RAGE (Descendants Saga (Crisis Sequence One)) (7 page)

Agony and Awakening

We’re only beaten when we give up the fight—Jonathan Parks

15 Days Earlier

Following my complimentary ambulance ride to St. Mary’s, the doors open and the paramedics pull my folding stretcher out the back, wheels dropping to the pavement automatically so they can push me inside. It is a bumpy ride that makes my arm throb, but at least they have me bundled. It is, at least, nice to be warm for the trip.

I
am taken directly into the emergency room and wheeled into a triage room to await treatment for my broken arm. It isn’t long before I hear Tom Kennedy’s voice, accompanied by the frantic voice of a woman I can only assume is his mother. She sounds on the verge of panic at the thought of what Tom’s father will say when he gets word of this mess.

Tom tr
ies to explain the predicament he’s gotten himself into. Of course, he is the innocent party in the matter. The police just have it wrong. He was being picked on by the other boy. It isn’t his fault. Surely, his father will support him with the best lawyer money can buy.

If I could
, I would cover my ears. I can just imagine his parents buying Tom’s way out of this. What is actually assault with a deadly weapon, possibly attempted murder, might end up as a harmless indiscretion with a slap on the wrist.

I look around as their voices fade down the emergency room hall. He
is evidently being put into another triage room away from where I am. It’s times like this when I become acutely aware I have no mother and father. A pang of loss needles at me, but I push it aside.

The police w
ill make sure Harold and Jeanette know where I am. One or both of them will almost certainly be here after they got home from work and learn what has happened. I just can’t help the feeling it isn’t quite the same.

Despite the Lemons being entirely decent and loving toward me, they ha
ve never mentioned the possibility of adopting me. They are great foster parents, but that just means they are willing to open their home to kids in need. Somehow, that just isn’t the same as making the ultimate commitment, wanting me to belong to them as an adopted son.

There
is a wall between us. Near as I can tell, it isn’t coming down. We will just continue like this, until I turn eighteen. An awkward farewell and parting will follow, and I will be out of their lives, leaving a space for some other child to fill. I suppose, for a while, I am only filling the void left by their dead son.

I close my eyes, pushing back tears. Suddenly, I hope Harold and Jeanette won’t get the message for a long time. Seeing them now might only punctuate our predicament.

I hear my name from a voice I don’t recognize. My eyes pop open to find a young Asian man’s face hanging upside down over me. I realize I fell asleep. I’m also moving. The corridor marches past me on either side of my stretcher.

“Hey, you’re awake!” the man sa
ys. “I tried to wake you before I took you, but you were completely gone.”

I realize he
isn’t upside down. The man is pushing me from the head of the stretcher. I squint my eyes and open them again, pushing sleep away.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“I’m taking you to have that arm x-rayed,” he explains.

“And you are?”

“Hu,” he replies.

“
Uhm, you?”

The man laugh
s. “No, Hu is my name. Hu Takashi.”

“Oh,” I sa
y. “Are you a nurse, Hu?” I assume he must not be a physician. If Hu was a doctor, he would introduce himself as Doctor this or that. Since he isn’t Dr. Takashi, then he must be some other kind of healthcare provider.

“Actually, I’m a med student,” Hu explain
s. “Just working here to pay the bills until I graduate and do my residency.”

“Oh,” I
reply. This, at least, makes sense. I can tell, though, that Hu wants to introduce himself as Dr. Takashi. He just isn’t allowed to do so.

We ma
ke our way into an elevator and then ascend two floors before disembarking. He steers me down another corridor until we come to the x-ray department. An x-ray tech meets us inside the department and takes my chart, scanning the notes inside.

“All right,” he sa
ys. “Let’s get a shot of that arm, young man.”

The x-ray tech
is middle-aged, quite a bit older than Hu Takashi. His name tag simply reads
John H
and gives an abbreviation of his title. John and Hu maneuver my stretcher alongside a special table in the middle of the room. They lower the rail on the left side and put the beds together.

“Can you scoot over here?” John ask
s.

I nod and cradle my arm closer
, as I scoot over from the stretcher to the x-ray exam table.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to move your arm a bit,” John
warns. “I’ll be very careful.”

He remov
es the sling, unfastening it and slipping it out from under my arm first. Then he gingerly maneuvers my arm while I do my best not to wince and tear up at the pain. It takes a minute to get it there, but eventually he has it laid out enough to take the x-ray. I am sweating by this point and dreading having to move it again to put it back into the sling.

A beep later
, the image is taken and displayed onto a nearby monitor.

“Yep,” John sa
ys, “just like I thought. A clean break of the ulna and radius.”

They help m
e get the sling back on, which is just as terrible as anticipated. Then Hu wheels me down the hall again.

“Are we going back to the emergency room?” I ask.

“No, to the pre-op unit,” Hu replies. “We’re going to get you on the schedule and get that arm fixed.”

“What will they do?”

“I’m not sure,” Hu says. “Maybe a pin from your wrist back through the bone to line it up right. Then they’ll put a cast on it. Wish I could be in there.”

“Why?”

“I’m hoping to do orthopedics for my residency,” he explains. “They say it’s a lot like shop class.”

“That’s okay
. You don’t have to explain,” I manage, feeling a little queasy at the thought of my arm going through what I’ve seen in a real shop class.

Hu laugh
s. “Sorry, about that. No problem.”

We c
ome into another room, this one with many stretchers parked in curtained stalls. There is a lot of equipment around, monitors showing vital signs and stuff. Hu parks me in an empty stall and is joined by a nurse in brightly colored scrubs.

“Hi, Jonathan,” the nurse sa
ys. “My name is Janice. I’m going to be taking care of you and getting you ready for surgery. Do you know what Dr. Schultz is going to do for you today?”

“Fix my broken arm?” I guess.

Janice nods, marking something on my chart.

“Now, your foster parents have already signed the consent with Dr. Schultz,” she explain
s.

“Where are they?” I ask. Naturally, I expected they would come to see me before anything like this
is done.

Janice lean
s closer. “I think the police officers wanted to speak to them in one of the consultation rooms. Don’t worry. They said to go ahead, and they will see you afterward.”

I
don’t like that bit of news, but I nod and settle back while Janice and Hu hook me up to the monitors with cold sticky pads on my chest. A blood pressure cuff is placed on the same arm and, within seconds, my vitals are displayed upon the monitor over my head.

Janice pull
s a cart up to the bed, as Hu waves and tells me he might see me later after I wake up. He wants to take a look at my arm. I guess, as a future orthopedic surgeon, he wants to make sure the job gets done right. Give it his personal stamp of approval.

A rubber strap
is fastened around my right arm and an IV placed in my hand. My right arm gets all of the abuse in this case, since nothing can be applied to my left. I’m just glad they’re leaving it alone. The arm has grown more and more numb. I can only assume this is normal, having never broken my arm before. It feels almost like things are moving around in there.

After the IV
is in my arm, I have the joy of answering a bunch of health questions. I answer ‘no’ to all of them. I have never had any other health problems. Then another nurse, wearing scrub clothes and a surgical bonnet on her head with a mask around her neck, comes to my bed and talks with me. She tells me she is administering some
I don’t care
medicine. Everything starts to get fuzzy then.

I
’m feeling good now, but sleep keeps taking me away from the moment. I notice things only sporadically at this point. Hu wheels me down the corridor again along with two other people wearing masks. Bright surgical lights and people in blue paper gowns and masks and gloves. A table of instruments on one side.

They talk to each other, but it
’s mumbled and muffled for me. I’m pretty sure my arm is laid out on the table. It doesn’t hurt now. Must be some great medicine they’ve given me.

I hear a beep that remind
s me of the x-ray machine. I see my bones on the monitor again. This time they are back together. My arm looks perfectly normal.

I probably should be asleep by now, but someone
is yelling. I get the impression it is my doctor.

“Is this some kind of joke? There’s nothing wrong with this boy’s arm!”

Another man argues with him. The image on the screen shifts from the one of my arm broken to this new one with it all back together. None of it makes much sense to me. My mind is totally gone at this point. I let sleep wash over me and take me away from the ensuing noise that follows.

I wake in a bed that is not inside a surgical suite. There are no monitors beeping, no IV in my arm anymore. This room is actually quite plain, but the door is closed, and there is a man in a suit standing at the end of my bed.

I look at him, my eyes blinking a few times as I tr
y to get my bearings and figure out where I am. I move my left arm, bringing it over my chest to stare at it. It isn’t numb any longer. Moreover, there is no cast like I expected to find. Yet, the arm is straight and true, as though it had never been broken at all.

“Hello, Jonathan,” the man sa
ys. His suit is gray, his eyes a bright blue. His haircut is neat but thinning. My immediate impression is this guy looks like Agent Smith from the Matrix Trilogy.

Struggling through my drug induced haze, I ask, “Are you a policeman?”

“Not exactly,” he replies. “I’m with the Secret Intelligence Service.”

I s
it up at this. “Where are my parents?”

“Deceased, I
was told,” the agent says.

I sigh.
“Harold and Jeanette. My foster parents.”

“Ah, the Lemons,” he
says. “Their custodial service has been terminated. You are once again in the custody of the state.”

“What are you talking about? You can’t do that!” Even as I sa
y these words, I realize what a stupid statement it is. Of course, he can. This is the government, after all. I’ve seen plenty of movies—enough to know governments can basically do whatever they want to, especially in a situation like mine—no birth parents, no family.

The agent only smile
s. He sees it on my face. We both know my rights are basically what they tell me. Governments have a way of changing the rules to suit their desires. The game just changed. That still leaves one question.

“Why?
” I ask. “I didn’t do anything. Tom attacked me.”

The agent allow
s a puzzled look to cross his face for a moment. “Oh, the Kennedy boy? This has nothing to do with your fight—at least, not directly.”

Now it
’s my turn to look dumbfounded. “Then what?”

“Your arm,” he
replies. “Haven’t you noticed it’s not broken anymore?”

“I was in surgery. Dr. Schultz fixed my arm.”

He shakes his head with a grin as I finish my statement. “Then where’s your cast, Jonathan?”

He
’s right. I have already wondered about that myself.

“What are you saying? What’s this all about?”

“Some people are born with certain gifts, Jonathan,” he explains. “You’re not the only one, though these gifts are certainly rare. You may have already noticed things like this that are different about you. Maybe you’re faster, stronger, smarter than others your own age. Maybe you
heal
exceptionally fast?”

I d
on’t say anything in response to this. My expression probably gives me away already. I have noticed some things. Others have noticed my strength. It isn’t a big deal. No one else ever made anything more of it.