“Fuck you!”
But he ignores my exclamation. “If you’re going to survive this place, you need to stay strong.”
I know he’s right, and the way he stares at me right now is predatory. I nod at him again, watching that intense fire again as he stares into my eyes. As he leans on the wall I’m leaning against, he has me between his two arms, and I want to both kiss him and hit him for his previous words. A slow thud, like a heartbeat, reverberates through my body, filling me with fear waiting to take hold, waiting for the right moment to drown me. Because I know he will be my downfall, and when that moment comes, there won’t be a single thing I can do about it.
And then he gives me a curt nod before pushing himself away from me, leaving me devastated in the storm he left inside of me.
chapter 21
Naya
I’m inside this hideousoffice again, which belongs to Doctor Lewis. The paper in my hands is wrinkled from all the times I’ve crushed it between my hands, but no matter what I do, it doesn’t break. The frustration of the silly thing brings tears to the corners of my eyes, and all I want to do is throw the note at her, but she stares at me with that authority she always does.
Her eyes are like a commanding presence, and I feel the power shift toward her as I become the helpless patient.
“How have you been since the last time we met?” Her voice booms through my ears louder than usual.
“Fine.”Shit. Feels like my world is crumbling apart around me, and I am stuck in a hurricane where I cannot go anywhere.
Ever since that day at the lake, my head has been stuck in a turmoil of horrible emotions that remind me too much of my past. I’m tortured by memories that haunt me every time I close my eyes, and the dark circles under my eyes are evidence of my sleepless nights. I’m so lethargic that all I can do is try to get through the day with whatever strength I have left. When I realized that the institute was surrounded by forest and that it would be a death trap to try to escape, the hope slowly faded away from me. Even though I’m scared of dying in the wild, I’d still rather take my last breath in the open air than inside the walls of this institute.
My head has never been more clogged since I arrived. Only fragments of memories play out, but not the entirety of them. I don’t know why my long-term memory seems to have been impaired.
“I don’t quite believe you.”
I feel her burning gaze on me, but I don’t have it in me to care. Was my life always supposed to end up like this? This shitty, this worthless, this fucking useless?
But who am I kidding? It’s been like this since I was seven years old.
“Okay,” I whisper, my lips dry from lack of water, but even that hasn’t crossed my mind.
“What are you thinking about right now?”
In my peripheral view, I see how she crosses one leg over the other, causing her long skirt to glide up her knee before she rights it and clicks the pen.
Tick tock, tick tock.
The clock on the wall is a constant reminder of time passing while I am confined in here with no way out. Trapped, trapped, fucking trapped.
My chest becomes tighter, and I hear my heartbeat reverberating in my ears. Tiredness washes over me, and all I want to do is get out of here and go to my room.
“That I want to leave,” I reply to Alicia, my words punctuated by the sound of her pen clicking.
“What’s that in your hand?” She won’t hear me out; instead, she pointedly directs her pen at the creased sheet of paper held in my hand.
“A note from the nurse.”
“Let me see then.”
I hand over the note with lazy gestures, not to be rude even though I want to, but because there is no energy. I feel utterly and completely exhausted, all my emotions and energy have been depleted. Alicia comes to a halt momentarily as if lost in her thoughts. I bring my feet up to sit in a more tailored position in the chair and then subtly observe her. In addition to the panic, the anxiety, and the fatigue, all of these feelings make me feel burnt out, and perhaps that’s why I pick at the skin on my feet. It’s the only thing that stimulates my brain in a phase of panic, and I continue, welcoming the burning, soaring pain as if it were one with me. I observe Alicia without her noticing, and I glimpse a smile briefly appearing on her face before it disappears again. An uneasy feeling spreads through me when she shows me a bottle of pills. There is no prescription on it, nothing that indicates what it is, and the lump in my stomach only heightens.
“This is the medicine the nurse prescribed you. I will give it to the guard outside, and he will make sure to leave it in your food. Everything will be alright, you will see,” she smiles at me.
But the smile is exactly the same as I saw at the nurse. One that lies hidden in the shadows, a darkness that seeps into the soul. I know that look because it’s the same one the woman who birthed me wore when she watched me fall to my knees in front of my dead father when I was seven. I still remember her twisted, malevolent smile as she gloated at what she had accomplished. As if it was the most amazing thing that ever occurred to her.
My mind drifts to distant places I never want to visit again.
Blood. So fucking much blood, and I don’t know what to do.
