Chapter 5

“Is she awake yet?”

“No, still coming out of it, I think.”

I hear voices, but I can’t make out the conversation.

I’m lying down on something soft. There’s a blanket covering me, though I’m not cold. I smell the faintest hint of vanilla, like someone has made cookies. It’s a barely remembered fragrance, one I haven’t smelled in years, but sweet and somehow calming and refreshing at the same time.

My head aches like someone is pounding on it with a hammer. When I try to rub my face, I can’t lift my hands. I breathe deeply, trying to calm myself. Why am I restrained?

“ ... adjust the dosage.”

Footsteps sound near me and I try to open my eyes. They seem to be glued shut. Finally, I manage to crack them open and slam them shut. The light is blinding. It’s harsh, glaring and fluorescent and I feel like I might be sick.

I turn my head. Thankfully, someone thrusts a basin under my chin before I expel the contents of my stomach.

“The lights,” I whisper hoarsely. “Too bright.” I hear the sound of a shade being drawn as I’m laid back down.

A woman leans over me. She’s the source of the vanilla perfume. She’s dressed in white scrubs, and a stethoscope hangs around her neck. “I know you feel wretched,” she says softly. “Try to stay calm until the meds you took work their way out of your system.”

“What meds? I didn’t...” But I did. I took the meds the government gave me as directed. What were they?

The woman gives me an understanding nod and wipes my face with a damp cloth. “You had quite a cocktail in your system, judging by what we found in your apartment,” she says.

“What?”

She tsks and shakes her head. “You had a reaction to something you took. When you’re feeling better, you’ll need to tell us where you got unauthorized meds. There’s also the matter of illegal foodstuffs, but that can wait.”

“No! I didn’t! I got food from the same commissary I always go to, but they gave me the wrong things, and I didn’t eat any of it! My meds were in daily packs like always!”

But I had. I’d eaten the strawberries. Had they been tampered with? Poisoned?

Sighing, she wipes my face again, catching tears I didn’t know I’d shed. “We’ll discuss it later,” the woman says sternly. She pulls a syringe from her pocket and taps it, then injects the contents into a port on an IV line leading into the back of my hand.

“No! Wait, please!” I burst into noisy sobs as warmth fills my veins. My eyes close, despite my struggle to keep them open.

“Later, N. Reynolds. You need your rest.”

I fall into drugged sleep, but my rest isn’t easy. I see Frère Michel, his wrinkled, knobby hands clutching his banjo. He shakes his head sadly, but doesn’t say anything. Tyler St. Francis touches my cheek and tells me I used to be pretty.

D. Webster tells me my subversive activities have cost me the one thing that kept me from sinking into unrelieved malaise and boredom – my job.

I try to protest, but I can’t get the words out. My voice is silenced, my limbs deadened. I let out a silent scream of denial. What have I done to deserve this? Warmth fills my veins yet again, and all thought leaves me, save one burning need.

I have to escape.