“I am not freaking out,” I say evenly. “Just because I happen to disagree with an insane idea the two of you cooked up does not mean I am losing my mind.”
“Then listen to what we’re saying!” Honey yells. “For once, Agnes! Even if you don’t understand it! Open your ears and listen! We can go with Nana Pete down to Texas and have a whole new life for ourselves. No Emmanuel, no Veronica, no Regulation Room ever again.” She pauses. “We’ll be free for the first time in our lives, Ags. Free. We can go places, do things. Watch TV. Not be afraid all the time. Be normal kids, just like everyone else, living a normal life.”
“Who wants to be normal?” I yell. “We’re Believers! We’re better than normal!”
“Better than normal is still abnormal, Agnes.” Honey’s voice is stoic. Her eyes glitter enticingly, reminding me of a story Dad told me once about Saint Thomas Aquinas. To see if they could tempt him from his chosen life of abstinence and virtue, some evil men sent a naked woman to his room. When St. Thomas opened the door and saw the woman standing there, he grabbed an iron poker out of the fireplace and chased her, screaming, down the hall.
“All men are tempted,” Dad had said after the story, “but only the saints refuse to succumb.” I glance around the room quickly. The only thing resembling an iron poker is the thin metal pole that is connected to some kind of machine next to Benny. There’s no way I can pick that up.
“I’m not listening to you,” I say through clenched teeth. “You wouldn’t understand anyway.” Honey opens her mouth, but I shake my head and point my finger at her. “Stay away from me, Honey. I mean it! I’m through with you and all your talk against Emmanuel.” I look over at Nana Pete. “And you, too, Nana Pete. You’re both heathens!”
Without warning, the nurse with the teddy bear jacket pops her head inside the door. “Everything okay in here?” A silver stethoscope is draped like a necklace along her chest. For a moment I think of screaming out that Nana Pete is trying to kidnap us. But something holds me back. For the life of me, I cannot get the words out.
Nana Pete smiles brightly. “Oh yes. Everything’s fine. Thank you.”
The nurse nods and then looks at Benny. “Careful not to wake him too soon. Rest is the best thing for him now.” I look back down at my little brother, envying his obliviousness. But I am fighting for him, too, I realize. Maybe for the first time in his life. And I won’t let him down again. The nurse shuts the door behind her and Nana Pete takes advantage of the sudden privacy to touch me on the shoulder.
I jerk away from her. “Don’t touch me!”
Nana Pete withdraws her hand but stays put. “The life you have been leading at Mount Blessing is all you know, Agnes, which is why you can’t possibly understand that what I am trying to do is for your own good.”
Blah, blah, blah, I think, shoving two of my fingers in my ears. Yammer, yammer, yammer. Nana Pete’s mouth stops moving.
I feel a surge of courage as I drop my hands from my ears. “You know what? You two can talk until you’re blue in the face. But I’m not going to Texas. And Benny’s not going to Texas, either. You can’t make us. That’s kidnapping.”
“I’m not going to kidnap you or force you to do anything against your will, Mouse. I mean it.” Nana Pete grabs my hand again and points her finger between the pink curtains. “Look out the window. You see that bus terminal across the street?” I glance at the array of blue and silver buses, lined like up like sleek fish in front of a low building. “If you want to go back to Mount Blessing, I’ll put you on a bus right now and pay your fare.”
“Okay,” I say instantly. “Then put me on a bus. With Benny. Now.”
Honey steps forward as Nana Pete drops my hand. “She said you. Just you, Agnes. Not Benny. Benny and I are leaving with Nana Pete.” Her words feel like needles going into the softest parts of my belly. There is a rushing sound in my ears. A bitter taste pools in my throat.
“You can’t take Benny.” My voice cracks like ice around the words. “He’s my brother. I won’t let you.”
“He’s my grandson, too,” Nana Pete says. The tone in her voice is the same one she uses with Dad whenever she has an argument with him and knows she’s right. “I have just as much of a responsibility to protect him as you do, Mouse.” The silence in the room is deafening, the beep beep of the machine next to Benny’s bed the only distraction.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I whisper.
“Because there isn’t any other way,” Nana Pete says. “There just isn’t.” The skin around her nose is getting red and blotchy. She stretches her arms out again. “Let me take you somewhere safe, Agnes. Let me take you to a place where no one will ever hurt you like this again.”