He came around and sat on the table. He stared into my eyes. I wasn’t sure what he was doing. Was he examining me for something in particular? Or was he just doing it to intimidate me? I refused to look away. Finally, he straightened and walked to the other door.
He opened it, and a female Ender guard with cropped white hair stepped in.
“Take her,” he said.
The wiry guard lifted me roughly by the arm. As she dragged me past the leopard man, I didn’t take my eyes off his. I wanted to show him I would stand up to him, even if it meant dying.
Then I thought of Tyler, and my bravado melted. He would have Eugenia and a good life but zero family if he lost me. I had to find out what they wanted, find out if there was some way to negotiate for my safety. And for Michael’s and Hyden’s too.
The guard marched me down a hallway that had a projection of a rushing river and took me into a room that looked like a high-tech doctor’s office. A pine forest was projected on one wall, with birds flying through the trees. The guard sat me on an examining table and raised it with a foot pedal. The motor buzzed as I was elevated to the perfect height to be scrutinized.
A doctor entered. A short, plump Ender, he nodded solemnly to me.
“I’m just going to examine you.” He said it as if he needed my consent.
“And what if I say no?”
“I’m afraid that is not an option,” he said. “So can we proceed?”
“No. I refuse. I’m here because I’m being held prisoner.” I jiggled my cuffs. “You can see I’m handcuffed. But I’ve done nothing wrong.”
The doctor’s arms hung at his sides.
My voice softened to a plea. He might be the last reasonable person I encountered.
“Please do what’s right,” I said quietly. “Let me go.”
He exchanged a look with the guard. My words must have reached him. He had to see how wrong this was, holding me this way. He went over to her and whispered something. I hoped he’d asked her to undo my cuffs. They were so tight, and my arms ached from being forced in this position for so long.
Then they turned to me. The looks on their faces, those stone-cold expressions, were not ones of sympathy.
The guard held me down with all her strength.
“What’re you doing to me?” I screamed, struggling on the cold table.
The doctor had his back to me, but I could see that he was preparing an injection. He came over with a hypodermic syringe. The guard dug her bony fingers into my skin as the doctor stabbed my arm with the needle.
I dreamed of being back in my family home, the nice middle-class ranch house where my brother and I grew up. Tyler and I were in the living room, playing a silly card game on the floor, on a Saturday afternoon. It didn’t make sense, because he looked his present age. Then my father came into the room.
“Daddy?” I asked, surprised to see him.
“What, Cal Girl?” he said.
For some reason, he was wearing a black suit. Then my mother came in the room wearing a floaty evening gown and put her arm around his waist.
“Mom?” I said.
She cocked her head. “What, dear?”
“I thought you were both gone,” I said.
“No,” she said. “We’ve always been here.”
I awoke in a cramped room atop a thickly padded hospital bed. It reminded me of a baby’s crib. But instead of bars, I was encased on all sides with clear plexi walls.
Above me, stars twinkled. Projections. An illusion to calm? Or to confuse?
“She’s awake,” someone whispered.
I turned my head to the sound. A female guard was outside the room, her face bisected by the door.
An Ender wearing a tight, light-colored jumpsuit entered. In her hands, she held a small machine with a cord that she drew out and touched to my forehead, then my wrist, then my heart. It was then that I realized my wrists were bound to the bed with hospital restraints.
She checked her machine and seemed satisfied. She left without ever having met my gaze.
I turned my wrists and pulled on the cuffs to see if I could get out of them. Impossible. Panic crept in like water under a door. I twisted harder, but it just made my wrists raw.
Someone opened the door. This time it was Emma. The Ender guard remained in the hall as Emma entered and then shut the door.
She carried a shopping bag.
“Hi, Callie,” she said, all smiles and cheekbones.
“What do you want?” I didn’t trust her, but it wasn’t like I could get up and leave.
“I brought you a smoothie. Thought you’d like it.” She pulled it out of her bag. “Strawberry-banana.”
“I can’t hold it. If you untie me—”
“I’ll hold it for you.”