The Gifting

by Katie Ganshert

  My vision blurs.

  Little Rabbit? That can’t be right. That’s what the man with the white scar calls me. I flop my hand toward my patch of eczema and scratch at it with heavy, fumbling fingers. It burns. Which can only mean one thing.

  This is real. This is all very, very real.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Escape

  I wake up in a white room. My wrists are bound like my grandmother’s. It takes a minute before the panic that engulfed me before my world went black comes back in full force. I fight and strain against the cuffs. I scream at the walls. I arch up my body, only to discover my ankles are bound as well.

  I’m in Shady Wood. Surely this is where they’ve taken me. I call out for help, over and over and over again, until my voice is hoarse. Until I fall back into a restless, dark sleep. When I wake up, there is an IV in my wrist and a woman dressed in scrubs by my bedside.

  “Please, help me,” I croak.

  She smiles brightly and pats my shoulder. “Don’t you worry, honey, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” She removes a cap off a syringe and injects it into my IV line.

  “Whadiz that?” My heart gurgles—uneven and lazy, as if detached from the fear flooding through my body. Whatever that is, I don’t think it’s my first dose.

  “This is what’s going to help you.”

  I try to shift away.

  She tsks, like I’m a naughty, uncooperative child.

  “Where’m I?”

  “You’re right where you’re supposed to be.” She dumps the needle into a nearby waste basket. “This is what happens when you stop taking your medicine. You become violent and disoriented. We can’t have you attacking people, Teresa.”

  “Attacking people?”

  “You attacked one of the men who brought you here.”

  My eyelids flutter. “No, I din attack anyone. I don’t even know how I got’ere.”

  “You need to settle down or we’ll be forced to give you more medicine.”

  Settle down? But I’m not doing anything. I can’t do anything. It’s like there’s me, the Tess inside, who is flailing and screaming and clawing to get out. And then there’s Tess on the outside, heavy and lethargic in bed. “Please, I need Luka.”

  She shakes her head sadly, like I’m in denial. Like I have no idea what I’m talking about. “Sweetheart, there is no Luka.”

  What? No. I shake my head. “Whadare you talking about? I was with him …” We drove here together. Broke in here together. He kissed me in the locker bay and then he kissed me again outside the boys’ bathroom. We shared dreams. I try to think how long I’ve been here, in this place. But time no longer exists. It could have been hours or it could have been days. I have no way of knowing. “Where’re my parents?”

  “They want you to get better just like the rest of us.”

  I try to grab for her, to make her really listen to me, to wipe that false cheery smile off her face. But I can’t move my arms. “What about my grandmother?”

  “Your grandmother is dead. She’s been dead for years.”

  “Thas not true.” It can’t be. I saw her. With my own eyes. I held her hand.

  “Honey, this is all part of the illness. The delusions. The hallucinations. You’ve been going downhill fast. You’re here to get better.”

  I think about the rows of people in beds. Is that getting better? Surely this woman is lying. Confusion engulfs me. I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t even know which way is up and which way is down. It’s as though I’ve fallen into Alice’s rabbit hole. The Tess on the inside—the one clawing to get out—surfaces. I strain against the leather straps on my wrists and ankles. I strain with everything I have.

  The nurse shakes her head, like she’s disappointed, and pulls out another needle from her pocket. Only instead of injecting it in my IV, she jabs it into my neck. There’s a sharp burn and then nothing.

  *

  I am weak. So weak, I can’t lift my arms. I can’t even lift my head. The same nurse is in my room. I lick my dry, cracked lips with a tongue that feels too thick to be my own. The whiteness of the room hurts my eyes. “How long have I been here?”

  “A while,” she says serenely.

  “Are you going to shoot me with that needle again?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “You.” She picks up a glass of water from my night stand and holds out two pills in her palm. “I can make you take your medicine, or you can take it willingly.”

  I stare at the two white capsules. “What will they do?”

  “They will help you get better.” She holds the glass closer to my lips. My restraints smart against my wrists. My entire backside throbs with numbness. “Your parents are rooting for you. Your brother Pete is rooting for you. We’re all rooting for you, Tess. We want you to get better. We want you to take your medicine so you can go home and become a productive member of society.”

  “My parents.” My voice cracks over the word. The swell of emotion is intense. I want my mom. “Can I see them?”

  “Soon. If you take these.”

  “And Luka?”

  She sighs. “Luka isn’t real. He’s never been real. He’s a figment of your imagination.”

  Tears well in my eyes. What if she’s right? What if everything—Luka, our shared dreams, his insistence that I am not crazy, this quest to get answers from my grandmother—what if it was all a coping mechanism devised by my deranged mind? A way for me to deal with my psychosis and make sense of this messed up world that is mine?

  The nurse studies me. “It’s either the pills or the needle.”

  I have no choice. None. Except maybe I can fight. “Can you let me out of these restraints so I can take them myself?”

  She seems to consider and the weakest flicker of hope taps against my wrist like a barely-there pulse. If she lets me out, maybe I can overpower her and escape. She purses her lips, then shakes her head. “It’s not time for that yet.”

  A tear slips out of the corner of my eye and rolls down my temple.

  “Stick out your tongue.”

  There’s nothing for me to do except obey. She places the pills in my mouth and the cup to my lips. I swallow them down because I don’t want whatever’s in that needle in my bloodstream. My only chance to escape is to cooperate until they let me out of these restraints and then I can fight … if I have any fight left.

  “Now say ahhhh.”

  I didn’t think it was possible to hate somebody more than Summer, but I do. I hate this woman. Like an obedient child, I open my mouth.

  “Stick out your tongue, please.”

  I do.

  She checks to make sure the pills are gone, smiles satisfactorily, then leaves me alone in the room.

  *

  I float in and out of consciousness, unaware of my body. Unaware of time. There’s no window in my room, so I don’t know when it is night and when it is day. I imagine this is what solitary confinement feels like. I stare at the white ceiling. I take my medicine. I can’t tell if I’m coming into clarity or slipping away from it. Nothing feels real anymore. Not Dr. Roth. Not Luka. Not my parents or Pete. Not even me. Perhaps my whole life has been one giant hallucination.

  I wonder if this is going to be my life now—this white box of a room and this IV and these restraints and this saccharinely sweet woman who makes me take medicine but never brings me food. I wonder if I will starve to death. I wonder why I’m not hungry.

  My door opens.

  I don’t bother looking. There are footsteps. Somebody bends over me. It’s not the nurse. I squeeze my eyes shut, positive I am dreaming or hallucinating. The person staring down at me is Luka. Wonderful, gorgeous, perfect Luka—his eyes flooded with equal parts horror and fury. And then there’s somebody else too. On the other side of my bed. Dr. Roth. Only he doesn’t look nearly as horrified as he does livid.

  Dr. Roth unbinds my wrists and ankles and just like that, I am free. I ru
b my wrists and try to sit up, but dizziness blurs my vision and the world fades to black. Luka places his hand gently on my back and helps me sit upright.

  “We have to get her out of here,” he says.

  “They told me you weren’t real,” I mumble. “They said I imagined you.”

  Luka takes my hand and flattens it against his chest—solid and warm—and I remember an eternity ago, when he did the same thing in a hallway outside of ceramics class. “Do you feel that?”

  There’s a faint thud-thud, thud-thud against my palm.

  “I’m very real, Tess.”

  Dr. Roth removes my IV and examines the label on the bag of fluid. “They’ve been pumping her full of sedatives.”

  “Can you stand?” Luka asks.

  I try, but my legs collapse beneath me. It’s like I have no muscles at all. Luka puts one arm behind my back and the other beneath my knees and sweeps me into his arms like I weigh nothing. I rest my head against the place he put my palm moments earlier, relishing the sound of his heart. If this is a hallucination, then I’m going with it. For as long as it lasts. I will cling to it if I have to. Reality is overrated.

  “Come on,” Dr. Roth says. “Quickly.”

  “What will happen if they catch us?” Luka’s voice rumbles in my ear.

  “I’ll lose my license. We’ll both be arrested.”

  “Then it’s hopeless,” I say, remembering the labyrinth of hallways and rooms and expressionless doctors. There’s no way we’re getting out of here with Luka carrying me in his arms. “This is Shady Wood.”

  “We’re not in Shady Wood, Tess,” Dr. Roth says. “This is the Edward Brooks Facility.”

  “It is?” I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes opened. The adrenaline that should be coursing through my veins refuses to make an appearance. This is my escape. Luka and Dr. Roth—potentially two figments of my imagination—are busting me out. Yet all I feel is lethargy.

  A door opens. I force my eyes to open. Dr. Roth peeks out into the hallway.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Two days,” Luka whispers.

  Two days? That’s all?

  Luka carries me out into a dark hallway after Dr. Roth. I open my mouth to ask a question, but Luka shushes me. “I’ll explain everything later.”

  He holds me tight to his body as we hurry down two flights of stairs in the dark. I hear the thump, thump, thump of Luka’s heart, the quickness of his breath. And all of a sudden, there is fresh air on my cheeks and we are outside beneath a full moon and sure enough, there it is. The looming, ominous Edward Brooks Facility. All this time, I’ve been a few blocks from home.

  “Your parents have been trying to get to you,” Dr. Roth explains as we hurry across the grounds. “Mr. Williams assured them they’d be able to see you tomorrow, but you were going to be moved by then.”

  “Moved where?”

  “Shady Wood.”

  Luka shifts me in his arms, his warm, minty breath tickling my ear as we trot toward a car—Dr. Roth’s, I’m assuming. “You’re free, Tess. It’s going to be okay.”

  I smile and give in to the heaviness dragging at my eyelids.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Gifting

  Luka lies me down in a warm, comfortable bed—so much softer than the one I was shackled to for a lifetime, even if that lifetime was only two days. He rubs a cool salve onto my wrists while Dr. Roth encourages me to drink a really disgusting-smelling drink that steams inside a mug.

  “It’ll help counteract the medicine they were pumping into your system.”

  That’s all the convincing it takes. I gulp it down, then I curl into a ball on my side. Luka pulls the covers over my shoulder and sits with me until I fall asleep. When I wake up, he sits in a chair by my bedside, glaring at the red welts on my wrists. But I smile, because my head is clear and there is strength in my limbs.

  “I’ll never forgive him for this,” he says.

  “Who?”

  “My dad.” He leans forward in the chair and rests his elbows on his knees. “He’s the one who did this. He’s the one who reported you to the authorities.”

  So it was never Luka. Of course it wasn’t. I don’t know how I could have doubted him. I sit up in bed. A little too fast. The room tilts. I cup my forehead with my palm.

  Luka sits up straighter, concern etched in the corners of his eyes. “Here, you should eat this.” He picks up a bagel off the nightstand and hands the plate over.

  I place it on my lap, rest against the headboard, and eat small bites, taking equally small sips of the disgusting tea Dr. Roth had me drink before I fell asleep. With the sustenance, comes fear. I cannot be locked up again. Not like that. Not ever. “They’re going to come back for me.”

  “I won’t let them get to you.”

  “Luka, why did your dad have me locked up like that?” How could he—especially since his own son went to the very facility he locked me up in. For crying out loud, his dad bought the place in order to protect his son.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time.”

  He cracks his knuckles, one at a time, that muscle I’ve grown to know so well ticking in his jaw. “It all goes back to that screening.”

  “Your mom’s pregnancy screening?”

  He nods grimly. “The government didn’t approve of her decision. I guess the only way my dad could protect me was by striking a deal.”

  An ominous feeling clamps onto my muscles. “Protect you from what?”

  “That was the same question I asked my dad. He never gave me a straight answer.”

  “What was the deal?”

  “They knew my father was in the mental health field. They wanted him to do some screening. Look for crazy people. Dangerous people. Specifically, people who claimed to have prophetic dreams. Then report them to the proper authorities. If he agreed to do that, they’d forget about me. But my dad didn’t do it. At least not everyone. He went out of his way to hide as many as he could. Even more so when my symptoms began. That’s when he bought the Brooks facility. But then you moved to town and the rumors started circling and I was hanging out with you so much. My parents, they freaked out, and well …” His eyes narrow. “They made a really stupid decision.”

  None of it makes sense. How could the government use a failed pregnancy screening as blackmail? And why did they want Mr. Williams to weed out people who were having prophetic dreams?

  “You have to tell me everything you know. What’s been going on while I’ve been locked up? I don’t even know whose room this is. What happened after they took me from school?”

  “I’m not sure; I left too.” He drags his hand down his face. “I watched them drive you away.”

  A burst of clarity hits me like a sudden, bright flash of light. “One of the men. He called me Little Rabbit.”

  Luka’s brow furrows.

  “That’s what that man in my dream calls me. The one with the scar. The one you fought off in the hospital.”

  He squints at the floor, as if trying to piece it together. I finish my bagel and the last of the tea, trying to put some pieces together myself. Only nothing fits. The man who called me Little Rabbit looked nothing like the man from my dream.

  “Where are we?”

  “Dr. Roth’s apartment.”

  “Does anybody know we’re here?”

  Luka shakes his head. “My dad warned me he’d take drastic measures if I didn’t obey him. He didn’t know I’d take drastic measures right back.”

  “You mean like soliciting the help of a psychiatrist to break me out of a mental facility?”

  “I knew your parents were getting the runaround by the police. The authorities were no help. They wouldn’t let them see you, even when your dad wielded his influence. I didn’t know where else to go. So I went to Dr. Roth. Something in my gut was telling me I could trust him.” Luka leans closer. “Tess, he knows everything. When I showed up, he had me come into his office, almost a
s if he’d been waiting for me, and he locked the door and turned up some music and he told me to meet him back here with a bag for you and one for me. He’d already been planning on breaking you out.”

  “Dr. Roth?”

  Luka nods. “So I went to your house and I told your mom.”

  “My mom?” My voice pinches over the word. I want to hug her, but I’m not sure when I’ll see her again. I’m not sure if I’ll see her again.

  “I told her everything. About you and me and your grandma.”

  “Did she believe you?”

  “I think she believed that you were in serious danger. She made me promise that I’d take care of you. That I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you.” He takes my hand, his own hot. “It’s a promise I won’t break. Your safety means everything to me.”

  His words and the way he says them makes my stomach quiver. But beneath the fluttering warmth, my fear grows. “What are we going to do? What if they find us?”

  Before Luka can answer my questions, Dr. Roth flings open the door and steps inside. “We don’t have much time.” He hurries over to my bedside, listens to my heart with a stethoscope, sticks a thermometer in my mouth, flashes a light into my eyes. “I’m afraid you have to leave.”

  “Already?” Luka asks, standing.

  “It’s not safe. For either of you.”

  I stand up too and notice for the first time that I am wearing a hospital robe. Luka hands me a bag. I pull out a pair of jeans and pull them up under the robe. He and Dr. Roth turn around, giving me privacy while I pull a t-shirt over my head and a sweatshirt too. “How did you get this stuff?”

  “Your mom packed it for you.”

  They turn back around as I get to work pulling my hair into a ponytail, shoving my feet into tennis shoes. The energy from the bagel works its way into my blood. “Why are you helping us?” I ask Dr. Roth. I can’t quite figure out where his piece fits in the puzzle. “Aren’t you supposed to be one of them?”

  “I will never be one of them,” he says.

  “Who are you, then?”