Skinned -1 Read Online Free Page A

way to turn thought into action.”
    If I could speak, I might have pointed out that I couldn’t move my arm or raise my eyebrow. And then thanked him for rubbing it in.
    Hello.
    Hello.
    Can anyone hear me?
    Is this piece of shit equipment ever going to work or are you all just going to keep standing there and staring at me like I’m
    “some kind of total freak?”
    My mother let loose a whimpery squeal and buried her face in my father’s chest. He didn’t push her away.
    “Very good, Lia.” The doctor nodded. “Excel ent.”
    The voice was female, an electronic alto, with that artificial y soothing tone you hear in broken elevators, assuring you that “assistance is on the way.” It trickled out of a speaker somewhere behind my head.
    Hello, I thought, testing it. The word popped out instantly.
    “Hel o,” my father said, like I’d been talking to him. Which maybe I had. His eyes stayed on my forehead.
    “You’re going to be okay, honey,” my mother whispered. She squeezed the foot-shaped lump at the end of the bed. “I promise. We’l fix this.”
    “Can someone tel me what’s happening?” the speaker said.
    I said.
    “How bad was I hurt? How long have I been here? What happens next? Why can’t I—” I stopped. “I’l be able to move again, right? Walk and everything? You said I could.
    When?”
    I didn’t ask why Zo wasn’t there.
    “It’s been several weeks since the accident,” my father said. “Almost four.” His voice was nearly as steady as the computer’s.
    One month trapped in a bed, in the dark. I’d missed three tests, a track meet, who knew how many parties, nights with Walker, hours and hours of my favorite vidlifes. A month of my life.
    “Of course, you’ve only been conscious for the last week or so,” the doctor said. “And as I explained before, your brain needed this recuperation period to adjust to its new circumstances. Involuntary motion indicated the first stage had been achieved. We actual y expected you to reach this point a bit sooner, but, of course, these things vary, and nothing can be rushed, not in cases like this. Given the severity of your injuries, you’ve real y been quite lucky, you know.” Right. Lucky. I felt like I’d won the lottery.
    Or been struck by lightning.
    “Voluntary control over the eyelids, that’s stage two. You’l gradual y achieve control over the rest of your body. In fact, you may already be started down that path. We’ve immobilized the rest of you for the moment, after your…episode. For your own safety. But when you’re ready, your rehabilitation therapists wil work with you, isolating individual areas.
    Sensation should return as wel , if al goes smoothly.”
    He didn’t say what would happen if things didn’t go smoothly, or how big the if was. I didn’t ask.
    “How bad?”
    The doctor frowned. “I’m sorry?”
    “You said severe. How severe?” I hated that this man, a stranger, knew my body better than I did.
    “When we brought you in after the accident…Incidental y, although you didn’t ask, I assume you’l want to know what happened? A chip malfunction on a shipping truck, I believe. It slipped through the sat-nav system, and coincidental y, your car’s backup-detection system malfunctioned, reading the road as clear. It was a colossal y unlikely confluence of events.” He said this clinical y, casual y, as if noting a statistical aberrance he hoped to study in his spare time. “When we brought you in after the accident, your injuries were severe.
    Burns covering—”
    “Please, stop!” That was my mother. Of course. “She doesn’t need to hear this. Not now. She’s not strong enough.” Meaning “ I’m not strong enough.”
    “She asked,” my father said. “She should know.”
    The doctor hesitated, as if waiting for them to reach a unanimous decision. He’d spent the last month with my parents and stil thought the Kahn family was a democracy?
    My father nodded. “Continue.”
    The