Free Won't Let Go by Avery Olive Page A

more, only I quickly hold my hand up, and my mouth elicits a, “Shush.”
    My heart picks up speed, and my body grows warm all over. Even my hands shake. I can’t believe what I’m reading. It’s unbelievable. And when I reach the end of the article, I turn the page, hoping for more, some other morsel of information.
    And I get it in another article, this time with a picture grabbing my attention, spurring the most frantic thoughts.
    I pick up the book and push back against the chair so fast and hard it topples over. “I need a copier,” I say.
    “A what?”
    “A photocopier, I need one now!” My head swirls with a million emotions I can’t even begin to analyze or understand.
    Dawsyn stands and points to a small door I hadn’t noticed before. “There’s one in there.”
    I practically run towards the door and push it open. It’s a small office with a desk, phone, filing cabinets and an ancient looking monster of a copier. I waste no time heaving the book onto the glass, slamming the lid down and pressing the huge idiot proof green button.
    “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
    I bounce on my heels as I wait for my page to spit from the monster’s mouth. When it does, I grab the book, turn the page, slam it back down and press the copy button again. Not surprisingly, dust particles fly from the book and float around me. Another sneeze tickles the back of my throat. Swallowing thickly, I tell myself not to let the sneeze break the barriers of my mouth.
    Nervously, Dawsyn speaks up, “I, uh, take it you found what you were looking for?” 
    A quick glance in his direction shows him leaning against the door jam. “Yeah, something like that,” I respond as the second paper pushes its way out of the machine. The ink is slightly smudged, but I don’t care. I snatch up the two pages and shove them into my back pocket and head for the door, leaving behind the book. As I push past Dawsyn, I say, “Thanks for the help. I've gotta jet.” Which really is an understatement. I’ve got to get out of here and do it —like yesterday.
    I should have waited for a response from Dawsyn. Instead, I rush through the labyrinth of shelves, find my way to the stairs and gallop down them. When I reach the bottom, I break out into a run and race for the door as if the building is on fire.
    The articles have given me all the answers I need.
    Oakley isn’t dead!
    He’s alive.
     

Chapter Nine
    As I walk towards the tall building, glass windows reaching up to the sky, I still can’t believe I’m here. The papers I printed off from the library are burning a hole in my pocket, their words pulling me in a dozen different directions. But going to Willard Grove Memorial Hospital, seemed the most important. I have to know if what was written all those years ago is true.
    I need to know whether somewhere in this hospital Oakley’s body lies comatose, but most importantly, alive .
    The sliding glass doors part with a whoosh as I step from the now murky cloud covered sky into the main lobby of the hospital. Men and women flitter around, some in scrubs, others in street clothes, all with a place to be. It’s the smell I notice, second to the flurry of activity. It’s one that’s hard to forget. Hospitals stink. The sterility of it burns my nose, dries my eyes. It’s death and blood that no amount of bleach can ever really cover up.
    I stride towards a huge desk right smack in the middle of all the chaos. Black and white tiles are spread out over the floor and windows should let copious amounts of light in. However with the gloomy sky overhead, there is an eerie glow on everything, darkening the white walls, the green colored chairs that seem to line every flat surface and the desk. The light oak begs me to approach it, calling me forward as if it knows why I’m here. Can furniture really do all that?
    It must, because I find my steps speeding up with anticipation.
    A tiny woman—whose presence is overwhelmed by the