I’ve known time to stretch out like rings expanding outward over water; I’ve also known it to rush by with such force it leaves me dizzy. But until today I’ve never known it to do both at the same time. The minutes seem to swell around me, to stifle me with their sluggishness. I watch the light move by centimeters over the ceiling. I fight the pain in my head and my shoulder blades. The numbness radiates from my left arm to my right. A fly circles the room, buzzing up against the blinds over and over, trying to fight its way outside. Eventually it drops from the air, exhausted, hitting the floor with a tiny pinging sound.
Sorry, buddy. I sympathize.
At the same time, I’m terrified when I see how many hours have gone by since Hana’s visit. Every hour brings me closer to the procedure, closer to leaving Alex, and even as each minute seems to take an hour, each hour seems to fly by in a minute. I wish I had some way of knowing whether Hana successfully hid a note at the Governor. Even if she did, there’s only the barest hope that Alex will think of looking there for word from me—the skinniest hope, the edge of an edge.
But still hope.
I haven’t even thought about the other obstacles that stand in the way of my escape—like the fact that I’m strung up like a salami, or the fact that either Carol or Uncle William or Rachel or Jenny is always stationed just outside the door. Call it denial or stubbornness or craziness, but I just have to believe that Alex will come and rescue me—like in one of the fairy tales he told me about on our walk back from the Wilds, where the prince springs a princess from a locked tower, slaying dragons and fighting forests of poisonous thorns just to get to her.
In the late afternoon Rachel comes in with a bowl of steaming soup. She sits down on my bed wordlessly.
“More Advil?” I ask her sarcastically, as she offers me a spoonful.
“You feel better now that you’ve slept, don’t you?” she returns.
“I’d feel better if I weren’t tied up.”
“It’s for your own good,” she says, making another gesture to my mouth with the spoon.
The last thing I want to do is accept food from Rachel, but if Alex does come for me (when; when he comes for me; I have to keep believing), I’ll need to have my strength up. Besides, maybe if Carol and Rachel really believe that I’ve given up on the idea of resisting, they’ll loosen up my restraints or stop standing watch outside the bedroom door, giving me the opportunity to escape.
So I take a long slurp of soup, force a tight smile, and say, “Not bad.”
Rachel beams at me. “You can have as much as you want,” she says. “You need to be in good shape for tomorrow.”
Amen, sister, I think, and drain the whole bowl before asking for seconds.
More minutes: a slow drag, like a weight pulling me under. But then, suddenly, the light in the bedroom turns the warm color of honey, and then the trembling yellow of fresh cream, and then begins swirling away from the walls altogether, like water going down a drain. I haven’t really expected Alex to show up before night—that would be suicide—but pain throbs deep in my chest anyway. There’s almost no time left.
Dinner is more soup, topped with soggy chunks of bread. This time it’s Carol who brings the meal to me while Rachel stands outside. Carol unties my hands briefly after I beg her to let me use the bathroom, but she insists on accompanying me to the toilet and standing there while I pee, which is more than humiliating. My legs are unsteady and the pain in my head worsens when I stand. There are deep grooves in my wrists—the nylon cord has left its mark—and my arms are like two dead weights, swinging lifelessly from my shoulders. When Carol goes to restrain me again I consider resisting—even though she’s taller than I am, I’m definitely stronger—but think better of it. The house is full of people, my uncle included, and for all I know there are still some regulators hanging out downstairs. They’d have me secured and sedated within minutes, and I can’t afford to be put under again. I have to be awake and alert tonight. If Alex doesn’t come I’ll need to generate a plan of my own.