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all, and you know I’d let you go if it was me, right?” They bump me up into the back of the ambulance, medical equipment whirring and blinking around me. “Please, please, please don’t let them take me. Please. You don’t know what they’re going to do to me in there.”
    Frank clamps the gurney into place. “They’re going to make you better.” He steps out. “Good luck.”
    He shuts the door, and we drive away.

 
    FOUR
    “HELLO, MICHAEL,” SAYS DR. LITTLE. I’m in the commons room at Powell, untied and standing up, flanked by a nurse named Devon and a burly security guard who didn’t bother to introduce himself.
    “I’m Dr. Little,” says the doctor. “We met before, do you remember?”
    “Yes,” I say. He was my doctor the last time the state threw me in here. In many ways Dr. Little is the exact opposite of Dr. Vanek—he’s a small man, with a kind smile and a pair of thick glasses that make his eyes look huge. He’s also nicer, or at least better at pretending to be nice.
    “Good, good!” He talks a little too slowly, his facial expressions a little too broad, like he’s talking to a child. I remember disliking him, and now I remember why. “You were here a year or so ago, as I recall; we determined that you had generalized anxiety disorder, and I prescribed Klonopin. Have you been taking your Klonopin?”
    “I stopped six months ago,” I say quickly, hoping to persuade him to try it again. Klonopin annoyed me, but at least it didn’t mess with my head; if he tries something stronger, who knows what it will do to me? “I kept picking it up, but I wasn’t taking it. I’m sorry, I really am. I’ll do better this time.”
    “Very good,” he says, grinning like a doll. “That’s excellent news, Michael, excellent news. You’re really going to like this new medication. I’m really looking forward to it—”
    “Wait,” I say, “new medication? Seriously? I thought we were going to have some more tests and therapy and talk about this some more.” I inch away from him—not even an inch, maybe a half inch. The restraints are gone, but I don’t want to give him any reason to bring them back. “We don’t have to go straight to the drugs.”
    “I assure you, Michael, you have nothing to be afraid of. In some ways Loxitane is just a different kind of Klonopin. Did the hospital explain to you about dopamine and serotonin?”
    “Yeah,” I say, swallowing hard. I can see the pill now, a green blob in a small plastic cup. He holds it casually, but I shy back like it’s a snake.
    “Excellent,” says Dr. Little. “The Klonopin you used to take stops your brain from overusing serotonin, and that worked more or less okay while you were taking it—though not, apparently, well enough to keep up with the progress of your condition. Loxitane,” he holds up the plastic cup and shakes it, rattling the pill inside, “reduces your brain’s use of dopamine, and we anticipate that it will work much better. Your medical history shows a very strong susceptibility to drug effects, so we’ll start you small with ten milligrams and see where we go from there. Are you ready?”
    “Wait,” I say, pulling back farther. “Can’t we start with something else first? Can’t we talk about this and decide if I even need drugs at all?”
    “Your diagnosis already recommends drugs,” he says, smiling, “and the fact that the Klonopin had a positive effect, however minor, suggests that drugs will continue to be beneficial. On top of that, your repeated outbursts at the hospital suggest rather strongly that your condition, whether schizophrenia or something else, has become urgent. We will talk, just like you suggest, but there’s no reason to delay the medication.”
    “But are you sure it’s safe?” I think about the MRI and shudder involuntarily. “You’re sure there’s nothing in it, or that it won’t, I don’t know, like…” I close my eyes. What am I trying to say?
    “Every drug