Middle Ground (22 page)

That morning I’d painted them. I drew a yellow sun on the ceiling, like a golden lantern shining happiness around me. I turned two of my wall screens into a front yard and drew homes on either side of me. One of the homes was made out of coarse red brick and it reminded me of the home in Bayview I’d stayed in with Justin. I drew a yellow house on the other side that reminded me of Eden. I felt like I was surrounded by friends. I built a Ferris wheel on one of the front lawns. I painted my other wall screens blue so I wouldn’t know the difference between walls and air. I built a train track through the center of my room to remind me to move. I wrote poems on the sidewalks with red and yellow chalk, and the words connected the houses. I wrote poems all the way up to each front door. I took cold, empty walls and gave them life.

Connie looked around with awe at the Ferris wheel, the neighborhood I’d created, the sunlight and train tracks, as if she’d forgotten a world existed outside the DC. I wanted to kick myself for being so careless.

“Come with me” was all she said.

I nodded slowly. I hadn’t had a counseling session in a few weeks and was optimistic they were finally over. I had gotten my appetite back. I had gone weeks without waking up sweating and soaking through my clothes from nightmares.

I followed her into the hallway and reminded myself to keep my distance.

“Is this about my room?” I asked. “I have a right to design my wall screens. I read the DC rules.”

She scanned her keycard next to the elevator. “Young lady,” she said, “I’m familiar with the rules. This isn’t a discipline issue. You have a visitor,” she informed me as we stepped inside the elevator.

“Detention centers allow visitors?” I asked with disbelief.

She chuckled to herself. “More VIP treatment, it seems.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“That will be enough questions,” she said, and tightened her lips to show she meant it.

We stood silently until we hit the ground floor and then she escorted me out the dorm entrance. It was the first time I’d been permitted outside the building since I was registered here, five months ago. We walked out into the dusty courtyard. I followed her down a concrete path to the office building on the other side of the lot. The courtyard was quiet except for loose rocks crunching under our shoes. The metal doors buzzed open and Connie ushered me inside. All the windows and blinds were tightly closed even though it was a sunny, mild day. The air in the lobby was cold, and the light inside was a dim bluish gray.

Connie pointed down the hall.

“Last office on the right,” she informed me. I nodded and took a few steps but I was distracted. Wall screens on both sides of me lit up facts, statistics, and accomplishments of detention centers. It was like walking through a neon shrine. Most of the acknowledgments were of Richard Vaughn and his advances in neuroscience and psychology. I stopped, captivated by a diagram of the United States. Red dots on the screen represented all the existing detention centers. The size of the dot indicated the size of the center. There were centers in nearly every state. Most of the dots were small; the largest was the center in Iowa. The third largest, I noticed, was the LADC.

I approached an open office door and voices seeped into the hallway, men’s voices. The sound of one voice, strong and powerful, practically knocked me over with surprise.

“I have every right to tour these facilities,” I heard my father announce, and I froze in midstep.

“Not without an appointment,” another voice responded. “This is not your area to oversee, Kevin. You have no authority inside my centers. You don’t have the training or background to question my practices.”

I pressed my back flat against the wall, as if they could see me from around the corner. The panic and fear I battled for months to control was rising up again.

“I’m not trying to step on your toes, Richard,” my father said, his voice calm. “I’m just interested in seeing the facility since it contains my students, and my daughter.”

“Write a proposal, let me look over your concerns, and we’ll set up a time in the future. We don’t do drop-ins around here.”

“Don’t you think we should collaborate?” my father asked. “Shouldn’t your mission coincide with mine? If we work together, it can only improve the system.”

I narrowed my eyes at this. My father rarely collaborated with anyone. He had to have other motives.

“All we do here is try to help young adults, just like you do. Isn’t that collaborating? This facility is a safe haven. I’m helping them feel secure. This is a damn paradise. That’s why you designed DS, isn’t it, Kevin? To create a perfect, peaceful coexistence? A place where people can live free of fear? Free of violence and discrimination?”

“That was my intention,” my dad said.

“Well, that’s why I funded your
intention.
And my centers encourage that. Unless the board sees a problem with my performance, I’d prefer to keep my studies at the DC confidential. Just as I’m sure you have matters of your own you’d like to keep
confidential.
”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Richard Vaughn was blackmailing my dad, and he was using me as the bargaining chip.

“My concern is how exactly you’re going about
encouraging
the students,” my dad retorted.

“Neuroscience is my field,” Richard stated. “Education is yours. I don’t look over your shoulder. I’d appreciate it if you’d back off mine. Remember who is boss here. If you don’t like my rules I can replace you with someone who does.”

“This center is not what I established,” I heard my father say.

“You wanted to create a peaceful society. You recruit the orchestra. You conduct them. I make sure they stay in tune. People leave each other alone, thanks to me. Isn’t that what you want? For people to be left alone? That’s what society prefers.”

“There’s still the issue of my daughter,” my father said.

“Don’t blame me that you have no control over her. I’ve given you chances. I even agreed to let the paperwork show she was in here while she was living with your son.”

“And now I’m thinking you were only helping me so you could help yourself,” my father argued. “You didn’t want me to come down here and sniff around.”

“You would find nothing,” Richard assured him.

“Hey,” Connie whispered, and scaring me so bad that I nearly jumped out of my sandals. “What are you doing standing here?” she barked at me. “Go on,” she said, and shoved me toward the door.

Connie had to push me all the way in since my feet refused to cooperate. We turned in to a large office. The screens inside were filled with more maps and awards and articles featuring the detention centers.

Richard sat behind a black desk and my father stood on the other side of it. I had seen photographs of Richard. He had thick, white hair that stood up in a messy heap on his head. He was lean and his blue eyes studied me suspiciously. There were deep wrinkles in his forehead and around his mouth, which was pinched into a frown.

My dad whirled around when he heard us, and his eyes found mine. For a few seconds, he just stared at me. My father could mask his emotions better than any actor. But for a moment I saw complete shock, as if he were seeing a ghost, just a rough approximation of who his daughter used to be.

“Madeline?” He said my name as if he were asking, as if he didn’t recognize his own daughter. I hadn’t looked in a mirror in weeks. I rarely did these days because I was disgusted with the girl who looked back at me.

“Hi, Dad,” I said.

Richard studied me from head to foot and scrunched his eyes at my disheveled appearance. I hadn’t showered in a few days. My hair was a ratty mess, snarled and stringy and falling limp around my shoulders, past my chest. I knew my face looked gaunt from my meager diet. Dark shadows hugged my eyes from lack of sleep. My skin was pale from a diet that consisted mostly of coffee. The scrubs hung on me like my shoulders were as wiry as a clothes hanger.

I crossed my arms over my chest and arched my back. I was the product of Richard’s prodigious accomplishments. I was his poster child. I wanted him to take a good, long look at me. What did he think of his program now?

Richard glared at Connie. “Next time, when I ask for a student, see that they show up looking a little more presentable,” he said, as if my appearance were a grooming accident and not due to months of torture.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

My dad took in my appearance, my sullen face, my weak frame. I met his gaze, our eyes crashing together like trains on the same track. I wanted him to see me like this. I wanted him to get a firsthand look at what was happening inside here.

“I have appointments, so if there isn’t anything further to discuss?” Richard asked.

“I think we’re done here,” my dad said. He shifted his eyes to Richard. “I’d like to talk to my daughter for a few minutes. Alone.”

“We don’t usually allow visitors.”

“I think in this case you can make an exception.”

My dad pressed his gaze, and I saw Richard back down.

“Connie, see that Madeline returns to her room when they’re finished. You’ve got ten minutes.”

Connie nodded, and my dad led me out of the office, down the hall. He pressed his hand against my lower back while we walked, which made me stiffen, and informed Connie we’d be outside. He opened the front door and we were met by the bright sun. I squinted underneath it but the heat was appreciated after the sterile office building. We walked until we were in the center of the courtyard, and my dad turned to stare at me.

He dropped his cool composure. He looked horrified.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I stated.

“How are you fine? You look emaciated. What’s going on, Maddie?”

I studied my dad. He was the person I’d grown up admiring. He used to be such a hero in my eyes. A national celebrity. Someone so brave and strong. Sometimes I liked to believe I inherited a few of those traits. And staring at him, I knew I still loved my father. I couldn’t help it. Love was ingrained in my skin, in my fibers. And love pushes you to open up. It encourages you to trust. I didn’t want to fight him anymore. I didn’t have the heart. I only wanted to tell him the truth.

“I need to tell you something,” I said, and he nodded quickly. I knew I didn’t have much time. I told him the highlights—that the detention center was brainwashing kids, that they were planting fear in our minds to control us, that we were all being drugged and emotionally tortured.

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “We test kids the moment they’re released from these centers. We’ve never found any evidence of abuse, mental or physical. There’s never been one incident of drugs reported.”

I groaned at his comments. “Dad, stop looking at people like we’re just some points on a graph. I’m not a statistic. Look at me. Look at what they’re turning us into. They’re killing us. They’re poisoning us. There isn’t time to argue about it. Look around and see it for yourself. It’s gone too far, can’t you see that now? I’m living proof of it. We’re not the enemy. We’re the victims.”

My dad blew out an angry sigh. “If you had stopped associating with people like Justin Solvi, none of this would have happened. Those people are bringing you down, Madeline. They’re recruiting you to be in a radical cult, nothing more. Maybe now you’ll start to agree with me.”

I glared at him for assuming this. “It isn’t Justin’s fault. He’s the reason why I’m surviving this hellhole,” I argued. “My friends are the ones helping me get through this. I could have broken out of here months ago if I wanted. I’m in here because I choose to be in here.”

He shook his head. “Some friends, to encourage you to stay in here and rot.”

“Don’t you get it? You know me better than that. I made the decision to stay. They didn’t encourage me. And don’t forget that you willingly put me in here,” I reminded him.

“I had no choice, Maddie. Paul recognized you. It was all over the news. I had to let it happen.”

“To make yourself look good,” I pointed out.

He inhaled a deep breath. His eyes blinked hard. “One day, I hope you’ll forgive me,” he said. “One day you’ll understand.”

I hated that expression. Adults always said “One day you’ll understand,” but what they really meant was they didn’t want to take the time to understand us.

He stared at me with disbelief, as if he’d only just heard what I’d said. “You’re telling me you could escape, but you’re willingly staying in here? Why?”

“I’d rather be miserable in here, fighting for the life I want, than out there, being forced to live half a life. At least I know what I want. Not very many people can claim that.” I tightened my lips, and my eyes mirrored the stubbornness in his. I lowered my voice. I took a huge risk, because for the first time, he looked scared. A door was open, a passage that my dad rarely welcomed me through. It was his vulnerable side. It was a tunnel that passed the thick walls of his mind and went straight to his heart. It was a passage I thought he had closed on me, but I could see it was open. He still loved me, and when you love someone, it’s your instinct to help them.

“My friends are out there, working twenty-four hours a day. We’re figuring out a way to free all of these kids before it’s too late. The only reason I’m not a vegetable right now is that they’re risking their freedom for me. They’re meeting with me every week to help me get through this. That’s why the DC hasn’t broken me yet.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Madeline, I’m begging you to be rational. What you’re talking about is impossible. You could be executed for something like this.”

“Not if you’re willing to help.”

He told me there was nothing he could do. “I have no authority here.”

“You can use your voice. Speak out against the DCs when we expose what’s really going on. We have the evidence; we can prove it. You can’t be blind anymore to what’s happening in here. You see it with your own eyes now. So, back us up.” My eyes pleaded with him to agree. “You know how much weight your words carry.”

He studied my face. He was wavering. “Do you realize how that would make me look?”