Middle Ground (11 page)

“Some psychiatrists,” she continued, “prefer to counsel the old-fashioned way and ask questions, but humans are confusing creatures to understand. They lie, they doubt. They say one thing and mean another. They repress some emotions, they obsess over others. It can take years of work to draw any kind of conclusions. This system can do it in a matter of seconds,” she said with a smile.

You’re right,
I thought.
Why ask me questions when you can plug me in and categorize my brain? Saves lots of time.
She studied my eyes for a few seconds and then pointed at the screen, which was still recording my apparently angry brain waves.

“This number is what concerns me,” she said. “Negative energy is like a disease in the body. It weakens you. It festers. It wears you down. It can make you self-destructive, even violent. It’s unhealthy to internalize these emotions for very long.”

“At least I’m feeling something,” I pointed out.

“You feel very strong emotions, Madeline,” she agreed. “But my goal at the DC is to help you find a positive outlook on life. What we aim to work on here is your animosity toward your life,
toward DS,
which is breeding your hostility. We want you to be happy. We want to show you, day by day, why this system is right and is best for everyone. Why you should trust it, not fight it. Life is too short to be this angry. Our goal is to increase this number,” she said, and pointed her finger at the red, positive area of my brain.

I stared at the numbers, not convinced they reflected what she claimed.

“And we have six months to do it,” she added, and reached into the front pocket of her lab coat. I blinked at her words.

“Six months?”

“That’s a normal DC sentence. Sometimes it’s shorter if you’re open to the treatment.” In her hand, she held a small compact. She flipped it open and there was a square tablet inside. I immediately shook my head.

“It’s just a relaxant,” she said. “It dissolves on your tongue. It’s the only way to guarantee we’re getting the facts out of you during these meetings. Although we might not need that with you,” she added with a tight grin. “You seem more than eager to speak your mind.”

I looked at the orange tablet with apprehension. “If I’m already being honest, I don’t need it,” I pointed out. “Besides, can’t the reader tell if I’m lying?”

She nodded. “It can tell me if you’re lying, but unfortunately it can’t tell me what the truth is. A lot of students think if they cooperate, if they say what we want to hear, then we’ll let them go. But that’s not the way it works. This medicine helps us open up your mind so we can see everything inside. So we can help you.”

She held out the drug, but I still didn’t take it. My mind was all I had left, the only weapon I had in here, which, I realized, was why they wanted it. My mind was the last weapon they needed to confiscate.

“What if I refuse?” I asked.

She raised her eyebrows. “It’s mandatory. You can take this willingly or we can administer the drug through a syringe, with force if necessary. Most people prefer this way to the needle.” She continued to hold out the compact and waited. “You can’t fight what’s inevitable, Maddie.”

I grabbed the tablet and put it in my mouth and it dissolved quickly on my tongue. It fizzled and tasted like the cough medicine my mom gave me when I was little and had a cold. Dr. Stevenson closed the compact and slid it into her pocket.

She smiled. “Now we can begin the session,” she told me.

I nodded but my head felt heavy, like weights were inside it, pressing it down. The room was fuzzy and all the sharp angles turned soft. I looked up at the ceiling and tried to focus, but a foggy halo framed the lights above me. They dimmed, going from white to yellow to gold.

“The Cure’s starting to work,” I heard her say, and her voice echoed against the walls.

I started to fall forward but a hand guided me back, and then I was sinking.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them I was sitting in a desk in an old-fashioned classroom. It was a face-to-face high school, like my mom used to describe, with desks aligned in rows, all facing the front of the room, where a middle-aged man in a dark beard and glasses was lecturing. He was animated and used his hands while he talked. A student sat in front of me, someone I didn’t recognize, and I watched the teacher’s lecture form paragraphs on his computer screen while he typed his own notes in the margins. It was archaic, like I’d time-traveled back thirty years.

I looked to my side and froze. Justin was sitting at a desk in the next aisle. I glanced around and saw that Clare, Noah, Pat, Scott, and Molly were all in the room. I recognized Erin from soccer and some of my old digital contacts. I even recognized Jake and Riley, two of Justin’s friends I’d met back in Oregon. There was a poster on the wall of the periodic table and illustrations of how to identify types of plants and flowers. What was I doing in a science class? I studied Justin’s profile while he took notes. He wrote longhand, the way he preferred. He was the only one writing.

I could feel the energy I always sensed in his presence but I still didn’t accept he was real. I reached out to touch his arm and felt his skin warm under mine. It was so natural to have my hand there. He looked at me and grinned.

He leaned in close. “Stop staring at my lips,” he whispered.

I could hear his shoe moving across the ground. I could feel his body heat. I was so relieved to see him I wanted to cry. I curled my fingers around his arm tight, until my knuckles raised out white through my skin.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Justin, what are we doing here?” I whispered. “Where are we?”

His grin disappeared. “Are you all right?”

That’s when the explosion hit. We felt it before we heard it, a shudder, like a tsunami had slammed against the walls of the school. Then the windows blew out from a gust so strong it ripped me out of my seat. My body was thrown forward and I felt a searing heat rip through my leg. I flew, pushed through the air in a wave of heat, until a concrete wall caught my shoulder with a cracking punch.

The next thing I heard were screams. A chorus of them, high and shrieked. They were worse than the explosion. Screams circled in the air followed by thunder as wood and concrete and steel shifted out of balance with a crash. I covered my head as I was attacked in all directions from the ceiling dropping around me, piles of splintering wood and crumbling concrete.

Then, just as quickly as all the noise had erupted, it suddenly stopped and there was a silence. I tried to lift my head but it was too heavy. The ground around me was warm and wet. Someone was mewling close by. I blinked my eyes open and stared at blue sky above, sunlight streaming in through a cloud of dust. How did I get outside?

People coughed and gasped around me. Standing pillars of concrete buckled and fell, sending up more clouds of ash. I tried to move but I was stuck. I attempted to lift myself up and pain shot through my leg and made me gasp. I grabbed my leg, and my jeans were ripped and my skin was wet. There was a hole where my knee used to be and my fingers touched soft, swollen flesh that was so painful I started to heave. I couldn’t tell if my leg was completely severed from the knee down; there was too much blood. Acid burned my throat and poured out of my mouth. I tried to roll on my side but my leg was stuck under slabs of glass. I screamed for someone to help me but no one answered.

I lifted my head and looked around. I could see Clare. She lay motionless a few feet away. I called out to her. Fallen beams and rubble separated us. I could smell smoke now. Flames crackled like laughter. I coughed on the fumes and tried to free my leg. I screamed for Justin. I screamed because it was the only thing I could do.

My eyes searched the devastated yard that used to be a school. The pain in my leg caught my breath in my throat. It stole my voice. I swallowed back tears. The smoke was getting thick, like a pillow pressed hard against my face to suffocate me. The heat was unbearable. Fire crackled and snorted. I closed my eyes against the burning air and started to choke. Then a hand reached out and started to lift me free.

“Justin!” I screamed, and this time the shout woke me up. I bolted straight up in bed, shaking and sweat soaked. The blackness around me was as thick and gritty as coal. I instinctively grabbed my leg and exhaled in relief to feel it underneath my pants, sweaty and soaked through, but all in one piece. I lifted my leg and bent my knee back and forth. I touched my shirt and felt something warm and thick and realized I had thrown up. I pulled the shirt off and winced at the acidic smell. I threw it down on the floor and hugged myself to keep warm.

“On,” I mumbled, and squinted as light flooded down from the ceiling like fluorescent rain. I half expected to be in a hospital room, but I was back in my dorm room, lying on the narrow cot. I shivered and looked around fearfully, expecting someone to be lurking. I listened closely at the walls to hear the ticking of a bomb or a distant scream. Silence answered me and it was secretive and cold.

I tried to remember how I’d gotten back to my room. The last memory I had was the counseling session. I wiped sweat off my forehead and realized I had soaked through all my clothes. My pants clung to me like a second skin, and the sweat was turning cold and making my body shake in response.

“It was just a nightmare,” I whispered out loud to console myself. I rested my forehead on my knees and took deep, slow breaths. I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked.

“It was just a nightmare.”

I wanted to see one person. The one person who could assure me everything would be all right. The one person I believed in more than myself. I knew he was close. I knew he was fighting to get me out. I stared at the emptiness surrounding me. I couldn’t see him with my eyes but I could find him with my mind. I curled my mind around him and held on as tight as I could.

The clock on the wall read 6:00 a.m. The door unlocked with a smooth hum. I stood up too fast and a head rush nearly made me topple over. I balanced myself with a hand on the edge of my desk. My temples were pounding. I groaned and rubbed my fingers over my forehead. My body felt like it had been through a marathon. I peeled off the rest of my sweaty clothes and put on a fresh pair of underwear.

The details of the nightmare were already starting to fade. I couldn’t remember who specifically was in my dream or where we had been. I just remembered feelings: terror, pain, heartbreak, and despair.

I sat down and tried to think, but my mind was heavy and muddled. I turned on the wall screen to find what I wrote yesterday, but the document was gone. I sighed and assumed the detention center had erased it. Obviously, they didn’t want us to record our memories here.

I stood up and paced as I tried to recall what happened last night, but my thoughts were fragmented. They shifted and slipped through my consciousness before I could grasp hold of them. I could scarcely remember a face from yesterday, let alone details. Even Dr. Stevenson was a blur, like a picture out of focus.

I opened a new document, thinking that if I began again, the words might help me remember. I needed to try.

“A woman gave me a tour,” I said out loud. Wait, was
tour
the right word? “She helped me settle in,” I said. “I met with Dr. Stevenson. She wants to help me. She said I’m sick.” I stopped pacing and considered this. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe they’re not trying to punish me in here. They’re trying to save me. Maybe there is something wrong with me.”

I blinked at the wall in front of me, at my own words, and wondered who had spoken them. Emotions churned through my mind, but they were distant and shattered; they weren’t my own. I couldn’t separate real from imaginary. What was real?

I pulled my fingers through my sweaty hair and it made my head ache. I wanted to be angry but I was only empty. I wanted to think but I could hardly feel. I was numb.

I tugged on a clean pair of scrubs and headed for the door. My room was pressing in on me. Maybe walking around would help me think. I opened the door but stopped when I heard the elevator at the end of the hall. I looked down the corridor and saw a girl in a wheelchair. Her head leaned to one side like she was asleep, and straight brown hair fell over her face so I couldn’t see her features. I didn’t recognize the woman escorting her—she had gray hair pulled back in a bun and wore a white lab coat like Dr. Stevenson. I stepped toward them and was about to call out, desperate to talk to someone, but the doctor looked at me and pressed a finger over her mouth. Her narrowed eyes warned me to keep back. I obediently stayed in place until they turned the corner, moving out of my sight.

I sighed and shuffled down to the food station and ordered a cup of coffee. The machine dispensed steaming black liquid and I looked at the coffee with a faint smile. It was something familiar, and at that moment, I needed to be reminded there was a world outside of this place. It reminded me I still existed. I sat down on the cold metal seat and breathed in the warm, rich steam, already feeling revived.

I heard footsteps and looked up to see the boy who had escorted me to the counseling session. He came around the corner carrying a box and when he saw me he stopped so quickly his shoes squeaked against the floor. We stared at each other for a few seconds, the room quiet except for a few trickles and hums from the food station. He looked at me like he’d never seen a human being before.

“What are you doing out of your room?” he asked.

I kicked into defense mode. “The doors unlock at six. I thought I could use this whenever I wanted.” I pointed to the machine with my thumb. “My one little luxury?” My voice came out hoarse, and my throat hurt as if I’d been screaming for hours.

He set the box down on a table next to a storage closet and his eyes locked on mine. He didn’t look angry to see me out of my room. All I could see was surprise.

“I know you can leave your room, but why did you want to?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. I winced at another piercing pain in my temple and started rubbing my forehead, which only made it worse. It felt like my head was caught in a mousetrap.