Only the Moon Watching

Chapter 54: Nothing Makes Sense

"Thank–" I start to say, but she pins my arm behind my back and smooshes my face against the wall.

"Do you know those inmates?"
"No? What are you talking about? I've never seen them–"

"Were they causing a diversion?"
My heart sinks into my butt – I hope she's not going to subject me to another cavity search, because she'd find it there and know immediately something's up.

"I don't know!" I say. "Not for me! What are you talking about?"
Someone must have talked. She must know about the drugs!

"Ok," she says, surprising me. She lets go of my arm and fixes her hair. I can see a vein in her arm pulsating. She doesn't suspect me? So all that...'causing a diversion'...that was just the adrenaline talking...?

"I'll walk you back to your cell. Hands in your waistband," she snaps.

We've walked two hallways when my stomach starts wriggling.

"I actually don't feel very well," I blurt out. "Could I go to the infirmary?"

I don't want her coming with me, so I really oversell it: clutching at my stomach, pretending to swallow a dry heave, bulging my eyes out a bit with the effort of not retching.

Garda Girdle recoils, steps out of my potential splash zone and says, "Run."

The nurse lets me drink a Powerade and lay on a cot until I feel better. She finished her crossword early today. It's the most attentive she's ever been to me.

I only wanted a few minutes alone, without Girdle's watchful stare, to settle my nerves, but since the nurse seems amenable I decide to pick her brain about Steak's medication.

"Heard you guys switched doctors recently. Has it been a hard transition?" I take long sip of my Powerade, trying to look innocent.
"Transition?" She thinks about it, like it's a crossword clue. "No, that's not the right word... It's been an inconvenience, changed everyone's schedules."

"Even the inmates, right?"
The nurse frowns at me even harder, obviously confused.

"You know, some people got pulled off their meds during the transition."

"No," she says again, "that's not the right word... What word am I thinking of?"

"But you know what I mean. When the doctor left some people's files got messed up."

"Is that what the junkies are saying?" she rolls her eyes and huffs. "When girls are detoxing their ability to lie is uncanny."

"I'm not talking about detoxing, I mean people who take medicine for, like...anxiety," I lie, trying not to talk about Steak directly. "Or depression, ADD, or –"

"Wouldn't have been affected by the–"

"Transition?"

"No!" the nurse insists. "That's not the right word! Oh what am I thinking of? It's going to bug me, just like my puzzles..."

I make a few suggestions but she never finds it. Five minutes later she's shooing me out the door.