Stealing Snow (6 page)

“You’re a good kid, Snow. Tough, but good,” she said quietly.

I almost started crying then. All the anticipation and sneaking around had been building. I wasn’t used to keeping secrets. Hell, my head wasn’t usually clear enough to plan more than an hour in advance, let alone an elaborate scheme. Being off the meds only made all my feelings that much more intense. Vern was always so nice to me. More than nice. She was the only adult in my life who didn’t treat me like I would crack at any moment.

“Thanks, Vern,” I said quietly.

Vern just nodded, then let the door close behind her. I listened for the squeak of her sneakers to recede down the hall before checking to see if the door had locked shut. It hadn’t. The duct tape had worked.

Then I got back into bed and waited an agonizing hour for
lights-out. It felt like an eternity, but finally all the orderlies left their wards one by one. When the coast was clear, I slipped out of my room and into the hall.

The doors of our rooms opened only from the outside, so I brought extra duct tape with me so I could get out. Getting into Bale’s room was easy. What came next wasn’t going to be. I didn’t know how he was going to react to seeing me after what my kiss had made him do.

I watched him for a moment before waking him. Even with his arms and legs strapped to the bed—I could see the buckles peeking out from under the corners of the blankets—he looked at peace. His chest rose and fell in even intervals. He was beautiful. He was mine.

His red hair was matted, and the curls that I loved running my fingers through when the White Coats were out of sight were shaved near his temples. Vern had left that out when she told me how he was. I chastised her in my head for her omission before remembering my own deceit.

“Hey, where have you been, Snow?” Bale asked sleepily when I shook him awake.

I couldn’t believe we were talking like it hadn’t been a year since he spoke, like we hadn’t kissed and he hadn’t broken my wrist and my heart. I swallowed and spoke slowly. He was on the cocktail, and I wanted him to understand what I was about to say. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you are the one who’s been away.”

“Where did I go?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re back now.”

“It does matter. I remember,” he said, his voice choking like he was struggling for the words. “I remember what I did to you after the kiss. I’ve ruined it. Us.”

“How about I fracture your wrist and then we’ll be even?” I joked, trying to make light of what was so heavy between us.

Bale flinched. He didn’t know he’d injured me that badly. I’d said too much. I moved to squeeze his hand, but I wasn’t sure if either one of us was ready yet. It was just good to talk to him, and for him to see me and not want to run away.

“I hurt you. We’ll never get past that. It will always be between us,” he said, sounding resolute and so sad. “I know who you are, Snow.”

I could still remember the feeling of Bale’s grip around my wrist and the look in his eyes when he said it the first time.
I see what you are now …
But I knew in my gut that what made Bale stop talking that day after the kiss had everything to do with Dr. Harris and this place and nothing to do with who we both were.

“And I know who you are, Bale. You’re a good person.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “I forgive you, okay?”

Bale wasn’t listening, though. He was stuck reliving the moment of our kiss. I could see the guilt washing over him in waves, and I couldn’t find a way to assuage it. But then just as suddenly he began to laugh as if he had finally understood a joke a little too late. His laugh was throaty and full of life.

I’d missed Bale’s laugh.

And he had missed me, too. I could feel it.

I felt my cheeks stretch into a smile, something I hadn’t done
without sarcasm in forever. I put a finger up to my lips to warn him that we had to be quiet.

Bale’s laughter faded away.

There was no forgetting.

“I don’t have a choice, Snow,” Bale said. His eyes took on a glassy stare.

“What are you talking about?”

“I have to burn it all down. It’s the only way to make it stop.”

“Make what stop?”

“We can’t change who we are. We have to burn.”

Bale wasn’t okay. He wasn’t anywhere near okay. “You’re going to get better, Bale.” I said it more for myself than for him.

I reached my hand out to touch him, but I hesitated again. I missed the hollow of his chest. That night a year ago, after the kiss and after the orderlies had taken him away, after I had had my wrist set in that awful air cast, I had sneaked into Bale’s room and climbed into his bed with him. I curled up beside him and stroked his left arm softly. A mark had bloomed on his pale skin. It almost looked like a tattoo or a birthmark of a star with razor-sharp points inside a circle. I had never seen it before, and I thought I knew every inch of Bale’s flesh that I had been allowed to see.

That night, I had put my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat. It was my favorite sound in the whole world. The thumping was strong and solid against his rib cage. It reverberated through me, promising me that he would come back to me, promising me that we would be this close and closer someday in the future. Even though his arms were restrained. Even though
his mind had gone somewhere that I could not follow. His heart was still here. And I was pretty sure that it still beat for me.

I was caught within minutes. A slice of bright light cut through the room from the open door. A White Coat stood, ready to pounce and punish. But every second was worth it. My head resting on his chest felt like the most intimate thing I’d ever done. More than kissing. Because there was absolutely no distance between us.

Now, back in Bale’s room, I looked at his arms, restrained again. The circular mark on his left forearm was still there. I ran my fingers lightly across his arm just above the star. His skin was hot. Too hot. He was burning up with fever. Then he smiled a wicked grin, and for the first time ever, I was a little afraid of him. It killed me, but I had to look away.

Bale needed help. He was saying these awful things because he was sick. If he hadn’t been restrained, he might have grabbed me then—and part of me wanted that more than anything. I wished for the right words to bring him back to me, but he was beyond my reach.

Should I kiss him again?
Shame washed over me. I was selfish for thinking it, but I wanted to so badly. To feel his lips pressed against mine without meds thrumming through my body. If I was truly feeling everything for the first time now, I wanted to feel this, too.

Another thought came at me, jarring and random and wrong, like the ones I usually had on Dopey.
What if a kiss could cure him, un-break him and bring him back to me?

“We have to burn,” he said again, louder this time, pulling hard against his straps.

Bale, my Bale, was in trouble. This fire inside him wasn’t just in his brain. His body was so hot.

I leaned over him, my face inches above his own. He stilled for a moment, looking up at me through those long, thick lashes.

“Snow.” He sighed, his breath sweet and hot against my cheeks. I stayed there for a moment, stuck somewhere between desire and need. I wanted Bale back. But I needed him to be okay more.

“I love you,” I whispered, leaning in. That was when I noticed something in the small barred window just above his bed.

Gone was the view of the Whittaker grounds, and in its place
was a mirror
. Its surface rippled and sparkled. Completely entrancing … but then a pair of stark white arms extended out of it. They reached for me.

“What the—?” I jumped back just before they made contact. From the liquid surface of the mirror, a cold gust of wind blew through the room. “Bale!” I screamed. I had to free him and get him out of there before this thing got into the room.

Bale was thrashing violently in his bed now, pulling at his restraints. When I tried to unbuckle his left wrist, I could barely get to it, he was moving so much. “Bale, please stop. We have to leave!” I finally was able to grab his wrist but had to yank my fingers back. Something stung, badly. I stared at them and noticed blisters were already forming. Almost as if they’d been burned.

The arms reached farther down from the mirror. They were
impossibly long. Two fingers touched Bale’s forehead, causing him to cry out. As he screamed, his straps glowed, from yellow to a deep orange.

“Bale!” I screamed again and clawed at one of the arms, trying to pull it off him. I stumbled into the night table and hit the panic button hard.

“Help!” I screamed as loud as I could. I ran to the door and yanked it open, pulling the duct tape right off. “Help! It’s Bale!” I yelled into the hall. Then I heard a tearing sound behind me, and a crack. When I looked back, Bale’s restraints dangled off his wrists and ankles. His thrashing had stopped. He lay limp in the cold, white arms that were pulling him back toward the mirror.

I could hear commotion in the hallway, running footsteps, and the other patients awaking, moans and cries echoing in Ward D. I ran back to Bale’s side, his door clicking shut behind me. I wrapped my arms around his body. Nobody was going to take him away from me. Not again.

Bale was slipping out of my grasp. “Bale, no!” I cried.

But the arms had a firm hold around his body and pulled him up until I couldn’t hold on any longer. And in an instant, Bale and the mirror were gone.

My heart raced and my breathing deepened. I ran to the window, screaming his name. But I was all alone in his room when the White Coats answered my screams.

It couldn’t be. But it was.

Vern led me back to my room.

“We’ll find him, sweetie. He’s probably in the basement like last time.”

No one had ever snuck out of Whittaker. Vern assumed wrongly that no one ever would.

“Hey, when did you become an escape artist?” she said almost gently, trying to deflect from what her hands were doing. Vern took out the syringe.

“Please, Vern,” I begged, my eyes on the needle.

“Child, you need to sleep. Those bags under your eyes are so big, I could fit my scrubs into them. When you wake up, Bale will be back in his bed where he belongs.”

I realized that she didn’t believe me. She wouldn’t believe me. The only thing I could do was stop her from dosing me so I could go out and find my Bale.

“I just wanted to see him again,” I said, only telling her half the truth.

She pulled back the covers, and I crawled into bed, biting the inside of my cheek to keep calm, to keep from screaming. I heard myself whimper as the syringe went into my arm, right in the middle of all my scars that spread out like a spiderweb. Then my sobs died a quick death, and I was asleep in an instant.

But the pain of the needle wasn’t why I was crying.

The boy appeared again that night, standing next to my bed. This time I was sure it was a dream. Everything felt sharper than usual, more surreal.

“You know where Bale is, don’t you?”

The ceiling was gone. Glittery white snow fell from the darkness above and filled the room.

“You have him.”

“I don’t,” he said with difficulty. The snow landed on him softly, but he flinched with each flake. Dots of blood formed on his skin where the snow pierced it.

I thought,
Maybe
I’m
hurting him
.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“You need to control yourself,” he gritted. “I don’t have Bale. If you come with me, I will help you find him. But you need to control your temper.”

His saying that only made my temper flare, like a stoked coal.

“Please,” he said with a grimace.

I believed him. Or at least I wanted to. And it was clear he was in pain, so I grabbed my sketch pad and started scribbling.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I didn’t look up. Not at the boy in my room. Not at the raining snow.

“I’m calming down,” I said, breathing out through my nose slowly.

I would draw myself out of this mad dream.

Then the boy said the answer to everything.

“Bale is on the other side of the Tree.”