He was at the door in an instant. He threw it open and practically jumped into the hall, feeling Leavitt right on his tail. Just a few dozen feet away, a familiar scene played out in front of him. Two nurses—a man and a woman—were dragging a girl with brown hair down the hallway, and she was kicking and screaming the whole way. It was her. The girl from room 31K. Teresa.
There was no sense in what Thomas did next. He ran after her. The anguish on her face and the fear in her eyes had finally burst that bubble of panic swelling inside him.
“Let her go!” he yelled at the same time that Leavitt shouted at him to come back.
The nurses turned to look at Thomas and stopped, curiosity crossing their faces, maybe even a hint of amusement. That just angered him all the more. He picked up speed, already realizing that the entire thing was a lost cause. At least he would show Teresa that he tried.
At the last second he jumped, arms outstretched, as if he’d become a superhero, ready to take down the two—
One of the nurses swung a forearm in defense, connecting with the side of Thomas’s head. Sharp pain ignited along his cheek and ear as his world turned upside down and he landed hard on the ground; his nose banged into the wall just hard enough to stun him. He rolled over and looked up. Both nurses stared down at him as if to ask What’s wrong with you? Even Teresa had stopped struggling, though her face expressed something completely different: Awe. Wonder. Could that be almost a smile?
Thomas suddenly felt on top of the world.
Leavitt appeared, looming over him, a syringe in his hand. “I thought we’d come to an understanding, son. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to do this.” He knelt down and stuck the needle in Thomas’s neck, compressed the syringe with his thumb.
Before he passed out, Thomas looked at Teresa again, their eyes meeting for just a few precious seconds. The world had already started to blur when they dragged her away, but he clearly heard what she called out to him.
“Someday we’ll be bigger.”
—
He had crazy dreams.
Flying through the air with some kind of machine strapped to his back, watching the world below him, scorched and ruined and lifeless. He saw small figures running across the sand, and then they grew, getting closer to him. He saw wings, then hideous faces, then arms outstretched, monsters reaching for him.
Luckily that one ended before he got ripped apart. The next one was much more pleasant.
Thomas, his mom, his dad. A picnic. By a river. He didn’t know if it was a memory or a wish, but he enjoyed it all the same. It created an ache in his chest that he thought might linger for a very long time.
At some point he dreamed about Teresa. The mysterious girl who lived so close—literally next door—and yet only one sentence had ever been spoken between them.
Someday we’ll be bigger.
He clung to those words. Saw her say them over and over in his dreams. There was something so tough about them, so…rebellious. He liked her for saying them. In his dream, he and Teresa were both sitting in the same room—his room, he on the bed, she in a chair. They weren’t talking, just…there. Together. He wanted a friend so desperately that he wished the surgery would go on forever, leave him in this dream.
But then Teresa started saying his name, over and over, only it wasn’t her voice. On some level, he knew what was happening, and his heart melted in sadness. The harder he tried to hold on to the counterfeit moment, the more quickly it faded. Soon there was only darkness and the repeated sound of his name.
Time to wake up.
—
He opened his eyes and blinked at the bright lights of the hospital room. A woman stared down at him. Dr. Paige.
“Doct—” he started, but she shushed him.
“Don’t say a word.” She smiled then, and everything seemed okay. Dr. Paige wouldn’t have done anything bad to him. No way. “You’re still under a heavy dose of drugs. You’ll be woozy. Just lie there and relax, enjoy the medicine.” She laughed, a thing that didn’t happen very often.
Thomas did feel floaty, peaceful. The whole incident with Teresa seemed almost funny now. He could only imagine what those nurses had thought at seeing this little kid charging down the hallway, leaping into the air like Superman. At least he’d shown Teresa that he cared. That he was brave. He sighed happily.
“Wow,” Dr. Paige said, looking over from the monitor she’d been studying. “I’d say you’re taking my advice to heart.”
“What did you do to me?” Thomas mumbled, each word slurred.
“Oh, now you’re ignoring my advice. I said not to speak.”
“What…did you do?” he asked again.
Dr. Paige turned to face him, then sat down on the bed. The shifting of the mattress hurt something somewhere on his body. But it was a dull, distant ache.
“I think the Psych told you what we were going to do, right?” she asked. “Dr. Leavitt?” She looked around as if to make sure he hadn’t come back into the room. He wasn’t there.
Thomas nodded. “But…”
“I know. It sounds horrible. Putting something inside you.” She smiled again. “But you’ve learned to trust me a little, haven’t you?”
Thomas nodded again.
“It’ll be so much better for you, for everyone, in the long run. We can measure your killzone activity so much faster and more efficiently now. Plus, you won’t have to come to the lab quite as often to extract data. It’ll all be instantaneous, real-time. Trust me, you’ll be glad we did it.”