Don't Let Go Read Free

capture while trying to find a quiet place to crack those drives. And that was no plan at all.
    Noa curled into a ball, resting her head against the backpack. She tried to ignore the sharp contents jabbing out from the side as she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.
    Amanda opened her eyes and frowned, disoriented by the plain white ceiling tiles. This wasn’t her dorm room. Not her bed, either, but one of those adjustable hospital beds.
    She shifted her head to the side: An IV line ran into her right arm. Which, she realized with growing horror, was cuffed to the bed with soft restraints. She tugged at the strap, then tried to reach over with her left hand to free herself. But that arm was strapped down, too.
    She started to scream.
    Running footsteps, then the curtains surrounding her bed were ripped open by an elderly nurse in teddy bear scrubs. “There, there, Amanda,” she said, rushing over. “It’s all right. You’re in the hospital, dear. Remember?”
    Amanda squinted at her: The nurse looked familiar, but she couldn’t place her. “Do I know you?”
    “Yes, yes you do,” the nurse said soothingly. “I’m Beth, remember?”
    “Beth?” The word felt unfamiliar on her tongue. “That’s a silly name.”
    The woman chuckled. “I suppose it is. I have good news, Amanda. You have a visitor. Isn’t that nice?”
    Amanda tried to sort out whether it was nice or not, but her mind was muddled and she couldn’t tell. Now that she thought about it, nice was a strange word, too.
    The nurse pulled the curtain back farther, and another old woman came in. She had a kind face and long gray hair twisted in a loose braid. She wore an enormous patchwork sweater over jeans with creases down the front. She looked vaguely familiar, too. “Who are you?”
    The woman exchanged a glance with the nurse. She looked . . . What is the word for it? Amanda grimaced, frustrated. As she stared at her visitor—that’s what the nurse had called her, a visitor—the word popped into her head and she triumphantly said, “Concerned!”
    “I’m sorry?” The old woman’s forehead wrinkled, and Amanda immediately felt deflated; she hadn’t said the right thing after all. Frustrated, she plucked at the plain white blanket with her hand. The old woman was still talking, asking, “Why is she tied down?”
    “This has been one of her bad days, I’m afraid,” the nurse replied in a low voice. “They tend to wander if we don’t restrain them.”
    They both looked down at her. Amanda felt annoyed. Deep down, she sensed that there was somewhere she should be, something important she should be doing. But when she peered into the recesses of her mind, everything was wispy, like her head had been filled with smoke.
    The older woman with the braid pulled up a chair and hesitantly took her hand. Patting it, she said, “I’m Mrs. Latimar, Amanda. You used to help me at a place called the Runaway Coalition.”
    She paused, gazing hopefully at her. Amanda managed a slight shrug and said, “Okay.”
    Sadness flitted across the woman’s face. Amanda felt bad for letting her down; clearly she’d been expecting more. Mrs. Latimar looked up at the nurse and asked, “Can I have a minute alone with her?”
    “Of course,” the nurse said. “I should be checking on the others anyway. I’ll close this to give you some privacy.”
    After the nurse slid the curtains shut, Mrs. Latimar leaned closer to the bed and said, “Amanda, do you remember what we talked about the last time I was here?”
    Amanda frowned, not entirely convinced that she’d ever seen this woman before. She shook her head. “No.”
    “Can you try, dear?” A note of desperation in her voice.
    Amanda wanted to help, she really did. Mrs. Latimar looked nice, which maybe wasn’t such a strange word, now that she thought about it. She closed her eyes and dug through the fog, trying to grab hold of something tangible. There was something just beyond her reach, a strong