Middle Ground (16 page)

“Maybe it isn’t true,” he offered, and looked away, pretending to be fascinated with something in the distance.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Spill it.”

He took a deep breath. “Kristin Locke died in a riot a few years ago. Justin was training her. People said they were dating, but I don’t know for sure.”

“She died?” I asked. “What happened?”

“It was a demonstration in Boise, Idaho. Protesters were there to fight a vote to build a detention center in the city. They were just trying to stir up some media attention and get people to sign a petition. It wasn’t supposed to be a huge event. But a bomb went off in front of the courthouse. She was the only one who was killed.”

Gabe said he remembered watching it on the news. “Someone rigged an explosive under the steps. The police figured out it was an assassination attempt on Richard Vaughn, the designer of detention centers. He was going to speak there that afternoon.

“The bomb was on a timer that short-circuited,” he said. “The only reason I remember is that after that, the DS rebels put a ban on bringing any weapons to protests. They’ve been completely outlawed since her death. They called it the Locke Down. No weapons. Fight with words, not bullets.”

I nodded. I remember hearing about the Locke Down. It was a peace movement among protesters. It was a way to avoid violence: never carry the weapons to start it. I remember my father bringing it up. I just never knew the story behind it. But almost every story begins with another story’s end.

So many pieces slid into place. Why Justin worked so hard to avoid violence. Why he was so protective of me. Why he never planned too far into the future. Why he was so determined to live in the moment. He claimed it was his parents and his upbringing, but I was suspicious there was something more. Fighting DS had always been so personal to him, more like a vendetta than a passion. Now I knew why.

I realized my hands were clenched. Why hadn’t Justin ever told me about this? Didn’t he confide in anyone? He always told me never to hold things in because thoughts eventually make you crack. Did he think he needed to be a warrior all the time, that he was too selfless to feel grief?

“I’m sure he was going to tell you eventually,” Gabe assured me.

I nodded but my head was weary. My heart was tight. I wanted to be there for Justin. But how can you be there for someone who doesn’t need you? It’s like trying to scale a wall without anyone on the top throwing you a rope. You just keep sliding down and eventually your muscles give out, and your energy and your will and your heart.

***

Gabe and I took the elevator down to the basement at midnight. I had showered and put on fresh clothes but I still looked battered and tired. I was barely sleeping and there were purple shadows under my eyes. My hair was tied in a ratty ponytail, and my clothes hung loose on my scrawny limbs. A part of me didn’t want to see Justin. I was exhausted and anxious and the fact that I looked like a recovering meth addict didn’t help my self-esteem.

Gabe opened the tunnel entrance and handed me a flashlight.

“Want me to walk you the rest of the way?”

I told him I’d be fine. He said he programmed the elevator to take me back to my floor. He shut the door behind me and I looked down the mouth of the tunnel. Another light hovered in the distance, still and constant. I followed it and my steps echoed around the curved walls. Justin waited for me with an extra coat hanging over his arm. He had on a black stocking cap and wore a down vest over his sweatshirt. I stopped when we were several feet apart. He handed me the coat.

“It’s Clare’s,” he said. “It’s a little cold out.”

I put my arms through the sleeves. I didn’t meet his eyes.

He took a step closer to me to see how I’d react. I expected a rush of nerves, but instead I felt a warm energy press against my chest. I still craved him. He reached out and brushed his fingers across my hand, but carefully, to see if I’d snap them away. We were both relieved when I didn’t. I finally looked up at him. We stood a foot apart for a few seconds, watching each other.

“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I’m not going to pass out this time. Although I’m sure you’ve had that effect on women before.”

He smirked. “Glad to see your sarcasm is still intact.”

He looked down at my hand and laced his fingers with mine. His skin was so warm. I let my mind fixate on the energy of his touch. He leaned closer and lifted my hand to examine it in the dim glow of his flashlight. I really saw him now, his hair sticking out from under the cap and around his ears, his eyes that were aware of everything, his solid hand. I was starting to wake up. The rough skin on his fingers traced over my knuckles and he kissed each of my fingertips, one at a time. All the panic I’d felt since I’d been in the detention center evaporated like steam off my skin. He dropped my hand from his lips and his eyes relaxed.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here for a little while.”

I asked him where we were going.

He nodded ahead of us. “You’ll see.”

My thoughts traveled to Kristin Locke. Her story felt like footsteps following behind us. I couldn’t ignore her presence. I hated that Justin held it back from me, that he would keep something so pivotal buried inside. I knew I’d have to bring Kristin up eventually. But not tonight. Tonight I just wanted to feel light again. I wanted to float.

The tunnel slowly rose and gave way to ground and the ceiling gave way to sky. The air moved and I lifted my hand to feel it brushing my fingertips. It felt like a curtain, like soft petals, like time. It was alive. My lungs kicked in like a car engine revving to life. The air was my ignition. The sky was my fuel. I took a deep breath and looked up.

A single streetlight lit the entrance around the tunnel, but beyond that, blackness stretched in the sky. Black is my favorite color. It’s limitless. It’s indefinable. It keeps you guessing. When there’s nothing to see, you’re forced to imagine. It makes every shape, every person more mysterious because you can’t see all the details.

I forgot who I was in the detention center. I didn’t have to ask Justin why he pressed to meet with me alone. He’d brought me out here to help me get reacquainted. Darkness opened her arms and wrapped them tightly around me to welcome me home. It felt good to be in her strong embrace. Darkness doesn’t judge. Darkness can’t even see. She only feels. She flies and flows through the night like an angel with giant wings.

Justin led me down to the beach. We heard the wave generators churning water for energy. They occupied parts of the coast from Santa Barbara all the way to San Diego to power the cities packed in between. White lights illuminated huge propellers cutting through the water to create some of the city’s energy. They were all in sync and cartwheeled through the waves like a tumbling performance.

We sat down in the soft sand, just at the edge of the tide. The waves ran up to greet us, narrowly missing our feet, only to skitter shyly away. I grinned at the water, like it was playing with me, like it was going out of its way to make me smile.

“I’m surprised you didn’t fight me about staying in the DC,” I told Justin. It was getting strange to hear my voice out loud. Gabe and I talked like we were tiptoeing around in the dark, afraid of getting caught. The DC forced us to think that talking face-to-face was unhealthy and subversive. I used my voice less and less every day. Sometimes, I wondered why I even had one.

He admitted he almost had. “It makes me sick to think you’re going through with this.” His eyes met mine and silver light cut across them.

“Then why did you let me?” I asked. I was starting to wish he hadn’t. I was tired of trying to be brave.

He sighed as if he regretted it too. “Because if I were in your shoes, I would have done the same thing. And I know you can handle it.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, because I needed to be reminded that I was strong. I was starting to forget.

“Because I think you’re right. You can make a difference.” He told me experiences were kind of like fate, and fate usually came in the form of a test. He told me fate liked to be worshiped. It liked to see us fall on our knees before it offered to help us up. I wondered if he was referring to what happened to Kristin.

He stretched his long legs out and sat back on his hands. “I think what you’re doing is the fastest way to motivate a change. If we can free all these detention centers, people will have to start listening.”

I pressed my hand into the cold sand and felt as small as the grains that stuck to my fingers.

“I’m starting to doubt if I can do this,” I admitted.

“You have to block it. Doubt just corners you. It steers you into a dead end if you follow it. Don’t doubt what you’re doing, Maddie. It’s the right thing, I promise.”

He turned so he was facing me and he reached out slowly and turned my body so our legs were entwined. He held both of my hands in his. “I know you’ll be fine.
You will be fine.
”

I frowned at him. “I don’t know anymore,” I said.

“I won’t let anything happen to you. I’m not leaving this city without you. And I’ve always believed that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

I looked in his dark eyes. I heard my dad say that line all the time but I never trusted it. I dropped his hands and leaned back.

“Why do people say that? What does that expression mean anyway?”

“I think it’s true. The most difficult experiences define us.”

I shook my head. “I think the opposite’s true.”

He studied me curiously. I didn’t expect Justin to understand. Our ideas of survival were black and white.

“When your time is up, what are your last thoughts going to be?” I asked. “All of your miserable memories? When you were lonely or scared or heartbroken? The things that almost kill you don’t make you stronger. If anything, they make you bitter and closed off and broken.”

Justin considered this. “I’ve never looked at it that way.”

That doesn’t surprise me,
I wanted to say. But I needed to be careful with this conversation.

“I think what you have to live for makes you stronger,” I said. “When I have these nightmares, when I feel like I’m about to break, I focus on you. I focus on the memories I have with the people I love. The places I love. The memories that make this life worth it in the first place. If I was about to die, I wouldn’t dwell on the things that didn’t kill me. I’d think about the people I’d want to see one last time so I could tell them how much they mean to me. Love makes you stronger. It’s our strongest weapon. It’s the only weapon the DC hasn’t taken from me. It’s the only reason they haven’t broken me yet.”

He was quiet next to me. Our time was slowly winding down. I wanted to hold the time, to widen it, to lengthen it. I wanted to wade in slow movements of time.

Over the next few weeks, life limped and crawled by. The DC fought to take over my mind, and I worked to preserve it. They tried to smash down my hope and my confidence, so I gave myself daily exercises to focus on things that lifted me up, things that I loved. I tried to marinate in those thoughts, to put them on and wear them around. I meditated on people and places and experiences that inspired me. I made daily lists of ten things I loved. I listed them in my journal, or sometimes in the privacy of my mind. It was my own secret therapy. My ten favorite foods. Ten most influential people. Ten greatest moments. Ten strengths. Each list made me think and reflect. It exercised a side of my brain the DC wanted to paralyze. It was a small way to fight back.

I hadn’t gone out of my room except to use the bathroom. Every time I looked at my door handle I felt nauseated. I couldn’t place what was triggering the panic—it was just a reaction, like a reflex. Outside of my walls was a world I couldn’t control and that idea was immobilizing.

Every week I met with Molly so she could study me like I was a medical experiment. She gave me a physical exam and took blood, which I needed to be sedated for since I couldn’t handle contact with anyone except Justin. I started to panic if someone was within ten feet of me. Even Justin could only hold my hand, and he touched it as delicately as paper. Molly attached electrodes to my forehead so she could study my brain activity while we went through countless questionnaires and examinations. She took pages of notes. Usually Pat and Clare were there, sometimes Scott, and always Justin.

After a month of meetings, Molly was still struggling to pinpoint the reason for my nightmares and subsequent amnesia. My physical exams and bloodwork came up clean every time. Other than my loss of weight, the only serious ailment I suffered from was fatigue. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep would make it harder to fight the DC. Sleep deprivation can cause depression, a loss of appetite, stress, anxiety—even hallucinations. The DC could claim that was the reason for the inmates’ paranoia.

Pat sat on a chair in the basement and sighed when Molly announced, once again, that my bloodwork didn’t show a trace of drugs. I sat on a cot and chewed at my nails. I knew what Pat was thinking. These meetings were draining everyone and so far we had nothing to show for them. But we were all too stubborn to admit defeat.

“So,” Pat said. “Let’s go over what we know. She’s being psychologically tortured. She’s losing weight. They’re frying her brain with drugs we can’t detect. We knew this since day one. Are we making any progress here? Or is this a waste of all our time and Maddie’s health?”

Molly shifted in her seat. “This isn’t a waste, Pat,” she said. “And a defeatist attitude isn’t going to help anyone.”

“You mean a realistic attitude,” he argued.

Molly looked back at her flipscreen that held charts of my brain activity. “What we need is evidence. We’re trying to shut down a correctional facility, not a chatroom. We can’t go on a hunch. We need hard facts.”

“Why don’t we discuss how we’re going to get Maddie out of here,” Pat said angrily.

I smiled at Pat to try to calm him down. I appreciated he was looking out for me. But I knew Molly was right. We couldn’t stop now. I hid the fact that these group meetings were getting harder for me to sit through. Being around so many people was giving me anxiety. People carried energy, like batteries, and it was starting to feel like radiation pressing on me.