Luka, page 18
I set my hands on my knees, my breath rattling in my ears as my father’s threat and my mother’s bloodshot eyes come into crystal clarity.
He has taken drastic measures.
35
Gone
Without my car, I have no way of getting to my father other than by foot. So I run. Sprint. I don’t stop until I’m pushing through the front double doors of the Edward Brooks Facility.
Gretel—an older woman with coffee-stained teeth—looks up from the front desk. We’ve met a couple times over the years, at various functions or gatherings. She knows me as Luka Williams, her employer’s polite and handsome son. She’s never known me as Luka Williams, former patient of Dr. Roth. So when I barge inside—winded and windswept—her expression twists with the kind of confusion that is both alarmed and uncertain.
“I need to speak with my father,” I say, clutching a stitch in my side.
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Luka, but he’s not here.”
“He’s not here?”
“He contacted me earlier to say he wouldn’t be in.” Gretel tilts her head. “Is everything okay?”
No.
Nothing is okay.
Tess was dragged from school by two men with badges. I imagine the black sedan pulling into the front gates of Shady Wood. I imagine the comatose patients on the third and fourth floors. The others on the fifth—restrained, in straitjackets. I promised her I wouldn’t let this happen. I promised her. I drag my hand down the length of my face, panic and nausea clawing at my insides. “Did he say anything about a patient named Teresa Eckhart?”
She furrows her sparse eyebrows and I realize this is a dead end. Even if Gretel knows something, she’s not going to tell me. I’m well aware of how confidentiality works here. So I leave her in her confusion and run home.
An unfamiliar SUV is parked in Tess’s driveway.
My own is empty.
I punch the code into our keypad and fling open the door. All is quiet inside, the only sound, my heavy breathing. I turn the house upside down, looking like a madman for my phone, my keys, my laptop. But they’re no longer in my dad’s desk. I can’t find them anywhere.
I grab the phone in our kitchen and dial my father’s number. The call goes directly to voicemail. A feral growl claws up my throat as I hang up and dial my mother. Halfway through the first ring, the front door opens.
My mother steps inside the foyer and the second her eyes meet mine down the length of the hallway, my suspicions are confirmed. I slam the phone down and stride toward her. “Where did they take her?”
“Luka.” She sounds like a timid mother trying to placate a volatile toddler.
“What did he do?”
“You’ll have to speak with your father.”
My stomach rolls. My mind, too. To the conversation we had over dinner. He was approached by an agency. One looking for intel on people with symptoms like mine. Symptoms like Tess’s. “He turned her in, didn’t he?”
“Luka,” she says again, her face pale.
“Where is she?” I hit the wall with the flat of my palm.
Mom jumps.
My chest heaves.
“I asked him not to,” she says. “But he told you, Luka. He warned you. He wasn’t going to let you put your future—your life—in jeopardy.”
“My life is nothing without her!” The ragged words roar through the foyer. Shake the chandelier. A stunned silence follows them. I dig my fingers into my hair, grappling for some way to undo this.
Mom wipes her cheeks. “You were doing so well, Luka. Then this girl came to town, and you’ve fallen off the deep end. She’s not safe. You aren’t making rational decisions.”
“I will never forgive you for this.”
She cups her hand over her mouth.
Unmoved, I step around her.
“Luka?”
I open the door.
“Luka, please. Don’t go. Just wait.” She follows me outside and the front door of the Eckhart’s home swings open. My father steps out of their house, along with an unfamiliar man in a suit.
I stop.
So does Dad.
He looks from me to my weeping mother, his mouth set in a grim line. Rage and heat and desperation billow inside my chest as my father exchanges words I can’t hear with the man beside him. The guy nods, then gets inside the SUV and reverses out of the Eckhart’s driveway.
My father walks toward me, straightening his tie. “Inside.”
I don’t budge. “Where is she?”
“Please,” my mother cries. “Come inside, Luka.”
“Tell me where they took her.”
My father stares back at me—his posture rigid, his expression a mask of infuriating control. Meanwhile, I’m coming apart. Crawling out of my skin.
“That is confidential information,” he says.
I shout a curse, feeling unhinged. Deranged. Crazier than Tess’s grandmother. “Where are my keys?”
“You don’t need your keys.”
“Give me my keys!”
A flock of birds takes flight from a nearby tree.
Mom sobs on the front stoop.
My father remains unmoved. His attention flicks up and down my body—repulsed, like I’m a snot-nosed child in the throes of a temper tantrum. “Why don’t you go take a walk? Cool off. We can have a conversation about this—inside—once you’ve come to your senses.”
36
An Ally
This is what insanity feels like.
No respite in sleep.
No respite in wake.
No finding Tess in either.
She has vanished without a trace.
And there’s nothing I can do.
I have begged and argued to no avail. My father tells me nothing. My mother remains tight-lipped by his side. I have no car. No way of getting to Shady Wood in an effort to break Tess out. Even if I hopped a bus or persuaded Leela to give me a ride, I couldn’t get in. I don’t have Mr. Eckhart’s iPad and I can’t remember the west wing pass code no matter how hard I try to recall it. My memory fails me. It fails Tess. I am helpless to do anything but picture her and dream about her strapped to a hospital bed while the wild animal inside my chest bucks and flails as if I’m the one strapped down.
After forty-eight hours, my mania turns to despondency. My frenzied pacing into a listless stillness that drapes over me like a two-ton blanket. I lay in bed, listening to my parents talk through the walls. Listening as the phone rings and the doorbell chimes and Tess’s parents demand answers on the other side of our front door. They’ve gone to the police, but the police are no help. The police are on my father’s side. I listen as my mother weeps, asking my father to reconsider. She’s not nearly as supportive in the privacy of their bedroom.
At hour fifty-one, my father has had enough.
He knocks on my door.
Opens it without waiting for an invitation.
Informs me that I will be returning to school on Monday. I will resume my appointments with Dr. Roth, too.
By the time I turn my head to look at him, my doorway is empty. Dad has already gone. But his words—they stick like glue.
Dr. Roth.
A man who never wanted Tess to go on that medicine. A man who asked her to record her dreams for a month while she spiraled deeper into darkness. A man who knew where Elaine Eckhart was located—had possession of her private journals—even though Elaine Eckhart was never his patient.
I sit up so abruptly, the room spins.
I wait for it to stop, then catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror above my dresser. I get up and throw a hoodie over my rumpled t-shirt. I finger comb my hair and peek out into the hallway.
It’s empty.
I sneak down the stairs on silent feet, then exit the front door. I hurry across our lawn and make a break for the Edward Brooks Facility. When I arrive, the front doors are locked. Gretel must be on her lunch break. A good thing, given our previous encounter. I punch in the code and head straight for Dr. Roth’s office, just like I did when Tess caught me snooping in her file.
This time, I don’t need a master key. The doctor is inside eating a tuna sandwich at his desk, his office door ajar. I knock and the second he sees me, his eyebrows lift.
It’s been over two years and suddenly, here I am.
I expect confusion to replace his surprise. I expect a friendly but curious, “Well, hello there Luka.” I don’t expect him to join me in the doorway. I don’t expect him to look past me out into the hallway. I don’t expect him to pull me inside and lock the door behind us.
Before I can say anything, he holds up his finger, picks up a remote, and pushes a button. Opera music floods the office. He turns up the volume and a tsunami of relief crashes through me.
Dr. Roth is on our side.
Dr. Roth is going to help.
He ushers me away from the door. “She’s the one you’ve been dreaming about, isn’t she?”
My mouth goes so dry, I can’t speak.
I nod instead.
His eyes brighten with the same intrigue they held when our appointments first began.
“Where is she?” I ask. “What’s going on?”
He turns the opera music up a notch. “Her parents have been getting the run around. Your father keeps telling them to trust the process. He’s led them to believe they will see Teresa tomorrow.”
“At Shady Wood?”
“She’s not at Shady Wood.”
A ping of shock, followed by another tsunami of relief. “Where is she, then?”
Dr. Roth peers at me through his bifocals. With intensity. With meaning. Then his attention lifts to the ceiling and it clicks. With astounding clarity. The third and fourth floors, where the live-in patients stay. My mind has been so fixated—so traumatized—by the horrors of Shady Wood, I immediately placed her there. But all this time, she’s been here. Mere blocks away.
I take a step toward the door but Dr. Roth stops me with his hand. “They’re lying to her parents, Luka. They’ve been pacifying them while they seek the appropriate clearances. I have every reason to believe the transfer will be approved by the end of the day. Which means she’ll be admitted to Shady Wood first thing tomorrow morning.”
Contempt boils in my veins. “Like hell.”
Dr. Roth’s grip tightens. “If we go up there now, the only thing that will come of it is my arrest.”
“I’m not letting them take her.”
“Nor am I.”
A female opera singer belts in a dramatic vibrato that makes my ears ring. He lets go of my arm slowly—carefully—and rubs his goatee. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
37
The Plan
The plan was already in motion.
I’ve simply been invited into it.
My job? Pack two bags. One for myself. One for Tess. Then meet Dr. Roth at midnight in the employee parking lot of the Edward Brooks Facility, where we will break Tess free. Where we’ll go after she’s free and what’s really going on remains unclear. Dr. Roth had an incoming appointment and I needed to exit the building before Gretel returned from lunch break.
At home, Dad’s waiting for me in the kitchen on his own lunch break, his suspicion hovering like a dark cloud. “Where were you just now?”
“I took a walk.” I keep my tone void of inflection. My face completely blank. I am a card shark in a game of high-stakes poker.
He sits there, studying me.
I stare back, waiting for the interrogation to continue. But it doesn’t. “Am I allowed to go to my room or do I need your permission first?”
His eyes spark.
My molars grind.
“You know, Luka, one day you’ll understand why this was necessary. One day you might even thank me for having your best interest in mind.”
Disgust blisters up my throat. A sour, bitter tang on the back of my tongue. It’s wild—how absolutely off my father is. But I keep my mouth shut and he dismisses me with an impatient wave of his hand.
Upstairs, I lock my bedroom door. Then quickly and quietly pack a bag. When I’m finished, I sit on the edge of my bed and listen. The television turns off downstairs. Footsteps sound across the kitchen. A door opens. Closes. I creep across the hall and watch my father reverse from our driveway.
As soon as his car turns out of sight, I hurry outside, cut through the lawn, and ring Tess’s doorbell—my heart thudding erratically as I look over my shoulder, paranoid my mother will choose now to return home from whatever errands chased her away.
Mrs. Eckhart answers the door dressed in a robe. Her face hollow. Her hair a mess. Her nose red and raw as she clutches a crumpled ball of tissue in her hand. She’s a ghost of the woman I met the first time I stood here. A ghost marked by suffering, with one kid recovering in the hospital and the other locked up against her will.
Before she can utter a single word, I shoot another glance over my shoulder and say, “They’re lying to you about Tess.”
Mrs. Eckhart pushes the door all the way open and I step inside.
She closes the door behind me and presses the crumpled tissue beneath her nose. “What do you know?”
“They’re transferring her to Shady Wood tomorrow morning.”
Her eyes—Tess’s eyes—go unnaturally large. “Shady Wood? But that’s—”
“Where her grandmother is.”
“How do you know that?”
“Dr. Roth told Tess and Tess told me. That’s where we went two days ago. We drove to Eugene. We broke into Shady Wood. And we spoke with your mother-in-law.”
“I don’t understand.”
There’s so much to explain and not nearly enough time. I need to beat my mother home. I need a bag for Tess. But I don’t think Mrs. Eckhart will give me one unless I tell her the full and complete truth. So I take a deep breath and dive in. I tell her everything. My recurring dream. My symptoms. My appointments with Dr. Roth. The day Tess showed up in Lotsam’s class. The thing we both saw at the pep rally. Tess’s prophetic dreams. Her deal with Dr. Roth. How horrible everything got as she carried out her end of it. Her grandmother’s journal. The medicine. Pete’s accident. Fighting in his hospital room. The middle-of-the-night phone call. News that her brother had woken up. Disposing of his disturbing paraphernalia. Our road trip to Eugene and her grandmother’s strange declaration.
You are the key.
All of it comes out in a rush, words that tumble over one another in a race against the clock. “I know all of this sounds crazy, Mrs. Eckhart. But your daughter isn’t. Neither am I.”
A tear tumbles down her cheek.
She wipes it away.
“I met with Dr. Roth today. He told me about the transfer. He’s planning to break her out. I’m going to help him. I wish I could bring her back here when we do, but it’s not safe. They want her in Shady Wood. Believe me when I say, if she’s admitted she’ll never leave.” A shudder ripples up my arms at the memory of those emaciated, comatose bodies. Tess will not be one of them. Ever. “I came here because I need you to pack a bag for Tess.”
“A bag?”
“We have to leave. She can’t stay here.”
“Then we can take her. If it’s not safe, we’ll go. We’ll run and hide together.”
“What about your son?” It kills me to say it. But Pete is in the hospital. With a long road to recovery ahead.
Mrs. Eckhart bites her lip, her eyes glossy, her chin trembling as she pulls her robe tight around her thin frame.
“And then there’s your husband,” I say, my voice gentle but firm.
“What about him?”
I’ve never been properly introduced to Mr. Eckhart. Tess has talked about him plenty, though. While it’s obvious he loves his daughter and she loves him in return, it’s not so obvious that he’d accept any of the things I’m saying now. “Would he believe any of this?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep Tess safe.”
“This is what it takes.” I know it deep down in my bones. Dr. Roth must know it, too. He said nothing about packing a bag for anyone else.
Two more tears tumble down her cheek, one right after the other. With a sniff, Mrs. Eckhart gives me a small but brave nod, then excuses herself upstairs. A few minutes later, she returns with a backpack lovingly pressed against her chest. When she hands it over, she pulls me into a fierce hug and pours a desperate plea into my ear. “Please protect her. Keep my daughter safe.”
“I will,” I say, vehement. Unyielding. Knowing with every fiber of my being that I will keep this promise.
Even if I have to die doing it.
38
Sedated
I stash our bags behind a thick shrub under my deck. I walk inside the house and slip into bed. At dinnertime, a knock sounds on my door. I ignore it. An hour later, a knock sounds again. When I don’t answer, my mother lets herself in holding a plate of food. “I’d really like it if you would eat something, Luka.”
I stare at the ceiling like she isn’t there.
She sets the plate on top of my dresser and slips away.
I turn and look at the spot she stood. Was that the last time I’ll hear her voice? I don’t know where Tess and I are going. I don’t know if we’re going with Dr. Roth. I only know we’re running away and I don’t see how we’ll ever be able to come back. It’s a big thought. One that should produce big emotions. But the only thing I seem capable of feeling is this urgent, blinding need to get to Tess.
I eat the food. Every bite. Then I get into the shower. Brush my teeth. Listen as my parents get ready for bed in the next room. Lean against my desk in the dark and wait for their conversation to fall quiet.
At quarter to midnight, I sneak out of the house with no note. No goodbye. I gather our two bags from beneath the deck, careful not to trip the motion light, and head to the Edward Brooks Facility without looking back.
