‘Jesus Christ.’ The officer grumbled, relaxing his stance. He waved the gun at the truck. ‘Go stand over there and put your hands on the hood. I have to pat you down anyway.’
Lucas glanced at me and I nodded, so he stiffly walked to the truck and submitted to the inspection. Two more squad cars showed up within a few minutes, their lights flashing all over the alley. The neighbors I’d imagined watching us before were now glued to their windows and I saw at least one phone pointed at us from behind some curtains. I hobbled back to the house where Jasper was losing his mind and sent Dr Mehta a text to let her know the situation.
After an extensive argument and two calls to superiors, I convinced the officers we should take Lucas directly back to Congdon according to our ‘original plan.’ The hospital obviously didn’t employ enough security to contain him, the courts had already placed him in our care, and no additional crime had been committed. Eventually they agreed and even allowed Dad and me to drive him, with a police escort. Lucas and I climbed into the back of Dad’s truck and we followed the police motorcade out of the alley.
Dad punched the radio off and gripped the steering wheel in silence. Lucas stared out the window at the dark houses and wind buffeted trees, the empty storefronts lined with Lincoln Park’s night dwellers – dealers and drunks peppered in with the blue-collar crowd out draining their paychecks – as we drove toward downtown.
‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘What happened to your foot?’ He took a turn too sharp, making Lucas lean into me and me brace against the door.
‘Why aren’t you still on the water?’ I countered.
‘There’s a storm coming in.’
‘But the Bannockburn—’
‘The Bannockburn’s been out there for a hundred years. It can wait a little longer. Your foot, Maya.’
I sighed. When he’d texted about the video and news coverage this morning, I’d omitted the part about spraining an ankle, assuming he wouldn’t be back until long after it healed. I should have known better. Briefly, I recounted the Taser incident and the hospital’s treatment.
‘The X-ray showed no breaks. It’s fine. I can barely feel it.’
‘You don’t limp when you’re fine,’ he snapped, and we both fell silent, hitting a stalemate.
As we began climbing the hill, Lucas turned away from the window, glancing between me and the back of Dad’s head. Duluth wasn’t a big city and the amount of time we had left in this ride was already dwindling. Police lights blinked over his skin, forcing my mind up the hill to what lay ahead.
‘You’ll go to medical first,’ I spoke low, ignoring the angry slice of Dad’s face in the rearview mirror. ‘Hopefully you’ll be back in ward two in a few days, tops.’
He could hear what I wasn’t saying. Swallowing, he looked at the tail of the squad car in front of us and the city rushing past. He didn’t respond.
‘You can’t just skip up to the Boundary Waters tonight. You’re still weak, it’s below freezing, and you don’t have any gear.’
‘Winter’s coming.’ He rounded on me. ‘What would you do if it was your father out there?’
A bark of a laugh snapped both our heads to the front of the cab. ‘She prefers me gone. Then there’s no one to complain when she half kills herself getting electrocuted or strangled by violent patients.’
‘Dad—’ I tried to jump in but he only got louder, a captain used to bellowing over the wind. Lucas looked shell-shocked when he heard the last part and I reached out to him quickly, shaking my head. Dad hadn’t known Lucas was the patient who’d choked me, and it was in everyone’s best interest to keep it that way.
‘What the hell was going on back there, Maya?’
‘She didn’t do anything,’ Lucas said. ‘I came to find her—’
‘I didn’t ask you, Blackthorn.’ The streetlights broke in waves over Dad’s face, splintering his irritation as he took another turn. ‘And I thought you were supposed to be a kid.’
Lucas turned to me. ‘I’m supposed to be a kid?’
‘You’re nineteen,’ I told him, ‘even though you don’t look or act like a typical teenager.’
Lucas thought about that for a second. ‘What are nineteen-year-olds supposed to act like?’
I shrugged. ‘Younger. Stupider.’
He smiled. ‘I’ll work on that. So how old are you?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘And you’re acting like a thirteen-year-old,’ Dad cut in, not ready to let the conversation get away from him. ‘What happened back at the house?’
‘Lucas is my patient. He came to tell me some things we’ve been working on in therapy. I think we made a breakthrough tonight.’
Dad laughed again and it was a hard sound. ‘You got the lines down, Maya, but don’t try to sell bullshit to me, even if you’ve made it smell like roses. Why were you running away from the police with him?’
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t even explain it to myself.
‘Christ, I knew it was a bad idea when you took the job there. You don’t go work at the same mental hospital where you spent time as a patient seven years ago.’
Lucas looked at me sharply. His shock was palpable as I stared down at my lap and said in a voice that didn’t sound like my own. ‘Eight years ago.’
‘Whatever. The point is that you should be in the regular world with a normal job.’
‘Define normal.’
‘Out here!’ He flapped a hand at the dark, vacant streets. ‘You could be a therapist in a clinic making twice the money and not getting attacked every day. Do you even know how much you’re worth?’
‘It didn’t go so well when I was out there in the regular world. Besides I do good work at Congdon. I help people.’ My voice came rushing back and with it, my own anger.
‘You’re susceptible to this head case stuff. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘It’s not contagious, Dad.’ Lucas laughed once, but I could still sense his surprise. ‘And I’m probably the least susceptible twenty-three-year-old I’ve ever met. It comes from being half you.’
‘But you’re half her, too.’
Before I could reply, Dad turned onto Congdon’s street and I gasped. A reporter stood in front of the gate, filming a segment, next to at least a dozen people crowded onto the cracked sidewalk. They held signs and leaned into the shot, their faces washed bloodless by the camera light. There’d only been a handful of them here when I punched out a few hours ago, but news of the escape must have made them multiply. A girl about Lucas’s age with bright red hair stared at the truck as we approached, holding a piece of tagboard that read If he’s crazy, I’m crazy. She pointed and yelled something, causing the rest of them to turn as one while the cameraman scrambled to get footage of our procession.
‘Get down.’
I pushed Lucas by the good shoulder, doubling him over in the rear seat as the guards began herding people back, trying to make way for the police motorcade. The crowd didn’t want to disperse.
‘Who – ?’ Lucas began, but anything else he might have said was lost in the yells and clamor of a mass of bodies breaking free from the guards and racing toward us. Signs waved frantically, hands reached out with grasping fingers as I held Lucas’s head beneath the window. One of the police cruisers spun a U-turn inside the gate and flipped their siren on, driving between us and the crowd. As soon as the path forward was clear, Dad gunned the engine and sped through the parking lot to the main entrance where a team of orderlies, nurses, and more security guards waited for us.
I gave Dad’s shoulder a squeeze before grabbing Lucas’s hand and sliding across the seat to the door. ‘Thanks, Dad. Don’t wait for me.’
We hurried toward the main doors, flanked by the remaining police officers. Once inside we were rushed to the medical ward where they performed a series of checks on an uncharacteristically docile Lucas. He submitted to every probe, answered every question, and it wasn’t until I saw Dr Mehta standing at the doorway to the triage area, eyes narrowed in speculation, that I realized I’d barely let go of Lucas’s hand since the moment we got out of the truck.
12