by Abbie Roads
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 knows 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 s
plit 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 door, 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 a normal volume. “Ward A doesn’t have cameras since everyone is locked down. Thank the angels the night shift workers 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 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’d been pretty harmless until three days ago, when he moved her to Ward A.”
“Why the fuck is she even here if she’s not…?” He’d assumed her past—what his father had done to her and her family—had finally caught up with her. He knelt in front of her wheelchair.
“Don’t you curse at me, boy.” Liz’s tone was all angry mom, making him feel like a bad kid. “Her official record says undifferentiated schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder. But I’ve seen psychotic. She’s not psychotic and never has been.”
He’d never spoken to Mercy before, never been this close to her, never dared to. He’d been a wuss—too damned scared of her reaction to approach her. She had every right to hate him. It was his father who had killed her entire family, his father who had slit her throat, and his father’s blood ran in Cain’s veins.
He touched Mercy’s hair, feeling the damp stickiness of it on his fingers, and smoothed it back over her shoulder. Moonlight gave him more than enough illumination to see. Mercy’s eyes were half open and half rolled up in her head. A dark shadow marred the side of her face, spreading up and around her eye. His insides went arctic. “Who hit her?” The words exploded, loud and angry and conspicuous into the night. All the rage he’d suppressed came surging back into his body, tensing his muscles and nestling in his bones.
“Dr. Payne claims she was hallucinating and thought he was Killion.”
Cain flinched as violently as if Liz had struck him. It was a reflex he couldn’t subdue, even after all these years. Hearing his father’s name still had that effect on him.
“I don’t buy it. The good doctor claims he was in the process of subduing her when she fell and hit her face. And her ribs. Seems a bit odd that the bruise where he injected her with the sedative is the exact size of a man’s fist around the needle mark.”
Cain sucked in a slow breath to calm the anger revving through his muscles. He felt like yelling at Liz for everything that had been done to Mercy, but the rational part of him knew it wasn’t her fault. He metered and measured his voice to force it to sound calm. “You reported him, right?”
“There’s no point. It’s his word against whose? Mercy’s? My speculation?” Liz’s tone contained the anger that Cain had been trying to control. She was as pissed off about this as he was.
“Dr. Payne claims she’s been unresponsive to meds, so now he’s shocked her twice in two days and still has her on enough meds to sedate an angry bull elephant. But you won’t find any of that on her official record. If it ain’t recorded, it didn’t happen.” Liz’s lips pinched so tight the tiny wrinkles around them turned into chasms. “At this stage, the damage isn’t permanent. Only short-term memory loss. But the longer she’s with him… I’m not risking my job so you can talk to her. She’s unable to talk. I’m risking it so you can save her life. You have to take her away from here before he destroys her.”
Liz’s words fell into his brain one by one, each lining up until the meaning finally hit him. He jerked back from Mercy and stood. “No way. You know I can’t.”
“You will.”
“I just wanted to ask her a question. Maybe two. That’s all. I can’t take her. Be responsible for her.” He was going to hit Liz with his best shot. “She wouldn’t want me to take her. I look too much like him.” Cain backed a few steps away from Liz and Mercy.
“Cain”—Liz had that take-no-attitude tone—“if you don’t take her, Dr. Payne is either going to turn her into a vegetable or kill her. Do you want her emotional or physical death on your hands? Because it will be if you walk away.”
His heart jerked. Liz’s words were a bull’s-eye straight through everything he feared most—being responsible for someone’s death. And Liz fucking knew it. In that moment, for the first time in his life, he hated her a little for using his fear against him. “I never thought you would stoop so damned low.”
She gave the wheelchair a shove toward him. “I can tolerate your anger, even your hatred, but I can’t endure sitting back and watching Dr. Payne kill her a little more each day. If I take her, they’ll just find her and put her back in here. Her best c
hance is with you. No one would ever think to look for her with you.”
Cain opened his mouth to say something, to argue the point, but his brain went devoid of thought. Liz slowly turned and walked back into the Center. She shut and locked the door behind her. Only when she was gone did Cain find the words.
“Holy fucking Christ!”
He was going to kidnap Mercy Ledger.
* * *
Cain had spent three hours, a third of a tank of gas, and a metric ton of worry driving across Ohio. The windshield wipers thwacked a steady rhythm—not from rain, but from a fog so thick it was like driving through cotton candy. Outside his Mustang, the world had completely vanished. Gone was the thin strip of curving blacktop, gone were the forests and low hills, gone was his ability to see more than three feet in front of the car’s headlights. The effect was eerie and alien and oddly serene. Almost the same way snow makes everything feel peaceful and quiet and transforms the landscape into something completely different.
He slowed to a pace just above turtle speed and searched the vapor for any indication of the turnoff leading to the cabin. Even on a bright, sunshiny day, it was hard to see the lane hidden in the woods.
Hours ago, he’d shifted his rearview mirror to aim at her, not out the window. She lay across the backseat, the same way she’d been the entire time, yet something inside him still couldn’t believe Mercy Ledger was in his car, and he was going to keep her hidden until…until when? He couldn’t hide her forever. Someone was going to notice she was missing. Someone was going to start searching for her. And that someone might even try to get her put back in the nut ward.
Just let them try. He gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles burned.
In her sleep, Mercy shuddered as if the temperature hovered in the frozen zone, yet her face was slicked with sweat and her pallor hung somewhere between gray and ghastly.
