Between the Lives

chapter TEN


Roxbury, Sunday



My eyes felt glued together. At first I thought I must have Shifted, but then I managed to haul my eyes open. And along with the memories the room slowly came into focus.

I was still in my Roxbury life. Lying on a bed in a room that’s only light came from the small fluorescent bulb fitted to the high ceiling. Apart from the bed and nightstand, there was an empty doorless cupboard, a well-worn armchair, a small barred window – which told me it was dark outside – and a door, closed and no doubt locked. Not that it mattered anyway. My wrists, even over the top of my cast, and ankles were restrained in sets of leather bindings.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough … they’d taken my watch.

I wanted to be sick. I barely had room to move. If I threw up now, it’d go all over me.

I swallowed repeatedly, trying to force my stomach to settle. It didn’t help and when my eyes glanced at the window again, I almost lost it.

Shit.

What time was it?

I couldn’t go through the Shift restrained like this. The thought of it increased my panic until I was on the verge of screaming.

How could they have done this to me?

There was no clock. No way to know what time it was. I could Shift at any moment. I wasn’t even sure where I was.

I yanked my arms, testing the restraints. Yeah, not a chance.

I considered calling out, desperate enough to plead for the bathroom or something, anything, to free myself. But before I’d opened my mouth I heard footsteps. One set first, then another.

I wriggled around as much as I could and realised that under the blanket I wasn’t in my normal clothes. I was in a hospital gown. For some reason that tipped me over the edge and hot tears started pouring down my face. For someone constantly striving to remain in control, the idea that other people had been controlling me – my movements, clothing – felt like a total violation.

This just couldn’t be happening.

My breakdown threatened to get vocal, but I kept my mouth shut and gritted my teeth against the sobs. Then I heard talking outside my room.

‘One new admission in there. Everything fairly standard and on the charts.’

‘Sounds easy enough,’ said a slightly familiar voice.

‘Careful with her. They have her on SW until further notice. She’ll be due for meds in the next hour which should hold her under for the night. Doc’s already dosed it out and left it at the front desk.’

The other guy paused before he asked, ‘He wants her kept under all night?’

I didn’t hear an answer.

The other guy spoke again. ‘Okay, then. She do that to you?’

‘She’s stronger than she looks.’

A chuckle. ‘What about the restraints?’

‘Doc says she won’t be going anywhere after her next meds, so you can undo them if you want. Your call.’ He said it in a way that suggested if it were his, he wouldn’t be.

‘Okay, Mitch. See you tomorrow.’

Mitch was obviously the guy who’d come to my house. The one I’d kicked in the face. Can’t say I was feeling anything that resembled remorse.

There was a slapping sound, like some annoying ‘dude’ handshake.

‘Don’t know how you do it, man. Working nights like you do. It doesn’t seem right,’ Mitch said.

‘Gotta pay the bills,’ the other guy replied. ‘And it beats doing nothing.’ I could almost hear the shrug.

Footsteps started up again. Just one set. I waited, barely breathing, tears still slipping down my cheeks. When my door finally clicked opened, I quickly closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

The guy walked in, messed around with something at the end of my bed and then came closer. I could feel his presence moving in on me, then a broken gasp I wasn’t expecting.

‘Oh god,’ he whispered. ‘Sabine?’

My eyes shot open.

Ethan.

I couldn’t respond. Seeing him somehow made everything more real, more painful. Tears kept streaming down, rolling around to the back of my neck.

I expected him to start speaking. Say something consoling, or nice, or even patronising. But as I watched, his expression changed from shocked to severe, as if he’d just decided something hateful about me. I became instantly defensive.

‘What time is it?’ I blurted.

When he didn’t respond, I grew more desperate. ‘Please, you have to tell me! The time?’

He blinked, looking shocked at my behaviour, but glanced at his watch.

‘Eight p.m.’ His brow furrowed. ‘Why?’

Relief washed over me, and the terror of an uncontrollable Shift subsided with a flush of fresh tears. I still had four hours.

‘Sabine, what happened? They said you were on SW?’

I sniffed. ‘What’s SW?’

He looked at me strangely. ‘Suicide watch.’

Oh.

Then, without waiting for my answer, he went back to the end of my bed and picked up a folder. He flipped through the pages, reading quickly, ignoring me. Pausing at one section before coming back over to my side.

‘It says you hurt yourself. Did you?’ His voice carried the bite of accusation.

I shook my head. ‘It’s not like that.’ ‘It says they think you may have broken your own arm.’ He looked ill at the suggestion.

I shook my head again. ‘No. No, I didn’t. I … I fell –’

He cut me off. ‘Down the subway steps.’ He pulled down my blanket and I flinched, helpless to stop him.

‘Wait. What are you doing?’ Unfortunately I knew exactly what he was doing.

He glanced at me, determination in his eyes. And anger. But why? What did it matter to him what I did? We barely knew one another. He lifted the sleeve of my hospital gown, revealing my makeshift bandages. ‘And these happened, how?’ he growled.

‘I don’t have to tell you anything,’ I said sharply.

He ignored me and started unwrapping the bandage until he got down to the plasters. He was shaking his head, not looking at me.

I tried to squirm away. ‘Don’t touch me.’

‘Trust me, I’d prefer I didn’t have to, but these need to be cleaned properly. Did you even bother to wash them, or were you hoping you’d die from an infection?’ His eyes darted from my arm to my face, daring me to argue. Carefully he began removing the plasters.

I bit the inside of my cheek and refused to show any reaction when the last plaster, which had dried to the wound, was eased off. Ethan was breathing heavily through his nose, shaking his head every few minutes. I felt like a two year old.

He disappeared and came back with a tray of ointments and fresh bandages.

‘I don’t need this from you,’ I said, after one too many headshakes.

He paused, mouth half open like he was about to say something, but then just went back to tending my arm. I don’t think I’d ever met anyone so frustratingly obnoxious.

I felt my face heat up. ‘If you just undo these straps I can do it myself.’

‘That’s not going to happen.’

Now it was my turn to shake my head. ‘You don’t know me. You don’t know the first thing about me.’

‘Let me guess. There’s more than one of these harmless little cuts on your body?’

I didn’t answer.

He gave a grim smile. ‘Thought so. I guess I know something about you then. Where are they?’

I didn’t answer again.

He grabbed a handful of my blanket. ‘I’ll pull it off if I have to.’

‘And I’ll scream bloody murder! Who the hell do you think you are?’ I snapped.

He didn’t let go of the blanket. ‘I’m the guy who has to come in here and clean you up. So when you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, if that’s possible, would you mind telling me where the rest are so I can get this done and get on with something else.’ His tone was even, but the words cut.

I considered a long list of ways I could tell him to go screw himself. But there was something … It wasn’t like with Mom and Dad. He was angry at me, which he had little right to be since he didn’t even know me, but there was an urgency to it. To fix me. Not my head, but my body.

I sighed. ‘I’ll tell you if you promise me one thing.’

That earned me another headshake. ‘Whatever you’re going to ask for, I can’t do it. Can’t get you out, can’t get you drugs, can’t smuggle you food, can’t get you a phone, can’t take you for a joyride, can’t even bring you a toothbrush.’

‘You can do this much, I know you can.’ I’d heard Mitch tell him.

He clenched his jaw. ‘What?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Promise me that before midnight … Swear that you’ll release me from the restraints. I need to know that at midnight I won’t be tied down.’

His confusion showed. ‘Why?’

‘Does it matter? I’m here and can’t go anywhere. It’s just … It’s important to me. Please.’

He paused, watching me curiously. ‘What’s going on with you, Sabine?’

‘That’s … It’s complicated, Ethan, and we don’t have time.’ And then our eyes locked, and without thinking the mouth that had already landed me in so much trouble today opened again. ‘But if you truly want to know, I’ll tell you. Another time.’

He kept watching me. ‘And why would you do that?’

I shrugged. ‘Well, I’m already tied up. Things can’t get much worse.’

Ethan gave a small nod. ‘Famous last words,’ he muttered. ‘Where are they, Sabine?’

‘Promise me.’

For a moment I thought he was going to say no, but then he sighed. ‘You won’t be restrained at midnight. You have my word.’

‘And I can trust your word?’ I asked, watching him carefully.

He half smiled. ‘With your life.’

It was a dig, but somehow I knew it was also the truth.

‘My right thigh and stomach. And I didn’t break my own arm.’

His look softened momentarily before he got back to work, moving the blanket up from the bottom of the bed to reveal one leg, folding back my hospital gown until he found the bandages.

As he peeled back the plasters, I tried not to cringe.

‘That one isn’t as bad,’ I said.

There was a sharp intake of breath when he got the last of the bandages off. ‘Jesus. What did you do this with, a butter knife?’

‘Scissors and a razor. The scissors were a bad idea.’

‘You think?’ he deadpanned, then went back to shaking his head. ‘Does your life mean so little to you?’

‘No. Having a life is exactly why I’m doing this. And you can stop shaking your head like it matters to you. You don’t even know me, or care.’

After he’d finished re-dressing my thigh, he lifted my gown without looking to just below my chest and then replaced the blanket at my waist. It was gentlemanly. Even if his other actions weren’t. The rest of him radiated anger.

‘I don’t know you. What I care about is being made an accessory to suicide.’

‘What?’

Ignoring me, he pulled the plaster off the cut beneath my ribs and studied it. ‘So you started on your thigh, moved to this and then your arm?’

I blinked. ‘How …? How do you …?’

He shook his head again and it made me want to scream. ‘They get progressively neater and deeper. I saw your bag yesterday at the store. You were planning, weren’t you?’

I looked away.

‘Knew it. And that book? All planning, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but not for what you think. I mean, take a look, Ethan. Do you think I’m really that stupid? Do you think I would cut myself on my thigh, my stomach and my upper arm if I wanted to die? My parents own a drugstore. Do you think I don’t know the long list of how and how not to kill oneself?’

He crossed his arms as I went on the attack. Somehow it made me even more annoyed.

‘Do you think I want this? To have everyone call me crazy? Think I would put myself in this position willingly for a failed attempt at death-by-small-cut-to-the-thigh? Yes, okay, I did it, but I have my reasons. And if you saw that stuff in my bag and thought I might be doing something with it, why didn’t you just say something?’

Ethan stared at me. Time stretched. I was out of words and simply exhausted. Just when I thought he wasn’t going to respond, he began to speak. ‘You were …’ He clenched his jaw. This time he seemed unhappy with himself rather than me. ‘I saw that stuff in your bag, so I went with you on your errands. I looked for signs.’ He glanced down at his hands. ‘I thought … You didn’t fit the mould. You talked about your future, seemed so full of life.’

After that, he left the room. I panicked that he wouldn’t come back. That he would leave me tied up as some kind of punishment. But a few minutes later he returned. With a syringe.

I tried to back away, but the restraints stopped me and my broken wrist ached at the pressure.

‘Ethan, I …’

Shit.

He was going to put me under. I’d dealt with the issue of the restraints, but not this.

‘Is there anything I can do to convince you not to drug me until after midnight?’

‘No.’ He didn’t even look at me.

‘Ethan, I’m sorry, okay. I was angry. You try being tied to a bed and drugged. It’s not a happy time.’

He paused. ‘What is it with you and midnight?’

I wanted to cry. ‘Please. Please don’t do this. It will … It hurts … It …’

‘You’re shaking,’ he said, now watching me intently.

‘It frightens me. Please.’ I looked at him, trying to hold his gaze while he watched me. ‘I’ll do anything.’

He reached forward and moved a strand of my dark hair out of my eyes, his own eyes shadowed with sadness. ‘That’s just the problem, Sabine. You could do anything.’ His hand dropped away quickly.

The syringe stung.

Tears streamed even as I tried to blink them away. The drug kicked in fast.

‘I’m so alone,’ I stammered, feeling empty and cold as everything went black around the edges.

‘You’re not alone, Sabine,’ he whispered. ‘You’re lost.’

The last thing I felt before I lost consciousness was the release of the restraints from my wrists. I’d be free of them when I Shifted at midnight.

Ethan had made sure I’d know.