Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Dear Reader
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Copyright
“When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you, yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.”
–Kahlil Gibran
Chapter One
Parkview Sanitarium was the sort of place that reminded Audrey the world had turned its back on people like her. Which was normally fine—she preferred life on the fringe of the “civilized” world—but she’d be damned if she was going to waste one more night listening to the screaming.
The padded walls of her cell did nothing to block out the litany of bible passages interspersed with baseball statistics from next door, or the tearing fabric, retching, and moaning of her other neighbor, who was trying to chew her way out from the sounds of it. Even with self-inflicted bulimia and a couple of choking episodes, the puker was no closer to freedom than Audrey, who knew how to work the system to every advantage. She’d had enough of their lies and mind games and drugs, their poking and prodding and endless questionnaires. A month in Parkview had been almost enough to drive her crazy.
Tonight was the night.
The lights went off at eight as usual, making the sounds of her ten-by-ten-foot personal hell seem louder in the all-encompassing dark. Audrey lay on her left shoulder on the far side of the room as the third-floor night orderly made his first rounds. The steel window set into her door slid open. Mac’s crooked yellow grin glowed in the sickly fluorescents streaming in from behind.
Though her stomach rolled, Audrey shot him her best pissed-off glare and bared her teeth before tucking her face into the musty, rat-piss-smelling corner.
I am getting the fuck out of here.
“What, no cussin’ tonight, Miss Taylor?” he goaded. “Shame. You know how much I enjoy washin’ that mouth out.”
She glared at him, looking bored. He’d only tried to touch her once and he’d lost his two front teeth. It had been worth the stitches in her scalp to send a clear message. Her penchant for violence kept the rest of them from messing with her much. At least not until they were well into a bottle of rotgut. That would be a few hours from now.
When she made no reply, Mac chuckled and slammed the metal window closed. She listened as he continued down the corridor… boots tapping, keys jangling. That taunting, power-tripping sound made her teeth clench and the hair on her arms prickle.
He whistled tunelessly to himself as he bypassed the puker’s room. Maybe she was on to something, using the stench of vomit to keep the orderlies off her. The next window down the hall grated open, then slammed shut. Then the next. On he went. When he finally turned the corner and buzzed through the outer security door, Audrey released the breath she’d been holding and hoisted herself to a sitting position.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” her neighbor muttered.
You should, Audrey thought. Because no one was going to set a toe into this pit for them. And if the slow, infecting evil of this place didn’t frighten you, you were too far gone for it to matter anyway. They were all lost souls, the forgotten refuse of a society too self-interested to recognize how fucked up it was.
Never give in, Jack had always said. People will screw you over if you let them, so don’t. Which was why she was getting out. Tonight. Before Dr. Banner came back from the weekend. She imagined cramming his electrodes into his own damn spine the next time he came to collect her for one of their “sessions,” the long needles flaring like peacock plumage, his broken face painting a red smear on the steel door of her room. He wasn’t going to survive another week if she was still trapped here. Self-control was not one of her strong suits. And after she killed him while still strapped down to a table, there would be questions. Too many questions. Too much of the wrong sort of attention. If life had taught her one thing, it was to fly under the radar as much as possible. She was good at that. Mostly.
Audrey shimmied on her butt until her back was against the wall and closed her eyes, envisioning the eight rusty buckles of her straightjacket. She was usually shit at anything so meticulous, but she’d had nothing to do with her free time recently but practice. On the exhale, she concentrated on the slickness of the metal, the roughness of the nylon, the friction as each of the eight buckles slowly worked themselves free.
Her left shoulder popped as she was finally able to roll it forward. She bit her lip to stifle a groan of relief, then paused and listened. Nothing but the buzzing of the generators and the limping whir of the ancient fans. Somewhere in the distance, a TV blared. Mac must have settled in for his precious Jerry Springer reruns. The screaming hadn’t started yet.
She slid free of the jacket and tossed it into the corner. It felt like burying a skin she had shed. She was no longer a prisoner; she was a lone moth, flying the proverbial coop.
Tomorrow I will not wake up in this shithole!
The thought helped her roll to her feet with a swiftness she shouldn’t have had the strength for. Since figuring out a couple of weeks in that she wouldn’t trip out all night if she didn’t eat, she’d lost at least ten pounds. She padded a figure eight in front of the door, rolling her shoulders, flexing her fingers, counting out slow, steady breaths. Her hands tingled as they grew accustomed to normal blood flow again, and she itched… everywhere. From god knew what.
A shower would be the first order of business when she got out. Hell, she’d bathe in a truck stop puddle at this point. Then, a cheeseburger as big as her head, grease and mustard oozing out the sides, followed by a heap of salty fries. A strawberry shake, thick and sweet and creamy…Saliva pooled in her mouth, and her gut twisted.
Right on time, the screaming started. Faint at first, it swelled like a giant wave, a hundred voices joined in a single song of wretchedness. A chorus of hell’s chattel chiming the hour.
Showtime.
Below, above, and all around, steel doors rattled on their creaky hinges as high-pitched shrieks and low, guttural yells echoed through the ventilation shafts. The distant sound of Mac’s boob tube grew louder.
It didn’t take much to bust the lock loose from the decrepit door. Audrey was surprised at how easily the energy came, as if it had only been squatting inside of her, waiting for the opportunity to be used. One mental push, a loud snap lost in the cacophony of Parkview’s nightly lullaby, and the heavy steel fell open a crack. Green-grey light pierced the blackness of her cell. She held up a hand and blinked as her eyesight adjusted. No alarms sounded, just the normal ruckus. Being stuck in a for
gotten trash bin of society had its silver lining.
Deep, deep inside her, she sought the secret place where her power coiled. It wasn’t in her mind or her body, but in an endless pit removed from time and space, a pit that drew in from her navel and flooded out to her limbs whenever she reached for it. She wound the energy up, coiling it across her shoulders, letting it cocoon her all the way to her feet and fold over her head and face like a warm, heavy cloak. Then she pushed the door open another few inches, just enough to slip through. She was careful and quiet, though she could have walked right past Mac like this and he would never have known.
Audrey had been thirteen the first time she realized she could become invisible. Turner had come home in a rage that night and started beating on Theresa harder than usual, cursing and tossing her around. Broken dishes and splintered furniture had littered the dining and living rooms of the double-wide. He’d locked Audrey and Tabitha in the back bedroom but had eventually come storming down the hall for them. He and Theresa had argued outside the door for a minute, but then he’d smacked her down and barreled through. Audrey had wrapped her hand around Tabby’s mouth, stifling the younger girl’s sobs as they both crouched in a corner of the closet. She’d pressed her eyes closed and wished and wished and wished that he would not see them. That he would leave them alone.
Her wish had been granted. He’d knocked the closet doors off their hinges and flung all the clothes aside, huffing and spitting, but he hadn’t actually seen them. Audrey hadn’t opened her eyes, just held perfectly still, wishing, her skin prickling in a then-unfamiliar way, while her foster sister cowered beneath her. She hadn’t opened them again until long after Turner had left to search for them, leaving Theresa pacing as she frantically called the neighbors.
That had been the first time Audrey realized she didn’t have to stay where people put her and how easily people trusted what they could, or couldn’t, see. Why endure when you can hide? Or run. Or, better yet, fight back. Once on her own, she’d found all sorts of reasons to pull that secret emergency cord inside. She could wish for other things to happen, and they would. It usually got her out of whatever mess she’d managed to land in, though it had snagged her in a few too.
This time was no different. It had just taken longer than usual to land on her feet.
Her cell door thunked closed as she leaned against it, gazing down both directions of the grimy hallway to get her bearings. With each thump of her heart, her muscles coiled tighter. The urge to run became harder to squelch. Now that she had a taste of freedom, all the tension and rage she’d buried deep to keep herself from doing something she’d regret wanted to bust out and do some damage. To blow a hole through this place. Raze it to the ground until she was standing on nothing but blood and dust.
Power surged into her palms like an electric charge, but Audrey clenched her fists and steadied herself. A feat because, for once, her body was weaker than the storm inside her. That frightened her but not enough to change her mind.
Which way?
She’d been too drugged up every time they’d dumped her here to be completely oriented, but she knew that the security door around the corner to her left was a sure way out—the only way anyone ever came or went. Right past the orderlies’ office. Past Mac and at least two more just like him on the floors below. The thought of scaring the piss out of him entered her mind, but there was no time for revenge. Freedom was priority one.
At the other end of a hall, a dingy window covered with metal grating hung over an unmarked door with a burnt-out exit sign. Assuming it wasn’t blocked off, that was probably a cleaner escape. She couldn’t stay invisible forever, not and save something to fight her way out if she had to.
Always keep an ace up your sleeve. Or, in Jack’s case, a sawed-off behind the seat. Audrey had learned that lesson well.
As the initial adrenaline rush wore off, she was already swaying on her feet, the hollow screams jackhammering at her concentration. She might not have time to double back if the emergency exit failed her, and she had one more stop to make. Dr. Banner’s office had to be on the fourth floor. Take these notes up to my office, he would tell the nurse in order to get Audrey alone. She wasn’t leaving without her mother’s necklace. She’d spent the better part of the day wrestling with her own self-preservation instincts and had finally decided she had to risk it. She’d lost everything else that had ever mattered to her, but not that. Never that.
Despite her feet not wanting to cooperate, she slinked toward door number two. It opened—a good sign. Behind it, an utter abyss greeted her. The air was colder and dank smelling. Worse than the blackness of her cell, which she had at least seen in the light, traced and memorized with her body. The unknown dark was… She gulped back a wave of nausea as she crossed the threshold.
She held the door open a crack with one hand and groped ahead with her foot. Garbage, cigarette butts, heavier, softer objects that might have been living once. Finally, she reached a step, and above it at waist height, she found a metal railing. The chipped paint sloughed off under her sweaty hand.
The click of the door enclosing her in the prickling dark sounded very final. The screams were muffled though. Small mercies. Audrey released her invisibility cloak and began to climb on all fours, seeing with her hands. A single flight of stairs had never seemed so long. When she reached the top, she felt along the wall of the landing until she reached a corner and—thankfully—a door that opened without a fight.
This hallway was dim. Eerily quiet, the screams sounded worse from a distance, like people were buried alive below her. Everything was newer and cleaner here too. Fresh air. Plants. A water fountain. Things people took for granted. The sounds of the city weren’t too far off and added a little starch to her spine.
Almost there.
Though clearly alone, she felt exposed, a ghost returning to the world of the living. Her throat tightened, and her legs burned with the need to run, but she channeled that instinct into another cloak. The air around her shimmered faintly as it snapped into place. Her bare feet still left grey prints on the pristine white tile.
Banner’s office was through a set of double doors and unlocked. It smelled like him, cigars and dry-cleaning and two-day-old coffee. The lush carpet felt like sponge cake between her toes, and a private balcony looked over the gritty east bay. She rifled through the drawers of his shiny mahogany desk and found only the standard fare of files, prescription slips, office supplies, and a bottle of brandy. She considered swiping that but then decided it wasn’t worth it. Not when his lips might have touched it. Her search turned up nothing of note except for one small, ill-concealed key. She turned to scan the room for what it unlocked.
If I were Dr. Banner’s secret stash, where would I be hiding?
What if the necklace wasn’t here? What if he’d thrown it away or taken it somewhere else? She refused to succumb to the pang of loss burning up the back of her throat.
A Romanesque sculpture in the far corner caught her eye. It looked heavy, but the carpet underneath it wasn’t bulging at all. She walked over and felt around it. Sure enough, the sculpture pivoted. Way too fancy for a government employee, not that she’d been fooled by that cover for a minute. A drawer with a brass lock was set into the back of the wooden podium at the bottom.
Jackpot. Audrey knelt, twisted the key, and quickly rustled through the paperwork on top. Yes!
Heart beating a fierce tattoo against her ribs, she snatched up her mother’s moonstone and slipped the beat-up silver chain over her head. She clutched it hard in shaking hands and closed her eyes, feeling the familiar, soothing song of the stone slip around her like a balm. Like home.
The task of escaping was suddenly less daunting. The risk of capture less intimidating.
Now just get the hell out of here.
She was about to shove the papers and files back into the drawer when the sight of her name caught her attention. She flipped the top folder open and skimmed the first few pages of her file.
Descriptions of her symptoms and a list of possible social disorders. Photographs of every one of her numerous distinguishing marks. Her responses to different “therapies,” including that goddamn electroshock. Audrey’s toes curled when she read a hand-scribbled note in the margin in a jagged scrawl: Objects in the room shaking. Telekinesis? Could explain effort required to restrain.
Audrey’s breath hissed out. Fuckall. She thumbed through the rest of the stack of files, all about her except for one.
A thin one marked Armstrong, Lilly. It was practically empty—no medical records, just a small notebook and a single photograph of a young girl with ancient eyes that were hard to fathom, even in flat black and white. Who was she? Audrey really didn’t have time to wonder or the luxury of caring, but she was frozen still by the image, cut deep by the haunted expression on the child’s face. Like looking into a mirror for the first time.
Audrey, a small voice echoed in the recesses of her mind, and she stiffened, the hair on her neck bristling. Audrey slid the drawer closed and returned the key to the desk. Her brain sloshed a bit when she stood, and she could feel the last of her energy draining slowly away, fizzling and popping in her chest like wet firecrackers. She was running out of time. She swept up the files on her way out and rolled them into her T-shirt. She’d trash them when she got out. Burn them, her own form of therapy.
She was almost to the stairwell when she heard the voice again, stronger this time, like a whisper right by her ear.
Audrey.
She whirled, blood thundering from her feet to her head and back, making her dizzy. She spoke on instinct. “Who’s there?”
The entire floor was empty, and no one could see her. Maybe she really was going crazy.
No. I’m here. The voice was small, faint, but it was real. No figment of her imagination could sound so broken. So weak. All the weakness had been beaten and burned and wrung out of Audrey a long time ago. She shook her head and turned back toward the stairwell door.
Wait!
Audrey’s feet tripped. Tired, and probably delirious, she looked down the hall again. Besides the offices and stairs, there were just three other doors. A janitor’s closet and a bathroom were clearly marked, but there was one more door at the far end. A steel door. With a window. How had she not noticed it before? She thought about walking up to it, looking in from the outside for once. But she didn’t want to see. She just wanted to put this whole place behind her. Get back on the road. Go somewhere warm and dry. She had it all worked out. She’d pick up enough cash in the city to get some clothes and food, maybe a shower and a bed for a night. Then she’d hitch to Alameda and bunk-bunny to Carson City or Tucson.
To Tame A Wild Heart: A Zyne Witch Urban Fantasy Romance (Zyne Legacy Romance Book 1) Page 1
