Chapter 3
The next morning my eyes fly open and the memories of last night come pouring back.
My heart pounds as if I’m back on that roof. I thought maybe an alarm would go off or the cops would show up on our floor and start asking questions, but if I hadn’t known better, last night would have been just like any other night at the Pegasus Center.
I get out of bed and start my routine as quickly as possible. I need to be first in the meds line this morning. The staff are always standing around talking to each other near the front desk, and I wonder if they’ll reveal some details about what happened last night.
My teeth are brushed, and I’m fully dressed in record time. I walk out of my room as casually as I can, keeping an eye on Keisha’s door just a few feet ahead of me as I move. Her room is still dark.
I’m halfway down the hall when I see Ms. Michelle step off the elevator.
I look at the clock above the staff’s workstation.
She’s late for the morning shift. And she looks like shit.
I make a mental note to take advantage of that later.
When the staff aren’t feeling well, you can always get away with more.
I wonder if she’ll let me put on the local news in the dayroom before school.
I get closer to the front desk and say good morning to Nurse Patrick, giving him a careful, no-teeth grin, making sure to raise my eyebrows slightly.
Apparently the most convincing smiles are all in the eyebrow raise.
He gives me a warm smile and a little wave, and then he goes back to preparing the morning meds.
When Ms. Michelle is within earshot, I call out to January.
“Jan. Hey, Jan.”
She appears in her doorway right on cue, with the kind of energy only Jan can muster at seven thirty in the morning.
“Quinn, hi! You’re awake! Look at the bracelet I made when I didn’t go to school yesterday. The beads are clear. Did you know we have clear beads now? My favorite color is yellow, though,” Jan prattles on at lightning speed.
I instantly regret this.
“Yeah, Jan. That’s pretty. Hey, I know you had a hard day yesterday. Are you feeling better?” I say with as much concern as I can muster. I flit my eyes toward Ms. Michelle to see if she’s listening to me.
“I’m on track today, Quinn. Mr. Josh said I can earn back my privileges in a week if I can stay rel-a-gated and keep going to school every day.”
“Regulated. If you can stay regulated,” I correct her.
“Yeah. That’s what I said. If I can stay regulated and keep going to school every day, I can get on level thirteen, and I can go to the movies, and I can take another level thirteen with me, and if you’re still a level thirteen, you can come with me,” she continues.
Oh god. Why did I do this?
“Cool, Jan. That would be fun,” I say, but my attention is already elsewhere. Ms. Michelle is whispering to Nurse Patrick. I don’t even think she heard my attempt at “developmentally appropriate empathy.” What a waste.
I watch as Ms. Michelle pulls back her sleeve to reveal a white bandage, stained brown.
Nurse Patrick snaps on a fresh set of gloves and unravels the gauze.
I lean forward to get a closer look. HA!
A bite. She must have worked overtime on the little kids’ psych unit on the fifth floor.
Vicious little buggers. The oozing wound looks disgusting and is probably infected.
I bet Nurse Patrick will send her home for the day.
I shift my eyes to the computer bank at the staff desk.
Sure enough, someone has googled the news.
The headlines describe more riots, this time in smaller towns downstate.
I guess that would explain the broken glass last night.
But I would hardly call what we saw a riot.
Plus, it’s not like we’re in a big city.
What’s there to riot over in Peoria, Illinois?
“Good morning, Quinn. Please back away from the staff workstation and go wait for your medication,” Mr. Josh says, barely looking up from his morning charting.
I stifle a sigh and take three steps back until I’m behind the white line surrounding the workstation.
“Mr. Josh, I’m ready to go down to breakfast.”
“I can see that, Quinn,” he says, still not looking up.
“Can I go in the dayroom and watch TV?”
That gets his attention. I can see him thinking. His eyes shift to the window, then to Ms. Michelle. He’s not sure how to answer.
TV is a limited privilege given to level tens and above only.
We can watch pre-approved movies and TV shows with no violence, no drugs, no sex, no tragedies, and no triggers.
Every once in a while, we’re allowed to watch the local morning news show.
It’s boring as hell with the most obnoxiously fake hosts, but it’s better than listening to January talk about her arts and crafts for the next twenty minutes.
I wait for Mr. Josh to come up with an answer, but his pager starts beeping. He looks down and checks the message. Looks back at me. Looks over to the dayroom TV.
“Sure, yeah. But only channel seven, Quinn. You know the rules. If I come back and you’re watching anything but the nature channel, I’m taking you all the way down to level nine,” he says sternly.
I wait for him to turn away before rolling my eyes.
I walk slowly toward the dayroom past Ms. Michelle and Nurse Patrick as Mr. Josh shows them the message on his pager.
They look wide-eyed and worried. Mr. Josh punches in his staff code for the elevator and heads downstairs.
The psych unit must be having quite a day. Good. That means fewer staff up here.
The dayroom is still. The sun is just barely coming through the barred windows, and nobody seems to care what I’m doing, so I take the risk and flip to the channel nine news and… Oh my god.
“Breaking News” flashes across the bottom of the screen as I watch a city in absolute chaos.
I cough, choking on air. This has to be a movie.
I check the channel again. Nine. I check the clock.
Seven forty-three. The local morning show should be on right now.
Instead, cameras show helicopter footage from downtown Chicago.
There’s not a pane of glass left on the bottom floors of the tall buildings.
Cars litter the sidewalks and streets at odd angles.
People are fighting one another. No, not just fighting. They’re tearing each other apart.
My heart is pounding, and I can’t take my eyes off the screen. I’m hypnotized by the chaos. I don’t even hear Ms. Michelle come up behind me, so when she puts her hand on my shoulder I jump. The staff are not supposed to touch us. She pulls her hand back like she touched a hot stove.
“I’m so sorry. I—” Ms. Michelle stutters, her face the color of ashes, as she looks at the TV screen.
“Are these terrorists?” I ask, trying to get as much information as quickly as possible. The other girls could walk by any second, and Ms. Michelle is notoriously difficult to get information from.
“Turn that off,” she says, defeated.
“But I want to…”
“Turn it off, Quinn.” She’s serious now.
I reach for the power button just as one of the people on screen takes a bite out of someone’s neck. The screen goes dark.
“Chicago is almost two hundred miles north of here,” I say.
“Yes,” Ms. Michelle responds.
“But it’s not just Chicago, is it?” I ask, but I already know.
“It started there,” she replies, looking out the window.
“Why are people rioting?”
“They’re not sure.”
“Is it happening here?”
She almost answers me, but before she can speak, Ginger and Diamond pass the dayroom door and get in the line for meds. Time’s up. That’s all I’ll get.
“Quinn, we’re safe here. Do not scare the other girls. Please,” she begs in a whisper, but she doesn’t wait for an answer. She turns and walks away to tend to a whining call from an impatient January.
Something is seriously wrong. I’m trying to decide whether being in a locked facility during something like this is a good thing. Whoever broke into the lobby last night didn’t make it upstairs, so that’s promising. But what if they did? Where could I go?
Our bedrooms don’t have doors. Our furniture is bolted to the ground so we can’t barricade ourselves in our rooms. The only places with doors are the dayroom, a few closets, and a lounge reserved for staff.
Aside from that, there’s no hiding from whatever is happening out there.
As weapons go, nobody has anything sharper than a crayon.
If someone comes up to our unit and actually gets in, the only option is to hide in a closet or under the bed. These are shit options.
I leave the dayroom and get in line behind Ginger and Diamond.
I study Nurse Patrick’s face for any hint he might know about what happened in the lobby last night, but he gives nothing away.
He just passes out meds like it’s any old day.
Keisha joins me in line and gives me a questioning look.
She wants to know if I learned anything.
I show no emotion and shake my head slightly. We’ll talk at breakfast. We get our meds. I take mine; Keisha palms hers. Then we wait by the stairs to be escorted to breakfast.
“Please go back to your rooms. We’re staying on the unit today,” Ms. Michelle says, looking grayer and grayer.
I whip my head around, unable to hide my reaction. “What? Why?”
“Maintenance is doing some work near the cafeteria. They’ve asked us to stay upstairs today,” Ms. Michelle chirps unconvincingly. She’s lying.
“What about school?” asks Tracy.
“We’re doing school upstairs today. It’ll be like an adventure!”
That’s when January storms toward Ms. Michelle.
Oh boy, here come the fireworks.
“I have to go to school! If I can’t go to school, I can’t earn my points back! Mr. Josh said I could earn my points back if I go to school! This isn’t fair!” January whines, getting louder and higher pitched with each syllable.