Chapter 5
Addison
I see fire.Burning.
It’s bright, surrounding me, and I hear the cries and shouts of people nearby, but I can’t see them through the flames. I’m crying, screaming so much that my throat is raw, and I feel a hollowness in my chest unlike anything I’ve ever dreamed of.
Then I’m engulfed by white. A white I’ve grown far too accustomed to over the years. Too bright and too clean for all the darkness. For all the blood.
I see faces. Flashes at first, too quick for me to recognize who they are, but then I remember. Other patients with names I’ve been told to forget. Amelia, a child younger than I am. I remember her hand clinging to mine as we walked down the halls. One day, she was gone.
The doctor in his coat with his sharp needles and cold eyes. He’s poking and prodding—not just me but everyone else who was there, too. Nobody liked him. We were all afraid.
I feel the collar around my neck, the cold metal, and the weight of it holding me down, sinking me into the ground to keep me from running. Then there’s the clawing inside. The desperate scraping against my chest, begging to be free. Beggingso much sometimes it felt as though I was being torn apart from the inside.
Screaming, crying, pleading. Not just my own voice but dozens echoing endlessly down long, too bright corridors.
The ropes are pulled tighter, and my skin is raw as hands push me harder against the table. So hard that I feel as though I might sink into it and be swallowed by the steel. My skin tingles, then burns, and I scream, feeling it rattle in my throat.
It’s not just the syringe anymore. There are blades, scalpels, and electricity. My body does not belong to me anymore, as the doctor commands people to hold me down and shock me. Every cell in my body screams.
I feel arms pressing against me again, and I panic.
My eyes jolt open, and the memory of the dream hasn’t faded away. I still hear the screams, I feel the fire and electricity and the blades against my skin, and it’s all too real. I just want it to end.
As the rest of the dream fades, my body thrashes against the bed. I try to lift my chest, but I can’t. Then I realize there are hands on me. Two hands are pinning me against the mattress, keeping me from getting up, just like those guards did every day. My panic doesn’t fade when the light turns on, and I see Zeke standing above me.
“Addison, calm down. It’s just a dream,” he says over and over.
I swat at his hands, and he quickly realizes what he’s doing wrong and pulls them away. I back up, pressing my spine against the headboard, and I scan the room for danger. Zeke remains beside me while a group of mostly unfamiliar faces stands in the doorway. Everyone’s watching me. Like I’m some kind of specimen to be observed.
My heart is racing, my chest rising and falling rapidly. The memory of the nightmare is still too fresh in my mind.
Zeke looks over his shoulder at everyone else and silently signals for them to leave. When the door is closed, and it’s just the two of us, I finally relax a bit. I still don’t understand what about him I can find comfort in, but I’m thankful for it right now.
“What were you dreaming about?” he asks, his voice soft and tender.
I’m struck with the urge to tell him everything. It wouldn’t be hard. I could spill every detail of the torture I’ve been put through over the past ten years. I could tell him about every person I befriended who I lost. So many people that eventually my name stopped being spoken, and I was the last person walking down those long white halls.
But the words don’t come.
“Addison, I know you’re afraid. But you’re safe here,” Zeke says for what must be the dozenth time.
Zeke sits with me for a while without saying anything. I feel the lingering adrenaline in my veins from the dream.
I think about being in the lab, how the doctors would put sticky circles all over my body to measure my heart. I wonder what that would read now. Because even though I’ve calmed down, looking at Zeke and being close to him makes my heartbeat stutter.
I let my body relax against the mattress, and soon enough, Zeke lifts the covers so I can slide back under. The warmth spreads around me, and for the second time today, I can’t help marveling at how soft they are. The mattress itself feels like I’m sleeping on a puffy cloud.
I close my eyes and relax enough to fall back asleep when I feel the bed shifting beside me. My entire body stiffens as I realize Zeke is lying down next to me.
This time, he slides under the covers, too.
I can’t help flinching as the covers move against me, and I sit upright, looking at him.
“I promise I won’t touch you,” Zeke says once again.
I tentatively lie back down on my side, facing away from him. I expect to feel some lingering dread knowing that Zeke, a stranger to me, is sleeping under the same covers, mere inches away from me. Yet nothing about it is uncomfortable, which surprises me. It reinforces that feeling I had about trusting him. I just hope that doesn’t come back to bite me.
