Eli hasn't settled on how he feels about cyclocross consultations. On one hand, he enjoys getting out of the sterile BGA buildings and standing outside in the changing weather. On the other, it's a painful reminder that he's here on Wout's request, through no power of his own.
Eli doesn't hate Wout van Aert, he hates what he represents: one of the crown jewels of the Belgian Guide Association, the foremost guide in the field of cycling. In fact, Eli quite likes Wout, even if he'll never admit it outright. Wout will always pull a few strings in Eli's favour, regardless if he asks for it or not. He lets Eli vent for him to hours about all of his shortcomings within the BGA, the same way Eli is doing now with Michael Vanthourenhout.
"You can't be that bad," Michael tells him.
"The first time we met, they had to bring in Wout to stop your zoning."
Michael tilts his head to the side. "I'd forgotten."
"I haven't." He had been all of twelve years old overwhelmed by the task of guiding a zoned-out sentinel. If Eli is good for anything, it is proving that all of those intuitive guide stereotypes are bullshit.
There's a small commotion growing louder outside the camper. A good guide would notice Michael's glassy gaze or the way his attention is clearly elsewhere. A good guide would centre Michael, stay with him until he is no longer at risk of zoning. Eli is not a good guide.
"Michael?" His voice is practised soft, the kind of soft that comes after years of instructors yelling at you to speak more quietly.
Michael grimaces. "Go, I think they might need you."
Eli doesn't need to be told twice.
He runs out of the camper, letting the door slam shut behind him. It doesn't take long to find the centre of attention. One of the riders is curled up in the fetal position, eyes closed and hands pressed tightly over his ears. There's a staff member leaning down to touch his shoulder.
"Don't!" Eli yells, fully knowing that the volume is likely hurting more than helping. It works. The staff member looks up at Eli—wildly gestuculating in his light blue 'GUIDE' vest—and wisely decides to step away.
Eli slows down his pace the closer he gets, careful not to stand too close as he bends down.
"Hey," Eli makes sure to speak as quietly as he can muster. The sentinel still flinches, scrunching his eyes further shut. "Are you alright? Do you have a bonded guide I can call?"
"Hurts… I don't…"
"Focus on my voice, ok?" He wants to reach out, pull the rider's gloved hands away from his ears, but doing so would be tantamount to torture at this point. "Do you know the way to your camper?" There are still people milling about: riders, spectators, staff. It would be one thing to talk Michael back from an overload with all the various distractions in place, but another to guide a complete unknown. Even Wout probably couldn't do it, for all his 'natural gifts'.
"It's just…" The sentinel gestures at the area behind him. There is a camper a small way off—and thankfully, no one between them and the entrance.
"Great." Eli shifts carefully, positioning himself between the rider and the camper. "All you have to do is move towards me."
The sentinel doesn't reply, unchanging in position.
"You can do it," says Eli, encouragement making his voice louder than it probably should be. "I know it hurts, but you can get through it. You've been through worse. All you have to do is make it to the camper."
The sentinel finally lowers his hands from his ears. Eli takes a couple of steps back in the direction of the camper. Slowly, the sentinel pushes himself up onto his feet. For a moment, Eli is struck by his height—he can't be much taller than Eli himself. His eyes are still squished shut, but he takes a hesitant step in Eli's direction.
"Perfect!" As Eli moves backwards, he keeps an eye out for any well-meaning passerby. As much as he hates the light blue vest, people do tend to give him a wide berth once they see it. Soon he's nearly backed onto the camper's steps.
"The door is unlocked."
Eli takes the steps cautiously, opening the door to the the camper. There isn't any additional soundproofing inside, but it's better than nothing. The interior is fairly spartan, which makes the best place to conduct this the cold hard floor.
The sentinel closes the door behind him with an exhale. "Did the team send you?"
"No," replies Eli softly, glancing at the rider's uniform. "Although I know Thibau." He shakes his head. Michael's going to have to chain him to the camper in a couple of hours. "I'm Eli, you might have seen me around with Vanthourenhout."
"Sorry, I don't pay attention—"to guides, Eli's mind supplies—"outside of races."
"Do you want me to get a guide from your team?"
"Can you stop… changing your voice like that? It makes my ears hurt."
Eli blinks. The sudden focus on his vocal affect is unexpected. Most sentinels appreciate a quiet voice during an overload. He had never met one who preferred something other than the practised softness drilled into them by the BGA. Eli clears his throat. "Is this okay?" He's never felt more unsure of his own voice.
The sentinel nods. "The only guide the team has is for Thibau."
"You do know guides can help with multiple sentinels, right?"
"The team doesn't know I'm a sentinel." He extends a gloved hand out. It's covered in mud. "I'm Lars."
"Oh." Eli doesn't take it.
"You're a guide, aren't you? I've got this strange thumping in my ears. Can you get it to stop?"
Eli is the last person to undersell his abilities, but something about the situation rubs him the wrong way. He doesn't have authorization from Lars' team. While Lars is asking for his help right now, Eli is supposed to be helping Michael. The last thing he needs is another black mark on his record. "I'm not supposed to be here…"
"I don't understand," Lars' voice is growing more furious by the minute. "You already chose to—" He clutches at his ears.
"Shit." Eli wants to scream. He isn't twelve years old anymore. He should know better than to let something so self-sabotaging slip from his mouth. "I'll help, alright? Just… follow what I say." It's been a while since he last worked with a complete unknown. Eli takes a deep breath. Lars imitates him. Eli puts two fingers on his wrist. "Let's do this one at a time. Can you pick out my heartbeat?" His heatbeat is fast, spotty. Too many layers of wrong for an ideal guiding tool. Eli takes another breath. "It's going pretty fast. It should be easy to pick out. Let me know when you've got it."
"You're right." A small smile appears on Lars' face. "It's beating really fast."
"And I haven't even thought about Wout's reaction when he finds out I ditched Michael yet." Eli sighs. "Anyways—"
"Will you be in trouble?" Lars looks at him with big brown eyes.
"What?" Eli shakes his head. "No, I'll be fine." He pauses. "Wait, how are you—how did you recover so quickly?"
"The team doesn't know I'm a sentinel." Lars repeats. "I've gotten used to handling overloads by myself."
"Oh." Eli stands there, feeling more than a bit useless. "I'll just… go then."
"Alright," says Lars and promptly collapses.
Lars opens his eyes to cream coloured walls and white noise. The scene kicks his heartbeat into overdrive. For half of his life he's fought himself to stay out of facilities like these. There have been close calls before, but the idea that his hard work has been undone in an instant is hard to swallow.
The only time Lars had previously seen the inside of a Sentinel Care Centre was on a school trip. They were paraded through the rooms by a guide who talked so quietly you had to be directly in front of her to understand what she was saying. As a class they marvelled at the spacious single rooms with warm yellow lighting and matte cream finishes, the exam rooms filled with sentinel-specific medicine and the guide station in the centre of the floor. Pale yellow and cream bands decorated the guides' wrists—a shorthand for bonded and unbonded status. Lars had been all of eight years old. Too young for anyone to have come online as a sentinel; although there was a former classmate who awoke as a guide just a week prior. She had been pulled out of their school and sent to the National Guide Institute all the way in Rotterdam. The idea of coming online and being torn away from friends was fresh in all their minds. A classmate asked the quiet guide if she studied at the National Guide Institute. She gave a cheerful smile and shook her head yes.
Lars doesn't remember much of being eight years old. He still remembers that trip perfectly.
The single room seemed so much bigger at eight years old. Now the cream-painted concrete closes in. A blackout curtain is drawn, covering the view outside. It must be late. Lars remembers finishing the race, desperate to make it back to the camper only to get stuck. He had held it together enough to make it onto the podium. Maybe if he had held back, he wouldn't have ended up in this room.
Lars first came online when he was sixteen—right in the middle of average for sentinels. He spent a week wondering if the stress over exams was giving him auditory hallucinations, solely to realize that the teachers several rooms away were discussing the answers to the test he was taking in that moment. With each sense came a renewed resolve to suppress them as best as possible. Lars was working towards his future—he couldn't afford any distraction.
Unlike other sports, cycling doesn't have a separate league for sentinels. Whatever advantage might be gained from sentinel senses are offset by the screaming fans, the repeated splatter of mud and the way the ground smells after rain. To race, he had to control his senses with an iron fist. And it worked. Mostly.
The beginning of his career unfolded as well as it possibly could. Lars had talent and determination; he was more than willing to work at it. Sure, there were bitter almost-successes, but the actual successes that came later were all the sweeter for it. When COVID hit, it had been a boon rather than a burden. The absence of the roaring specators freed him from having to keep such a tight leash on his hearing. Lars never noticed how much of his focus was dedicated to keeping just one sense under control. He stood more on the podium than he had in any other season. Then the fans returned.
No medical examination had answers for his sharp decline in performance over the last two years. Lars had the reason, but he couldn't bring himself to give up the right to not disclose his status. If the team had any suspicions, Lars wasn't aware of them. He had overheard several calls to the Belgian Guide Association, but nothing that couldn't be explained as a father worried for his sentinel son. Guides can't detect sentinels—at least, that was what the Sentinel Care Centre guide told them all those years ago. That is a myth. Lars gave them a wide berth nonetheless. They mainly had eyes for Thibau, their charge, but the last thing Lars wanted was attention from a guide.
Despite the white noise machine, he can hear the approaching footsteps outside his door. A hand pressing down on the doorknob. The click of the latch. The sound of hinges swinging open. A guide walks in, tray of food in his hands. He gently lowers it onto the table besides Lars' bed. A pale yellow band slides down his wrist. For a moment, Lars is tempted to speak, to ask about the status of his situation. Asking would mean receiving the guide's full attention. Asking would mean receiving a reply in the sticky voice guides use. Asking would mean receiving an answer that he's not ready to hear.
Lars' hesitation means the moment is gone before he can think twice about it. With trained precision, the guide takes a few steps out and closes the door behind him. Lars fiddles with the pink band on his wrist. The only thing stamped on it is the date of entry along with a number. If he had been a registered sentinel, it would be his assigned national number combined with the country code. As an unregistered sentinel, it is a number assigned by this Sentinel Care Centre.
In the computer database, his name is attached to that number.
Even if no one else saw his episode, someone will be getting a call from the SCC. Who that someone is rests partly in the hands of the BGA guide from yesterday: Eli. Something about the Belgian guide seems familiar, and it isn't from seeing him at Michael Vanthourenhout's side. Lars makes a habit of sticking around in his camper until the last possible moment—first preparing his focus for the day and later trying to stop his senses from spiking. It's never gone so far as to be considered rude—he still does interviews, mandatory team events, socializes with teammates—but it does mean Lars is out of the loop on most of the common gossip that permeates a small group.
Lars will be part of that gossip now.
The all-consuming narrow focus that happens during an overload means Lars has no idea if anyone took pictures or recorded it. All he can remember is that thumping noise, louder and louder until it was all Lars could sense. He taps the rhythm out on the side table. It sounds similar to a heartbeat.
Lars' own heart is beating at a rapid pace thinking about the possibility of having been caught in an overload. Even if there are no photos or videos of the event, there are definitely witnesses. He has no idea what the Belgian Guide Association compels from its guides, but even if Eli keeps his mouth shut tight, there's a chance the overload is being circulated all over social media.
Lars stares at the tray of food left out for him. The colours are as bland as the food must taste. He can't bring himself to eat it even though it'll mess up his recovery. Ensconced in this small room, the outside world is far away. It's been wrenched away from him, along with his phone, his cross career and his freedom. If he tries to get up and leave, a guide attendant will stop him. If someone other than a guide tries to come in and see him, an attendant will block the entrance and stop them. All Lars can do is wait until he passes this Sentinel Care Centre's assessment standard. Until then, all Lars has is the cream coloured room, the warm lights, the soft fabric, the white noise and the smell of low-scent soap. Until then, all he has are his own thoughts to sit with in the room.
Until then—and maybe even after then—Lars has lost control over his own life.
Eli spent his teen years crawling up the walls of every Belgian Guide Association Centre in the country. The idea of voluntarily spending the night in one would be foreign to his younger self. However, his curiosity has gotten the better of him. There were no reprimands yesterday—from Wout or anyone else. Just questions. Why had Eli left his assigned sentinel? What was Sentinel Van der Haar's status? What had he said to Sentinel Van der Haar? How did Sentinel Van der Haar react? Eli has recounted the story so many times that any exaggeration or omission has changed his recollection of the event. If someone asks him again when exactly Lars had opened his eyes, Eli is going to snap.
So when Wout holds out the phone for him, Eli is reluctant to take it. If it's the Sentinel Care Centre again, he'll hang up, witness responsibility be damned. The least they could do is give him an update on the status of the sentinel he brought in. Instead all they want is answers to their questions and refuse to answer Eli's in return.
"Guide Iserbyt?"
Eli's thumb hovers over the 'end call' button. "Yes?"
"This is Sven Nys. The sentinel you helped yesterday is one of my riders: Lars van der Haar."
"And?"
Nys lets out a chuckle. "I'd like you to go evaluate him at the Sentinel Care Centre. We'll meet at the train station. The one closest to the BGA."
The phone nearly slips out of Eli's grasp. "What?"
"9h. Track three. Be there."
Before Eli can get another word out, he's met with the dial tone. He looks up, faced with Wout's knowing smile. "What did you say to him?"
"Nothing you didn't say yesterday. He wanted to know which guide helped Lars into the privacy of his own camper and I told him."
Eli frowns. "That doesn't explain why he wants me to run the evaluation. I'm the reason his rider is in the SCC in the first place. Doesn't he already have a sentinel on his team? He should know a guide."
"His son is Thibau Nys."
Eli lets the phone slip out of his hand. It clatters to the ground. "Fuck. Seriously?" He spent two memorable weekends at the tail end of last year 'guiding' Thibau—or rather, refusing to babysit him. "I'm not going. You go." He crosses his arms.
Wout picks up the phone, tapping it against his palm. He raises an eyebrow.
Eli sighs. "Help me pack?"
An hour later, Eli steps into the station, blue guide vest unceremoniously poking out of his backpack. Maybe he's a little overprepared, but better safe than sorry. Now that he has an idea of who he's looking for, the father and son duo are easy to pick out in the small crowd by the tracks.
"Eli!" yells Thibau when he comes within reach.
Eli grits his teeth. "Thibau."
"Guide Iserbyt," Sven holds his hand out. "I apologize for the short notice, but the longer we wait, the more time it takes to get my rider back on the bike."
Eli shakes it. He's seen the man from afar, but never actually talked to him face-to-face. Which, now that he thinks about it, is relatively strange for having guided his son. "Just Eli is fine."
"In that case, I'm just Sven." He hands Eli a ticket. "This is yours."
"Why the train? Wouldn't it be faster by car?"
Thibau gives him a smile. "Cars and I are no longer friends." At that moment, the train pulls into the station—a cacophony of smells and sounds that threaten to spike a sentinel's senses. The smile is still wide on Thibau's face.
"Seriously?"
Trains can offer a predicatablility that some sentinels take comfort in. Even if the train is running late, the various cues that preceed a train pulling into the station—like an announcement or the ETA updating on the timetable—help a sentinel prepare for the sound of wheels grinding over metal and the smell of hydraulic fluid. The same is true for riding the train, which is often a quieter experience than being a passenger in a car. Consistently predicting when a driver will honk a horn or slam on the breaks is impossible, which can leave anxious sentinels tense in anticipation of unexpected cacophony. However, cars can be soundproofed for sentinel comfort, although it is expensive. Eli is more used to either travelling with sentinels on soundproofed team buses or travelling separately and meeting up at a predetermined location, not taking a train with his potential boss and his boss' son; Eli would be expected to attend to the latter in an emergency.
Eli's glad for the train's two-seat row configuration, which lets him stare out the window in peace while he thinks about what exactly he's gotten himself into. He's going to evaluate the very sentinel he put into the SCC. Or rather, it was the medical team at the course that decided to send Lars there. Only Eli made the unfortunate mistake of notifying them about Lars' collapse. If Eli had waited instead of reacting, maybe none of them would need to make this trip in the first place. To add insult to injury, once they've set out from the station, Thibau abandons the seat next to his father and slides into the empty one next to Eli.
"You haven't worked with Lars before, right?"
"No." Eli opens the outermost zipper on his backpack and tries to stuff the guide vest in. It takes a few more attempts than he would like, but the zipper finally closes, banishing the light blue from sight. "The only cyclocross sentinels I've worked with recently are you and Michael."
Thibau's nose wrinkles. "Vanthourenhout?" Eli nods. "Well, Lars has been around for longer than that. He raced with my dad."
Eli glances back through the seats to catch a glimpse of Sven Nys. He looks back at Thibau. "He what?" The memory is fuzzier than he would like, but Lars' face is as clear as day.
"He's not ancient, like dad is." Thibau looks like the cat that's got the cream. "I think he's about a decade? Older than me, that is."
"So he's all of eighteen years old."
Thibau laughs. "Exactly." He pulls out a deck of cards. "Speaking of elementary school pastimes…"
The ride passes quickly as they exhaust every schoolyard variation of card games that use a single deck that they can think of. Despite being a sentinel, Thibau is a horrible cheater. Eli manages to catch him successfully every time.
"You actually have an advantage here, you know." Eli holds up the back of the red Ace of Hearts. "There's a divot in the card, right here. You probably don't even need to try to see it."
Thibau grabs Eli's hand and pushes the card back onto the table. "That's not the point of the game."
"And trying to pull out another card when you think I'm not looking is?" Eli yanks his hand out of Thibau's grasp. "Haven't any of your guides told you you shouldn't touch another guide so casually?"
Thibau snorts. "Relax, Guide Iserbyt. You're so guarded, we could hold hands for hours and not bond."
Eli scowls. "What makes you the expert?"
"I haven't been through six guides in the last three months from a lack of effort."
Eli bites his lip. He knows all about Thibau's rotating carousel of guides. Hell, he is one of them. Even then, he spouts off a retort without thinking things through. What kind of a guide ruins the mood so thoughtlessly?
Thibau takes the cards out of Eli's hands. "It's just a game." He shuffles them back into the deck. "You don't need to think about it so hard." He slides the full deck into the damaged carboard box, tucking it back into his shorts pocket. "I'm gonna go check on my dad."
Thibau disappears to the row behind, leaving Eli alone with his thoughts for the rest of the ride. Sven would be justified in coming up to him and telling Eli to leave, but he never does. No matter how much he turns it over, he can't understand why he's the one on this trip and not Wout. Sure, neither he nor Wout have connected with Thibau, but of the two, Wout has more experience and a better overall success rate when it comes to evaluations—not to mention Wout's accomplishments in all other aspects of guiding. The last time Eli stepped foot in a Sentinel Care Centre, he had wanted nothing more than to run out.
The landscape rushes by—blues and greens and browns. When Sven taps him on the shoulder to inform him that this is their stop, Eli still hasn't found an answer as to why.
It's a decent walk from the train station to the Sentinel Care Centre on the outskirts. Not quite long enough for Eli to complain about the weight of his backpack—not that he would in front of Thibau—but enough for him to wonder if Wout snuck a brick in there without him knowing. The practical concrete outside would remind him of a prison if it weren't for all the oddly shaped windows. As is, it straddles the line between artistic asylum and concrete conundrum.
The instinct to run is clearly engrained in Eli, as upon entering the SCC and seeing its calculated off-white walls makes fear rise up his throat. Sven heads straight for the counter. Eli swallows his anxiety and follows.
He tunes out most of the conversation between Sven and the attendant. Sport contracts normally involve giving the manager some power over sentinel-specific treatment, even if the participant in question is undoubtedly not a sentinel. Late awakenings are uncommon, but not impossible; giving the manager or director that power allows them to intervene in the case one happens during competition. It also comes in handy in cases like these, which allows the team to bring in preferred out-of-jurisdiction guides instead of the default busy ones assigned by the government. Sven nudges him. Eli blinks.
"Your documents, Guide?" Repeats the attendent.
"Right." Eli fumbles the card out of his wallet, nearly dropping it as he hands it over. The attendant slowly copies his ID number into the system. Panic starts to set in. What if it comes back with all his regestered test results? What if his licence is out of date? Eli shakes his head. He was checked into the BGA. They would have told him if there was something wrong with his credentials.
"You're cleared." She hands Eli his licence back. She gestures at Eli to hold out his wrist, wrapping an annoyingly off-white band around it. There's a colour code to them, but the most important ones to know are that cream is for unbonded guides and pink for unbonded sentinels. "You're all set. Sentinel Van der Haar is in room 421."
"Thank you," replies Sven. "Have a nice day."
Thibau is staring at the eclectic variety of cream chairs as though they might bite. Then again, in sensory terms, they just might. Sven takes a seat in the wingback chair. "We'll wait here until you're done your first evaluation. That's alright, yeah?"
Eli shifts. The first evaluation doesn't usually take long, but he's definitely out of practice. "That's ok with me." He turns, looking for the direction of the elevator. Right when he spots it, he turns back around. "Why me?" Thibau looks up from the egg chair he was inspecting. Sven's expression almost seems amused. "You have access to the best guides in all of Belgium. Why ask me?"
"If you're referring to Wout, he already failed to get through to Lars."
Eli sputters. "What?" Despite the long debrief yesterday evening, Wout had never mentioned meeting Lars before. Adding to that, Lars seemed convinced that no one on the team was aware of his sentinel status.
Sven gives a cryptic smile. "You don't need this for your first evaluation, do you? I'll tell you during lunch."
It's true that he doesn't need to know, but Eli desperately wants to know. "Fine." He grits his teeth. "You can play a few rounds of Blackjack while I'm gone." He jerks his head in the direction of Thibau.
"Good luck."
Eli nods, hefts his backpack on one shoulder and heads towards the elevator. It doesn't take long for one to arrive. Eli enters. He takes a deep breath. He presses the button next to the four. The doors close in front of him. With a jolt and a shudder, the elevator starts to move. Eli is lifted through the floors of the Sentinel Care Centre alone.
Lars has seen hospital food more appetizing than what is laid out before him. The breakfast this morning was simple hardboiled eggs. While it hadn't looked appetizing, it at least resembled real food in a way that the geometric shapes on the tray in do not. Lars has half a mind to refuse it, but he already turned down his first meal last night. He doesn't want two strikes on his file, especially since he hopes he can get out today.
The first white rectangle tastes of unseasoned chicken. He almost feels tempted to try the wiggling block of gelatin at the back to see if it has any sugar in it at all. If Lars didn't have a preferred eating order, he would do it. But as is, he paces himself through eating the unseasoned chicken, followed by the stringy pasta, followed by the mushy peas. The lack of taste means nearly all the experience of eating comes down to the texture of his food. If he thinks too hard about it, Lars can feel the bile rise up in the back of his throat.
Not even a minute after he finishes off the tasteless gelatin cube, a guide quietly takes away his finished tray. Neither she nor the breakfast attendant had spoken a word to Lars. Lars assumed that they would use the typical soft "speaking to a sentinel" voice, but it seems the preferred method is the silent treatment instead.
At least the window curtains are pulled back. Every now and then, Lars stands up, walks to the window and opens it for several minutes. It doesn't open very far, but the fresh air that flows through makes all the difference. Sometimes, he makes use of the floor to do a few exercises—albeit with far less repetitions than usual. Other times it's enough to just stand in the sun, listening to the sound of the breeze rushing in. The only time Lars can ignore the white noise machine is when a particularly strong gust blows in.
The door opens and Lars jumps. It feels silly to react as though he was caught doing something expressly forbidden. All he did was open the window. If the centre thought the windows should never be open, they would have locked them. The guide attendants have never come into the room without warning either. They've always been easily identified by the approaching footsteps and the wafting low-scent soap. Lars was too hypnotized by the breeze to notice.
"The guide the team sent for you will come in a minute," says the attendant in that practised sweet voice. So he hasn't been condemned to the silent treatment forever. Lars never thought he would be happy to hear that affect in his life. He'll be happy to hear it say that he's free to go.
The attendant parts without another word, leaving the door open for what must be the guide. He can't remember the name of the one attending Thibau yesterday. All he can remember is that she was tall and blonde.
The guide who saw him fall unconscious yesterday walks in instead. Eli sets a backpack down near the foot of the bed and unzips it. A familiar light blue vest peeks out. It falls to the floor as the guide pulls out a thin book, notepad and pen. A cream band dangles from his left wrist. He lifts the chair—not drags it—over to the side of the bed. Lars takes that as his cue to walk over. He sits on top of the sheets, suddenly self-conscious of the plain cotton clothes given to him by the SCC.
Eli uncaps the pen. "Sent—uh Va—" Eli coughs. He flashes a nervous smile. "I'm Eli Iserbyt, the guide chosen for you by Sven Nys. Can you tell me your name, the date, where we are, and why you're here?"
Lars blinks. "My name is Lars van der Haar. The date is October 9th, 2023. We're in a Sentinel Care Centre because I—" he swallows. "Because I lost control."
Eli's expression shifts to seriousness. "You didn't lose control," he enunciates. "You had an overload. It's normal for an unbonded sentinel." He stares at Lars. Lars hadn't noticed how blue Eli's eyes were until now. "I'm surprised you didn't have one during a race before yesterday." He scratches a quick note on his notepad before looking at his book. Lars could correct him, but in the strictest sense, the statement is true. He's never had an overload during a race—only after. Eli clears his throat. "Tell me five things you sense."
"Any sense?"
"One from each would be best."
Lars takes a deep breath. "I see your blue eyes. I smell low-scent soap. I feel the cotton bedsheets. I can hear the footsteps in the hallway. I can still taste the unseasoned chicken."
"No strain? Any spikes? Headaches?"
Lars shakes his head.
"Any difficulty turning your senses up or down?"
"No."
"Any overloads? Zones?"
"None." For a moment, Lars wonders if he should bring up being caught off guard by the attendant. It wasn't a zone—Lars has never zoned—but the unintentional distraction had put him in a zone-like state. Maybe later. He doesn't want to put his chance of getting out today at risk.
Eli furrows his brow as he jots Lars' answers down. "Well, everything reads as normal." His tone makes it clear that it is anything but normal. Lars fidgets with the edge of the bedsheet as Eli continues. "If you smelled candy, or something like that, you would tell me, right?"
That is a leading question if Lars has ever heard one. He inhales. A cacophony of scents assault his nose: low-scent soap and detergent, with their mild fresh smell, the faint starch of pasta, a bit of smoke coming in from outside. The beginning of a headache is starting to come on when he picks out the scent Eli must be hinting at. "You're carrying melted chocolate."
Eli slides the bar out of his bag and places it on the bed. The top section is lumpy and misshapen, but otherwise intact. "Bingo." He places the books back in the bag. "You can keep that. If you don't want to eat it, at least hide it for me until you get out."
Lars sits up ramrod straight. "I'm getting out?"
Eli winces. "It may take a couple of hours, but you should be able to sleep in your own bed tonight."
"Thank you." Lars lets go of the edge of the bedsheet. "Is Sven here?"
"He's helping fill out some forms downstairs. Once you're checked out, he'll be the first person you see."
Lars takes a deep breath. He can wait a couple of hours if it means he'll be back in his own bed tonight. He exhales. "Ok."
Eli lifts the stuffed backpack and flashes him a smile. "Hang in there."
Lars spots the flash of blue left on the floor. "Wait! Your vest?" He picks it up. The nylon scratches against his fingers.
Eli stares at the proffered ball of blue. Suddenly, he grabs it in one swift motion. "Thanks," he mutters. With that, he takes his leave.
In the silence of the room, Lars grabs the half-melted chocolate bar. The wrapper crinkles.