Chameleon ✔️

28 stones

My eyelids peel apart and I jolt upright, awake. I scream out from pain and clutch my forearm where the serum burns through me like a white hot flame. Arms wrap around me at once. "It's okay," a deep voice coos. "You're safe. You're okay."

I inhale the familiar scent of coffee and ink. Dad. I throw my arms around him and sob into his chest. There is no cure flowing trough my veins. Just like there is no cure flowing through my mother's.

"Where am I?" I ask as he pulls away. I'm wearing a paper gown and sit on a hard mattress with plastic sheets. An IV is inside of me, right at the crook of my elbow, right where I'd injected myself in the dream — the vision, the memory — whatever it was. Something yellow flows through it and into my bloodstream. There are sticky circular pads attached to my head and chest that lead to a blinking monitor. I get a strange sensation of déja vu.

"We're at York General."

"What?!" I cry. We've walked right into the lion's den!! I yank the pads off of me. "No! No, no, no, no, no! This is where he works! This isn't safe! We have to go!"

Dad puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me back down. "It's okay. He's not here."

"Dad, he's—he's—" I stutter out. "He's him, he's—"

He nods, shushing me. "I know, baby. I know. He's not here," he repeats for my sanity. "He's not here."

As the fear clears from my mind, I slowly come to reality. "How— how did you find me?"

"Well, I came to on the doctor's couch. I tore that house apart looking for you. I went outside and found Eli unconscious. I noticed one of the vehicles was gone. I called the cops and told them who had you and what he was driving. An ambulance came for Eli. They found the doctor's car upside down in a ditch off the highway with no one in it. They found you passed out in the woods."

"Wait. You woke up on the sofa?"

He nods.

I recall how Ian had run outside frantically, accusing me of helping Dad escape. "But Ian said..." I realize what had happened before I even finish speaking the thought. It was Mom. She showed Ian an empty sofa so that he'd put me in the car. So she could crash it and I could escape.

I attempt to process the rest of his explanation. He called an ambulance for Eli. Meaning Eli is here. I restart my task of peeling off the sensor pads. I dig my nails into the tape that is holding the IV in when Dad's hand covers mine and stops me.

"What are you doing."

"He's here, isn't he?"

"No, Pen, I told you he wasn't in the car when they found it; nobody knows where he is."

"I'm not talking about Ian," I say and give my dad my best look of concern.

"Oh. Yeah. He's here."

"Is he awake?"

His aura is black. He feels guilty. Like its his fault for driving the two of them to Ian's. "No."

I rip the IV out, barely registering the pinch of pain, and throw my legs over the side of the bed, bare feet landing on the cold tiles. "I have to go to him. I have to be there when he wakes up..."

Dad immediately pins me back down to the bed and presses the "call for nurse" button. "You're not going anywhere."

I try to wriggle free from his grasp, but I am weak and he is strong. I remember how Ian had called Dad "Skinny Quinny" and how I was sure that it had been sarcasm. I give up the struggle, hoping that he'll loosen his hold on me and then I'll make a run for it. He doesn't.