Emmy Laybourne - Savage Drift

I feel hopeless. Pulverized.

I have no words to answer her question.

“Let me ask you a better question. Are you hungry?”

And I am, I realize. My stomach feels hollowed out.

I nod yes.

She laughs.

“Good.” She crosses to the door and calls out, “Kelly, can you order up a breakfast for Miss Miller?”

She comes back and gives me another sip of water.

“Look, I have an apology to make. I’m the one who decided we should cut off your hair. I thought it was the right thing to do but, honey, now I feel bad. Those knots, though, the way you had it in those two bumps, they was all hard like a rock. Linnea, she’s black, she said your hair had done dreaded up and we should just shear it off, but I wouldn’t blame you at all if you’re mad at me.”

She was chatting away so nicely. It would be hard to be mad at her.

“I’m not mad,” I croak.

“Well, good. You don’t seem to me like the type to hold a grudge.”

I turn my face away from her.

I am just too sad.

“There, there,” she says, patting me on the shoulders. “Don’t be blue.”

She just stands there, fluttering next to my bed while I cry. She tucks me in, adjusts my pillows.

I don’t say anything.

I can’t.

“Hey now, you know what? I don’t think you need to be in these heavy restraints, I just don’t. Leather cuffs are for big burly men and Lord knows we’ve had our share of them in here. Little girl like you, I don’t think you could hurt a fly.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

“I’m going to put the tape ones on you. They’ll give you more room to maneuver, and you can lie on your side, which is nice. You know, I just need to trust that you’re not going to try to attack me.”

She slips her hand in mine and squeezes. Her skin is soft and moist. “You’re not going to attack me, are you, honey?”

“No,” I say sincerely. “I won’t attack you.”

“That’s my girl,” Sandy chirps. “I’ll be right back.”

She ducks out of the room.

While she’s gone, a man carries in a tray of food.

I can smell eggs, bacon, French toast, tea.

My mouth waters up immediately. It feels like my nose is drunk. My stomach growls.

The man chuckles.

“Go slow, now. Chew each bite ten times or you’ll get sick.”

Then Sandy is back with two small plastic bags containing my new restraints.

She presses a button and the head of my bed moves up.

She removes my leg restraints first.

I stretch each leg.

“That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I manage. “Thank you.”

The food. I can hardly wait for her to finish.

I feel a surge of nervous energy amping up. I want the food.

“Almost there.” She attaches the light straps to my feet and moves up to my wrists.

The lighter straps are much more comfortable.

The wrist restraints are bracelets attached to long straps that fasten to the bed rails.

“Nice, huh? They’re Kevlar and silk! Can you believe that?”

Sandy wheels the food tray, which is set on a stand, over my lap. There’s a little sealed cup of orange juice, a roll with two peel-top tubs of butter, a plastic-wrap-covered metal pitcher of pancake syrup and a silver lid over a plate of food.

Sandy removes the lid.

Eggs, bacon, French toast. It’s all there.

My hands are shaking as I pick up the plastic fork and take my first bite of eggs.

Buttery, creamy. Can your mouth go into shock?

I force myself to chew.

Sandy watches me.

“Honey,” she says, “I think you were starving to death down there at Mizzou. Did you know that?”

I look up.

I guess I did.

Back to the food.

“How’s the patient?” wakes me from my post-binge nap. It’s the movie star doctor.

“Fine,” I say in return.

“Good, good! Excellent.”

This is false cheer. He wants something from me.

“I see Sandy’s got you on the soft restraints. That’s her call to make. Fine with me.”

I can tell he’d like to sit on the edge of the bed, but he doesn’t.

“So, Josie, I’d like to know a little about your background. Would you mind telling me about your experience before you were picked up in Parker?”

I nod okay.

“Were you outside during the initial release?”

I must look confused, because he clarifies. “When the leak occurred from NORAD, were you outside? Were you exposed at that point?”

“No,” I tell him. “I wasn’t exposed until almost two weeks later. I was safe, inside a big building. When we tried to get to Denver, that’s when I was exposed.”

He’s making notes on his minitab with a stylus as fast as he can.

Sandy comes in, under the pretense of checking my IV, but I think she mainly wants to hear my story.

“See, this little kid Max was being attacked, and I knew, at that point, that I was O. The soldier attacking him was pretty out of it. I knew I could take him if I went O, so I took off my face mask.”

Sandy’s listening, her expression sympathetic.

Dr. Cutlass is just nodding, writing.

“And how long were you exposed at that point?”

“About three days. It’s hard to say, exactly. It was dark out there.”

“During that period, do you remember… were you completely out of control, or were you able to make any decisions?”

Dr. Cutlass looks up at me. My answer is very important to him.

“I was able to make decisions.”

“I knew it!”

“I was in control enough not to hurt my friends. That was pretty much all I could do—make the decision not to kill. But at Mizzou, when the drift hit, I found I had even more control than the first time I was exposed.”

Dr. Cutlass starts pacing now, in the small room.

“This is very exciting,” he says. He brings up another page on his minitab.

“Listen to what they wrote about you at Mizzou: ‘During the drift, Miller tried to save two small children. When every single other inmate was intent on murder and violence, Miller was seen breaking up a fight between the children and trying to get them to safety.’”

I sit up in my bed, my bonds tightening on my wrists.

“Who wrote that?” I ask.

“A doctor there.”

“Was it Dr. Quarropas?”

He looks.

“Yes, J. Quarropas.”