Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1) - Gwenda Bond Page 0,26
always, to stay in the game, she had to pretend she didn’t know there was one. They’d never be content to let her win a round. Not even if it involved best practices.
“Of course! I didn’t realize what you meant. They’re moving north at approximately seven klicks per day…” She held out a hand. “If you give me a pencil, I can draw you a map.”
Dr. Green raised his eyebrows and shot a cocky grin at the giant orderly. Now the orderly did look disappointed.
“Very good,” Dr. Green assured her.
Sorry, Gloria thought at both of them, no, it’s not.
6.
The first part of Alice’s trip stretched out in a calm blur and she relaxed. Maybe today there’d be no electricity. She wanted that tray of tools, to take something apart instead of lying on the cot being lazy. But she kept that inside, kept everything inside and quiet, in the hope that they’d forget she was here until it was time to leave.
Dr. Parks had removed a tube of blood, which they did every few weeks, and labeled it with a date and Alice’s name on a thin strip of tape. They’d listened to her heart, checked her vision, then handed her a dose of bad medicine. Sometimes Alice fantasized about the printing press that had brought the ad to her uncle’s garage and to her attention. As with the elevator before, she imagined a slow dismantling, each piece laid out in a row until no message could be delivered at all.
That made her wonder about Ken’s experience here. He seemed just the same as when they’d started. If he was a psychic, then she’d like to punch him in the nose for telling them to get in the van that first day.
Alice, said her mom’s voice in her head, we don’t punch young men.
“Not even if they deserve it?” she asked.
“What’s that?” Dr. Parks asked, coming through the door. At least Alice thought she’d just come through. And then she knew it, because behind her was Dr. Brenner and that bearded orderly who always came at his side. That bearded orderly who brought the machine she most wanted to take apart and wreck. The one they used to shock her.
“Nothing,” she said, swinging her feet to the floor and sitting up. “Wait, I thought you were going to take my temperature. I don’t feel right today.”
Dr. Parks frowned. “What are your symptoms?”
Besides the fact my eyes see like pinwheels on this junk?
Dr. Brenner stepped forward. “It’s psychosomatic. The treatment will help.”
Alice snorted before she could stop it.
Dr. Brenner’s eyebrows raised so high, they seemed to levitate above his head. “Oh? Because as a medical professional I can tell you that you probably feel poorly because it’s been a week since your last treatment.”
I feel better the minute I’m out of this place.
“You haven’t spoken about this to anyone, correct?” Dr. Brenner moved forward, waving for the machine to be brought, too, and began to fix the electrodes to Alice’s temples.
“I know we’re not supposed to.” She hadn’t. She’d thought she might on the day she went to the diner, and then Terry’s boyfriend said that thing about weapons and she had realized maybe she was beginning to feel more like a weapon than a person with her desire to disassemble everything…
It was silly. She knew it was silly.
“Good.”
Brenner placed a hand on her shoulder and gently shoved her down. “Let’s increase the voltage this week.”
Dr. Parks’ hand went to her throat. “Are you certain that’s a good idea? If she’s not feeling well…”
“It’ll perk her right up,” he said. Then, to Alice, “Won’t it?”
What was there to do but nod? It was the opposite of what he’d told Terry he would do.
Alice closed her eyes and waited. She decided she definitely would not scream or cry out or make any noise, but then the lightning passed through her and she gasped and sparks floated behind her eyelids.
No, not sparks.
Those spores she could never close her fingers around.
She went to the quiet place inside, beneath the reality she longed to escape. Alice felt out of joint here, in the Beneath as she’d begun to think of it, like she didn’t fit. A daydream of decay, filled with shadows.
Today the shadows were motionless, walls and windows cracked, tendrils dead where they lay. Alice moved through the wheel of images in her mind to prove there was life here, that she was still alive.