one
Gert is screaming again.
The sound cuts through Nico’s sleep like a lance, shrill and ear-splitting. If she didn’t know any better, she’d assume Gert was lying right next to her and crying into her ear rather than from her room across the hall. Sure enough, all that meets Nico when she cracks open her eyes is the white brick wall of her own bedroom. The sunlight streaming in through the bars in the window burns her eyes, and she squeezes them shut again to dull the ache. She’s never felt more grateful for her meds—if they hadn’t relieved this morning’s migraine, she would be in excruciating pain.
Like Gert is.
This isn’t a new or unexpected occurrence—Gert began experiencing these spells merely weeks after she’d been admitted to the institute—but they’ve been happening more and more frequently now. So often Nico wishes to throw her pillow over her head to drown out the sound, to slip back into the restful sleep that blesses her so rarely. But every new batch of screaming is always more desperate than the last, always more primal and guttural and heart-wrenching. So, once again, Nico finds herself goaded to her feet by the fear that this is it: the time Gertrude Yorkes will finally succumb to the pain and let it kill her.
White-clad doctors and nurses rush by when Nico eases her bedroom door open, and the stray black strands of her hair stir against her neck in their wake. The screams are louder now, and she winces against the sound. Glancing over, she spots several other patients poking their heads out from their bedchambers. Some step out into the hall, most press their hands against their ears. Nico can feel their eyes on her, and she knows they’re waiting for her to do what she does every time this happens. She shies away from the stares—the weight of the cynical attention is like a burden trying to push her into the floor. But she decides to meet their expectations anyway.
She follows the medics into Gert’s room.
The sight is always a painful one. Flanking Gert’s bed, nurses in white scrubs attempt to pin the girl down against the mattress as she writhes in agony. Matting her forehead and neck, strands of purple hair cling to Gert’s sweat-drenched skin. Her pretty, rounded features contort in pain as another scream rips from her body, hoarse from the abuse.
Nico hesitates in the doorway. There are too many people here. A doctor she doesn’t recognize stands by the bed, ordering the nurses to wheel the medical tray closer to him. In their hurry, the nurses push past a guard, who presses himself back up against the far wall and watches the activity unfold before him in abject horror.
Aside from Gert, this guard is the only familiar face in the room.
“Hold her still.” The doctor’s order is a menacing bark as he lifts a syringe slowly to eye level with a gloved hand. He flicks a finger gently against it, and Nico watches as he pushes a small string of silvery, almost phosphorescent fluid from the needle. “I said still.”
“We’re trying. She’s—” The nurse’s cry cuts off when Gert’s right arm wrests free from her grasp. Nico clasps a hand over her own mouth, as if to stifle the sob begging for release. Only the sound has lodged itself in her throat, and the only noise that escapes her is a quivering squeak. She can’t stand to watch this, and yet there’s no part of her capable of looking away. Nico bites into the flesh of her palm until she sees stars.
She senses the warmth beside her before she realizes someone’s standing there. “What’s happening?” a voice asks, low and almost comforting. The discordance between this quality and the distress of the situation is what tears Nico’s gaze from the scene before her and to the girl who’d appeared at her side.
Her breath catches. The girl standing next to her can’t possibly be human. She doesn’t belong here, neither amidst such a horrific setting nor in Nico’s bleak existence altogether. Where Gibborim residents are all sunken cheeks and pallor, the bronze tint to this girl’s fair skin produces a sharp contrast against the pristine whiteness of her clothing. Her cheeks round elegantly beneath curved cheekbones and her delicate lips, parted in alarm, lack the dry, dead skin so often found peeling on the more seasoned patients. Her hair, thick and long and breathtakingly golden, nestles at the back of her head in an elaborate intertwining of braids that leaves Nico speechless and utterly confused.
But it’s her eyes—a deep blue rimmed with the color of a stormy sea—that ultimately convinces Nico that this isn’t real. She’s dreaming.
“What are they doing to her?” the girl asks, cutting through the fog in Nico’s brain. “What’s wrong? Is she—?”
“You!” The sudden voice makes Nico jump, and she tears her eyes from the apparition to find the guard standing in front of her. His eyes are wide and terrified. Their dark color stands out against his sickly pallid skin. For a moment Nico fears he’s about to faint. “You,” he repeats, quieter now. Nico can barely hear him over Gert’s heart-wrenching screams. “What’s your name?”
Her answer comes out in a rush of breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Nico.”
“Nico,” the guard repeats. His lips quiver as he turns back to look at Gert. “You’re her friend, right? She trusts you?”
“I—”
“Please.” He reaches out, and his fingers brush against Nico’s arm. She reflexively recoils away from his touch, but he immediately seems to realize what he’s done. He pins his hands at his side. “Please, try to calm her down. They’re trying to help her, but they can’t if she fights them.”
So many times, Gert has slipped into these fits of pain. So many times, Nico has stood in this very spot, watching as the doctors and nurses tend to the only friend she has, feeling helpless and powerless and terrified.
This time is different. This time a security guard is telling her that Gert needs her, and suddenly it’s as if someone flips a switch in Nico’s brain. Awakening from her trance, she moves on autopilot, and with a burst of strength she didn’t know she had, pushes past the guard and rushes to Gert’s side. She reaches around the nurse struggling to pin Gert’s wrist to the bed and laces her fingers with her friend’s.
“Good,” the doctor says, curt and demanding. “Get her still.”
Nico doesn’t know how to do this. Squeezing Gert’s hand in both of hers, she begins shouting over the cries. “Gert,” she says. “Gert, it’s me. It’s Nico. They let me in this time.”
Gert’s breath shakes as she inhales. Her eyes remain tightly shut, but she turns her head toward the sound of Nico’s voice. Another sob bubbles past her lips.
“Keep it up,” the doctor orders.
“Gert, if you can hear me… if you can hear me, I need you to listen, okay?” Nico fails to steady her own trembling hand as she gently wipes the overgrown bangs from Gert’s hot, sticky forehead. “You’re safe. You’re with me, okay? I’m here. I’m here, and I’m not leaving you until this passes, do you hear me? I promise.”
Gert’s breath hitches. She groans, a deep and frightening sound, through her gnashed teeth before gasping again. But she doesn’t scream this time. Nico feels a pressure against her fingers as Gert squeezes them back.
“Now,” Nico says. It won’t be until later that she realizes she’d just barked an order to the doctor himself. But if he hates her for it, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, the man takes the opportunity to insert the syringe needle into Gert’s arm.
Gert releases one last, strangled cry, before collapsing against the mattress. Her thrashing ceases until she’s left a shuddering, gasping mess that leaves Nico feeling emotionally messier. As the nurses step away from the bed, Nico slumps forward, leaning her elbows into the damp sheets and struggling to hold herself together. She presses Gert’s limp fingers against her forehead and inhales deeply through her nose. She’s completely spent. She can’t even imagine how Gert must be feeling.
She can hear the doctor speaking to the nurses, can hear the med tray’s creaky protests as they shuffle it from the room, but she doesn’t look up once. It isn’t until she feels something warm rest atop her shoulder that she eases her grip on Gert’s hand.
“Thank you,” the guard’s voice is soft. Only now does Nico take a moment to truly focus on him, on the severity of his fear when he begged her to help Gert. Chase, if she remembers his name correctly. Gert once said she believed him to be “one of the few guards capable of displaying actual human emotion.” Nico always knew it to be true—he was the only guard she ever saw smile or interact with the patients in a way that reflected he saw them as a person, as an individual. It isn’t until now, however, that she believes it.
“You did really well,” Chase adds. Part of Nico wants to grant him the decency of a response, but she neither moves nor speaks. No one knows better than she that there are times where words mean nothing, where they fail.
So, she says nothing. But she doesn’t move away from his touch either.
A soft moan finally goads Nico’s eyes up from the white bedding. Gert stirs slightly, her eyelids flutter for just a moment. Then she stills. Nico can feel the welt in her throat as she watches Gert’s chest rise and fall, steadily, and she has to tell herself that this isn’t the end. Gert is alright, for now.
Gert hasn’t left her alone.
Nico can still feel the weight of Chase’s hand on her shoulder when something catches her attention. Someone stands in the doorway. Guiding her gaze away from Gert, she turns toward the door, ready to yell at the patient encroaching on her privacy. On Gert’s privacy.
But the words become lost in her lungs somewhere. The strange girl continues to stand there, blue eyes locked on Nico in a way that makes her feel both uncomfortable and fascinated, both vulnerable and…admired. Then, without a word, the girl disappears down the hall, leaving Nico to wonder whether or not she’d simply imagined her existence.