Chapter 9: Greenie Horn
"I don't know about you, but if I don't get another party soon, I'm going to go mental," Leo says, dropping down to sit beside me. It's the middle of the day, so almost everyone is working. Except Leo, apparently. I'm knelt in the dirt of the Gardens, yanking up weeds.
"Then ask Nick for one," I say without looking up.
"Nick's not going to listen to me, he thinks I'm batshit," he says simply.
"He thinks you're what?" I stop working and look at him.
Leo just shrugs his head, sighing, "Never mind. You convince Nick to let us have another party, he loves you."
Before I can answer, though, a siren sounds, loud and high pitched, wailing through the air. I scream, both in pain and surprise, as I drop what I'm doing and slam my hands over my ears in a desperate attempt to muffle the siren. I squeeze my eyes shut against the tears forming and clamp my lips together to keep from screaming again. The sound seems to never end. It feels like it's splitting my entire head in half, sawing right through it. I start to feel light headed, and I can feel myself fall even further forward.
"Easy there," Leo says, steadying me and guiding me down until I'm sitting in the dirt. "It'll stop soon." His voice sounds like it's I'm hearing it through water though. That's scary, I've never had that happen before. I've never heard anything this loud before.
Finally, it stops. I gasp out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding as I drop my hands from my ears, doubling over. I feel like I'm going to throw up, my head is still spinning. "What was that?" I manage to choke out. Even my own voice sounds muffled and far away and underwater though.
"Greenie horn," someone says. I can't tell if it's Leo though. I can't hear much of anything. "You okay?"
I shake my head, my eyes watering. "I can…I can barely hear."
"Get her to the med-jacks," someone, probably Zart, says. I look up as Leo pulls me to my feet, supporting me when I almost fall back down. The world is still spinning, and I still can't hear, and I don't like this. Not at all. I realize my entire body's shaking.
It's not until Leo takes me inside the homestead and is taking me up the stairs that I remember that I can't go to the Med-jacks. It's too risky, they could find out too much, reveal my secrets to everyone else. "No," I protest, trying to pull away from Leo's grip. I succeed in that, only to almost end up tumbling backwards down the stairs because nothing is steadying out yet.
"Trust me, my friend, you won't mind going where we're going," I just barely hear Leo say as he sweeps me right up of my feet and carries me the rest of the way up the stairs. I can't protest any more. Partly because I'm too weak, and partly because Leo's taller and stronger than me, maybe faster too, and he's already carrying me so I have no leverage to run away. So I just let him carry me up one flight of stairs, then another, then another.
"Where are we going?" I mumble as he kicks a door on the fourth floor open. I look around, making out a bed and a desk, among the swirl of everything. Leo sets me on the bed, and I just fall limply over the blankets.
"Just relax," I can make out him saying. "You'll go back to normal soon." I'm not entirely sure, but I think I hear him also say, "Or whatever accounts for normal for you freaks of nature." But maybe I hallucinated that.
For some time after that, everything's pretty much a haze. I make out Ben coming in, and him and Leo just hang out, talking. But I can't make out what they're saying. Ben does give me a bottle of water, which I drink all of in only a few seconds.
Eventually, though I don't know how long it takes, I do finally start to get my hearing back, much to my relief. I continue to just lay on the bed I'm on, just listening to Ben and Leo, listening to their voices to keep track of where my hearing is.
"Nobody's accent is as bad as Graham's," Ben's saying.
"Which one's Graham?" Leo asks, and even in my dazed state, I can't help but roll my eyes.
"He's a Runner!" Ben sighs.
"Hopper's Runner?"
"Hopper's Runner?" Ben asks in confusion. "Hopper has a Runner?"
"Not yet." I can hear well enough now to be able to hear the grin in Leo's voice. I decide to end this before it can go too far. I start to say something as I sit up, but the headache is enough to make distract me from that, and all that escapes my lips is a low, pained groan. Ben and Leo stop talking and I can feel their gazes on me as I press my hands against either side of my head, hoping to keep it from splitting in half.
"Feeling any better, my friend?" Leo asks.
"No," I whimper.
"Well at least you can still hear," Ben comments. To that, I just nod, then instantly regret the movement.
"How often does that happen?" I ask, taking the water bottle that Leo offers me.
"Once a month," Ben says.
"Every time a new Greenie comes through the box," Leo adds.
"Great," I mutter bitterly and take a sip of water. Too much of this, and I really could lose my hearing.
"Here," Leo kneels down beside the bed and reaches up with a wet cloth and starts wiping at the side of my head. "You bled pretty good. I cleaned up some of it, but it kept coming." I don't even remember him cleaning blood off me before.
I don't try to stop him now, I just continue to sit quietly, drinking my water.
"Well, maybe this'll make you feel a little better," Ben says after a minute. "Nick said there's going to be a bonfire tonight." I can't help but smile a little bit at that.
