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“Good, because this is the scary part. Before I …left, I guess, there were people attacking the castle.”
“Who were they?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know—some other noble who wanted thecastle for himself, plus a couple hundred of his men.” She pulls her sunglasses back down over her eyes. “I was locked in one of the rooms, and I was terrified. I’m used to people dying, but not inbattle. You can’t imagine the noise—all the screaming of men, of horses. Have you ever heard a horse scream? If not, then that’s just another reason you can count yourself lucky, besides winning the genetic lottery by being smart, hot, and sane.”
She thinks I’m hot?!he thinks. But he says, “I guess I don’t understand why you would want to … to keep going back there.”
“Because my family is there!” she cries. “Do you think I could justleavethem?”
“No, I guess not,” he admits.
When Hannah goes on, her voice is calm again. “Anyway, at night, when everything was quiet, you could hear the wounded men lying in the field. They were calling for their wives and their mothers. But they weren’t ever going to see them again.” She shudders and shoves her hands even deeper into her pockets. “There were so many of them, and they were in so much pain.”
“Did you want to help them?” Jordan asks.
“No, I didn’t,” she says bluntly. “They were the enemy, and I just wanted them to hurry up and die.”
CHAPTER 49
Jordan stared at me in surprise. But I didn’t have the energy to explain it. Life in the fourteenth century was not a goddamn picnic, which he should definitely know by now.
“Maybe we should head back,” he said quietly.
I nodded, though my heart felt like it was sinking all the way down to my knees.You freaked him out, Hannah. Why’d you have to do that?
But then another little voice piped up.What if you freaked him out because hebelievesyou?
We walked back toward the hospital. When we got close to the doors, he said, “Hannah?”
“What?” My voice came out sharper than I meant it to.
He scuffed his toe into some dirty slush near the curb. “I liked walking with you,” he said.
I felt the sunshine get a little brighter right then.
“I liked it, too,” I said. And then the doors slid open with a rush of hot air, and after that we didn’t say anything else.
As soon as I’d signed myself into the ward, Michaela and Indy pounced. Michaela was crabbing about not being invited, and Indy looked me up and down and demanded, “Did you kiss?”
I took off the borrowed coat and draped it over my arm. It waswarm and puffy, and I was hoping I could keep it forever. “That’s so incredibly inappropriate.”
“Do you mean the question—or the deep tongue kiss?” Indy asked.
“Indy, please shut up.” I tried to walk past him but he stepped in front of me, grinning.
“You know I can’t do that,” he said.
“Of course he didn’t kiss her, idiot. He’d get metoo’ed,” Michaela said.
“He’d getfired,” I said. “He’s trying to do a good job here, in case you haven’t noticed. Have some respect.”
“Some what?” Indy said, blinking at us. “I’m not familiar with the term.”
He was joking, but Michaela and I knew what he was talking about. We didn’t necessarily feelrespectedas patients at Belman. Cared for, yes. Occasionally fussed over, too. But respected as functioning humans capable of decision-making and self-direction? Not so much. We were subject to the Almighty Schedule; we were given drugs we didn’t always want by people who weren’t necessarily sure that they would work; we were locked up like convicts and watched over twenty-four hours a day. And as nice as everyone on staff was, they still looked at us like we were flawed. Like we were broken.
And maybe some of us felt like we were. But we were still people who wanted to be treated with dignity, and there’snothingdignified about being strapped down to a bed when you’re in the midst of a psychotic episode, which had happened to both me and Indy on more than one occasion.
Michaela held my hand as they walked me down the hall to my room. “Was it nice out there in the real world?” she asked.
