Page 244 of Deep Cover

I discovered that my craving for fet increased as my anxiety did. I was extremely anxious being locked up with Mary Poppins.

I found out I could refuse Mark the right to visit if I thought he was contraindicated for my recovery.

That. That felt good.

Two weeks observation. My father had sworn out a complaint that Cole and his people – what people? – were a cult. I was being detoxified. Or de-culted. Or something.

Yay.

And so I waited for someone to get careless. No one did. But one afternoon Zach came in.

"Annie! It's been forever. Are you dropping off or – "

I think he was going to say picking up, but instead he flashed scarlet, which clashed with his auburn hair. "God, I'm an idiot. I'm sorry."

I took those statements together. "You don't need to be sorry about being an idiot."

He nodded, wry smile. "Ha, ha. I thought you were a – "

"Shhh," I said, because I really didn't want to be outed to a bunch of people who were crazy and maybe here as involuntarily as I was. "I am. I work undercover a lot." I didn't quite come out and say I was currently undercover, but if that's what he picked up from the conversation, that was all right.

Seriously he shouldn't have believed that I was undercover in a psych ward. Meaningless pleasantries then, neither of us mentioning my being here, before he went on to tell me about being an EMT. He probably thought I was – what, a junkie dreaming of being in a position of authority? It didn't matter. What mattered was as April slid into May and I was still inside, Zach's visits were important. He was just gullible enough to believe me, to think I was working undercover in a mental hospital and to find that glamorous. He acted like he knew he was the deputation from planet sane.

I added him to the information I had about the place my father had stuck me in. We weren't in Seattle, but we were somewhere close. My guess was Mark and my father thought Portland was far enough away. It was hard to say because there'd been the apartment and then there'd been a period of darkness after the ambulance came and somebody stuck something in my neck.

I was getting sick of that.

But Portland? And even yet another bunch of males only pretending to take me somewhere and not. Either was good, if true. Because I didn't want to break out of the place and find myself in New Guinea or something.

I had every intention of breaking out.

I had every intention of getting Zach to help me. He both felt guilty about possibly insulting me (he hadn't – of everyone in our school, I probably did belong on the page of Girl Most Likely of Find Herself Locked Up for Seriously Disturbed Thoughts. Though maybe they'd have considered that not accepting enough of my unique brain chemistry.)

If only they knew.

I began exploring where I was, with an eye toward getting out and not being there anymore.

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