It was hard to focus, his thoughts a quick jumble, one after another, incomprehensible, thinking so much he wasn’t thinking anything at all. He headed for the woods, sweating now, tasting the salt on his upper lip, searching for a place no one would find him. Where no one would stop him.
He kept walking through the trees, unseeing. He didn’t know for how long, but the nausea was getting worse. It dragged on, far longer than Damien expected, but he was slim and he’d barely eaten anything that day and suddenly, it was like everything outside was muffled, all the noises and the smells, and when he opened his eyes—when had he closed them?—he was on his knees, on his back, he was staring at something.
Leaves, light. The canopy.
There was a pain in his stomach, bile in his throat, light on his skin, across his face in patches of warmth. He blinked and could hear something like his own breath, but it didn’t sound right, quick and pained. He couldn’t think beyond the sharp clench in his stomach. He curled up. There was dirt beneath his cheek, there was light, there was nothing, there was air, there was disappearing, there was—a noise. An earthquake, that was how he was going to die; it was saying his name, desperate, it was begging him, Damien, Damien.
He opened his eyes.
Hakan.
Damien blinked, but Hakan was still there, the shadow of his face, a mouth moving—the earthquake, the begging earth. Confusion was making fissures through the pain. Hakan couldn’t be there. Damien was a superhero, he’d created a black hole, he was disappearing and Hakan was going to get dragged into the dark.
“No…no,” Damien moaned, and the sound of his own voice shocked him, splitting the buzzing in his ears open like an altitude pop, sound rushing back in.
Hakan was screaming, “Mom,” he was saying, “Mom,” but Damien’s mom was dead, he was going to see her, Hakan couldn’t come—and Mia was there, one moment away, and then around him. The world shifted, he teletransported into the air, he was levitating, his stomach lurched and he was throwing up, a hand tilting his face away so that it fell all the way to the forest floor.
Here is a dream,
you do not belong here.
Damien was flying. Damien was still, and everything was rushing past him. Damien was nothing, he didn’t make sense, he was vanishing.
There was light in the darkness. Red, blue, red, blue. Someone was trying to open his eyes, was asking him, “What did you take?” He looked at the stranger. Damien’s golem body had been filled with lead.
“No,” he said. “Let me go.” He couldn’t breathe. Oh God, it was raining on his face, he was looking up at the clear blue sky and it was raining on his face. Someone was trying to put an umbrella over his mouth and nose but Damien wanted to feel the rain, even if it stung, even if it was the last time.
He tilted his face and Hakan was standing there. He looked scared. He looked more scared than Damien had ever felt, even in the middle of the night when there was nobody, and he was nobody. Hakan’s eyes were wide, round, unblinking, two points in a washed-out face.
Something hurt. Everything hurt.
The world shook itself, and Damien was looking at a metal ceiling, surrounded by strangers. Hakan’s fear was suddenly his. It was filling him up, he was screaming and howling, Mrs. McKenzie was tying him to the bed again, he felt the pressure on his wrists, his legs.
He was panting, panting, panting, and then he disappeared.
CHAPTER FOUR
There was someone in his room. He could hear them muttering. Or maybe talking, although it sounded far away, underwater. There was a bird nearby, chirping intermittently, a sharp, strange noise. Damien tried to open his eyes, but they were heavy. His eyelids felt raw and burning. He opened his mouth. The air was dry. It smelt bitter. His tongue felt thick and pasty. He tried to open his eyes again. There was a pain somewhere, a weight, but the usual scrape of ropes wasn’t present.
“Wha-at,” he tried to say, voice and lips cracking. Someone had taken a sheet of sandpaper and scraped him all over, inside and out.
“Damien!” he heard and there was urgency in that voice. Fear.
Steeply, from one moment to the next, awareness rushed in, and with its tide it dragged the memories. The pills, the glinting emptiness of the packets, the sweat on his face as he walked, the sunshine dappled on his cheek, Hakan. Hakan’s terror-filled voice, his face, his arms that had dragged Damien out of the hole he had been trying to bury himself in.
“No,” he sobbed, the word coming out of him like the crash of a wave. He blinked the crust from his eyes and looked at Nicola. She looked pale and worried. Fear electrified him.
What would the McKenzies do? How would they punish him? Or would he be taken away, locked up, would he—
“Damien, Damien! Can someone—”
God, please, he begged. He couldn’t do this anymore. Please.
“Here we go, it’s okay.” There was a woman standing next to his bed. She looked at him with her clear blue eyes, a wisp of blonde and grey hair falling out of the bun it was gathered in. She took his hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. “I need you to breathe with me. When I squeeze your hands, breathe in, nice and slow. When I let go, breathe out, nice and slow, as slowly as you can. You can take your time to get there. Feel my hands on yours, the feel of your fingers, of this gentle squeeze. And release.” Her voice was completely calm, a rock for Damien to cling to in the sweeping tide.
Damien knew, ever since his first foster carer had explained it to him, that he had to focus and control his breathing in a panic attack. She had explained everything about the adrenaline response. The way the body went into hyperdrive, how it became primed for action, to fight or fly away, and demanded the energy oxygen provides. How his heart would race to try and deliver it. Damien knew he had to signal his body that oxygen was on its way, that he had to stop hyperventilating. But focusing on his own breaths was almost too frightening. It made the panic more real. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was almost easier to let the panic drag him where it may until it ran its course.
Still, he tried. He focused on the squeezing of her dry hands, his bones pressing together slightly. His breath stuttered and choked, lungs feeling small. The hand around his relaxed and he tried to relax his throat, tried to let out the air slowly past the stone lodged in there. Again, and again, and again, his hand squeezed and relaxed and so did his breath, until its quaking subsided to a tremble.
“That’s good,” the woman said. She was looking at him kindly, and he could hardly stand to look back. “My name is Dr. Wilson,” she said. “I’m glad to see you’re awake.”
Damien closed his eyes, the acidic taste of panic rising again. He didn’t want to be awake. Didn’t want to be sitting in that bed feeling an exhaustion that transcended any kind of natural sleep. He felt the tears falling down his face and covered his eyes. A hand fell on his shoulder but he curled away from it, losing his breath again, another one of the seemingly endless waves crashing over him.
Let it be over, he wished. He wanted to be normal, to be good, for his parents to be alive and here, breathing with him instead of this stranger.
“Breathe,” the doctor said, and the process started again.
When the tide calmed once more, Damien uncurled slowly, his eyes unfocused on his white hands over the white bedsheet.
“Can I take your hand?” Nicola asked, and Damien automatically twitched away, his hand slipping under the sheet. He glanced towards her and the shine in her eyes made the guilt tighten around his stomach, but he didn’t want to be touched. He didn’t want to be real.
“Sorry,” he croaked.
“It’s okay, Damien,” Nicola said. The doctor passed him some water, which he sipped slowly.
“Damien, I know you’re exhausted, but I need to run a few things by you, okay? I’m just here to tell you that you’re going to be okay—physically, at least. We caught it in time, so there won’t be any long-term damage to the kidneys, which is the part of the body that can get
hurt if you take a lot of medication,” she explained unnecessarily. “I have to tell you, Damien, overdoses like that are more likely to cause long-term damage than kill you.”
Damien let out a long breath. What was there to say?
“Despite the fact that your body is going to recover, I think we can see that you’re hurting somewhere deeper than that. I’m good with kidneys and stomachs and that sort of thing, but there’s someone that will be over soon that knows what to do with the kind of hurt you have. They’re part of what we call the crisis team, which are the ones who help when people are going through a really tough time and need help really quickly. You can rest for now, but she’ll come over to have a chat and see how things are going. I know that can sound a little scary, and it’s probably pretty silly of me to say this, but you don’t have to worry—she’s lovely and will be here just to help you. Okay?”
Damien nodded automatically, reeling from the amount of information and the prospect of having to talk to someone new. He squeezed his hands together under the sheet.
Time warped. Nicola tried to make stilted conversation, but he could barely keep up with even simple questions. He felt weighed down and hyperaware at the same time, his eyes flicking to the doorway at every sound in the hall whilst his stone body felt impossible to move, a cage in and of itself.
Though it felt like an eternity, it was still too soon when the door opened again and a woman walked through. She was wearing moderately casual clothes, but the blue lanyard around her neck, a pictured card swinging from the end, marked her as staff. Her hair was tightly wound into intricate braids that hung around her dark face and back, swinging in the same rhythm as her lanyard. She smiled as she met Damien’s eyes. He looked away.
He listened to her settle into the chair beside his bed, his hands wringing on his lap. The skin between his fingers was dry, pulling uncomfortably as he made a beseeching gesture to himself.
“Hi, there. I’ve got Damien written down here. Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Damien. My name is Sam.”
“Hi.”
“Hi. Okay, I just have to say, I love your bag,” she said.
Damien turned, and he saw someone had brought him his backpack. Its Spiderman design looked out of place in the sterile room.
“Are you into superhero stuff?” she asked.
Damien nodded.
“Oh my God, I know that some people are like, eurgh, it’s turning mainstream, but I’m loving it. Have you seen the new Marvel movies that have been coming out?”
“No,” Damien replied quietly. There had been no one to take him.
“Well, it’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?” she asked.
He tensed. His hands were shaking, he noticed. He didn’t want to think of the future. The silence stretched.
“So, as I said, my name is Sam. I’m a registered nurse, although my title now is Crisis Clinician. I think Dr. Wilson probably told you a little bit already, but I’m here to see how you’re doing. How you’re feeling. I know you’re tired, and the last thing you probably want is some stranger asking you a bunch of questions, so we’ll go as slowly as you want. If you want to take a break, tell me and we can, okay? Give yourself time to answer, and if you feel you can’t answer honestly just tell me and we can move onto something else, okay?
“I also want to say, Damien, that I’m not here for anybody else but you. I’m not here for your social worker, for your foster carers, for your school—I’m here for you. For this moment in time, you’ve got me completely at your back,” she said. Her voice was kind, calm but straightforward.
Damien tucked his hands underneath the blanket. He nodded.
“Okay. Before we get started, do you want anybody else here with you?” she asked, and Damien’s head jerked upwards in alarm. He stared at her, waiting for her to mention the McKenzies. She simply stared back, not looking surprised at his reaction.
“Mia,” his mouth said, and he immediately regretted it. “No, never mind, no one.”
“It would be no trouble to get her. She’s in the waiting room,” Sam said.
Damien’s stomach tightened. “Really?”
“Yeah. You have quite a few people there, actually. Mia, and…I think he said his name was Cameron. And then Hakan, and Kiki.”
“Koko.”
“Oh, right. Koko.”
“What about…the McKenzies?” Damien asked. At this, Sam and Nicola shared a strange, guarded look.
“No, not at the moment,” was all Sam said.
“Should I get Mia, then?” Nicola asked. Damien hunched into himself in indecision.
“Damien,” Sam said softly, and it was the tentative feel of her fingertips on his elbow that made him realize he was scratching at himself again.
“Sorry,” Damien said quickly, but his attempt at hiding his hands under the blanket was halted by Sam.
“Leave them out here for a little bit, okay?” Sam suggested, and the softness of her voice grated, but Damien complied. “Nicola’s going to get Mia, okay? And how about this? If you want her to leave at any point, you just tug at your earlobe twice. It’ll be like a secret sign, and I’ll make an excuse and ask her to step out, okay?”
After a moment, Damien nodded slowly and then suffered the awkward silence until Nicola returned. She stepped through the door first and then—Mia. Her face seemed calm, but Damien had gotten to know her eyes and they were strained around the corners, her face paler than usual. The look punched Damien in the sternum, forcing all the air out.
He was flying in the forest, he was in a warm room, there was red blue red blue, he was amidst a smile across a dinner table, a warm hand on his shoulder, a—
For some reason incomprehensible to Damien, the moment their eyes met, he burst into sobs. Unlike his tears before, which seemed to be a deluge pressing down on him, digging him into unrelenting earth, these seemed to be ripping something from him. They were a baptism of salt water as he was purged and emptied.
Mia didn’t ask permission, instead striding to where Damien was curled tightly on the bed. Suddenly, warm, strong arms were around him, holding his rattling bones and bursting lungs in place. She was making soft noises, hums and whispers, but there were no words. It was Mia, the home smell of her, rocking him back and forth in her arms. He couldn’t help but cling to her, the desperate clutch of the drowning, but the air in his gasping lungs felt full and giving.
Time disintegrated. Damien could feel the low humming in Mia’s chest. He let the hand running through his hair calm him until he was nothing but an empty vessel, numb to both emotion and thought. This time, however, the feeling was almost restful, as if he had finally hit the bottom of the well. But he knew there was much more still to come.
He untangled himself from Mia slowly, leaving the damp impression of his face on her shirt. He opened his mouth to apologise reflexively but was cut off by Mia’s hands cupping his face. She looked into his eyes and the love there—it could not be mistaken for anything else—could fertilize even the barren fields inside Damien.
Damien closed his eyes, letting out a shaking breath as a kiss was pressed to his forehead.
After cleaning up his face and being given some water, everybody relocated so Sam was sitting in a chair on one side of the bed whilst Mia sat on the other, still holding his hand. Nicola stood behind Mia.
“You okay to start?” Sam asked. Damien nodded. “Okay. Remember what I said—take your time, if you want to take any breaks, ask, and if you feel a question is too much, we can skip to the next one, although some of them we’ll have to come back to later. Okay?” she said in the same calm, straightforward voice.
Damien nodded again, focusing his gaze on his hand worrying at the sheet.
“Okay. We’ll start with getting a bit of a picture about what happened today. Am I right in saying that you took a number of pills?”
Damien nodded, steeling himself.
“Do you know
what they were?”
Damien shook his head. “Not really. I just grabbed whatever I could see.”
“Where did you get them from?”
“The, um, from the nurse office at school. I mean, it wasn’t the nurse’s fault. The pills were in a locked cabinet. Well, I mean, it wasn’t locked then, but there was a key hanging from the lock, so…”
“That’s okay, Damien, don’t worry about that. Can you tell me why you were at the nurse’s?”
“I, ah, I scratched myself.”
“Accidentally, or was it like just now when you were scratching your arms?”
Damien paused. His hand in Mia’s twitched with the urge to scratch. “Like…like now,” Damien said, so softly that he feared Sam wouldn’t be able to hear him, but she nodded.
“Do you do that often? Say, in the past week, how often do you think you’ve scratched at your arms?”
“I…I don’t know. I haven’t done it much since…” He had to take gulps of air, suddenly, but Mia’s hand around his anchored him. “Since I started going to Mia’s.”
Sam nodded and gave them both a small smile. “Is it okay if I see your arms?”
Damien hesitated but slowly flipped his arms over, exposing the scratched skin on the underbelly. His heart raced as he caught sight of where the ropes had left ugly scabs and bruising. He hadn’t realized they had taken his makeshift bandages off, and he’d barely looked at the rope-burns then. Sam leaned forwards, looking for a moment, before nodding and leaning back.
“Thanks for showing me, Damien. Didn’t the nurse ask about them?”
Damien’s muscles loosened slightly when she didn’t mention his wrists, tucking his arm in again. “I lied, told her it was poison ivy.”
Sam hummed noncommittally. “Thinking on your feet?”
“Um…yeah, I guess.”
“Has anybody else said anything about the scratches?”
“No. But, I haven’t done it lately.”
In This Iron Ground (Natural Magic) Page 8