The Dream Cages #3

Ronan woke abruptly with “Adam!” echoing through his head, which was not unusual. What was unusual was the strange light by the side of the bed. He lifted his head just enough to see his cell screen aglow. Chainsaw stood over it, sinisterly lit from underneath, head cocked as though to read whatever message might be coming through.

He nudged her back and picked up the phone, not because he planned to answer, but because he was already awake so he might as well look. The number was not Adam’s (he used the dorm’s landline because he still refused to let Ronan give him a cell), but it was the same area code. Maybe Adam calling from a different phone?

A notification popped up to tell him he had a new voicemail.

A brief debate: hatred of phones vs. it-might-be-Adam. Of course Adam won. Ronan touched the voicemail icon and listened. He missed the man’s name, heard “emergency contact,” heard “found unresponsive,” and had to listen to the hated message a second time to catch the name of the hospital. Then he threw a handful of random clothing items found on his bedroom floor into the back of the BMW and drove. He stopped once for gas, at which point it occurred to Ronan to call Gansey.

“Ronan?” He heard Blue’s incredulous voice in the background. “On a phone? What's the occasion?”

Gansey listened and said, “We’re heading for the nearest airport now. We’ll be on the next flight.”

Ronan hung up and continued driving, arriving 90 minutes earlier than the GPS thought possible. He wished Gansey had gotten there first, though, because he was having a very difficult time remaining calm and polite in the face of blank stares from behind various desks. Gansey would have known what to say, how to say it in a way that got him heard, got results. The only thing that kept Ronan from smashing things with his fists and swearing up a storm was the notion such behavior would get him kicked out or arrested. Normally not a concern, but not helpful to Adam. So instead he made fists that he didn’t use and took deep breaths to keep his voice steady. He didn’t smile, though. He couldn’t make himself go that far.

Finally, someone understood. Even still, she eyed Ronan dubiously. “You’re the next of kin?”

Was he? What had Adam put on his forms? Ronan had no idea. “I’m his emergency contact.”

She asked to see his ID. He showed her. She tutted some more but otherwise didn’t protest. “The doctor will want to speak to you,” she said. “Just have a seat.”

Ronan couldn’t sit. He’d been sitting for hours while driving. Now, without a speeding car to transmute his anxiety, he couldn’t remain still. He leaned against a wall of the waiting room, arms folded, and glowered in a way that prevented anyone from taking magazines from the table beside him.

A woman in a white coat called Ronan’s name, yanking him from his brooding fog. From her expression, he knew it wasn’t good. She led him through swinging doors and into the bowels of the hospital.

“He’s got no neural activity,” she said without preamble. Ronan leveled a deadpan stare at her. “No brain waves,” she said, in order to clarify. “It’s like someone shut off the lights inside him. All his vitals are good, but…” She grimaced and looked at Ronan in a way he suspected was meant to be sympathetic. “You’re going to have to make some hard decisions here.”

She pushed open a door, and there Adam was, adrift in a sea of hospital sheets and blankets, a herd of monitors blinking lazily around him.

It only took a split second for Ronan to sense that Adam wasn’t in there. Not in his body.

Adam was gone.