Girls with Sharp Sticks (Girls with Sharp Sticks #1)

There are several tools, but the most menacing is the long, sharp metal needle. No, not a needle. It’s more like an ice pick.

My chair moves suddenly, and I would yelp at the startle if I could talk. Anton reclines the chair farther until I’m lying back and a light above me is shining into my eyes. My feet hang off the edge of the chair, my shoe loose. I realize with absolute terror that although I can’t move, I can feel everything. I can feel when Anton brushes my hair back from my neck. I can feel his warm fingers on my cheek and then above my brow as he presses down painfully, circling my left eye.

But I can’t even tell him it hurts. I can’t tell him anything.

“So now it comes down to guesswork,” he say, admitting a shortcoming. “There’s only so much we can do through the medication, no matter how specialized.”

I’m not even sure that he’s really talking to me anymore. He’s just speaking out loud. “We’ve all made mistakes,” he adds, and pauses to smile down at me. “We’re only human, right?”

He leaves my side, and I’m left to stare up at the bright light angled above my head. I need help—help that isn’t coming. Help that has never saved me before. How many times? How many times have I been through this?

Anton appears again, and this time he’s wearing different glasses, ones with an extra lens magnifying his eyes. He stands near the top of my head, his image upside down as he leans above me. He smiles and holds up the sharp, ice-pick instrument.

“Now,” he says calmly. “I’m going to insert this behind your eye, Mena,” he says.

I scream internally and thrash around. I fight for my life. But here, in this chair, my body is motionless.

“Then I’m going to ask you a series of questions,” Anton continues, reaching down with gloved fingers to widen my left eye, pulling the lid open more. “Based on the answers you think, I’ll make subtle adjustments.” He brings the pick to my eye, stopping momentarily to look at me again. “It’ll only hurt for a moment,” he adds with a small note of sympathy to his voice.

Please, no. Please!

And then there is a cold touch on my inner eyelid, followed by the most excruciating pressure I could ever imagine. It is a sledgehammer to my head, a knife to my bone. But behind the pain is a discomfort I can’t describe, an unnaturalness to the way the pick manipulates my tissue. I lose sight in my left eye, and in my right, I see Anton’s blue gloves wrapped around the metal instrument, twisting it. He takes out some small wires and feeds them into the opening he’s made. I have no idea what they’re connected to.

The pain is impossible to bear. And it hurts so much that I wish I was dead. The second I think that, Anton’s hand pauses, the pick still jammed behind my eye. The wires cold where they rest on my skin.

“Interesting,” he says. “You shouldn’t have thoughts like that, Mena. Self-preservation.”

He waits a beat, and I yell for him to stop, convinced he can hear me somehow. But rather than stopping, his other hand comes into focus holding a small hammer.

“Personally,” he says offhandedly, “I think this is a result of your attachment to the other girls. You share information with each other, and that can spread discontent if not managed. I’ve recommended separation, but Mr. Petrov believed it would affect you socially. There is only so much our medication can accomplish. I can’t prevent all connections.” He sighs and leans in to look closer at my left eye.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he says as if I’m being impatient. “Just hold on another minute.” He gently taps the hammer on the end of the pick.

Clink. On the inside, I scream at the explosion of pain. But on the outside, all of my muscles tense at once, hit with a shock of electricity.

Clink. Convulsion, bones on fire. I’m begging Anton to stop. Stop the agony. Stop—

Clink. And suddenly, miraculously, all of my pain disappears at once. The change is so sudden, so immediate, that at first I can’t quite understand. It takes a moment before I realize that I can’t feel anything at all. Not my body. Not the pick. Not the wires. My thoughts float free. It’s both euphoric and terrifying.

Anton pulls back the hammer, studying something on my left side before smiling down at me. “Better?” he asks like I can answer. He watches me and then nods. “Good.”

Anton doesn’t remove the instruments—instead he moves the pick around with an occasional grinding sound. Although unnerving, it doesn’t hurt. And beyond that, I have a renewed sense of calm. An openness I can’t explain. I hang on his words.

The metal pokes straight up in the air as Anton grabs his stool to roll it over so he can sit behind me. Once he does, I can only see the top of his head. I don’t care anymore. Not about him. Not about me. I’m drifting away until there is a wiggle of the instrument, and I’m back in my body again, completely numb.

“Now let’s see what the problem is,” he murmurs. After a moment, he begins his questions.

“What is your first memory at this school, Philomena?” Anton asks, his voice close but the tone faraway. Professional and practiced. I recall the first scene I remember.

Dr. Groger was leading me up the stairs, telling me how much I would love it here. I looked around, surprised by the décor, thinking it should have been more welcoming. Instead, it left me cold and lonely.

It was a loneliness so deep that it felt like a giant hole through my heart, an unfillable emptiness. A . . . nothingness.

That is, until I saw the other girls. Sydney first, of course. Our eyes met from across the reception hall and she smiled at me, beautiful and genuine. And then there was Marcella and Annalise. We all stared at each other, relieved. Loving each other instantly.

I had no idea how many girls there would be—Brynn, Lennon Rose, and the others hadn’t been brought in yet.

At first, there was just us four. And in that moment, I wasn’t lonely anymore. I had my girls. We found each other. And we decided that we never wanted to be separated again.

“You didn’t remember them,” Anton says, “but you knew them. They’ve been here as long as you, Mena. And this is . . . This is quite a bond you have. Even a bit codependent.”

It wasn’t codependence. We needed each other—still do. No one else could ever understand what we’ve been through. Together, we’re strong. Flowers sharing roots in a caged garden.

Anton hums out a sound, and there’s a scrape of bone.

“And what about your parents?” he asks. “What do you remember about them?”

The memory of my mother at the school is the first that pops into my mind. Her coldness. I try to go back farther, but the clips become disjointed. It makes me uneasy as my idea of them distorts, melts.

“Ah . . . ,” Anton says. “Perhaps this is the problem.” He reaches back to grab another tool. He moves the wires aside slightly and inserts a syringe next to the ice pick, silver dust inside it. He depresses the contents and murmurs something I don’t catch, and he then repeats his original question.

“What do you remember about your parents?” he asks again.

I see my parents standing on the porch of our house, smiling at me as I ride my bike in circles on our wide driveway. My mother waves; my father beams proudly with his arm around her shoulders. And then the three of us are at the dining room table, eating salads and laughing. The three of us together, all the time. Memories flood in, each one happier than the one before. The complete picture begins to fill out.

Despite these images, I have a different sense—only this one is coming from somewhere else. Coming from my heart. I have questions I want to ask, but I stop myself, afraid to think them.

So I try to stop thinking altogether, to keep my heart rate down. Temper my reactions.

“There,” Anton says, removing the syringe. “Much better. Now, I want to talk about that boy you met on your last field trip. What was his name?”

I don’t remember, I think. I keep my head very clear, my thoughts singular. I don’t remember.