Page 64 of If Anything Happens To Me

He tried to pull me away from the window, but I resisted. The harder he tugged, the more I leaned back, bracing myself with my feet and strong legs, trying to get away from him.

“You have a choice, Oli,” Fitch said. “Do what I say, or I’ll give you another shot, like the one when you first got here. This time the drug will be stronger. You might not wake up.” As he spoke, he let go of my hand and reached into the pocket of his white coat. He held up the hypodermic needle again, but this time it was loaded.

I glanced around the attic. Hayley and Abigail were watching.

“It won’t last long,” Abigail told me. “He’ll take his tests, measure the results and write them down, and you’ll be done in time for breakfast.”

Breakfast? Was she serious? Who cared about that? Besides, I planned to get us out of here long before sunrise.

Hayley said “fight.” Not out loud, but with her eyes. Her expression was ferocious. I could tell by the tension in her shoulders that she was about to launch herself at Fitch so we could take him down together. Fitch saw it, too.

“Don’t even think about it, Hayley,” he said. “There’s enough here for you, too. Oli, the ball is in your court. Comply, or put yourself and Hayley in danger. I’m sure you realize that I know how to hurt her.”

He’d said the magic words, probably the only thing that could get to me, that he would hurt Hayley. So, slowly, I stood up. There might be no worse feeling in the world than “complying”—to use his word—with your captor, the person you know to the depths of your being is your enemy. The boy who killed your sister. Believe it or not, that terrible feeling of following him to whatever he planned to do overcame the fear of what it would be.

So I trailed Fitch around the attic’s central chimney, through a door in the brick. We were in a small room, and that’s when I realized it wasn’t a chimney at all but just a hollow column—possibly meant to support the Miramar when it was first built, but now used for another purpose.

The space had no windows. When Fitch flipped on bright lights, I could see that it was furnished like a doctor’s exam room. There was a padded table, a stainless steel cart with an array of medical instruments, a container for sterilizing them, and a machine with wires and dials.

Had he stolen all this stuff from his mother?

“You think you’re a real doctor, don’t you?” I said. “You’re not, Fitch. You’re just in a school club where you pretend to be one.”

“Tell yourself that,” he said.

“You’re a rich kid,” I said. “Must be nice to be able to use your allowance to buy your little toys here. Or did you just raid your mother’s office?”

“On the table, Oli,” he said, unperturbed by my questions. “I’m sure you want to get this over with.”

He picked up a stethoscope. That seemed harmless enough, and it made me roll my eyes—a little kid pretending to be a doctor. I reluctantly sat on the edge of the padded table while he took my pulse and listened to my heart. I cringed at his touch. He made notations on a tablet, and I was pretty sure it was the same one he used when we birded together at the banding station.

“You have a fast heartbeat,” he said. “But that’s natural. I’m sure you’re scared, aren’t you?”

I didn’t reply.

“You’re terrified, aren’t you, Oli?”

I had the definite feeling he wanted me to say yes, that terrifying me was half the point—wasn’t that what psychopaths liked? In movies, at least. So even though, yes, fear had begun to build, I stayed silent. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Then he took my blood pressure.

“A little low,” he said. “You might be anemic. That would be interesting. One of my theories is that low BP can contribute to parasomnia.”

“But I don’t have parasomnia,” I said.

“Well, then, you’re a perfect candidate for my control group,” he said. “AB negative blood type without the attendant symptoms of a nocturnal seizure sufferer.”

“How did you find out we’re all AB negative?” I asked, thinking of Eloise, Iris, and Hayley.

“Because you’re all such good citizens,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You participate in blood drives. You know, the ones we have at school every fall. They test and type your blood, Oli.”

“But that’s confidential!” I said.

“I was one of the student volunteers,” he said. “Along with Chris and Matt, don’t you remember? We were the ones who gave you juice and cookies after you and Eloise finished. Because I’m president of Future Doctors, I had more responsibility.”

---