Acid Read Online Free

and they had to bring another doctor in.
    ‘Jenna.’
    The voice is kind, but firm. Reluctantly, I open my eyes.
    I’m not in my cell. I’m not in the infirmary, either. I’m lying in a bed in a small, windowless room I’ve never seen before, wearing a pair of pale blue pyjamas, a blanket tucked across my legs and waist. My arm’s hooked up to a drip again, and there’s a mask across my mouth and nose pushing cool air into my nostrils. The room’s lit by harsh strip lights that bleach the walls and ceiling to a glaring white.
    I gaze at the drip in my arm and, like a blow, everything comes back to me: Creep, my collapse, Dr Fisher trying to sedate me and taking me up onto the roof, the ACID agent appearing out of the shadows behind us . . .
    I sit up with a gasp, tearing the mask from my face, and wince as pain stabs through my hip. I’m about to yank the drip out when a hand lands on my arm.
    ‘Jenna, don’t panic. You’re quite safe.’
    It’s the voice I heard before. I turn my head, and see a woman sitting in a chair beside the bed. She’s small, plump, the mass of wavy brown hair cascading over her shoulders held away from her face by two silver clips. She pushes her round, gold-framed glasses up her nose and smiles at me. ‘I’m Mel Morrow.’
    ‘Where am I?’ I ask.
    ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. But like I said, you’re quite safe. ACID won’t find you here.’ She pats my arm. Then I hear footsteps outside the door. ‘Ah,’ Mel says. ‘Here’s Jon.’
    A few moments later a tall, skinny black man, wearing what looks like a doctor’s coat, comes into the room. He smiles at me too. ‘Oh, good,’ he says. ‘You’re back with us. Do you know you’ve been unconscious for a full day?’
    I look at him through narrowed eyes. Who the hell are these people? And why are they being so
nice
to me? ‘Is this a medicentre?’ I say.
    ‘No,’ Mel says as Jon comes over to the bed. When he tries to check the needle in the crook of my elbow, I jerk my arm away.
    ‘It’s all right,’ he tells me. ‘I
am
a doctor.’ I continue to glare at him. ‘Please. I only want to take a quick look at it.’
    Grudgingly, I hold out my arm. ‘Is it OK to check your temperature, blood pressure and heart rate?’ he asks, holding up a little scanner. ‘You had rather a strong reaction to the drugs you were given.’
    ‘You mean the sedatives?’ I say.
    ‘No, the drugs Alex Fisher bribed one of the guards to give you,’ Jon replies as he runs the scanner over my throat to measure my pulse, holds it against my inner arm to take my blood pressure and presses a nodule at one end into my ear, which beeps as it reads my temperature.
    I stare at him. ‘Doctor Fisher did what?’
    ‘We had to get you out of there,’ Jon says, tucking the scanner back into his coat pocket. ‘Making it seem as if you’d fallen ill meant you could be taken up to the infirmary, ready to leave once the riots were underway.’
    ‘Were . . . were they deliberate too?’ I say, my voice sounding distant and hollow in my ears.
    Mel nods. ‘Yes. Alex arranged for something to be added to the food.’
    So that’s why the stew had smelled so bad.
    ‘But Doctor Fisher . . .’ I say. ‘He’s—’
    And for the first time, it really hits me. Dr Fisher died. For
me
. To save
me
.
    Why would he do something like that? Why would
anyone
?
    ‘Yes,’ Mel says, her face sobering. ‘ACID weren’t supposed to arrive quite so soon.’
    I stare at my hands, lying on top of the blanket that covers me. They’re trembling.
    ‘It’s not your fault,’ Mel continues. ‘Alex knew the risk he was taking. We all did.’
    ‘But why?’ I say, looking up at her again. ‘I’m supposed to be in jail. I killed my—’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Jon says, cutting me off. ‘We can’t tell you anything yet.’
    ‘You
have
to!’ I say. ‘You can’t just tell me something like that and expect me not to want to know why!’
    This time,