Sound

Chapter Ten

The second time Sebastian dreams about the fire, he decides that when he gets his sight back, that's the first thing he wants to see. Fire. He wants to see the orange and red and blue colors, and he wants to see the black ash that it creates.

"Lindsey," he says that morning, messily shoving books into his backpack. "When are you going to do my surgery?"

She looks up from her laptop.

"Your surgery?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says. "To fix my eyes. You said once you were able to observe Jack for a while and see how your experiment turned out, you'd fix them."

She takes her glasses off and places them on her keyboard.

"Look, Seb. I know what I said, but it's not that simple. Jack's surgery didn't exactly go as planned. You've seen him, his hearing is unnatural. If I try to fix your eyes I can't be sure what will happen. You could end up like him or it could harm you."

"You promised," he says.

"I know," she says. "And I will do it, just not yet. I need to do some more tests and go over some things. Maybe there's something else I can do."

"You said you would fix me," he snaps.

"Sebastian, you don't need to be fixed."

He tosses his bag onto his shoulder, and storms out the door, running into Jack on the other side.

Jack follows him to the car, looking over at him once they're both in the car.

"Were you listening?" Sebastian asks, breaking the silence.

"Yes," Jack says. "What were you talking about?"

Both of their voices are careful, just on the edge of anger.

"I'm not supposed to say."

"Tell me."

"Lindsey is the one who performed your surgery," he says. "She didn't give you a cochlear implant. She implanted this device she developed into your brain. She was testing it to see if it was safe before she attempted to use it to fix my eyes. That's why you can hear so well now."

"And no one thought to ask if I was okay with this? What if something went wrong? I could have died."

"She doesn't care about you. She was just doing it for me."

Jack doesn't reply, only starts the car and starts the drive towards the school. The car is quiet and tense the whole way there, and he drives slightly above the speed limit. His throat hurts at the thought of Lindsey. He wants to understand, he does. He would have allowed her to do the surgery if she had just asked. Of course he'd let her if it meant a boy might get his sight back. But she didn't ask. She did it without his permission. He unknowingly risked his life for the strange boy who clearly doesn't even like him.

"Wait," Jack says, placing his hand on Sebastian's arm, stopping him from getting out of the car once they reach the school.

Sebastian turns towards him, his mouth closed in a tight line.

"Do you need a ride home today?" Jack asks.

"No, I'm going somewhere with Allison. Thanks," he moves to get out of the car again.

"Hold on," Jack says.

Sebastian sighs, and Jack can almost see him rolling his eyes.

"Just... Tell Lindsey I won't be coming back to the lab anymore."