by Krystal Wade
An orderly stood by the double doors at the bottom of those stairs, arms crossed over his chest, staring smugly.
Rose tried to look normal, like maybe she was a visitor, not someone escaping commitment. She made her way down the stairs and reached past him to push the bar so she could run, run, run and never ever look back.
Her mind raced along with her heart. Where would she go? What would she do when she made it past the fence? And she thought she would make it past, right until the man used his bulky arm to block her way.
“Not so fast,” he said, glancing over her shoulder. “Little help, Martin?”
Martin? Rose spun around in search of the man. When she found him emerging from the darkness of more, unlit stairs, she pushed against the guard prohibiting her exit, pounded his chest, kicked his calves. “I’m not crazy. I’m not.”
She looked back in time to see Martin remove the cap off yet another needle.
“This one’s gonna do a bit more damage, sweetheart,” he said as Rose raced to one of the other two doors, pushing against the locked bar. When it wouldn’t budge, she ran to the other and tried it. “I sure wish you hadn’t run.”
Rose backed herself as close to the door as she could get, eyes flitting from one potential exit to another, calculating, then at each man in turn. She had no escape. Martin and his needle were on top of her, and she kicked and punched and screamed, loud and hard and world-shattering.
But none of it mattered because the guard held her in place and pricked her shoulder with the needle. And in an instant, warmth overtook Rose, her vision swirled, and she fell into a deep, deep sleep.
2
The morning drifted by in a fit of heavy sleep. By the time Rose awoke, the sun had made its way across the sky and hung just above the horizon, casting brilliant pink rays into the puffy clouds.
Bars covered the floor-to-ceiling window, of course, on the left side of her room, giving Rose a slightly skewed view into the lawn of The Shepperd Institute with all its green, green grass and tall, thick holly bushes, its enormous oaks sprinkled here and there, and that horrid wrought-iron fence.
A single tear escaped Rose’s eye, and she took a deep breath and tried to sit up. But she found her arms and legs had been strapped to the bed.
“Hello? Let me out of this! I promise I won’t run.” Rose jerked at her restraints and flung her hips into the air and then back down again, hoping she could find a way to loosen the hold. After several minutes of near-breaking bones and panicked flailing, Rose stopped moving and shrank into her pillow. This was her world now. Her room. Her prison. Worse than being committed, she’d found herself confined, her right arm aching beneath several layers of bandages from her bicep to her forearm.
“Please,” she begged no one in particular, unable to wipe the tears streaking her cheeks.
The stark white metal door creaked open, and Rose turned her head in time to find a short woman with a round face and equally round belly on her way in carrying a plastic tray. On it were several things one might expect to find in a hospital, a glass of water, a small, disposable cup, a plate with a sandwich and baby carrots, none of it the least bit enticing. “Oh, hello. Good to see you awake, dear.”
The woman set the tray down with a smile on her face, then parked her butt on the edge of the foam mattress. The thin metal frame creaked from the added weight, and this made Rose realize how thin the mattress was as well. A sore spot stretched across parts of her body in the same locations as the vertical slats of the frame. She needed out of these restraints. She needed to walk around, shake off the ache in her bones from jumping out of a moving car. How ridiculous had she been to think that would work.
“I see you’re not one for many words.” The woman patted Rose’s hand in a loving, gentle way that reminded her of what she’d so desperately missed about her mother, before she became the monster she was today. “My name is Nurse Judy, and you and I are going to get to know each other real well. I’ll come by every morning to deliver your initial medications and ensure you get started on your day in time. And once your social services coordinator administers your baseline test and sends us the results, I’ll also be your tutor and keep you up to date with your studies. Aside from that, you’ll occasionally see me around other patients. And if you forget to be somewhere you’re s’posed to be, you’ll know it. I’m not one to let my charges forget their schedules.”
“Schedules?” Rose asked, curious as to what The Shepperd Institute expected of her. She was crazy after all, right? Couldn’t that at least get her out of homework? Routines? Something?
Nurse Judy smiled again, reaching for the rolling table the tray of food sat on. “Well, yes. Schedules. But we’ll get to that. First, if I remove these restraints, will you promise not to hurt me or run or otherwise think you’ll get out of this place? Because we try not to keep our patients bound to their beds. It’s not good for you.”
Rose nodded, pulling against the restraints as if that would help speed up the process.
“I’m going to need words, Miss Briar.”
“Yes, I promise,” she said, though Rose couldn’t quite be sure she wouldn’t run away again, or at least try.
“Good.”
Nurse Judy started at the feet, making sure to keep her face far enough away so that, if Rose decided, she couldn’t kick the woman out cold. Then she moved on to the wrists. Once free, Rose sat up and crossed her legs on the bed, realizing someone had taken her shoes. To make matters worse, the arm constricted beneath the bandage throbbed and ached as if she’d broken a bone. Rose ran her fingers along the mesh, wondering just how bad she’d hurt herself.
The nurse noticed Rose’s inspection and said, “I hear you were quite the fighter out there today. I admire your courage, but let’s try not to hurt ourselves like that too often, ‘kay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now, second thing, I am not your mother nor am I a maid. The two daughters I have at home are demanding enough, and even they don’t get their way. Don’t expect to find me bringin’ your breakfast on a tray every morning or your lunch and dinner to you in the afternoon and evenings. You’ll be expected to wake up when the alarm goes off”—she pointed to a speaker set into the ceiling tiles—“get dressed, cart yourself to Hall F—F stands for food, clever, eh?—eat, make your way to the nurse’s station, then back here for a morning meeting with Dr. Underwood.”
Nurse Judy continued on and on, something about exercise, free time, afternoon meetings, common areas, staying out of Hall HS. There were so many instructions Rose was sure she’d mess up as soon as she stepped outside her door.
“I see you’re already confused.” Judy picked up the disposable cup and handed it to Rose along with the glass of water. Three little pills, all of different colors and sizes, sat in the bottom of the cup. “Take those, and I’ll give you a little tour.”
Peering at the medicines, Rose thought about her options. It wasn’t like she could refuse to take the pills. They’d find a way to get them into her blood, whether by injection or by strapping her down and forcing her mouth open. So Rose popped them onto her tongue and swallowed them down with the water.
“Good girl,” Nurse Judy said, crossing the room to stand by a dresser near the door. “You have no idea how much easier you just made our lives together. Now, you’ll find fresh clothing in here.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and then pointed at a door near the foot of the bed. “Toilet and shower are back there. If you’re anything like my children, you want nothing more than to launch yourself into the bathroom for God knows how long doin’ God knows what, but there’s no time for that at the moment. So go ahead and get changed and quickly use the bathroom if you need. I’ll just be in the hall.”
Rose got to her feet, feeling insecure without her boots, naked almost and unable to run. The cold seeped through her socks and infiltrated her bones, and she couldn’t imagine escaping without footwear. She didn’t see her boots anywhere. “And sho
es? What about my shoes?”
Judy leaned back through the opening in the door and smiled. “Oh, silly me. Slippers are in the top drawer of your dresser. Shoes are too dangerous around here. Now hurry on. We only have a short time before your first meeting with the doctor.”
Hurry on through your new life. The past no longer matters. Pure white scrub tops filled the middle drawer, matching pants the bottom. Not an ounce of color, no stitched embroidering with the institute’s logo. The slippers were the only thing that stood out, black as night, thin as possible, with little rubber grips on the soles. So different from Rose’s tight jeans and oversized sweaters and warm boots.
A chill worked its way into her bones as she made her way inside the bathroom. The toilet sat on the far wall, a pedestal sink next to it, and a mirror made from plastic above that. Tiny white square tiles lined the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the grout brown and showing its age. So, so cold and just as comforting as a truck stop.
Rose spotted a toothbrush and comb on the pedestal sink, both wrapped in plastic. She slid her back down the closed door and hugged her knees for several long moments, shivering in the center of the bathroom while she imagined this new way of life, far different from the warmth of her home in the mountains. Far different than anything she’d ever experienced. Rose sat there, crying softly, until the sadness consumed her, until it zapped all her energy, and she wound up in a ball on her side. She lay in a heap in the center of the room, too defeated to move, doing her best to shut out this new reality.
“Rose?” Nurse Judy tapped on the door. “You okay in there?”
Rose lifted her head, eyes heavy and swollen from crying, then she picked herself up and changed out of her clothes and into the new ones. The distorted mirror revealed a girl that looked a total mess, long blond hair in disarray, tears leaking down her pale pink cheeks, and Rose didn’t care to change her appearance at all. “I’m fine. Just fine.”
“If you need me—” Nurse Judy murmured through the door “—you can always talk to me, Rose. I’ll listen. It’s the most I can offer.”
Rose highly doubted that talking to some stranger would help her now that her parents had her committed. Even as Nurse Judy led Rose through the hallway and leaned into her, occasionally asking how she was doing, she knew that if she talked to anyone, told them anything, even about how she felt right at this moment, it would only prolong her stay here. They’d want her to talk more, try to pry her open and figure her out, when there wasn’t a thing wrong with her. She’d do what she had to and not a thing more, then she’d get out, by whatever means necessary.
Judy approached a nurse’s station near the stairwell leading to the exit. The station was guarded by a thick pane of glass. A small opening existed between the glass and counter for the nurses to pass things through, and there were a few holes so their voices could travel beyond the small room. Shelf after gray metal shelf sat behind them, lined with medicines. The pharmacy, Rose figured, where all the medicines came from. Several women wearing the institute’s royal blue uniform stood by those shelves, counting out pills and putting them into bottles.
“After breakfast and lunch, you should always stop here and let the ladies know how you’re doing. They’ll ask you a few questions, and if they feel something’s off, another dose of medication might be warranted.”
The woman behind the glass waved, her smile bright and genuine, her brown skin radiating with kindness.
Rose offered a small smile in return, then immediately corrected herself. This place could not make her happy. She wouldn’t let it. She wasn’t crazy.
“Both of the stairwells on the left lead to Hall HS. You are not to enter at any time. Understand?” Nurse Judy stared expectantly at Rose, as if just by stating the off-limit nature of Hall HS she’d stay away.
“What’s down there?” Rose asked, standing on the tips of her toes to look down and then up. Both levels were dark and quiet, like everyone in those rooms found themselves in a deep state of sleep, one they couldn’t be roused from, a sleep that maybe they weren’t supposed to be roused from.
“Nothing but rusty pipes, crumbling floors, and a lot of things to get yourself hurt on.” Nurse Judy returned to her tour without giving Rose more time to peek into the mysterious corridor. “This building is old, built in the late nineteenth century. There are many parts unused, such as Hall HS, but that’s the only one yet to be closed off by walls. Come along.”
At the opposite end of the building sat Hall D. D did not stand for something as clever as Hall F, which was right next to D and totally confusing as far as the alphabet went. D equaled the common room, where a dozen or so lunatics sat around staring mindlessly into space, rocking back and forth, fighting over the station playing on the TV, drawing pictures of pretty sunshines and kittens as they sat beside a wall of barred windows. Most of these people didn’t pay Rose any attention as she stood there with Judy, listening to her prattle on about needing to spend time with other people, socializing. Except for one guy, the guy Rose had seen in her hall, A according to Judy, as Rose tried to make her escape.
The guy lifted his lifeless eyes to Rose’s, then quickly looked away and returned to his searching and counting. How did he get so bruised? What was his problem?
Rose snorted, something she considered might be turning into a habit, one her mother would hate and therefore Rose would continue. The guy was insane. That was his problem. They all were, except for her.
“You good with everything so far?” Judy asked.
“Dress, Hall F for food, D for socialization. I think I’ve got it.”
Squinting, Judy said with absolutely no hint of impatience or unkindness, “Dress, Hall F for food, nurse’s station, D for socialization . . . then exercise.”
“Sorry.”
“You’ll get there, dear. This is a lot to take in.” The woman checked her watch, a gold band that stretched tight around her thick wrist spotted by age. “And we need to get you to Underwood. Come on.”
Rose took one last look around the room and found the guy staring at her again, openly, not even bothering to avert his dead eyes when she caught him. A fresh bruise crested below his eye, dark black and purple, and she wondered how he gave himself that shiner or if he got into fights with other patients for fun. Shivering from the thought, Rose ran off after the nurse.
Back in Hall A, Judy informed Rose their weekly tutoring sessions, as requested by her parents—make that her mother, Rose knew, thanks for the homework, Mom—would take place here. “I can tell you don’t like the sound of that, but don’t worry, you’ll get at least a week’s vacation. Since you can’t have any visitors during your first week, your social services coordinator won’t be able to come in and administer your baseline.”
“No visitors?”
“Visitors during the first week only prolong the adjustment period.” Nurse Judy frowned, as if she knew Rose was thinking about her friends, about not having social contact with anyone who might show up. Yet they hadn’t shown up to save her, so who was to say they’d show up to say hello? “Which leads to more attempted escapes. And we can’t have any more of that.”
No, not at all, Rose thought. But whether the institute knew it or not, she would escape, somehow. She didn’t belong.
Nurse Judy rapped on Dr. Underwood’s thick wooden door. His name had been etched into the smoky glass of the window set into the center, black lettering outlined in gold, and Rose cringed at the too familiar sight. Could be a carbon copy of Stephan and Leah Briar’s office door, which knocked a couple points off the doctor’s trust rating.
“Come in.”
“That’s your cue, Miss Rose.” Judy stepped out of the way and allowed Rose to turn the handle and proceed on her own. Likely another treatment technique, letting the crazy people act of their own free will. “Remember to be honest and open.”
Right. Honest. Open.
Dr. Underwood sat behind his desk that matched his door, his name carved into a small w
ooden triangle and perched on the edge, just in case anyone missed it on the glass. He had a mop of dark hair, just lighter than black, without any gray, a long, long nose with a crook in the middle and a prominent split in the bone at the end. His forehead reached out over his eyes, and he had high, sharp cheekbones and long fingers that he drummed on a file in the center of his desk. “Welcome back, Miss Briar. Good to see you awake and not attempting to break out of this facility.”
A fine layer of sweat broke out across her forehead, and suddenly she felt a little faint. Rose hadn’t eaten anything all day, not breakfast before leaving the house, not lunch because Martin had knocked her out, and not dinner because she’d been too busy traipsing around with the nurse. She slinked her arm across her belly and held it tight, hoping that would quell her uneasiness.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked, his eyes drifting to her arm, which was also sore and throbbing from whatever injury lay hidden beneath the gauze.
The least she could do was be honest about her physical health. “A little like throwing up, and my arm is pulsing to my heart beat.”
Her voice cracked, but Dr. Underwood paid no attention. He picked up his phone and ordered someone to bring her a sandwich and some water, giving Rose time to take in his office. A big picture window overlooking the lawn was on the left side of the room, unobstructed by blinds or curtains. Wood paneling covered the walls, making the space dark yet comfortable. Behind Underwood, a gold-framed painting hung, the serene closed-eyed face of a young girl nestled between wispy feathers and loops and swirls of blue and green. The calm, relaxing painting didn’t match the rest of the décor—boring, drab, brown—but it was the only thing she liked.
“Judy is on her way,” Dr. Underwood said, following her gaze to the painting. “Lovely, isn’t it?”
Rose nodded, returning her attention to the doctor.
