Chapter 12: Emily

When Emily woke up that night, she couldn't feel a thing.

Her back was numb. She turned to look at what was making it feel that way, and there was a surgeon whose face was covered in a mask jabbing a thick needle in her spine. "Why are you doing this?" Emily tried to say, but the sensation in her face weakened, and her jaw slacked. The same surgeon pulled the syringe out like it was a knife lodged deep inside her, then carefully leaned her down on her back.

From head to toe, Emily was paralyzed. It was her worst nightmare, but she couldn't feel her throat to scream.

Rapidly another group of medics stormed in with trays of surgical supplies, one including an electric saw-like tool. "Huh?" Emily was capable of murmuring, and she used up the last of her bodily sensation to twitch her fingers and toes and flop her neck a centimeter. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head to find the door the doctors came through, but there was nothing—no walls, no door, no escape. Instead there was pitch darkness where the barriers of a room should have been.

"No!" Emily wanted to scream—scream bloody murder, like every captured teenage girl in horror movie history. But rather than sensing her terror and denial, the surgeons gathered around her, each with a sharp object in their hands, and stared down at her with no eyes. In Emily's mind, her face was distorting into discomfort and fear, but in reality all she was was a slack, lifeless slab of flesh on a chilling metal surface.

The whirring of a saw, a terror-provoking sound that brought a sweeping winter over Emily's body and pulled her stomach down to Hell, had Emily attempt one last time, with all her remaining strength, to produce a scream, but nothing came from her lips. One surgeon came in view with the saw in his hand, and Emily wondered if he was smiling at that moment as he brought a dripping piece of cloth closer to Emily's mouth and muttered, "This shouldn't hurt one bit…"

The terror-inducing roar of the saw dimmed and was replaced by a static noise. The saw was swapped by a metal-made tool that crackled every now and then. "Hold still…"

Emily's eyes snapped open before she was able to feel the prickly, paralyzing jolts of electricity flow through her bloodstream. A cold sweat saturated her pillow as she reached her hand behind her head to wipe the beads off her hairline. It was just a nightmare, she attempted to pacify her trembling body. Just a dream.

Peeking over at Hanna, green patches spread on Emily's skin like the Wicked Witch's as Emily saw how peacefully and undisturbedly Hanna slept. It was like she had no fear of death, no impending doom from the thoughts of her organs shutting down one by one until it was no longer able to wake her up in the morning. Emily wasn't even close to being near the brink of pearly gates—or Hades' Underworld, if her fate truly was sealed with her sexuality—yet she was the one with sleepless nights.

In a weak attempt to relax, Emily leaned her head back onto her pillow and focused on loosening every single tightened muscle. Toes, back, neck—the process soothed her, distracted her from the nightmare of her brain being lobbed out, but not before being fried.

When the morning came, Emily poked at her breakfast and feared her therapy session that day. The psychiatrist always asked her about her dreams, and Emily was usually honest—and other times, she made up dreams about drawing naked girls (which earned her a triple dose of pills) before doing the smart thing and mentioning her shame. After all, she wasn't going anywhere, even if she vomited at the idea of kissing a woman.

"What's wrong, Em?" Hanna asked as she picked the skin off an apple, chewing the shredded bits in her mouth before throwing the rest, which consisted of half skin and all flesh, away.

In response, Emily nervously placed a finger in her mouth and bit at its nail. "Nothing, just…the heat made it hard to sleep last night."

"Ugh, talk about a disaster," Hanna groaned and flicked a speck of fingernail polish she'd scraped off. "I've never needed AC more in my life. I was surprised no patient died of heatstroke in the middle of the night.

"Yeah…," Emily mumbled in agreement, and ended up dumping her oatmeal in the wastebasket.

When the dreaded moment arrived and Emily was asked the simple question, "Do you remember your dream last night?" Emily parted her lips, shamefully glanced down at her chewed-up fingers in her lap, and said that yes, she remembered.

"What was it about?"

It was so basic, yet Emily's throat swelled. "Fear," she answered vaguely.

"Fear?"

"Yes. Just plain fear."

"Of what?"

Biting her bottom lip with her front teeth, Emily shrugged. You, she wanted to respond. But all that came out was a clichéd phrase of avoidance: "I don't know."

When the session ended, Emily's palm cradled a note from a doctor on the third floor. Her stomach clenched; Aria had warned her about the third floor. But the note was only asking for a blood test that wouldn't even take a minute. How could it not be legitimate?

To get to the third floor required a nurse's pass that had a prerequisite of forms to sign. Apparently, with a scribble of her signature, Emily was no longer able to sue Radley if she was attacked by a patient. The elevator was like any elevator, except when its doors opened…

…It was like any other hospital. Clean, pristine, taken care of. Much better than the first two floors, which still contained the closed-down, tarnished children's ward. She was expecting Nurse Ratched looming over her, but instead, there was no one around. When Emily took a seat in the waiting room, it was like she was waiting to see her grandfather after his knee surgery.

The normality of it despite its location oddly soothed Emily. She missed being a regular kid with no questionable morals, so she closed her eyes and pictured herself in a doctor's office, getting her blood drawn to check her levels. After all, she had to be fit and healthy to swim as competitively as she did.

Suddenly a hand grabbed her arm and Emily jumped out of the ceiling. "What the—? Aria!" she exclaimed as she stood up, crossing her arms at her chest as her prickled skin fumed. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving you!" Aria yelled in a hushed voice. Her nails dug into Emily's goosebump-y arm, and Emily tugged it back in protest. "Don't ask questions! Just go!"

Before Emily could peep out one more question, she was dragged into the elevator. Aria pressed the button for the first floor furiously, and a sweat was glistening around her hairline. "Are you okay?" Emily's voice cracked; she hadn't noticed her racing heartbeat until now.

Aria's ghost-white face tinted green. "They were going to put you into surgery," she murmured. "Your parents signed off on it."

The sound of the crackling electricity prodded Emily's memory. "W-what…"

"I got this this morning." Aria pulled a crumbled sheet of paper out of her pocket and unfolded it with trembling hands.

Third floor, 2pm. Someone's going to leave without a brain… –A

Emily shook her head in disbelief as the brims of her eyelids watered. "How did they find out?"

Aria shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know." But of course she knew. A loved sneaking out in the middle of the night to snoop around. The elevator dinged and they had to wait a few seconds before the doors creaked open; the silence was heavy and awkward. The two strolled like pale ghosts back to Emily's room.

By the time they reached the door, Emily's lips wobbled and she collapsed against the door frame—pushing it open. "Oh my God!" she gasped as she crashed to the ground and a pain shot up her knee. But she couldn't find the strength to pull herself back up, so she stayed there, on the freezing floor—just sobbing. The area of bone she banged throbbed. It was like when she was eight years old and fell off her bike: at first she was just shocked, then she cried for a solid two minutes as the gravel dug into her sweating palms. But this was so much worse than a fall; this was a drop into a precipice, yet her supposed salvation from an eternity in a burning prison.

"Em…" Aria attempted to console Emily, but her limbs were hesitant over what to do—should she drape her arms around Emily's neck in a hug? Pat her back? Help her up? "At least you're fine now…," she muttered. Words said more than actions in this case.

However, Emily didn't budge. Her sides expanded and contracted erratically with her sobs. A small puddle was pooling on the hard, concrete ground. Aria reached out her hand—

"Oh my God!" Hanna burst in and dropped to Emily's side. "Emily, what's the matter? What happened?" Unlike Aria, who was using her mouth, Hanna moved Emily like a ragdoll into a more comfortable sitting position next to the bed. Her hand held Emily's, her thumb running over her mocha-blended skin. "What happened?"

But Emily still wasn't responding, so Hanna turned her attention to Aria. Her icy blue eyes flooded with concern. "Why is she so upset?"

"Her parents signed off on some procedure…," Aria vaguely explained, and pulled out the note because she was feeling sick and didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"This is disgusting," Hanna murmured, her lips pinched up. "What kind of insane people…" She drifted off and shoved the paper back to Aria. Now she was too upset to talk about it.

Five minutes later, and Emily was quieting, but she was continuously unresponsive. In order to get some fresh air but not seem like a terrible friend, Aria said she was going to get Spencer, and maybe by then Emily would be "better"—if that was ever possible—and consoled.

While Aria was gone, Hanna only draped her arm around Emily's shoulders and didn't say a word.

When Spencer heard the news, she lunged for her nightstand drawer and tugged out a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels. "I was saving these for the right time," she huffed out as they zoomed to Hanna and Emily's room. "That would be now. Em!" Like Hanna, Spencer collapsed on the ground on Emily's other side and hugged her. "It's okay," she comforted her. "You're fine, and safe…"

Once Emily peeled her crusted, swollen eyelids open to acknowledge her friends, she saw Aria standing a few feet away before closing the gap and dropping cross-legged in front of her. Every breath Emily took was labored and spotty. "We've only known each other for a little over a month," she croaked, leaning her head against Spencer's shoulder. "Why does it feel like we've been friends for years?"

No one had an answer…except for Aria. "That's what this place does. It makes a week feel like months." And years feel like centuries.

"And we all have the same goal: to get out of this place," Spencer added, and looked sternly into Emily's red-rimmed, suffering eyes. "We're not leaving anyone behind." Aria adjusted her feet so her circulation wasn't cut off.

Hanna gently draped her hand over Emily's shoulder and squeezed it lightly. "We're the Four Musketeers."

"Charlie's Angels."

"The Charmed sisters—plus one."

Traditionally, all of those allusions were made up of three people. Aria wondered who was the one left out in a second of thought.

After their feel-better laughter died down, the atmosphere soured. Hanna's smile wilted. "But what if we'd never been locked in here?" she inquired, drawing a circle on the ground with her toe. "Would we have ever been friends?"

The four of them glanced at each other, thought of their bonds growing stronger and more durable every day—and, disturbingly, found it very easy to imagine life without each other.

Spencer would still be swallowing pills dry before every cramming session.

Hanna would still be dumping her dinner in the neighbor's trash to prevent her mom from seeing it uneaten in the trash can.

Emily would just be the star athlete with a secret crush on the girl in front of her in English class.

And Aria? Well, Aria would still be here—trapped in her own mind without a friend in the world.