She skipped over to the chair next to my bed and plopped down into it. “After lunch,” she began, “I followed Colin Martin to Mr. Baker’s quarters.”
My stomach lurched. “Did he see you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Are you sure?” Sometimes when she was hiding, she wasn’t so subtle.
“Yes!” She waved me off. “Just be quiet and let me finish.”
“Fine.” I urged her to go on with my eyes.
“So, where was I? Oh, yeah. I followed Colin into Mr. Baker’s quarters and his father and Mr. Edwards were already there. And then, they all started whispering amongst each other.”
“Well, what were they saying?” I found it odd that they were all meeting in secret like that. And why without the other council members?
“I could only make out two things,” Frankie said.
“And?”
“And the only two things I could make out was the word lottery and a name. Your name, Georgina Carver.”
* * * *
After Frankie left, I replayed several different scenarios out in my head and none of them worked out right. Maybe they wanted me to go back out there because I’d only found one thing on my list. Or maybe it was because I disobeyed and wandered off when I was told not to. Yeah, I wasn’t buying any of it. The lottery was supposed to be random. So, why was my name being brought up again?
Seriously, hadn’t I suffered enough? Mr. Baker should have hoisted his own rotund body out of that hole and went looking for supplies. Someone needed to kick that bastard off his high horse and it looked like I was going to be the one to do it—as soon as I got out of this damn bed.
Chapter 14: Same Old Me But Not
Let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. ~ Leviticus 16:10
“Good morning, Georgina,” May greeted me with a cheerful spike in her voice.
“Morning,” I said glumly. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, but I was still seething over the information I collected from Frankie the night before.
If I offended May at all, she didn’t act like I did. She continued on with her polite tone, “I think I should have you walk around the room one more time before I send you back to your quarters. You okay with that?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
During my stay in the infirmary, I’d grown fond of the time I spent with May. Grace was lucky to have her for a mother. She was kind, generous, and selfless. I truly appreciated all the time she had taken with me these last few days.
May strolled over to the side of my bed. “Place both of your arms over my shoulders,” she instructed. I made a circle with my arms and lopped them over May’s head. “Okay. Good,” she said. “Now on three, you’re going to stand.”
“Got it.”
“One….Two….Three.”
I squatted and pushed with my legs as hard as I could. When I stood, I latched my hands onto May’s shoulders and steadied myself. I beamed proudly. My legs felt sturdy, not at all wobbly like they had been the day before. I almost thought about jogging from my bed to the opposite side of the room, but I didn’t.
With May guiding me, I walked slowly, deciding to play it safe. “Did you ever figure out why I couldn’t use my arms or legs when I came in?”
May put a tighter grip on my shoulder as we glided across the floor. “Without a cat scan, I don’t know for sure, but I will say that you took a very hard hit to the head. And you’d be surprised how that can affect the brain. When I worked in surgery, there were a lot of brain injuries and I’ve seen much stranger things than a person not being able to use their limbs for a day.”
That was interesting. I assumed that my immobility had something to do with the hard hit I took to the head. “Really? Like what?” I asked as we turned to walk back the way we came.
“This one time, they rushed in this woman who had a skull fracture and a piece of the skull about a half an inch long got lodged in her brain. She actually started barking at me.”
I laughed. “Like a Golden Retriever?”