Luka, page 17
We walk up and down the rows, bile rising in my throat.
“I don’t see her,” Tess says.
“Didn’t you say your grandmother was constrained?” Nobody here is tied down. There’s no need for them to be.
“Yes, she was.”
We hurry to the next room only to find the same thing. Bone-thin adults hooked to IVs. A room filled with living corpses. By now, it’s almost lunch time, yet not a single patient is awake. Judging by their emaciated frames, I don’t think they’ve been awake for a while.
“Luka,” Tess says. “In my dream, my grandmother was in her own room.”
We return to the stairwell and climb another flight of stairs. We find the same thing on the third floor. On the fourth, things look different. There are more doors. Each with a small, square window.
We peek into the first and find a man inside rocking back and forth, bound in a straitjacket. I point to a pair of initials outside the door and snag the chart. Jonathan Becket, diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder.
We stride to the next. And the next. And the next. Searching for the initials E.E. When we don’t find them, we climb another flight of stairs, urgency pressing a cold hand against my back. The woman we bound and gagged will not stay unconscious forever. How long until alarms start sounding? How long until lights start flashing? How long until this entire facility goes into lockdown?
On the fifth floor, we finally find it.
E.E.
I open the chart—Elaine Eckhart.
Diagnosis: Paranoid Schizophrenia.
Threat to Society. Uncooperative. Highly delusional.
Tess’s hands shake like twin earthquakes as she holds the key fob up to the lock and the red light turns green. She pulls the door open and we step inside a small room—barren and white with the same fluorescent lighting. A woman with long white hair lies on her back, shackled to the bed like a prisoner. She stares at the ceiling, either unaware or indifferent to our arrival. Then Tess takes a tentative step forward and Elaine jerks her head to the side. As soon as she sees us, she strains away like we’re ravenous monsters hungry for human flesh.
Tess holds up her hands and approaches slowly. When she reaches her grandmother’s bedside, she looks into a pair of eyes that are wild and unhinged.
“Do you know who I am?” she whispers.
Her grandmother’s expression flickers with the smallest hint of recognition.
Tess spreads her fingers wide. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”
Elaine’s narrowed eyes dart back and forth from Tess to me, her fear no longer quite so feral. “Who is he?” she finally asks in a croaky voice as dry as desert sand.
“He’s my friend,” Tess says. “We came to help you.” Her words are hopeful ones, but she delivers them in a tone devoid of all hope. In a tone filled with crushing despair. How in the world could we possibly help this woman?
“My name is Teresa Eckhart,” she continues. “Does that name mean anything to you?”
Elaine doesn’t answer.
“A long time ago, you tried to take me. You thought I could save you.”
The old woman’s fingers flutter.
Does she remember?
Tess takes her grandmother’s hand, pinned to her side by leather restraints. “We don’t have much time.” She glances at the door. “I’m having dreams. Dreams like you used to have.”
“Help.”
The whispered word raises the hair on the back of my neck.
Tess’s brow furrows. “We can’t help you without information. We need to know what you know.”
“Help,” she says again. Louder.
“I want to help you, but we don’t know what’s going on.”
Elaine Eckhart lifts her head off the pillow, the tendons pulling tight in her neck. “Please, help me.”
“Why did you try to kidnap me all those years ago?”
The old woman let’s her head fall back on the bed. She closes her eyes.
I lick my bottom lip and stare hard at the door, the cold hand of urgency pressing harder against my back. We’ve been here too long.
Tess jiggles her grandmother’s fingers.
The woman’s eyes fly open, teeming with fresh terror. As if we’ve surprised her all over again. The numbers on one of her monitors jumps several digits. It begins beeping—a loud, alarming beep intended to notify a nurse or doctor. “You are the key,” she rasps.
I take Tess by the arm. “We need to get out of here.”
Tess doesn’t budge. “I’m the key? The key to what?”
“Come on, Tess,” I say.
The beeping grows louder, faster.
Tess’s grandmother nods, whether in agreement with me or her granddaughter, I don’t know.
My grip tightens around her elbow as I step toward the door.
She jerks free. “We can’t leave her here!”
“We don’t have a choice!”
“You’re the key!” her grandmother yells.
I wrap my arm around Tess’s waist and pull her from the room. Once outside, she stops fighting. The fog of confusion and sorrow lifts from her eyes. And her grandmother starts screaming inside the beeping room.
We sprint to the stairwell. Race down the stairs. Skid to a halt on the first-floor landing.
We have to slow down.
We have to walk.
I set the pace, knowing it requires every ounce of self-control for Tess to match it. Then we reach the stretch of deserted hallway and I can contain her no more. She sprints to the supply closet. I sprint after her. The woman on the floor stirs. Moans. Tess tosses the key fob at her, snatches her backpack, and we take off toward the exit. I throw open the door and come face-to-face with a woman on the other side.
She rears back and clutches her chest. “Oh my goodness, you scared me half to death!”
“We’re so sorry.” I grab Tess by the elbow again. “She’s not feeling well. Needs some fresh air.”
The woman’s hand slides from her heart. She gives us an odd look, then walks inside. Once the door closes, we run. We run like a pack of wild dogs are chasing us. Across the open lawn to the gate. We use my father’s ID to get back out. This time, voice activation is not required. We sprint to my car and collapse into the seats.
We did it.
We actually did it.
And yet, Tess’s despair is palpable beside me.
How can’t it be after what we just saw?
What words could I possibly say that might offer comfort?
There are none.
So I start the car and drive away, eager to put as much distance between us and Shady Wood as possible. The silence remains until we reach the end of the obscure access road. “We didn’t learn anything,” Tess says. “It wasn’t worth it.”
“That’s not true.” I pull onto the main road, my attention glued to the rearview mirror, half expecting to see flashing police lights behind me. “We learned that something is seriously wrong. Shady Wood says they’re taking patients in for the purpose of rehabilitation. What we saw back there? That wasn’t rehabilitation. That was messed up. They’re all in medically-induced comas.”
“We can’t leave her there, Luka.”
“I know.”
My phone rings on the console. I power it off and throw it in the back seat. “What do you think she meant when she said you were the key?”
“I have no idea.”
I merge onto the interstate—heading south. Toward home and all the trouble awaiting us there.
33
Separated
The closer we get to Thornsdale, the more I can feel Tess retreating. Turning inward. I take her hand as we pull through the gates of Forest Grove. “We’re in this together.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be.” She drops the softly spoken words like a bomb.
“What?”
Tess pulls her hand from mine. “I don’t want to drag you into my problems.”
“Tess, you didn’t drag me into anything.” I cringe at the words. Technically, she dragged me into her dream last night. I expel a frustrated breath. “I’m part of this whether you want me to be or not.”
“Even if it means being grounded for the rest of our lives?”
“Even if.” I pull into my driveway.
The front tires of my car aren’t even over the curb when our doors burst open and two sets of parents march outside.
My father’s expression makes me grimace. His words already hurt her once before, in the school parking lot. I really don’t want her to hear what he might add to them now. “I apologize in advance for anything he says.”
Before she can respond, Dad raps on my window with his knuckle. “Out!” The sharpness of his tone cuts through the glass. “Now.”
I do as he says.
So does Tess.
Dad glares. Thankfully, at me. My mother, on the other hand, glowers mutinously at Tess as her parents engulf her in a hug.
“How could you do that to us?” Miranda Eckhart says in a hot rush of relief. “Your brother is in the hospital, on the brink of death, and just when we find out he’s okay, you go missing? Where did you go? What were you thinking?”
“It was my fault, Mrs. Eckhart,” I say, stepping forward. “I thought Tess needed to get away.”
She releases Tess from her death grip and gapes at me like I’m some strange sea creature from the abyss. “You thought she needed to get away?”
Dad grabs me by the arm. “I couldn’t have made it any clearer.” He pushes the words through clenched teeth. “You are not to be associated with her.”
“Who’s her?” Tess’s father says. “My daughter?”
Mom lifts her chin. “She’s a bad influence on our son.”
“I believe you have things mixed up,” Mr. Eckhart replies. “Our daughter never made a habit of running away from home before she met your son.”
I yank free from Dad’s grip. “Mr. Eckhart is right. This was my idea, not hers.”
“Luka,” Tess says.
I cut off her objection with a sharp shake of my head. “Her brother was in the hospital. She was having a hard time. I made the suggestion. I snuck in the house and got my car keys. It was all me. So if you’re going to be mad, be mad at me.”
“Oh, you better believe I’m mad at you.” Dad holds out his hand, palm up. “Keys.”
I hand them over.
“Phone.”
“It’s in the car.”
“Then I’ll get it later. Let’s go. Inside.”
Mrs. Eckhart nudges her daughter in the opposite direction. “You too, Tess.”
Her parents flank her as they cut across our lawn. Tess looks over her shoulder at me. I stare back—fierce, determined. Whatever drastic measures my dad has in mind, I won’t let them keep us apart. The resounding thought booms in my mind as Dad pushes me through the front door and slams it shut.
“I don’t know how I could have been any clearer. How I could have said it any plainer.”
“Honey,” Mom says in an attempt to calm him.
But Dad cannot be calmed. The vein in his temple throbs as he shoves his pointer finger in my face. “I told you that I would take drastic measures.”
I brace myself.
Here it is. He’s going to pull me from school. Send me across the country. Maybe across the Atlantic. I wait for him to say it. I wait for my mother to argue. Instead, he waves his hand toward the stairs with a look of disgust. “Go to your room. I don’t want to see your face for the rest of the day.”
34
Drastic Measures
When I walk into the kitchen the next morning, bleary-eyed from a night of agonizing dreams, Mom looks up from her coffee—her own eyes bloodshot and swollen. “I’ll be giving you a ride to school,” she says in a hollow tone.
Dad has already left for work.
I’m so caught off guard by his absence, so shocked that he hasn’t reamed into me yet, so stunned that I get to go to school, I follow her without objection. All afternoon and evening, I braced myself for his drastic measures. But they never came, an oddity that has my insides churning with unease.
At school, I pace like a caged lion, waiting for Tess to arrive. Doubtful she will. Pete’s still in the hospital. She’s probably there with her parents. Maybe that’s why mine let me come today. They knew she’d be absent. The thought of suffering through eight class periods and another torturous evening without her has the muscles across my chest pulling so tight, I can hardly breathe. I jam my fingers into my hair, then drag my hands down my face just as one of the doors swings open.
Tess walks inside.
And I’m shocked all over again.
Flushed with so much adrenaline and relief at the sight of her, I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. One second, I’m staring at her in complete disbelief. The next, I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do since the first time I saw her in September. I take Tess’s face in my hands. And I kiss her.
For one intoxicating moment, nothing else exists. Not my father and his drastic measures. Not Pete or the man with the scar. Not Shady Wood or her grandmother. Just me and her and the feel of her lips and this wild wave of euphoria bigger and more consuming than any I’ve ever caught on my board. A rising tide so powerful, I think I might drown in the bliss of it.
I pull away, breath ragged, blood thrumming.
Tess gapes at me, her lips swollen.
And another wave rolls in. I want to kiss her again. I want to push her up against the nearest wall and go on kissing her from now until eternity. But several of our classmates stare and Tess looks unsteady on her feet. I take her hand and pull her out of the locker bay, into an area a little less populated. “You have no idea how good it is to see you.”
She doesn’t return the sentiment. Instead, she stands there with flushed cheeks blinking slowly like someone badly concussed.
I set my hand on top of my head, unsure what she’s thinking. Unsure if my impulsive decision was a wise move. “I couldn’t get to you in my dreams. I could hear you calling out for help. But I couldn’t get to you.”
She swallows, then points toward the locker bay. “Y-you just kissed me.”
A grin tugs at my mouth. She looks so irresistibly adorable, so absolutely discombobulated, I can’t help but do it again. Slower. Giving her plenty of time to object should she want to.
She doesn’t.
And her lips are so soft and warm, a groan unfurls deep down in my abdomen. She tastes like honey. She feels like heaven. I curl my fingers into her hair, my other hand sliding to her waist, pulling her closer. Hungry for more. When she grabs my shirt front and her body melts against mine, my simmering desire explodes into a raging inferno. And beneath that explosion, the painful and probable prospect of being separated. I pull myself away, the groan in my chest rumbling up my throat. “I am so pissed at my dad.”
She blinks, dumbfounded all over again.
As much as I’d love to kiss her for the third time, the bell’s about to ring and I can’t risk the tiniest infraction. So I take her hand and we walk to class. On the way, I ask how Pete is doing. She gives me a vague really good and nothing more. When we reach Lotsam’s room, Leela stands outside, her eyes as swollen as my mother’s.
“I heard about Pete,” she says.
“He’s going to be okay,” Tess replies.
Leela nods. “I’m glad.”
“Thanks, Leela.”
Leela gives Tess a weak smile, then walks to the opposite side of the classroom. Usually, she sits with us. That was before Summer told the school that Tess was going to the Edward Brooks Facility.
The bell rings.
Lotsam launches the class into a discussion about Egypt and whether or not the United States should send troops. Our peers engage in a lively debate, one Tess and I don’t participate in. We hold hands under the table, sitting so close our shoulders touch. I try not to think about what’s in store. I do my best to stay grounded in this moment with Tess beside me. When that doesn’t work, I relive the kiss. Over and over, consumed with the need to do it again.
Until the door bursts open. The conversation grinds to a screeching halt as Principal Jolly steps inside flanked by two burly men.
“Is something the matter?” Lotsam asks.
One of the burly men flashes a badge. “We’re here for Teresa Eckhart.”
For a second, I can’t see.
I can’t hear.
I’m swept under a savage wave with nothing but the ocean’s roar overhead.
Then sight and sound comes rushing back in a deluge as the man turns his badge on Tess. “Are you Teresa Eckhart?”
She shrinks in her chair.
I come out of mine. “Who are you?”
Jolly lifts his hands with an expression more serious than I’ve ever seen. “Luka, please sit down.”
“Government officials,” the other one says, flashing a badge of his own. “Teresa Eckhart, you have officially been declared a danger to society.”
The first man starts reading Tess her rights.
Blood pounds in my ears as I step in front of her. “You can’t do this.”
“There have been multiple reports that Teresa Eckhart has been resisting treatment for her mental illness. She has stopped taking her prescribed medication. And she has been making irrational, reckless decisions.”
My mind reels.
Stopped taking her medicine?
How could they possibly know that?
I look at Tess.
She looks back at me, the same question reflected in the black of her pupils.
One of the men shoves me aside and grabs Tess by the wrist. She twists free, but the other man takes her arm, wrapping his beefy fingers tight around her bicep.
“Let her go!” I shout, lunging forward.
Jolly blocks me.
I shove him aside, but he recovers quickly and barricades my path again. Lotsam, too, as Tess struggles, no match for the two officials as they drag her from the classroom and the inferno inside of me rages.
I fight off my teacher. I knock my principal to the ground. I yell at Tess that I will find her. But by the time I escape into the hallway, she’s already gone. I race down the stairwell and burst outside just in time to see a black sedan driving away.
