Chapter 13—Settling In
Quickly and efficiently Barrett tended to Lydia’s arm, wrapping it in fresh, clean bandages and tying it tighter in its sling. All the while, she asked the basic questions Lydia had expected: How did her arm feel? Fine. Did she feel faint? No. How was her head? Fine. During it all, Barrett never paused for a moment except when she saw Lydia’s fingers.
“I—my friend and I were testing my strength,” Lydia said, slightly embarrassed at Barrett’s cocked eyebrow.
“We have safer ways to test that here.” She applied new wraps to the fingers.
The more Barrett checked Lydia, the more her mood improved from when she’d been with Arthur. The doctor was nimble in her work. By the end, she was still straight lipped and as firm as the newly applied cloth to Lydia’s arm, but the doctor was in a better mood.
Lydia had a sudden thought. During a lull in Barrett’s questioning, Lydia asked, “Are you a BEP?” Barrett didn’t look like one, but she hadn’t expected Kirk to be one either.
“I’m as much of a BEP as Arthur,” she said. “Which is to say no, I’m not. I just have a lot of experience with them. Now I want you to come see me tomorrow morning. Before you go to school or training, come straight here,” she said, putting extra emphasis on the last two words.
“School?” Lydia echoed. There was a school here?
“Guess Arthur hasn’t filled you in on everything,” Barrett said. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her coat pocket, stopped when she glanced at Lydia, and stuffed them back in. “On a side note,” she said, glancing at the exit, “never pick up smoking. Annoying and bad habit. Mostly annoying. Anyway, we have at least a dozen teachers, all trained in different subjects, so that you can stay up-to-date with your schooling.”
“Oh,” Lydia said, trying to fight back a yawn. It slipped out anyway.
“Now, do you have your medication?”
Medication. The painkillers. Who had them? Lydia seemed to remember Arthur grabbing the bottle as they left the plane. “Yeah,” she said, “I’ll get them from Arthur.”
“Keep taking those when you need to. Okay, I’ve kept you long enough.” She ushered Lydia to the door and unlocked it. “You should be fine for now. Make sure you don’t sleep on your arm, of course, and come see me first thing tomorrow morning. Got it?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Lydia said as she left. Outside, Arthur was waiting in one of the chairs.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said, her anger returning when she saw him. It faded quickly, however, when her exhaustion threatened to knock her out. Arthur stood up and herded Lydia out the door and through the twisting maze of blue hallways.
They headed for the dormitories. These floors were much easier to navigate, Arthur told Lydia she was on the second floor. The climb up one flight of stairs felt to Lydia like ascending a mountain, and she was relieved when they arrived at her room. Arthur quietly opened the door and pointed out her bed and luggage.
“You have a roommate on the other side,” he whispered, pointing to a lump on another green-quilted bed like Lydia’s. The beds were pushed up against opposite walls and her belongings sat in the middle of the white-carpeted floor.
“You share a bathroom with the next room over,” Arthur continued, nodding to a closed door beside her roommate. “If you need anything, you have a phone on the nightstand beside your bed with a landline to the Center and to security. Numbers are taped to the phone itself. That’s about it. You have any questions?”
Lydia pushed past him, making a beeline for the bed and kicking off her shoes. She plopped down on the sheets, forgetting all about her arm. She got a swift reminder when she fell on it and it flared up in protest. Stupid! Lydia thought, rolling over to her good side. She tried not to move her arm, almost willing the pain to settle down.
Arthur placed something on the nightstand. Something that rattled. The pill bottle. Good, thought Lydia, I’d forgotten to ask him for it. Then he left. Within a few minutes, Lydia was sound asleep.
However, peaceful dreams were not in store for Lydia. She was alone in a dark room. For hours no one answered her calls of “Hello?” When she had started to give up hope of seeing anyone, her parents appeared, hugging and coddling her. Lydia had never been happier to see them, and she buried herself in their arms.
As quickly as her parents had appeared, some invisible force yanked them away from her. Lydia begged and pleaded for them to stay. They struggled and fought the force. In the end, they were pulled into the darkness, kicking and screaming. Lydia heard a voice behind her say, “It’s for your own good.”
Arthur. She turned and swung her fist at the direction his voice was coming from. She hit only air. He kept repeating the same line as Lydia searched for him. Eventually, she wore herself out and collapsed.
She awoke, shivering. It was quiet in the room. The clock on her nightstand read three in the morning. Lydia crawled out of bed, walking to the room’s only window, which overlooked the expansive illuminated cave. She took deep breaths, calming herself.
She felt incredibly guilty about how she had blamed her parents. Although she’d never yelled at them outright, she was desperate to beg their forgiveness. It hadn’t been their fault. They had fought for her to be able to stay as much as they could. They cared about her. She knew that. If she ever saw them again, she’d let them know that she loved them just as much as she always had—no, more than that.
She sat on the bed. The pill bottle was on the nightstand. Her arm was demanding the drugs, so she picked up the bottle. When she twisted it open, the cap crumbled apart in her hands. Lydia growled and dumped a couple of pills into her palm. She opened the drawer of the nightstand and put in the bottle, fitting the cap on as best as she could.
As Lydia swallowed the pills, her thoughts turned to home. Back home, where she was sure her parents were in bed, unable to sleep, with all her mother’s law books splayed out before them, trying to support one another and brainstorm how to help her. At least they have each other, Lydia reminded herself, comforted. Still, the image made her eyes moist and she sniffled quietly.
Knowing that her parents were praying for her, Lydia did the same for them and asked for forgiveness. Then she immediately fell asleep. This time, she had no dreams.
Halfway Heroes Page 21