Expiration Date – Chapter Five

Attempt

    Over the next several days, Jackson repeatedly appeared in my hospital room, chattering about how we could escape, but his tattoos are fading nonetheless. He doesn’t need escape. He’ll be free on his own.

    I’ve gotten to know other patients on my floor. Some have been in Purity Hospital for a year because their tattoos are so permanent. They all say the same thing: I knew Ari Braeden. He’s our only hope of getting out of here.

    Hector did this. Leader Pierre did this. The people who created Shatterproof–Shatterproofs, wow, there’s really more than one, there’s really other people like me–did this. For years, we’ve been punished just for who we are, because there are others who create dangerous situations who look the same as us. We have tattoos. So do criminals. So we’re forced into Purity Hospital until we’re not criminals any more.

    I think Ari couldn’t wrap his head around that concept. If I know anything about that boy, it’s that he sees any limitation on his freedom as imprisonment. They kept him in here to prevent him from becoming a criminal, but he thinks being locked up makes him a criminal.

    Now he’s a vigilante. A criminal.

    That idiot.

 

I miss the Shatterproof sunrises. I miss how the light would refract through the glass sky into a rainbow of colors. I miss the silence in the mornings before the bustle of work started, before our brains awoke and our mouths started moving and the risk of cracking skyrocketed. Even though it was a warped sense of safety–even though others’ words controlling my future is wrong–it was my sense of safety.

    Since I’ve been in Purity Hospital, I haven’t woken up in time to see the sunrise in time. So when Jackson shakes me awake at 6 a.m., whispering furiously “I’m clean, I’m clean, we gotta go!” I got my first taste.

    It’s blinding. It’s harsh. It stabs my eyes with its rays and leaves green streaks behind on my eyelids when I squeeze them shut.

    “Jackson!” I throw up my hands to block the sun. “Geez, leave me alone!”

    “We gotta go!” he repeats. “I’m going to break you out, just trust me!” He pulls me out of bed and my sheets drop to the floor in a heap. “Okay, I’ve been watching this happen for weeks. You check yourself out. As long as they can’t see your tattoos, and we catch the staff right during a shift swap, we can sneak out and no one will catch you. Trust me.”

    There he goes with that phrase again. Doesn’t he get it? I’ll never want to trust him. Because when has that ever worked out for me?

    (Never.)

    I have two options: stay here. Wilt for an indefinite amount of time. Be locked up so I don’t commit a crime or be mistaken for someone who does. Or I go with Jackson, put myself back in the place I don’t want to be. On the run. In hiding. Waiting for ill fate or unlucky coincidence to strike.

    “What’s your plan?” I ask, gathering my sheet up in my arms.

    A grin splits across his face, crinkling the corners of his downturned eyes and wrinkling his broad nose. “C’mon.” He grabs my arm.

    We sprint down the narrow hallways until we find the supply closet again. He darts in and I skid to a halt outside. I am I supposed to be following him? I wonder. I shift into a patch of sunlight streaming through the window. It’s golden and strangely warm. Was the sun warm like this in Shatterproof? I’ve already forgotten.

    There’s a horrendous screeching inside the supply closet, and with a grating, scraping cacophony, Jackson pushes a wheelchair through the doorway. He’s still grinning stupidly. Is that what these American kids do? Smile? We didn’t smile much in Shatterproof.

   “Get in,” he says.

    I squint at him. “What?”

    He rolls his eyes, tugs on my elbow, and gestures me into the wheelchair. I sink down and the cracked leather groans dangerously beneath me. With skeptical eyes, I glance back up at him.

   “Here,” he tucks the sheet around me so that it covers the ink on my elbow and collarbone. “This is out we’re breaking you out.” He gets behind the wheelchair and, after a few forceful shoves and kicks to the wheels, gets it rolling down the hallway.

   I spun in my seat and the chair wobbles dangerously. “Are you crazy?” I hiss. “I think they’ll notice if a girl in a blanket in a wheelchair rolls out of here!”

    “That’s why we’re going during shift change,” He says exasperatedly. “So they don’t notice.”

    This isn’t going to work.

    We made it to the front desk at exactly 6:58, when a nurse in navy scrubs was being exchanged for one in pink with little hearts.

    “Morning, Jess.” Jackson flashed a winning smile. “Me and Miss Kayla are here to check out.”

    He invents my name so easily. Even with the tattoo faded, his mouth is still untrustworthy.

    “Oh, honey,” Jess peered around the desk, “What happened to you?”

    I froze.

    “Police officers beat her up pretty bad before they realized she was an expirational,” Jackson said smoothly. “Her legs are still healing, poor thing.”

    I felt my head nod.

    For a moment, Jess squinted at me, her blue eyes narrowing on the sheet that covered my tattoos. She knows. She has to know. This is it. I’m done for. I’m never getting out of here, I thought, my bones trembling in fear.

    “Let me get your paperwork,” she said, and turned her back on us.

    My jaw dropped. I spun to look at Jackson but he shook my shoulder and gestured for me to face forward before Jess turned around and saw.

    Jess delivered our paperwork and stamped RELEASED on top in red lettering. With a wave goodbye to her, Jackson rolled me out of the sliding doors and onto the street.

    Bright sunlight and a flood of noise washed over me. Horns and screeches and people talking and machines whirring–

    What is this place?

    I’ve never seen a city like this before.

   “STOP RIGHT THERE!” A voice yelled, and my chair jerked suddenly as Jackson staggered to a halt. For a minute, I saw nothing–too paralyzed to move.

    And then I saw them.

    Officers swarming. Running towards us. Pointing their body scanners.

    I’m not free after all.