The Trial (The Tree House)

by Shay Lynam

  I don’t want to stay on the floor so I get up carefully and make my way on wobbly legs over to the bed. It crinkles as I lay down, resting my back against the wall so I’m sitting up and my feet are dangling over the edge. I need something to ease the pain. Anything. So I take off my shirt, ball it up tight and shove as much of it into my mouth as will fit. It’s hard to breathe around the material but I still try to inhale deeply. Alright, it’s now or never.

  For the second time, I carefully pinch the thread woven through my skin. This time I pull at the first stitch after the knot. It sticks right at first – unable to budge due to the dried, crusted blood, but a little bit harder and the string pulls free. Another wave of nausea hits me like a tsunami and I bite down hard on my shirt. You’re okay, I tell myself. You’re fine. You’re fine.

  I tug again and the knot pulls the skin with it. If I tug quick and hard, maybe I could get it to go through the hole. Okay. I can do this. Breathe in. I squeeze my eyes shut. Breathe out. Bite hard. And yank.

  Pop.

  It hurts. There are no thoughts in my head. There are no words. Just pain. My head is just filled with pain. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

  I feel the familiar pinch in my arm and an alarm sounds right outside my door. I don’t have much time.

  I pull again. Pop. Some sound between a scream and a grunt escapes my throat. I bite down harder, feeling the shirt scratch my gums and my teeth creak and I hit my head back against the wall but the throbbing in my skull is nothing compared to the searing white hot pain in my side.

  Only a couple more.

  With another loud scream, I pull one last time and the thread comes all the way loose, the knot catching in every hole. My body slumps and I just lay there for a minute, feeling the pain slam into me over and over like a line of semi-trucks. The alarm outside my door is still going off but no one has come yet. The black thread is stiff and sticky with blood but it’s out. Thank God, it’s out.

  I hear the heavy door at the end of the hall open and close. I’m running out of time. Looking down at my wound again, I see it’s still crusted shut with something brownish and dark. I lay my fingers on either side of the wound and gently pull at the skin. Come on. Come on.

  Carefully, slowly, I pry and the skin stretches until the scab begins to give. A crack appears and blood starts welling to the surface. I pull harder, biting down on the shirt. The wound is splitting open. It hurts. I’m sweating cold sweat. Hot sweat. I’m groaning, grinding my teeth into the t-shirt. Ah it hurts. The pain is sharp and I can feel each little molecule separating, peeling apart. Blood is smeared all down my side now and I look up for a second to see a face frozen in horror at me from the barred window in my door. Hurry, I tell myself. The wound is finally all the way open and without another moment to waste, I push my finger into the cut. Another scream makes its way around the t-shirt as I dig, searching for anything out of the ordinary. My vision is becoming spotty again and the alarm is blaring in my ears along with shouting voices from out in the hall. The guy outside has dropped his key and has to bend down to get it and I’m still searching, trying to find anything hard or out of the ordinary. Instead my finger only digs at flesh. Taking it back out, I rip the shirt out of my mouth and gasp from the pain. Looking down again, I see that it’s just a hole. An empty hole. A perfectly circular hole. I’ve only ever had one other wound like this and I glance at my bare shoulder as it comes to mind. It’s a bullet hole.

  The door to my cell bursts open as memories flood into my head. Everything. All of a sudden, like the floodgates have been opened, it all comes back. The letter, London, the flight home, Aly, Sy, David, the Tree House, the patients, Hailey.

  Jack.

  I kept him from getting shot. I saved him. And now he thinks I’m dead.

  Hands are on me but I can’t see whose. I feel a sharp prick in my neck but it’s nothing compared to the pain in the rest of my body. Then suddenly the pain subsides and the last thing I see is my brother’s face as I’m bleeding in the snow and yelling at him to “go”. Then everything disappears.

  * * *

  “Ben?”

  I can’t move my arms, my legs. Nothing. I’m paralyzed.

  “Ben, are you awake?” It’s Anna.

  I’m able to move my fingers now and my toes and relief washes over me. Then I try to lift my arms but they stay where they are. My eyes fly open and I’m staring at the cement ceiling in my little room. I can’t lift my head.

  “Ben?” Anna repeats.

  “Yeah, I’m awake,” I reply with a deep breath. “I can’t move.” Whatever they injected me with before I passed out must have something to do with why my head feels like a cinderblock. I can’t lift it.

  “It’s just the drugs,” Anna’s voice explains to me. “They’ll wear off in a couple minutes.”

  She’s right. Just a few minutes later I can lift my head again. Not my arms or legs though. I’m about to ask if that’s a side effect, but I get my answer when I look over and see a leather cuff securing my wrist to the bed. “What the…” There’s one on my other wrist and around each ankle too. What kind of people am I dealing with here?

  “Is something wrong?” Anna calls to me.

  I tug hard at the shackle on my wrist. No use. “They have me chained up like Frankenstein’s freaking monster.”

  “Yeah, I think it’s so you quit trying to hurt yourself.” Just as the last words leave her mouth, I hear her cough and then retch. The sound of stomach acid splattering in the toilet makes my own insides ache.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Anna replies weakly, her voice echoing off the metal bowl.

  “You sure?”

  “Believe me,” she says. “This is nothing compared to most days.”

  My hands tighten into fists as Anna heaves again into the bowl. I hate this place. I hate these people. I especially hate that I can’t do anything about any of it.

  There’s nothing I can do while I’m strapped down to my bed. Every few hours – at least I’m guessing it’s every few hours since there doesn’t seem to be a clock in this God forsaken place – a guy in gray has been coming into my room. Sometimes it’s to check my new stitches. Sometimes he draws blood or checks my vitals then rattles off numbers to a nurse outside my door with a clipboard. Sometimes he sticks a needle into my neck and injects me with something that leaves a salty taste in my mouth. Every time I make it as difficult as I can for him, whether it’s shaking my head back and forth so he can’t get the needle in or trying to bite him. He always overpowers me but at least I’m making him irritated.

  “I’m getting really tired of this,” he says at one point and drops the tray of food he’s been trying to feed me onto the ground.

  “You’re getting tired of this?” I mutter staring up at the ceiling, “I’m the one with the toilet taunting me from six feet away. Unless you’re here to help me with that too.”

  The guy in gray grabs ahold of my chin and yanks hard so I’m forced to look at him. “Listen here, lab rat. I don’t know why Eli Scott thinks you’re so important but we have plenty of other lab rats and I’m willing to take the slap on the wrist I’d get if anything were to happen to you.”

  I jerk my head out of his fingers. “If I’m so important, I’m sure you’d get more than just a slap on the wrist,” I spit out trying feebly to look intimidating even with my hands and feet bound.

  “You think you’re so tough.”

  My eyes drill into his. “I can think of at least fifty ways to put you on your back and that’s just using the tray on the ground.” My wrists are raw and hurting from working at the cuffs. It’s not use. They haven’t loosened one bit.

  With a smile and a shake of his head, the man picks the tray back up and turns away to leave. I don’t watch him go. Instead I stare up at the ceiling angrily and feel my ears grow red. The door to my cell closes and latches and then the gray man’s footsteps fade down the hall. Another door opens, shuts, and locks and it’s just me an
d Anna again. With a loud grunt, I pull hard against my shackles but they hold fast. I’m still lying here just as stuck as before only now I’m breathing harder.

  This sucks.

  This sucks. This sucks. This sucks.

  “This sucks!”

  I hear Anna groan from her cell. I probably woke her up.

  Eli thinks I’m important. I haven’t been wheeled out of here and brought back in all drugged up like Anna yet. So what are they waiting for? Maybe for my stitches to heal. Or maybe they do this with every patient they capture. It’s only been a couple days, right? Maybe it hasn’t even been that long. I guess it’s hard to keep track of time when you’ve spent most of it unconscious. There aren’t any windows here so I can’t tell what time of day it is. There hasn’t really been a long period of time between any visits so they must be working around the clock to keep my checkups consistent, but I bet if I ask that guy in the gray scrubs what time it is, he won’t tell me. He’d probably give me another look like I’m this helpless little kid. A helpless little lab rat. Well, I guess I am.

  I lay there in silence for a while. My arms throb with a deep burning ache from wiggling them around in the cuffs. Sure my stitches might heal quickly, but I won’t have any skin left on my wrists. The old fluorescent light over my head flickers for a second and I wonder how long this building has been here. I’ve probably never noticed it before and I’ve lived in Seattle my whole life. I guess it’s just one of those buildings that get lost in the jungle of taller buildings and other buildings. This place is just another structure on another street. People walk by it and drive by it every day and they’re completely oblivious to what happens here. Since there are no windows, I’m sure I’m on a basement level. Maybe I’m far below the ground floor. Maybe there’s someone up there mopping a floor or typing on a computer or sitting on a toilet and they’re just as oblivious to what’s under their feet.

  For all they know, this floor doesn’t exist. For all Jack knows, I’m dead. Maybe he’s dead. I don’t know if he got back to the Tree House. I don’t know if he ever found Hailey. They could all be dead for all I know. Everyone. Sy, David, Root, Arie, Keeta, Melody, Logan. I hate not knowing. I hate feeling so powerless. I hate being strapped down to this stupid, uncomfortable, crinkly bed.

  The light flickers again and I can’t help but feel forgotten.

  What else is there to do but close my eyes and try to fall asleep? The gray guy probably won’t be coming around for a couple more hours. I don’t know what time it is so I can’t really see how much time is passing. All I can think to do is close my eyes and hope something will happen when I open them again.

  * * *

  Something does happen while I’m out. I don’t really remember what I was dreaming about but I have this feeling in my chest like it was about something familiar to me. I feel an essence of a memory about my brother but I can’t place any details. I want to remember but it’s especially hard with all the shouting going on out in the hall.

  “Don’t touch me! Let me go!”

  I wish I could get up and peek out of my little barred window but I’m still stuck on this bed. I bet Anna is watching from her cell like she watched me when I first got here. I can hear multiple sets of feet scraping across the gritty, concrete ground and a lot of overlapping breaths as whoever that voice belonged to continues to struggle with however many people are holding onto him.

  The door a couple cells down from mine clangs open and then shuts again. The patient continues to yell though now the only other sound I hear is that of multiple footsteps walking back down the hall and the heavy door shutting behind them. Looks like Anna and I have a new neighbor. I listen from my bed as the guy continues to freak out.

  “No. This can’t be happening,” he cries to himself. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.”

  “Well it is,” I interrupt irritated.

  The guy is silent. “Is someone else here?” he croaks.

  I shift on my mattress and it crunches like newspaper. “There are two of us actually. And at least one of us is trying to sleep.” Anna lets out another groan. “Correction, both of us are trying to sleep.”

  “What is this place?” the guy asks with a shaky voice. He sounds terrified.

  I really want to get up. I want off this bed. I hate this place. “It’s your new home,” I say more to myself than to him. The sound of scraping concrete has me picturing him sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. I did the same thing when I first got here. I know just how he’s feeling. Like the only way he can find comfort is by making himself as small as possible. Maybe then he can disappear from this place. Too bad it doesn’t work quite like that. He’ll lose all track of everything here. The day, the month, the year. I haven’t even been here that long but it feels like it’s been a decade. “Hey,” I say breaking the silence. “Do you know what day it is?”

  The guy sniffles once. “Tuesday, the sixteenth,” he replies. His voice is muffled like he has his head buried in his arms.

  It’s been three days? I’ve been here for three days already? There’s no way. Maybe I was out for longer than I thought. How long was I on that operating table while they were patching up my bullet wound? How long have I been laying here? Well, this guy just told me. Three days apparently. I can’t believe it.

  Another sniffle comes from his cell. If he’s here, it must mean he’s one of the hundred patients like me. Maybe he’s one of the ones Jack and I thought we lost. “Hey,” I say trying to sound calm. “What’s your name?”

  Another sniffle and then he says it weakly. “Ryan Roemer.”

  chapter four

  Immediately, I put a face in my head with the name and the voice. He’s Hailey’s brother. He’s the one I said we didn’t need to find because he was so far away. “What are you doing here?” I think out loud. I guess I wasn’t really looking for a reply.

  Ryan answers anyway. “I came to surprise my family for Christmas.” His voice is weak and full of regret. “I should’ve stayed in Nashville.”

  I close my eyes and let out a sigh. The straps around my sore wrists creak as I shift on the mattress. Should I mention Hailey? Should I tell him we were out looking for her before I got caught? No, then he’ll want answers and I don’t have any. I don’t know if she’s safe. I don’t know if she’s alive. She could be in the building, drugged up in a cell for all I know.

  Ryan is still whimpering to himself. “I should’ve called first. I should’ve gone straight home. I shouldn’t have drank with Sam.”

  “Alright,” I interrupt a little more irritated than I mean to sound. “You should’ve done a lot of things. I get it. But you didn’t and now you’re here.”

  “Ben,” Anna interjects.

  I press my lips together and squeeze my eyes shut. I want off this bed. Even from behind my eyelids, the flickering fluorescent light is bothering me, making my head and my heart pound. I better be careful. If I get too anxious, that stupid thing in my arm will go off and I’ll be whisked away to the operating room again. Maybe that’s what I want though. At least I’ll be free from these restraints. It’s worth trying. What set it off the last few times? Pain. Every time I was in too much pain, the monitor went off like a freaking fire alarm. I just have to get myself into that much pain again. This isn’t going to be fun but I’ll do anything to get out of here.

  The mattress covers most of the wooden bedframe except for a little bit above my head. I manage to scoot myself up, the edge of the leather straps digging more into my wrists and my ankles painfully. Ryan has started talking to himself again going on and on about Hailey and Nashville and his parents. Anna has started in, trying to get him to calm down. Her voice is low and soothing even when her words catch as she tries to stifle her nausea. Both of them stop talking when they hear my head smack against the wooden frame.

  “Ben?” Anna calls to me.

  I try to ignore her and focus on the pain blooming at the base of my skull. It hurts, but not
as bad as it could. I need to be careful. I just want to hurt myself enough to get my monitor to go off, not put myself into a coma. I lift my head again and slam it back against the bedframe again. Pain bursts behind my eyes and I grit my teeth hard wanting so badly to block out the pain but forcing myself to feel it. Feel it.

  “What is he doing?”

  “I don’t know. Ben?”

  Again.

  Again.

  Coldness is spreading down my neck, into my arms and down my torso, down my legs into my feet. Anna’s small voice gets louder and soon she’s yelling at me and Ryan is trying to talk over her and I can hear their voices but I can’t tell what they’re saying. I feel like my head is about to explode and I’m trying to drown myself in the pain. Trying to feel it, to soak in it. My heart is hammering and my ears are ringing. No, it’s not my ears that are ringing. It’s an alarm outside my door. I did it. My eyes fly open and I’m looking up at the fluorescent light as it flickers. The pain is racking my skull. Sweat is pouring from my skin and I hear the faint sound of a door being opened. The lights flicker again and my breathing is ragged. I let the hurt wash over my body like a fiery wave, scorching its way down my neck. My eyelids are heavy and it’s taking everything I have not to scream. One more hit against the bed frame as the door to my cell opens and then the lights flicker out and I’m surrounded by darkness.