The tattooed man followed the doctor out the door, shooting me a frosty glare on his way
out. Cameron turned his focus to the other boy.
“Get out of here, Kid,” he ordered. I watched as the kid walked out the door without saying a
word, but with the same stupid grin on his face.
And then we were alone.
I ran my fingers through my hair, hitting a bump at the crown of my head.
“Ouch,” I said in an almost whisper. But Cameron heard me and glanced back. As soon as our
eyes met, he looked away. I tried to read his face, but his expression was blank.
“Get some rest,” he said harshly as he too walked out, closing the door behind him.
I lay there, circling my fingers into my temples and trying hard to remember what had happened:
the last thing I remembered was Cameron’s empty stare after I had watched him kill an innocent
man in cold blood. This I tried hard to forget.
I was still alive, and the name of the boy in the gray sweater was Cameron. Of these two things
I was almost sure. Everything else was a blur, including where I was and how I had gotten there.
I struggled to sit up and flip my legs over the edge of the bed. My eyelids were heavy; all I
wanted to do was sleep.
My feet hit the cool wooden floors—and I suddenly noticed that I didn’t have my sneakers on
anymore. Slightly panicked, I looked to see if anything else was missing, or different. I didn’
t know what I was expecting to find, but whatever it was, I didn’t find it. Except for the
grass stains on my knees, the rubber band that was missing from my hair, and the immense
throbbing against my skull, everything else on my body was the way I had last left it.
With a stiff neck, I scanned my surroundings; there wasn’t much to decipher. I was in a small
room, lit only by the bedside lamp that was on the table next to the bed. There was an armchair
with a rose velvet cushion in one corner. Three of the walls were of a pristine white and
frameless. The other wall was made up of four floor-to-ceiling undraped windows.
After waiting for another bout of nausea to pass, I went to the window, holding on to the small
table as support for my shaky frame. Outside, the sun-setting sky was of resilient palettes of
orange, red, and pink, and I was peering over the shadows of endless rooftops. Wherever I was,
it was high above a city, at least thirty stories high. Down below, a yellow cab was waiting at
a red light on an otherwise empty street. I couldn’t decide if I was still in Callister—I
thought I recognized the clock tower that stood at the center of the city square, but it was too
distant and I was too tired to be sure. My hand pressed against the glass; I closed my eyes
until the dizziness passed.
I slowly, painfully trudged to the door of the bedroom and placed my ear against its smooth
white surface. I could hear a TV echoing in the background and hushed voices, but nothing else.
I twisted the doorknob, expecting it to be locked, but it wasn’t. Without a sound, I cracked
the door open. Initially I was surprised to find that no one was keeping guard at the door, and
then a sound from the ground startled me. The dog, Meatball, who had apparently been keeping the
guard and had suddenly just seen me, quickly got up on all fours, his tail wagging excitedly. I
could tell that he was getting ready to pounce. I speedily closed the door, hearing his
disappointed whine.
I dragged myself back to bed, got under the warm covers, and let my eyelids fall once again. I
had expended whatever small resource of energy I had left in me.
I would have to stay there—wherever there was—until my broken brain healed and could come up
with a survival plan.
Within a few minutes, I was asleep.
I heard someone clearing his throat, and I was startled awake. The room was blackened, except
for the light that was pouring in from the hallway. Cameron was standing by the open door, like
he was waiting for me to wake up. I looked up at him through a sleepy, confused haze. He looked
tired but satisfied, and he slid out, closing the door behind him.
I fell back asleep almost immediately.
The same thing happened many more times. Cameron would walk into the room, make some small
noise, wake me up. Then I’d look up and he’d quietly exit the room—his expression always
blank. He had apparently taken on the task of ensuring that I didn’t die in my sleep—so far,
he had decided to keep me alive, for whatever reason.
In the morning, I woke up to the sound of Meatball whining at the closed bedroom door and the
blinking pain localized to the top of my head. The grayish light of dawn was coming in through
the wall of windows.