By the end of the day on Friday, with me sitting on my wire bedframe waiting for Adelaide to come back and give me some desperately needed at-least-semi-human interaction, I’m almost wishing those boys would go back to hazing me.
Then, at least, I could blame the persistently growing buzzing in my head on some kind of torment. A torment outside my own mind.
Adelaide must be able to tell something’s up when she finally shows up even later than usual. Rather than slipping straight to sleep as she usually does, much to my annoyance and jealousy, she stops and blinks over at me from where she’s perched atop her bed.
We don’t talk much. After all, there really isn’t much to say. Adelaide doesn’t seem interested in talking about her life before the asylum, so any questions I’ve asked have either been entirely ignored or brushed off with half-hearted responses. Even so, I feel like I’ve come to know her.
At least as much as is possible…though that could be because she’s the only person to talk to me in days aside from the orderly’s snide remarks on the way up to my confinement, or Dr. Silver’s prodding to try and get me to submit to his ‘treatment’.
Adelaide speaks with her body as much as she does her words. The slump of her shoulders, the positioning of her hips turned slightly towards me, even the slight twitch of her eyelid as she glances at me without actually making eye contact. It speaks volumes.
“It doesn’t get better, isolating yourself like this,” she says.
“Well, it certainly can’t get any worse.”
She dares a peek over at me and then quickly looks away, down at her hands where I notice, for the first time, that she’s brought something other than just the cursory cold sandwich up to me from dinner.
It’s a tiny slip of paper, no longer than the length of my forefinger. It’s been worried nearly to shreds until the texture looks more like crepe than it does actual paper.
I nod at it in her hands and ask, “what’s that?”
She stops worrying it just long enough to unfurl it—revealing the fresh red-spotted bandages peeking out from the ends of her sleeves. “There’s a special meeting out on the grounds first thing tomorrow. Director Hedgewood is going to make some kind of announcement.”
After a moment, she holds the slip of paper out to me.
I scoot forward on the metal slats, grimacing at the way it prods the bruises on my backside. The first night I woke covered in striped, red marks like I’d been taken to with a cane. Those turned darker and tender, but now they’ve started to fade as my body’s grown used to the curve of steel against skin.
I take the note from her and look it over, careful not to stare at the bleeding cuts on her wrists where the bandages don’t quite cover. Meeting on the grounds at 10 AM. All patients and staff required to be in attendance.
I feel a slight flutter, even though I try to squash it down. “You think this includes me?”
Just the prospect of some sunshine on my skin makes that tiny seed of hope sprout again.
“It’s worth a try,” Adelaide says. “See if you can follow me out after breakfast. From the way everyone was running around all afternoon, I’ll be surprised if even Craven notices.”
“Maybe we’ll finally find out why this place is so short staffed,” I say, turning the paper over again as if I’ll find some sort of hidden message on the other side. Seeing nothing, I hand it back to Adelaide. I watch as she crumples it back up into her fist and then proceeds to unfurl and re-furl it as she sits down on the edge of her bed.
“I’ve wondered about that too,” she says, that dreamy quality returning to her voice as she tilts her face towards the window. “It used to be so quiet here.”
Not anymore. Not since you arrived.
I pretend I don’t hear the whisper inside my head. It’s just me, again, making things up.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
12
Thalia
The prospect of getting out of this tiny room, even if just for a few precious minutes, makes it hard for me to sleep. Or so I say. It could just be the lack of the mattress, or the way the branches outside scrape their screeching fingers across the glass as a wind picks up in the night, or how Adelaide picks at the bandages in her sleep—making little droplets of blood patter to the floor in the middle of the night.
Drip.
Seven and a half more weeks in the asylum.
Drip.
Fifty-three days, unless I’ve already lost count.
Drip.
Cold metal presses into my back and creaks into my ears. I ache, inside and out. I ache for freedom. I ache for friends. But most of all, I ache to know the truth. All this time alone, and I can’t keep the thoughts from creeping in.
What really brought me to this asylum? Was it Kemper…or was it me?
I’m not allowed to fall too far down that rabbit hole because something else breaks the silence. It’s quiet, so quiet that I’d be willing to bet money anyone but myself wouldn’t even be able to hear it.
It’s the soft clink of metal against metal, the grinding scrape and drop of pins as someone turns a key in the lock. And then there’s silence.
I freeze.
I listen for footsteps, but hear none. I don’t dare to move, don’t dare to breathe as the moments stretch on. When no other sound proceeds the grating of the lock, I have to investigate. Part of me knows what happened last time and braces for the worst.
To my side, Adelaide continues to sleep soundly. Maybe they drug her every night. That would explain why she always collapses into bed right away. Or maybe I’m just a jealous insomniac.
Either way, I still move slowly, methodically as I gently lift the base of her mattress and retrieve one of my recovered shoes. I resist the urge to flinch or gag as my fingers come into contacts with broken bits of spiders. I have to do this. This is why I kept them in the first place.
With my makeshift weapon clutched in one hand, I creep to the door. Once again, for the second time in a week, when I put my hand on the knob and turn—it’s unlocked.
And once again, no one waits for me on the other side.
Every one of my senses warns me this is some kind of trap. They’re goading me out here. They want me alone.
But that still doesn’t deter me. This is too good a chance to pass up. A chance to slip out undetected. I’m not dumb enough to think this is some chance to escape…but at the very least, it’s a chance to get a better feel for what I’m up against in case the real opportunity does present itself.
I might be an idiot, but I’m not stupid. I know there’s still a very real chance that, review or not, Kemper’s going to win the war to keep me in here forever. I have to keep all my options open.
So, I check once over my shoulder to be sure Adelaide is still asleep, and seeing no sign of her stirring, I step out into the hallway.
It’s unexpectedly quiet here too. I guess I expected an orderly to be standing guard, but I’m completely alone. The lamps on the wall glow dimly in the evening darkness.
During the day the asylum almost just looks like any of the many old mansions my parents and their friends lived in growing up. But here, now, in the darkness something makes me shiver.
The light from the lamps doesn’t quite meet the outer corners of the hall. Dark doorways at either end gape out at me like toothless mouths. A cold breeze crawls along the walls and seeps around corners, making the hair on my arms stand on end.
Gone is the antique charm that a casual eye might see during the day. That old-world luxury that draws the rich and powerful to dump their forgotten and unwanted gives way to the dark façade beneath.
How did I get here?
Not here, waiting for some signal from the person who unlocked my door—but just here, in the asylum. I know it’s not the time to be wondering, but I can’t keep the thoughts at bay.
Just like you can’t keep the voices at bay.
“Shut up,” I whisper, then immediately regret it as my voice
comes out louder than I mean in the dark.
Only a week ago I was standing above my parent’s empty graves—nothing but sewn-together pieces buried in coffins more expensive than most people’s college tuition. It was months since the plane crash before they were confirmed dead, but both Kemper and I had known it from the moment we first heard the news.
So why, after all that time, did he wait until now to get me committed?
And more importantly, after all the failed attempts to do it in the past, why did this time work?
Even though I don’t want to admit it, I think I know why. For one moment, I think I hear it—a whisper so quiet even my finely-tuned ears cannot hear it. Not a voice inside my head, I think…but something different. A whisper without a voice.
I cock my head to the side and listen into the darkest shadows. At first, it’s like the longer I sit here and listen, the louder the silence becomes. I can hear the very settling of the building; the running water in the pipes, the creak of ancient wood, the cement beneath us cracking. And then, from the depths of the darkest shadows, I hear it again.
Help us.
Just like the day of the funeral.
Help us.
This time it isn’t their voices, the voices of my parents. It’s garbled and far off. Teasing me. Haunting me.
I can’t take this. Maybe I have been cooped up alone for too long. Maybe this place is already getting to me. The urge inside me is stronger than the fear of getting caught and put in solitary. Suddenly the walls seem closer all around me. The ground tilts beneath my feet, sending me stumbling forward. Now that my feet are moving, I can’t seem to stop.
I can’t spend another night here. I have to get out.
The floor becomes a blur of cracked tile and endlessly long oriental carpets. Every corner I turn takes me further into the silence. I think I take a flight of stairs, or the elevator, but I’m not sure. All I know is I’m no longer in the long hall of bedrooms. The haunting laughter from far-away quiets, replaced only with more of that maddening nothing.
I’m not looking for the door, not even looking for an exit. I’m just looking for . . . out.
Even in my delusional state, I know somehow that there shouldn’t be this many twists and turns. With each footstep that carries me deeper into the asylum, past darkened windows looking out into a patch of old, twisted trees on the back lawn and into the maze of clinics hung with forgotten skeletons, my thoughts become even more twisted by fear.
It’s this fear, and this flight, and the darkness of the hallways and that distant laughter that turns the ordinary into monsters.
I turn a corner into a new hallway and sense the monsters before I see them. My feet betray me, my knees locking up at the sight and sending me crashing into an opposite wall. A small table crumples beneath my weight, the antique legs splintering and crumbling to the ground—bringing the contents of the table down with it. A vase shatters and old, forgotten, crumbling roses tumble to the ground at my feet.
But my eyes are trained elsewhere.
Three figures stand at the end of the hall, unmoving—but something behind them shifts. It’s like a shadow hulks behind each figure, just for a moment. One, with a long spiked tail. Another massive, hulking. The third is split down the middle, as if it isn’t one shadow but two.
Just as quickly, the figures step forward into the dim light of one of the converted lanterns and their shadows shrink and form ordinary shapes.
Price. Ives. Kingsley.
The boys who run this asylum step forward without any fear.
My own thoughts that have clouded my mind suddenly clear. Whatever fear I felt before was unfounded. Childish, compared to the danger that now stands before me.
I push back at the darkness and the confusion, and I throw everything I have into my attempt to get back to my feet with some dignity. Breath wracks my shoulders, tearing at the back of my throat like claws dragged across wet earth.
“What do you want?”
My voice comes out foreign to me, both strangled and scratchy.
While both Price and Ives maintain their composure, Kingsley stands between them positively bouncing on the balls of his feet. His excitement doesn’t worry me so much as Price’s lack of it.
“We’ll be asking the questions from here on out,” Price says, his voice calm and level. “This is our asylum. You would do well to remember that.”
I’m tempted to tell them that they can have the asylum for all I care, but I remember Adelaide’s warning and keep my mouth shut. I take a step to the side, my eyes glancing back down the hall I just came from. This place looks familiar, but I can’t quite place why. This whole asylum looks like one endless, faceless hallway. It’s the perfect place to get lost. The perfect place never to be found.
Ives catches the glance and steps to the side, one step away from blocking my path. If I don’t know where I am in the asylum, then no one else probably does either.
“What’s the matter, greenie?” Kingsley asks, his voice nearly as breathless with anticipation as mine is from fear. “Scared?”
I stand up straighter and tighten my hands into fists. Behind my back, one hand still clutches to the sharp blood-stained stiletto I somehow had the forethought to keep concealed.
I’ve dealt with bullies before. My own brother was my very worst. I think of that now, think of all the times I tried to stop him, tried to avoid him, tried silence, tried to answer.
There’s never a right answer, so again, I say nothing and hope they’ll bore of me if I just don’t show any reaction.
But Price is already bored. I realize that as he steps forward again, closing the gap between us, that silence isn’t going to stop whatever’s going to happen next.
Price raises a hand as if to strike me, but at the last moment he turns his palm to use the outside of his fingers to gently stroke down the side of my face. I try not to flinch, but I can’t help it. The look of pleasure on his face from that tiny spark of fear makes my stomach churn.
His own face is as smooth and unreadable as ever. His soft brown eyes reveal nothing of the cruelty that lies beneath. The longer they search my face, the more I feel my own defenses melting despite my desperate urging not to. I remember that moment when I first arrived at the asylum and laid eyes on him.
I was mesmerized, frozen, lost in that single glance. I find myself softening now at his gaze and touch, even though every better part of me screams for me to just run, run, run.
“You look scared, greenie,” he says, his voice quiet. “Do we frighten you?”
I don’t let myself look away from his gaze, even though staring into it makes me feel like I’m drowning. His eyes are syrup—thick and sweet and deceptively drawing me in.
Ives steps up to my side, effectively blocking any hope of a getaway. He seems bigger somehow, in the dark, than he already was. Though he says nothing, there’s an almost animal-like way he looks up at me through bowed lashes.
I don’t answer right away. Price’s eyes stay locked on mine while his hand travels from my face to my shoulder, down my arms locked tightly behind me. A tingle races at his touch, a mixture of fear and excitement—and for a moment, I see it on him too. He swallows, his Adam’s-apple bobbing in tune with the thrill across my own body.
Kingsley darts across the outside of my vision, unable to sit still. He’s like a shadow himself, lit by a dancing flame.
Price leans in even closer, his voice now a single notch above a whisper. “I’m not going to ask a second time, greenie.”
In this moment, I look away from Price and I see why Kingsley looks so much like a shadow. That . . . that thing is back. The dark copy of him cast on the wall has split into two again. While one of them moves along with his motions against the paper behind him, the other seemingly lifts itself from its place and moves to stand behind Kingsley. It has no face, no actual substance. It is, in all essence, just that. Just a shadow.
A shadow with a will of its own that disappears as q
uickly as it appears.
I’m not the only one momentarily distracted by it. In that moment, when Price and Ives’ attention flickers away from me for just the shortest of seconds, I strike.
My arm sweeps out, catching Kingsley across his smug face with the sharp point of the heel. I’d meant to knock him back, or maybe even stab him—I don’t know exactly—but the deep gash does send him stumbling backward with an otherworldly howl.
My heart races. It leaps into my throat, making me choke.
It’s not enough. Though Kingsley doubles over in pain, my violent outburst finally making him still, the other two only press closer. My eyes lift back to Price’s, but that mesmerizing, syrupy draw is gone.
All I see now is the cold, cruelty that lies within.
“Yes,” I say, with a voice so small it’s like that of a child. “I am afraid. But not of you.”
It’s Price’s turn to lunge forward, his hand grappling mine and raising it up with a sudden, jerking motion that nearly pulls my shoulder out of socket. “Well, we’ll see about that.”
A pair of massive arms grabs me around the waist and hoists me up so my feet kick out into nothing. I open my mouth to shriek, but one glance at Price and I know it’s useless.
Price takes one step around me and pulls open a door in the wall where there shouldn’t be one. It’s partially concealed, the doorknob an inconspicuous slot in the otherwise ordinary wallpaper. Try as I might to wriggle and kick myself free, Ives’ grip doesn’t so much as falter. If anything, it just tightens until I think he’s going to crack my arms where they’re pinned to my ribs.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a dark, steep staircase diving straight down on the other side.
“You thought you barely survived solitary,” Price says. “Let’s see how you like something much, much worse.”
From what I can see of the stairs, they’re as ancient as the building itself. The top steps once might have been carpeted, but whatever was there has long since worn away to leave nothing but rough wood and exposed tacks. They plunge down into a blackness so complete, I can’t see where the stairs end.
Asylum Bound Page 7
