‘Not much,’ Will responds. ‘Although I was lucky to have Kelsey here keeping me company.’
Kelsey’s face lights up when she hears this and she stares at him adoringly. For a four-year-old she seems convinced she’s going to marry Will when she grows up.
‘Well, sounds like I left you in very capable hands,’ I respond.
Kelsey nods eagerly, but her attention seems to be drifting from us to a group of girls who have just brought a board game out on one of their beds.
‘You should go play with them Kels,’ Will suggests. She doesn’t need telling twice and quickly disappears to join them.
‘Dr. Milton will be by to see you in about an hour,’ the nurse says, as she disconnects her comm and walks back to take the wheelchair from my bedside.
My shoulders tense at her words. ‘Why is he coming to see me?’ I ask. I haven’t seen him since I arrived and it’s odd he’d choose now of all times to come for a chat. My heart beats faster. Has he been told what happened in the MRI scanner? Could he know some of my memories have returned?
‘Just a check up,’ she answers, turning away and moving towards the door before I can ask her anything else.
‘Why is he coming to see you?’ Will asks, once she’s out of the room.
‘I have no idea,’ I answer, though it’s not the complete truth. I suspect he wants to see me after what happened in the scanner or worse, if he knows Ryan contacted me, but I can’t tell Will about it right now. Not when anyone could overhear.
He gives me a worried look. ‘He never comes to visit kids in here,’ he says.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing.’
He pauses, looking away from me. ‘You’ve been getting really sick whenever you come back from a treatment,’ he says. ‘Could that be why?’ He can barely look at me as he says it, like it’s wrong to think it, let alone say the words aloud.
‘Maybe,’ I respond.
‘I’ve been getting worse,’ he says, his voice quieter than it was before. ‘What they are doing to us doesn’t seem to be making us much better.’
He glances at me, a look of total helplessness in his eyes. He looks like he wants to give up all hope of recovering, like he doesn’t believe there’s any chance of him getting better.
‘I know,’ I respond, unable to bring myself to tell him just how right he is. My only consoling thought is their experiments on him will stop tonight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Dr. Milton arrives I’m completely worked up about his visit. I feel convinced he’s coming to interrogate me about what happened in the scanner. Will I be in trouble? Could he suspect I know more than I’ve let on? Maybe he is just coming to check on me?
‘I hear there was a problem in the MRI today,’ Dr. Milton says, as he approaches. He brings a chair over and places it down next to the bed. Taking a seat, he puts his tablet down on his lap and watches me.
‘Yes, they said there was a power failure,’ I respond, repeating the doctor’s explanation. My heart beats quickly in my chest. It beats so hard and fast that I swear the doctor can hear my nerves in its unnatural beat.
‘Were you okay in there?’ he asks, the picture of concern.
‘A little scared. I was glad when I got out. I really don’t do well in confined spaces.’
He pauses. ‘Nothing strange happened?’ he asks.
I swallow and raise my gaze to meet his own. ‘I wasn’t feeling well because I was scared, and then the lights went out and the machine stopped. Apart from that, nothing strange happened.’
He eyes me closely, before sitting further back in his chair. ‘Well, I’m sorry you suffered such a scare. We’ll try to avoid the MRI machine now we know how it upsets you.’
I nod. ‘I’d rather not go in there again.’ I glance over the doctor’s shoulder to look at Will, who sits watching us attentively from behind. His eyes are filled with questions, and I feel bad for not explaining to him what happened in the scanner earlier. But a part of me is grateful he doesn’t need to be worried by the truth. He seems surprised by our conversation, but not concerned.
‘We’ll try our best,’ Dr. Milton responds. ‘Now, have you had any of your memories come back? I know you were concerned about forgetting a few things when we last met.’
My gaze jolts back to look at the doctor and I frown at his question. Does he know? ‘No. Nothing.’
‘Nothing today when you were scared? Sometimes fear can cause supressed memories to be recalled.’ He seems calm and together as he asks me these things, but I notice his hands grip his tablet tightly and the skin across his knuckles is turning white. He’s worried. He’s not the only one.
‘No. I haven’t remembered anything,’ I lie. ‘Should I remember something by now?’
‘Not necessarily,’ he replies, his grip relaxing slightly and the skin across his knuckles turning from white back to pink. ‘It’s perfectly normal. These things can sometimes take a while. Hopefully they will come back soon.’
‘Yeah, hopefully,’ I agree. Although, I get the feeling that’s the last thing he wants. Despite remembering how I came to be in the hospital, I feel like there is still something missing. The memories of my initial six weeks in the hospital are murky at best. What did they do to me during that time? Maybe I’m struggling to recall anything because I’m not sure if I want to remember?
‘Well, I’m glad to see how well you’re doing and I’m sorry about the scare you had today,’ he says, standing and folding his arms over his chest. ‘If you ever need anything, send one of the nurses for me.’
‘I will,’ I reply, knowing perfectly well that will not happen.
The doctor leaves and I try to calm my frayed nerves and relax. He didn’t know about Ryan. At least that was one thing I didn’t need to worry about.
‘What happened Elle?’ Will asks.
I look over to him as he stares aimlessly into space, a frown on his face. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s pretty clear something happened to you in the MRI machine today. Dr. Milton doesn’t come for a “check up” over nothing. What happened?’
I glance uneasily at the door the doctor just left through. ‘I don’t know for sure. My hand touched the wall and I got an electric shock from the machine. Then it powered down.’ I shake my head. ‘But that’s the least of my worries right now.’
‘Why?’
I glance around the room, before hopping off my bed to sit on Will’s. ‘Because my memories are back and we need to get out of here,’ I whisper to him, keeping my voice low so the other kids won’t hear.
‘What do you mean?’ he asks, his raised whisper drawing the attention of the boy half-snoozing in the bed on the other side of his. Luckily, the boy rolls over, completely disinterested in anything Will and I may be discussing.
Will gives me an apologetic look.
I lower my voice even further. ‘This place isn’t what it seems and we need to leave.’
‘Why are you suddenly saying this?’ he asks. I can see he’s trying to stay calm, but from the way his words rush out it’s clear he’s failing to maintain his composure. Will has trusted these people for such a long time and it’s obvious that telling him otherwise is upsetting him, but he needs to know the truth.
‘Because I now know they lied about how I came to the hospital. I was in here for six weeks before I met you, but they somehow erased my memory of it. They aren’t treating us because we’re sick. They’re experimenting on us, like lab rats. Someone I trust, confirmed it all to me today.’
I half expect Will’s face to inappropriately light up at the mention of rats, but instead his eyes darken. ‘Why would they lie?’
‘I don’t know,’ I reply, wishing I had more answers for him. ‘But I’ve had a bad feeling about the treatments we’ve been getting for a while now, and if Ryan tells me this place is bad, I believe him.’
‘How does he know all this?’
‘I’m not certain, he didn’t have time to explain, but he would
n’t lie to me. He said they didn’t care about our health at all, and judging by how no kids ever seem to walk out of this place, I have to agree.’
Will’s shoulders slouch. ‘Do you think the experiments are the reason I’m getting so sick?’ His voice is fragile; it reminds me how young he is. How little he deserves what’s happening to him.
‘I think so,’ I reply, at a loss for better words to respond with. I pull my knees up to my chest and hug them close, feeling physically and emotionally exhausted.
I stop myself from looking around the room at the other kids. I don’t want to leave them here and none of them deserve this treatment, but I have no idea how I could possibly get them all out. If Ryan is teleporting us, he won’t have time to rescue them all.
‘How do we get out?’ Will asks.
I sigh and try to push the guilt I feel for abandoning a room full of children to the back of my mind. ‘Ryan broke in here using his talent, and he can break us out. He said we need to turn off the inhibitor sensor in here and he’ll come get us at midnight. But I have no idea what it looks like or how to turn it off. Do you have any ideas?’
‘No,’ he says, frowning as he looks around the room. The place is so bland and empty, but for the kids and the beds. You’d think the inhibitor sensors would be obvious. ‘Do you know what they look like?’
I purse my lips. ‘I have no idea and I didn’t have a chance to ask.’
‘Do you think maybe that’s them?’ he asks, pointing to the two darkened glass cylinders that are fixed to the wall above the door. The glass is highly reflective and you can’t see what’s inside.
‘I assumed they were cameras,’ I reply.
‘Don’t you think if they had cameras in here watching us they would have come for Kelsey a whole lot sooner when she was sick.’
‘Perhaps they weren’t watching them?’
‘Maybe,’ he concedes. ‘I don’t know, I just have a feeling about them. They look slightly longer and thinner than the regular domes you’d find cameras in.’
‘You think?’ I ask, scratching my head. They seem pretty similar to me. ‘But, how can we know for sure?’
‘I guess we can’t,’ he replies.
I stand and walk over to the door to get a better look at the cylinders. There’s nothing particularly special about them, they just look like glass covers. I squint my eyes to try and see through the reflective casing, but only see my face along the shiny surface.
I slowly walk back to Will, feeling defeated. ‘I couldn’t see anything, but it’s our best shot. How do we turn them off?’
‘I think I have an idea,’ Will replies, with a smile.
CHAPTER TWELVE
In the middle of the night, when I’m certain the other children are asleep, I creep over to Will’s bed. As I approach his sleeping form I feel my resolve to escape strengthen. He’s been getting increasingly worse this last week. He needs help. We both do.
Looking down at him I feel unsure of the most appropriate way to wake the sleeping boy up. He looks peaceful and I feel bad disturbing his much needed rest, but we only have a short time until midnight. We need to get moving.
‘Will,’ I whisper to him. ‘Will! Wake up.’
He mumbles quietly in his sleep before continuing to softly snore.
I gently shake his arm. ‘Will?’
He groans and rolls towards me. ‘What do you want Elle?’ he grumbles, rubbing his eyes tiredly.
‘We need to get going.’
His eyes open, wide-awake and he nods seriously.
As I follow him to the door, I look around the room at all the other kids, guilt consuming me as I think about leaving them here. This needs to stop, but there’s nothing I can do to help them from inside this place.
I creep over to Kelsey’s bed and slowly lift her sleeping body into my arms.
‘What going on?’ she asks, her words garbled in the massive yawn she’s taking.
‘We’re going on a little trip,’ I respond.
Her eyes light up. ‘And Will’s coming?’ she checks.
‘And Will’s coming,’ I confirm, much to her delight. Now she’s more awake I lower her to the ground to stand next to me as I peer up at the glass cylinders above the door. They hadn’t seemed so high up earlier today, but now we’re closer they seem impossibly far.
‘So, what’s this big plan of yours? How do you think we turn them off?’ I whisper to Will.
‘All over it,’ he murmurs, nodding his head at the metal IV stand in his hands.
‘What do you plan to do with that?’
Will doesn’t answer. Instead, he swings the large metal stand and hits the first cylinder case. He quickly follows up by swinging again to break the other.
The loud smashing sound wakes several of the other kids up. Some squeal with fear and others start crying. Kelsey hugs my leg tightly.
‘Do you think that did it?’ Will asks, placing the stand on the ground.
‘I don’t know,’ I worry. There doesn’t appear to be cameras inside either of the cylinders, but Ryan hasn’t appeared either. ‘What if they’re not the inhibitors? What if we were wrong?’ If they were cameras, someone must have seen us by now.
I try to take a calming breath, but I can feel blood pulsing quickly through my body and the ends of my fingers feel like they’re throbbing.
‘Wait,’ Will says. ‘I don’t think one of the sensors broke on impact.’ He grabs the metal stand and reaches up, throwing his body into the movement as he smashes the sensor with the stand.
A loud siren begins whooping. I throw my hands up over my ears and try to stop myself from yelling out in pain. It’s so loud I think I will be sick.
‘What now?’ Will shouts to me, over the deafening noise.
‘I don’t know! He didn’t tell me what comes next. He just said he’d be here.’ A loud banging comes from the other side of the door followed by a shattering sound as the wood around the frame and handle cracks and the door opens to reveal Ryan standing there.
I rush towards him. ‘You came,’ I say, relieved this wasn’t all for nothing.
‘Of course I came,’ he replies, surprised I ever doubted him.
There’s a tug at my pants as we exit the room and I look down to see Kelsey there. ‘Who’s he?’ she asks.
I quickly take her hand and give it a little squeeze. ‘This is Ryan. He’s the man who’s going to help us get out of here,’ I respond.
‘How do we do this?’ I ask, turning to face Ryan.
‘We’ll teleport,’ he says. ‘I can only do it one at a time though, and we need to do it before the inhibitor sensors are up again or someone comes. Elle?’ he turns and holds his hand out to me.
‘No, take Will first.’
‘There isn’t time to argue about this, take my hand Elle!’
‘You should go Elle,’ Will agrees.
I step back from Ryan and push Will forward. ‘Just take Will. He’s been the sickest. I’ll see you when you get back.’
Ryan growls and grabs Will’s hands. ‘I need you to close your eyes and hold my hand tight. Okay?’
Will nods and shuts his eyes. Ryan fixes his gaze on me. ‘If someone comes or if I’m not back in two minutes, get back in the room. We’ll find another way.’
Moments later the two of them disappear from sight. Kelsey squeals, causing me to jump.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Where did they go?’ she asks.
‘Ryan has taken Will to a place away from the hospital where he will be safe. He’ll be right back and then it will be your turn. Do you think you can be brave and go with Ryan for me?’
‘Uh-huh,’ she agrees.
After a minute of waiting, Kelsey tugs my arm. ‘When is he coming back?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I respond, looking up and down the corridor. He should be back by now. I try not to worry about what could be keeping him, but it’s hard to avoid. What will we do if he doesn’t come back for us?
&
nbsp; I turn to look at the ward, but pause as I catch the sound of something in the distance, slowly getting louder. I tilt my ear in the direction of the noise and focus in on the constant slapping sound I can just make out over the sound of the alarm. As it continues to grow louder and clearer I realise what it is—footsteps. Lots of them.
I instinctively grip Kelsey’s hand tighter. There are people coming this way and we can’t be out here when they arrive.
I consider the children’s ward for a brief moment, before looking to the corridor beyond. My heart thunders in my chest as I look to the empty passage that leads away from the ward and the people heading in our direction.
Ryan said to go back in the room and we’d find another way. But, as I look at Kelsey, I know I can’t let her spend another day in this place. We need to find a way out now, with Ryan’s help or not.
Kelsey’s lower lip trembles. ‘Where’s Ryan?’
‘No idea, but we don’t have time to wait and find out. We have to go!’ I pull her hand and start running in the opposite direction, heading away from the people coming towards the children’s ward.
Kelsey is so little, and running so slowly, I grab her up in my arms to carry her. Her weight is no problem and she barely slows me down as the adrenaline pulses through me, pushing me to run faster.
I turn the corner, glancing back just in time to see several men in uniform appear at the other end of the children’s ward corridor. I don’t think they’ve seen me, but I can’t take any risks so I continue to run, fear for Kelsey driving me to move faster.
The sound of shouting from the children’s ward reaches my ears as the men arrive to investigate the alarm, but I don’t turn around. I can’t go back, even though I wish I could. I try to shut out the screams of fear from the children as a mob of men rush into the room. They don’t deserve this and my heart breaks. I can’t fix it.
Kelsey and I reach a junction and I race forward without giving any thought of which route to go, but Kelsey shakes my arm.
‘We shouldn’t go this way,’ she says.
‘Why not?’ I ask, stopping.
The ARC 03: Fractured Page 7
