A Danger to Herself and Others(30)

I shake my head. At school, queen bees always have the teachers and administration wrapped around their fingers. If she knows what we’re planning, she might turn Lucy and me in, just to make herself look good.

“Now,” QB says firmly.

My palms are starting to sweat.

If I drop the phone, everyone will hear.

The attendant will see.

He’ll confiscate the phone.

He’ll read the message.

Lucy will get in trouble.

I’ll get in trouble.

QB—as QBs always do—will get away with it. She’ll claim it was my phone, not hers.

Delete.

I slide the phone onto QB’s lap. She slides it up her shirt and tucks it away. Apparently, QB is allowed to wear a bra. Lucy would be so jealous.

The attendant walks past our table, giving each of us a once-over. QB and I keep our hands where he can see them. I hold my spoon tightly, hoping that he won’t notice that my hand is shaking.

“How do you keep it charged?” I whisper.

“One of the orderlies does it for me.”

“Wow,” I say, genuinely impressed. My heartbeat slows to normal.

QB grins. “You’d be surprised what you could get away with when you’ve been here as long as I have.”

She actually sounds proud. Her teeth are stained; they let us brush our teeth here, but it doesn’t look like she does that much. I run my tongue over my teeth.

I don’t want to be here long enough to learn what this girl knows.

The girls across from us are getting up. Lunch is over. QB swings her leg over the bench. (The benches are attached to the tables, which are nailed to the floor, which means, unlike in a normal cafeteria, the end of lunch doesn’t include the sound of chairs scraping against the floor, but dozens of slippered feet shuffling across the linoleum.)

My hands twitch. What was I thinking? I should’ve texted my parents. I should’ve begged them to come get me.

I could ask to use her phone again tomorrow.

No, not tomorrow. Tomorrow we’re sneaking Lucy out.

Well, the day after that, maybe.

“Time to get up, Hannah.” An attendant stands over me, someone whose name I don’t know but who (obviously) knows mine. I nod and stand, almost tripping over the bench.

“Whoa there,” he says, reaching out to catch me. I want to shrug off his touch, but I don’t. He might report it to Dr. Lightfoot. I imagine her noting the incident in my file.

Hannah Gold doesn’t like to be touched by nameless strangers.

Out in the real world, that’s good common sense. In here, it’s a symptom.

I look at the floor, though I know Lucy is probably trying to catch my eye from across the room. She wants to know if our plan worked. She wants to see me nod, or wink, or smile in her direction.

But I don’t feel like nodding or winking or smiling.

Queen Bee’s not going to let me use her phone again, not unless I can offer her something in exchange.

Only the first one’s free.

I know enough about queen bees to know that.





twenty-two


Step One: Decide to break Lucy out.

Step Two: Figure out how to break her out.

Step Three: Assume Lucy’s loyal boyfriend will be willing to risk it all to get Lucy to her audition on time.

Step Four: Trick Queen Bee into letting us use her phone to reach said boyfriend.

Step Five: Get Lucy the hell out of Dodge.



Today is September sixteenth.

Today is Step Five.

When lunch is over, the patients gather by the stairwell: Half of us go up, half of us go down. The stairwell is dimmer than the cafeteria. I’m so used to the bright fluorescents that it always takes my eyes a second to adjust. The attendants call out the names of the girls with grounds privileges.

But they don’t call out the names of those of us who don’t have privileges. They simply lead us up the stairs.

Lucy and I squeeze our way into the middle of the group of girls with grounds privileges. I count: There are seven of them.

“I’m nervous,” Lucy whispers.

“Worst case scenario, they catch us and send us back to our room.” I try to sound nonchalant, but my pulse quickens. We both know there are worse possibilities: They take away our lunch privileges. They take away our showers. They take away our books.

“That’s not what I meant. I haven’t danced since I came here. I’m so out of practice. I’ll probably blow my audition.”

“You won’t.”

I reach down and lace my fingers through hers. I haven’t held hands with a best friend since sixth grade. Her palm is warm against mine. I squeeze.

At the bottom of the stairs, the group turns left. A door stands open at the end of a windowless hall. Outside, the sun is shining so brightly that I don’t even notice the overhead lights for once.

We follow. Suddenly, Lucy tugs me back.

“Where are we going?” I whisper. This isn’t part of the plan. We’re supposed to follow the patients with grounds privileges outside.

“Look,” Lucy points.

The girls file outside one by one. An orderly stands at the door and scans their plastic bracelets as they exit.

We can’t get out that way.

And we have to move before the orderly sees us.