still for several seconds, trying not to breathe, trying to come up with valid excuses if someone had heard and came to check. But no one did.

Ryan stared at us. His hair stuck up in random directions, some of the curls crushed, others seeming to defy gravity. I could feel his breath against our skin, the curve of his lips fitting in the creases between our fingers.

Slowly, Addie lowered our hand from his mouth. She reached behind us and eased our bedroom door shut while Ryan bent to retrieve our chip.

Then, without a word, without even some sort of unspoken signal, Addie and Ryan turned and headed for the main Ward.

It seemed smaller in the darkness. There were no windows here, so the only source of light came from the glowing red chips in our hands. We sat at one of the tables, and still, neither Addie nor Ryan spoke.

I had a hundred things I wanted to say. A hundred little things I could imagine doing, that I wanted to do, if I could. If I just
could
. But Addie was in control, and she squandered her time sitting still and unsmiling in the darkness.

“The nurse will come and check on us soon, probably,” she finally murmured.

“Not for another hour,” Ryan said, looking at his watch. He seemed a bit relieved to have something to say. “Lissa said the nurses come about the same time every night.”

Addie nodded. Then, before things could lapse right back into an awkward silence, she said, “Well, what did you want?”

“Sorry?” Ryan said.

Addie spoke even more quickly. “You came by our room. You must have a reason. If you’ve got something to say, then say it.”

Ryan’s chip clicked against the table. “I don’t have a reason,” he said, “because I wasn’t coming to your room. I was passing by.” He jerked his head toward the alcove on the far side of the Ward. “There’s only one bathroom in this place.”

Our face heated. “Right.” She rose. “Well, then—”

“Addie—” Ryan said before she could slip away down the hall. He stood, too, more slowly. “Addie, I’m lying. I wanted to ask if you were okay.”

“You keep asking me if I’m okay,” Addie snapped. “I’m
fine.
You’re okay. Hally and Lissa are okay—”

“I’m
not
okay,” Ryan said. Even in the dim light, I could see, almost feel, the tension in his shoulders. His eyebrows knit. His fingers curled around the back of his chair. “I don’t have a plan to get us out of here. I don’t know where we’d go if I did
.
” He sighed and pushed at his bangs, making them stick up even more. “The more I see of this place, the worse it gets. And today, when that guy grabbed you and Eva . . . So, no, I’m not okay. And if you are, Addie, then you’re doing a lot better than I am, all right?”

If I’d been in control, I’d have told him it wasn’t his responsibility to free us. I’d have promised him we’d figure it out together. I would have sworn we’d all be safe, soon. I would have said anything to ease some of the worry lining his forehead.

Addie looked away, our eyes tracing the carpet.

“You don’t need to worry about Eva and me,” she said. “We’ve got each other.”

“Not if the doctors can help it,” Ryan said.

This brought our head back up so fast it was dizzying. “You think I don’t know?”

“Then maybe . . .” Ryan hesitated. “Maybe you shouldn’t do things like what you did today.”

Addie bristled. “They were practically torturing him.”

“You couldn’t have helped,” he said. He flipped his chip over and over in his hand, his shoulders still squared and tight. “And now they’re going to pay more attention to you.”

Addie said nothing, but I could feel her seething, feel her emotions boiling helplessly inside us.

“Just be careful, okay?” Ryan said. “Please.”

He looked us in the eye until Addie nodded.

Eli still hadn’t returned to the group by lunch the next day. The nurse served one fewer yellow trays than usual and didn’t offer any sort of explanation. When Hally wondered aloud where he might be, no one replied—or even looked at her for the remainder of the meal.

As the hours passed and Eli didn’t show up, my mind kept returning to another boy. The one we’d seen stretched out on the gurney. The one with the stark white bandages and the staring, vacant eyes and the
before
and
after
pictures.

At least no one told us that Eli had gone home. I took what comfort I could in that.

“Is this how it started?” Addie whispered to Lissa as we left our evening study session. Over the past three and a half days, I’d gotten a general sense of this wing of Nornand; we were definitely heading back to the waiting room we’d been in yesterday. “For Jaime. When they took him—was it all sudden like this? He just disappeared?”

Addie and I were last in line, Lissa just ahead of us. She had to turn slightly to answer, and even then she spoke so quietly we all but read her answer from her lips. “With Jaime, they called him . . .” The nurse looked over her shoulder, and though there was no way she could hear us back here, Lissa paused until the woman turned back around. “They called him out of the Study room one morning . . . and he never came back.”

The line stopped moving as we reached the waiting room. But the door was shut, and the nurse didn’t try to enter, just sighed and checked her watch. Devon had been sitting with Kitty near the door in the Study room, and now both of them were stuck up front, right next to the nurse.

We all stood in the corridor, a straight blue line on a sheet of paper. The tag on the back of our uniform’s blouse scratched against our neck. There were goose bumps on our arms, a testament to Nornand’s permanent chill.

If we were home right now, we would be getting dinner ready with Mom and Lyle. The microwave would be humming with last night’s leftovers. We’d all be sweating from the heat of the stove and the smallness of the kitchen. Lyle would be telling us every last thing that had happened to him that day and, if he ran out of things, throwing in a couple things that had happened the day before, or the day before that.

I could almost see him at the counter, standing on a three-legged stool as he cut carrots with surgical precision, his fingers bent under as Addie had taught him.

We’d—

Addie started as the door we stood in front of swung open.

Dr. Lyanne stepped out, a pile of manila folders under one arm, a chipped red mug in the opposite hand. She just barely seemed to notice us and Lissa in her way.

“Excuse me,” she muttered and moved to close the door behind her, then paused and looked at the mug in her hand as if just realizing it was there. She sighed and turned, disappearing back into her office. When she reappeared, the folders and mug were both gone and her eyes looked somewhat clearer.

“Excuse me, girls,” she said louder, and this time Lissa and Addie moved out of the way.

“Dr. Lyanne,” the nurse called, prompting a twitch in the doctor’s jaw. “Could you come here, please? It’s already half past seven. Mr. Conivent said—”

“I’ll see if they’re almost done,” Dr. Lyanne said. She tugged at her lab coat and moved toward the nurse, every step a sharp click of heels against the tiled floor. Addie, along with almost everyone else in the line, watched her go. She disappeared into the waiting room.

I said.

I was afraid I’d have to waste precious time explaining, but Addie didn’t ask any questions, just cast a swift look around, met eyes with Lissa, and slipped into Dr. Lyanne’s office. We’d recognized those folders, the tabs marked with blue labels.

The office was small and trapezoidal, with a slightly slanting ceiling and a large window at one end. The last rays of sunlight filtered in, bouncing off the tiles on the roof outside. Dr. Lyanne’s desk was pushed against the far wall, next to a filing cabinet and a low bookshelf. The pile of files sat at the edge of her desk.

“
Addie,
” Lissa hissed. She’d followed us into the office, her eyes wide. “What are you
doing
?”

“Figuring out what they’re doing to Eli and Cal,” Addie said.

Would he be the next child on the operating table? The next body on the gurney, moved in haste while the others sat penned in the Study room or eating quietly from their yellow trays?

And perhaps—perhaps, if we could find Jaime Cortae’s folder, or Sallie’s folder—we’d figure out where they were now. What was happening to them now that Nornand claimed they’d gone home.

Addie crossed the office. “Let me know if anyone’s coming.”

“But—” Lissa said.

I said.

she snapped.

Our hands shook as she flipped through the manila folders.
Bridget Conrade
—the blond girl with the long, neat braids
. Hanson Drummond
—the boy who’d spoken up about Eli that first day
. Katherine Holynd—
Kitty?
Arnold Renk . . .

Addie Tamsyn.

Addie hesitated, but I reeled her back on task.

She glanced up. Lissa stood just beyond the doorway, facing away from us. She’d eased the door almost all the way closed; we could just see her hands fidgeting behind her back through the remaining inches of space.

Addie pawed through the rest of the files.

I said.

Addie bent down and jerked it open. She leafed through the files, pulling them out to check the labels. Our hands trembled so hard she could barely stuff the files back in.

Addie said.

I said.

Her aggravation spiked, pressing daggers against me, but she did as I said, glancing at each folder before cramming it back into its slot.

I said.

Addie froze. We reread the label.

Refcon.

The night we were taken. The scene in the dining room, Dad’s helpless gaze, Mom’s knuckles white on the back of our chair. Mr. Conivent’s words rang through our mind:
It’s what we call a suppression drug, a highly controlled substance. It affects the neural system. Suppresses the dominant mind.

Addie rocked back on our heels and pulled the file all the way out of the cabinet. Checking the doorway had become a nervous twitch. But Lissa hadn’t moved from her spot or said a word, and our eyes jerked back to the file. It was worn, the edges soft and rolled from handling. Addie flipped it open.