by Abbie Roads
“I’m so happy!” Bo swayed violently in his seat, bumping into her and knocking her into Dr. Payne, whose arm went around her, locking her against his hard body. He held her too hard and too wrong. The room fell away. Bo’s shouting vanished. The only thing that existed was his horrible strength, trapping her against him, and the urge—the almost uncontrollable urge—to scream.
“Are you all right? If he hurt you…” Dr. Payne’s breath fanned across her cheek, smelling of sweet tea and summer. He should be the one who smelled like rotting chicken. Her body went into rigor mortis. She couldn’t move or breathe or think.
Bo jumped to his feet and moved into the center of the circle. Dr. Payne let her go. What had felt like an eternity of being pinned against him had probably lasted only two seconds, since no one seemed to notice.
“Let’s be happy together!” Bo hollered at the top of his volume range and began twirling like a morbidly obese ballerina. “Bojangles. Bojangles. Bojangles.” He sang his name at an ear-throbbing volume.
Dr. Payne didn’t move, didn’t blink, just watched Bo with an expression of absolute indifference on his face. That was part of how Mercy had known he was a sociopath. He never reacted normally—and he didn’t have the excuse of being pumped full of antipsychotics and sedatives like the rest of the group. He never seemed threatened, no matter the situation. Probably because he was always the biggest threat in the room.
Bo pirouetted to a stop in front of her. “Dance with me, baby doll!” He snatched her up against his flabby body and hurled them around. His rotten-chicken stench assaulted her nose, but no matter how bad he stank, she wasn’t scared of him. Bo would never intentionally hurt her or anyone else. He was like a mastiff pup. He didn’t understand how big he was, or how strong, or how his size could intimidate.
“Bo, I don’t feel like dancing right now.” She pushed against his pudgy man boobs.
His bottom lip jutted out shiny with saliva, but he stopped and let her go, just like she knew he would.
His chest bellowed, his lungs wheezed and whistled. Hauling around three hundred pounds would do that to a person.
“Now why don’t you sit down, catch your breath, and let Dr. Payne finish tonight’s—”
Bo began toppling over sideways, taking his time to fall, the way a giant tree goes down in a thick forest. She reached out to grab him, but his momentum and weight were too much. He landed—knee, hip, then shoulder—the sound of flesh slapping concrete punctuated by the thud of heavy bones. Where Bo had been only a second before, Dr. Payne now stood, staring at her. Not at the man on the floor.
And that’s where her ability to sense bad intentions fell short. Spontaneity. When someone acted without planning, her internal warning mechanism failed every time. She could never fully rely on it.
“What’d you do to him? He was done. He was going to sit down.” The moment the words flew out her mouth, she wished she could suck every syllable back inside and swallow them down whole.
An unnatural silence engulfed the room. No one in the group moved, no one spoke, no one checked on Bo. They all stared at her. At her. As if she’d done something wrong. And she had done something wrong. She’d challenged Dr. Payne—talked back to him instead of being subservient. And worst of all, she’d shown caring for Bo.
There was a terrible pattern to her life, one she tried to deny, one she tried to tell herself wasn’t real. But the undeniable truth, the thing that loomed over her ever since that night with Killion, was that if she cared for someone, they were bound to get hurt.
But didn’t anyone else care about Bo? Or that Dr. Payne had somehow caused Bo to fall? She wanted to scream at the group, at Dr. Payne, but clamped her lips firmly closed.
Click. The sound was a mini explosion in Mercy’s head. Her gaze shot to the panic button clipped to Dr. Payne’s belt and his finger just lifting off the pad.
Her stomach kicked. No, no, no. He wouldn’t have hit the button because of her words. He wouldn’t put her on Ward A just for questioning him. Or would he? On Ward A, he’d have supreme control over her. No interaction with anyone except for him. Just what he wanted and what she’d managed to avoid for the past two years.
Dr. Payne’s eyes were black and unfeeling, his lips pinched in a promise of terrible things to come. He reached into his pants pocket and withdrew a syringe, uncapped it, and took a step toward her.
An odd buzzing sound started in her ears, and her vision narrowed until the only thing she saw was that syringe held between his perfectly manicured fingers. She couldn’t let him inject her. Couldn’t let him knock her so completely out that she would be unconscious and then in a sedated, vegetable state for days afterward.
Dr. Payne jammed the needle in Bo’s ass cheek. Mercy sucked in a lungful of air—she hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath.
Two security guards and two male nurses rushed into the room. She moved away from Bo and stumbled back to her chair, collapsing so hard on the metal seat her tailbone rang.
“Transport him to Ward A.” Dr. Payne returned to his place beside her. “I’ll be down to assess him in a few minutes.”
She wanted to cringe away from him, but forced her body to stillness and watched as each member of the security team took an arm or leg and dragged Bo out of the room. He weighed too much to carry.
“We’ll be cutting group short tonight. Everyone fill out your papers, return them to me, and then go to your rooms.”
Dr. Payne passed her a fresh sheet of paper and the pink crayon, her paper and crayon having somehow disappeared in all the commotion. Using her leg for a solid surface, she scribbled the same thing on all three lines.
I’m grateful to be alive.
I’m grateful to be alive.
I’m grateful to be alive.
Without glancing at Dr. Payne, she handed in her paper and crayon and strained to walk from the room, instead of run. Because she wanted to run. She wanted to be far away from Dr. Payne and Ward B and this miserable existence where everything she did was under a microscope.
In her room, she didn’t bother with the overhead fluorescents. She went straight to her barred window and stared out into the night. There were no distant lights dotting the horizon, no stars twinkling in the sky. Nothing to indicate an entire world existed beyond her pane of glass. Just a void—a massive, black nothingness stretching on to infinity. The emptiness, the illusion of being alone, soothed her.
Her door clicked and swung open. She clamped her teeth together and breathed a quiet huff of frustration. Privacy didn’t exist on Ward B. To the staff, privacy equaled delinquency. The wavy image of a person reflected on her window. Liz—the charge nurse—always checked on her after she’d done everyone else. She understood Mercy’s need to experience the only peaceful moments of the day.
“All good here. I’ll get in bed in a few minutes.” Mercy forced lightness into her tone. If she let any irritation or tension leak into her voice, she risked Dr. Payne finding out.
“Mercy—” A man’s voice.
She startled, a jerking of muscle so violent it felt as if she’d been electrocuted. She whirled from the window to face him.
“—I need to make sure Bo didn’t hurt you.”
Her mind rebelled against the message her eyeballs were sending. Dr. Payne stood in her doorway. He never entered a patient’s room. And male staff were not permitted in the rooms of female patients. But here he was and here she was, and this wasn’t going to end well.
Her heart went off like a cannon.
“I’m responsible for you. You’re under my care. I won’t let anyone interfere.” Dr. Payne wore a grin, his deep dimples giving him a look all the women—staff and patients alike—adored.
“I’m fine. No harm done.” There was only a slight tremor in her voice. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. She cleared her throat and aimed for a stronger tone. “Liz k
nows my routine. She’ll be in to do a check in a few minutes.” Yeah. Remind him that someone might catch him if tried anything. “She’s fine with me being awake as long as I don’t bother anyone else.”
Dr. Payne took a step into the room. “Liz is dealing with Bo.”
Slowly, silently, the door began to fall shut behind him. The light from the hallway pinched off inch by inch until only darkness stood between them. The barely audible click of the latch sent a cold rush of adrenaline through her limbs.
Her internal warning system went off, and she knew—knew in the way of instincts and reflexes and urges, knew with a clarity beyond understanding—what he had planned for tonight. For her. The images flickered through her mind almost like memories, but they were of things to come. Him forcing her facedown over her bed. Him taking what she wouldn’t give. Him making it hurt. Him making her bleed. Him marking her as his.
Fear licked down her spine and bit into her guts, but she refused to cower before him. She wouldn’t be an easy victim. Not her. Never her. Never again. And if he didn’t know that, it just went to prove how much he sucked at his job.
She would handle this. She’d been through worse. She’d survived worse. This time, all she needed to do was get to the hallway where the lights were on and the cameras were rolling and there was always someone at the nurses’ station. Ten feet. That’s all that stood between her and safety.
She walked toward him. Better to be on the offensive instead of being forced to react. She put an extra sway to her hips and prayed he’d be too distracted to realize she was going for the door—not him.
He watched her, that dimpled predatory smile never leaving his lips. Her heart somehow exited her chest, floating up into her head and pounding in her ears. She stopped a mere foot away from him.
Calm. Keep calm. Breathe in slow. Exhale slow. She could freak all she wanted later. But not now. Not when it really mattered.
Slowly, she shifted to his side, a mere two feet from the door. No sudden movements. Not yet. Not until she knew she could grab the handle and get out into the hallway before he stopped her.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His words were liquid nitrogen to her blood. She froze.
He turned to face her, moving farther into her space. He wasn’t much taller than she was, his dead eyes and taunting mouth right on the level of hers—only inches away.
Do something. Do anything. Don’t let him touch you. Her mind screamed the words to be heard over her heart thundering in her ears.
With every ounce of force she possessed, she rammed her knee into his knobby knockers.
He didn’t make a sound. He didn’t move. Didn’t react.
Had she missed?
He struck out with his fist so fast she didn’t have a chance to flinch, block, or move. The impact sent a shock wave of agony through her face, the sensation so intense she couldn’t feel the epicenter. She stumbled backward, lost her footing, and landed on her ass. The impact vibrated through every bone in her body like a plucked violin string.
Dr. Payne bent double, cupping his pulverized parts. He shuffle-walked the one step to her, drew back his foot, and slammed it into her ribs. Air whoofed out of her. She collapsed back, rolling and writhing to escape the fire in her side.
How long she lay there, she didn’t know. But suddenly, Dr. Payne’s face was in her line of sight, and his intentions were in her head. Her mind flashed through images of the stark walls of Ward A, of herself drugged beyond awareness, of Dr. Payne amusing himself with her mind and body.
She tried to move toward the door, but her body wasn’t able to comply. She was lost in an inferno of pain.
Dr. Payne ruffled his hands through his hair, making it messy. He pulled at his perfectly tucked-in shirt, making it sloppy, then knelt down next to her.
She scooted away from him, but he grabbed her hand, forced her fingers open, gripping her middle finger in his fist. Was this some new form of torture? He yanked her finger to his face, jammed the nail against his cheek, then scraped it down over his skin, leaving a red trough of blood. He slammed her hand against the floor, but she had reached a familiar place. A numb place. A place where physical pain no longer hurt her. He could slit her throat like Killion had, and she wouldn’t feel it.
He stood and hit the panic button, then pulled another syringe from his pocket.
“You were the reason Bo acted out tonight. You stormed off from group without completing your assignment. I came here to check on you. You attacked me. You called me Killion. You’ve had a break from reality.”
The whimpers and whines of a wounded animal filled the room. The sound came from her, and no matter how hard she tried to shush herself, something deep inside had broken and wouldn’t be soothed.
He raised the syringe over his head and slammed it down with all the force of a large hunting knife, stabbing her in the thigh. She watched as the clear fluid emptied into her body.
“I think it’s time we stepped up your treatment. ECT should help. I’ll plug you in a couple times. See how you behave toward me then.”
A wave crashed over her, but it wasn’t a wave, it was her body. No, it wasn’t her body moving, it was the drug hitting her system, pounding its way to her mind. The world went gray. She fought to stay on the surface, to not let the sedative pull her under, but the world went dark and she drowned under the drug’s effect.
Chapter 3
Hybristophiliac—A person who finds murderers and rapists sexually appealing.
—Fern Boyd, PhD, Kissing Killers: The Psychology Behind Those Who Love Deviants
Three days later…
The moon beamed pearlescent rays across the sky. But none of the beauty touched the expansive lawn around the Center. The grounds were tarnished with a hopelessness that could never be polished away. How could anyone get better when the environment itself sucked at your soul?
Cain hated the place. Had hated it from that first night his father brought him to work on the night shift. Cain had been just five years old and was forced to split the duties—emptying the garbage, mopping floors, cleaning toilets, scrubbing vomit and feces off the walls on Ward A. By far not the worst of his childhood memories.
From the dense woods surrounding the building, a coyote yipped and howled, the sound a wild combination of mournfulness and exuberance.
He pulled his cell from his pocket and hit the screen. It was 3:35 a.m. Liz was five minutes late. That didn’t bode well for Liz or him or Mercy. Or their clandestine meeting.
He had only two questions for Mercy. Did she remember drawing the symbol on the wall all those years ago? And what did it mean to her? Since Dr. God Complex refused to let Mac meet with Mercy because it might jeopardize her treatment, Cain had decided to use the back door—literally, he stood at the Center’s back door—to get answers. There had to be a goddamned reason a picture of him—in blood—was signed with the same symbol Mercy had drawn as she lay bleeding out from the wound caused by his father. He just needed to figure out that reason.
His neck itched and his body twitched. He shifted from one foot to the other, unable to stand still. Christ. He felt like an ADHD kid hopped up on sugar and trying to rein in a surplus of energy. Only it wasn’t energy pumping through him. It was anger. Rage. Fury. That’s what this place did to him. Made him into the sullen boy he’d once been who dreamed of wrath and revenge.
“Mercy.” He whispered her name to the moon, and some of the anger evaporated. “Mercy. Mercy. Mercy.” He used the word as a mantra, reveling in the taste of those vowels and consonants inside his mouth. Just saying her name calmed him.
From inside the building, a rusty bolt scraped and banged, loud as a cherry bomb. The door swung inward, the squeal of old hinges shrieking through the night. In the woods, the coyote howled as if claiming its territory against the odd-sounding intruder.
Liz backed out the d
oor, pulling a wheelchair. Twenty-five years ago, when he’d first met her here at the Center, she’d looked like a mom—a smile on her face, encouraging words on her lips, and a stern don’t-break-the-rules attitude. Now she looked like the grandma version with her gray hair and pleasant plumpness.
“Getting her out here was easier than I expected.” Liz didn’t exactly whisper, but she didn’t speak at normal volume. “Ward A doesn’t have cameras since everyone is locked down. Thank the angels the night shift are notorious slackers. We didn’t run into anyone.” Liz turned the wheelchair to face him.
The woman in the chair slumped in the corner of the seat, head hanging as if it were too heavy to lift. Her hair dangled in limp, stringy hanks that reminded him of blond worms.
“This isn’t my Mercy.” Shit. The my had just slipped out. He didn’t look at Liz—didn’t want confirmation that she’d heard the slip.
His Mercy had always been strong. Even at ten years old, throat wrapped in a fat wad of bandages, she’d seemed oddly poised and imperturbable during all the media interviews. She had survived something worse than what he had endured and yet retained her strength. She’d inspired him, intrigued him, and tied herself to him without ever knowing.
And she’d always been pretty. All strawberry-blond hair and turquoise eyes and features that he’d just wanted to stare at because that made him feel all warm and nice on the inside. He’d never gotten close enough to smell her, but he imagined her scent to be a cross between fresh baked cookies and sunshine—not body odor and vomit like this woman.
“It is her. See what he’s done to her?” Liz’s voice snapped like a whip.
“Who?” Cain asked the question to Liz, but his gaze remained locked on Mercy. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken, didn’t even seem alive.
“Dr. Payne. He’s had a sick fascination with her from the first. Probably because she was the only person on Ward B who didn’t deserve to be there. He’s been pretty harmless until three days ago, when he moved her to Ward A.”
