28

Blue lights flicker. I blink and they turn to dots. Crystalline. I know they’re lights because there was only darkness before. And there’s a putrid smell in my nose. Whatever hard thing I lie on feels like ice against my back.

“She’s waking.”

A blurry face leans over me, blocking the blue lights. Lips part at the face’s center, and bright white squares appear. The doctor smiles. “Can you see me, Clementine? I’m Dr. Tennant. I’m here to help you.”

His voice makes my head hurt. I squeeze my eyes shut.

He is lying. But I don’t know why. I don’t know where I am, or what I’m doing here. When I try to remember anything before the darkness, there’s nothing.

I feel a prick in my leg, sharp and piercing. I suck in my breath. “Stop,” I try to say, but my throat is blocked. There’s something inside it.

“It’s okay,” the doctor says.

I feel something hot spread through my thigh—blazing hot, like fire.

“Stop!”

“It’s okay,” he repeats.

It’s not okay. The thing inside my mouth makes it hard to breathe, and my arms won’t budge because my wrists are shackled.

The fire spreads to my toes.

I heave my body up as high as I can, screaming through the tube they shoved down my throat. I smash my back into the table. Glass shatters behind my head. A hand presses on my arm.

“Calm down.” The voice is firm, steady.

I scream again as the fire cuts into my torso. I kick at Dr. Tennant. He made a mistake; he didn’t tie my legs down.

Salty tears blot my vision worse than before. A door opens, and I hear shouts. Hazy figures lean over me and clamp iron cuffs onto my ankles, while I keep screaming.

I feel another prick, this time in my neck.

I’m lost again.