Chapter Twelve

I bolt toward her room, but Sage tugs me back by the elbow and points at the cart full of masks and gowns.

“She’s on precautions,” he says, brows pinched together. “She must be contagious.”

Cursing myself for being so stupid, we quickly don gowns, gloves, masks, and caps before rushing into her room. Mrs. Walsh is thrashing in her bed, eyes wild and bloodshot. I hurry around to her far side and shove the Syncro-Drifter back against the wall, away from where it hovers above her head. The time display on it has been set to shut off at nine a.m. That was about thirty minutes ago, so I assume she has been lying quietly until a moment ago.

The room is so cold, I’m about to ask Sage to get her a blanket until I notice her face is beaded with sweat. I squeeze her hand that is strapped down, now poking out from the side rail of her bed. “Mrs. Walsh, it’s okay,” I say softly. “Please calm down.”

She groans and shakes her head. Her face is ashen, eyes bloodshot.

Sage has taken his place on her other side, pushing a stray strand of hair away from her eyes. “You’re at Mercy Hospital, Mrs. Walsh. You’re not feeling well right now, but I promise we’re going to make you better.” He pours a glass of lemon water from a jug that sits on her nightstand into a plastic cup. Bringing it to her mouth, he says, “Here, have a drink.” He nods toward the glass encouragingly and smiles. I smile at him. Sage is one of the sweetest guys I know.

Mrs. Walsh grunts and jerks her head, knocking the glass away and sprinkling drops of water over her white sheets. “You don’t understand,” she whimpers. “They’ve taken my baby!”

I furrow my eyebrows toward Sage, then look back at her and squeeze her hand again. “Mrs. Walsh, do you mean your daughter?” I say gently. “She’s about nine, right?”

She heaves a sigh, looks up at me with watery brown eyes. “My daughter Tiki is eight. And no, I’m not talking about her. It’s my baby boy, Jax. He’s six months old. He’s—he’s… Help!” she screams, hysterical again.

“You don’t have a boy, Mrs. Walsh, you only have Tiki,” Sage breaks in and I know he just wants to calm her down, but I don’t think telling her she’s delusional is going to help her right now, so I shake my head firmly at him.

But it’s too late, the damage is done. She screams again, louder this time. I feel helpless standing here. Doing nothing. Whatever her antidote is, they need to give it now, to make her right again. Everyone knows she has a daughter, not a son.

Nobody has two children.

My parents didn’t have me and Sophia, and she didn’t have Tiki and Jax. Women are sterilized after giving birth to their first child. So, it’s not possible, right?

She’s sick. Delusional—just like her diagnosis states.

A staff nurse suddenly rushes into the room, sliding a medication cartridge into the depressor. She brushes Sage out of the way with a knock of her full hip. The moment Mrs. Walsh sees her, Mrs. Walsh bangs her head up and down against her pillow. “No, no, no, Nurse Brown!” she spits. “Don’t give me that!”

“Hold her still, will you?” Nurse Brown instructs Sage, peering up at him from over her mask. When he holds her shoulder flat to the bed, Mrs. Walsh gnashes her teeth toward his hand. “Don’t touch me,” she hisses.

“Ellery…” the nurse says in a buttery voice. “This will only sting for a second. Stay still now.” The nurse turns her gaze toward me and in a voice laced with steel instructs, “Hold her head down.”

My heart races. I’m torn between wanting to let Mrs. Walsh talk, to let her free, and fulfilling my duty as a nurse. She’s suffering, I tell myself.

I must be staring because the nurse leans across the bed and wiggles her gloved fingers in front of my face. “Now, Red.”

Her use of a nickname that refers to my hair color jolts me back to reality…and causes my blood to instantly ignite. It reminds me of Asher calling me Carrot Top when we were kids. My hair is auburn, not red. I secure the strand of hair sticking out from under my cap back under it, then ball one hand into a fist, digging my fingernails into my palm. Squinting at Nurse Brown, I ask, “What are you giving her?” It’s bold for me to even ask. She’s the staff nurse, and I’m only a student. Sometimes my mouth has no filter and right now, I don’t care. I want to know.

She scowls. “It’s just a sedative to calm her down. She receives her antidote tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I press. “Why wait until tomorrow if you can heal her now?”

Sage presses an index finger against his masked mouth.

Nurse Brown rolls her eyes. “We have no medication in this hospital for what ails her. It’s coming straight from the The Empire’s medical laboratory.”

I jerk my head back, confused. “What?”

“What she needs is a controlled substance. It’s made specifically for each individual, so I can’t just snap it up if that’s what you think,” she snaps. “We receive the medication via The Protectorate’s security. The dose will already be drawn up and ready to inject. After that, she’ll be put under the Dreamscape for a solid twenty-four hours to allow the medication to take full effect while she rests. Then…” She spreads her fingers wide on her free hand, swinging it up into the air. “Poof! Just like magic, she’ll be all better. Seen it only once before, but it worked like a charm.” She narrows her eyes, then adds, “Now shut up and hold her down.”

I take in a long, ragged breath and remind myself that Mrs. Walsh is no different than the other patients I’ve cared for. She needs treatment to get better. She just doesn’t know it.

I press my hand against Mrs. Walsh’s forehead as instructed. Surprisingly, she doesn’t struggle against it. Only her panicked eyes gaze up to meet mine. A wave of sadness washes over me. Whether it’s true or not, she believes her baby has been taken away. Instead of the angry, hysterical woman from moments before, I only see the sadness in her eyes and feel how her heart is breaking.

An emptiness grows in my chest. Out of nowhere I begin singing. It’s a song my mom used to sing to me when I was a little girl. “Sunrise in your window. It’s your morning song. Like dew on the grass, your binding’s first kiss, a star that twinkles just for you. Just for you. Just for you.”

I see Nurse Brown out of the corner of my eye as she places the depressor firmly against Mrs. Walsh’s arm and I don’t care if she thinks I’m silly or stupid, I just keep singing, focusing on Mrs. Walsh’s sad eyes. As the medication is expelled from the depressor, a soft sound fills the air that reminds me of someone squirting mists of water from a bottle. Mrs. Walsh jolts a little, but she holds her gaze on mine.

Nurse Brown hands Sage a cotton ball, which he presses against Mrs. Walsh’s arm.

“She’ll be calm now,” Nurse Brown says. “Then you can clean her up and try to get her to eat something. You can hook up the Dreamscape after that. Let her sleep for a while.” She ambles to the door and dumps the syringe into the sharps container attached to the wall, its stainless steel cover blending into its surroundings like a chameleon. “And don’t get sucked into her stories.”

After Sage brings back a washbasin, cloths, and towels, we begin cleaning Mrs. Walsh. Her eyes are glazed over now, body still, but she’s still awake, murmuring indiscernible words under her breath. I catch the odd word like, “baby” and “help.”

A chill crawls down my arms as I wipe the cloth against her forehead. “It’s okay. Relax now,” I say.

“Girl, who knew you could sing like that?” Sage’s eyes light up when he smiles. “You sound like a bird.”

“Thanks,” I mumble, grateful for my mask as my cheeks flush hot.

Sage wrings out his cloth and drags in a deep breath. “So, what do you think that was all about?”

“What?”

“The special medication.”

I shrug. “It seems kind of odd, right? I mean…The Protectorate sending over some top-secret medication?” I step back and peer around the drawn curtain that surrounds Mrs. Walsh’s bed toward the doorway, making sure nobody is listening. I turn back and face Sage. “Do you think they could possibly be hiding something?” I whisper.

He shrugs. We both know we’re walking a fine line discussing anything to do with The Protectorate being less than perfect. “Well, if it makes her better, then we should go with it, I guess,” he says, lifting her hand and cleaning it.

“They’ll kill him,” Mrs. Walsh suddenly blurts in a hushed voice. “To destroy the evidence…” her voice trails off as her eyelashes flicker and she stares off in a trance. “Do you hear him?” she asks, her voice breaking.

I don’t know what sort of evidence a baby could have, and I don’t want to ask and upset her even more. Instead, I squeeze her hand, but she doesn’t even react. Her eyes are fixed straight ahead and a lone tear spills down her cheek. It hits me that since she isn’t referring to her daughter, but a second child—a second illegal child—that she probably means the imagined baby is the evidence himself. My mouth turns to sandpaper. I tell myself it can’t be true and remind myself of her diagnosis.

Still, a pang of anxiety drums through me, lodging in my stomach. I imagine Mrs. Walsh is lost somewhere in a foggy world where a baby’s pleading whimpers cry out to her in the dark.