Insanity (Asylum 1)

“I shouldn’t be here,” I tell her. “I don’t belong here.”

“Neither do I,” she insists, “but the last place I want to end up is in the basement. And trust me, you keep acting the way you’ve been acting and you’ll earn yourself a first class ticket.”

I shudder when I think of what goes on beneath the floorboards of my room. I’ve never seen the basement, and I don’t want to, but I get plenty of reminders of what goes on down there from the wild shrieks in the night,(not mine) flickering lights, and horrific stories from the other patients. I scoot closer to the edge of my cot and play with my fingers. “So, if we’re supposed to be acting crazy, how will the doctors be able to tell if we’re getting better? How will we ever ge

t out of here?”

The thought of freedom almost seems like a joke. Or a distant memory. Like when I was a child and used to tell my parents I wanted to be a canary and fly to the moon. In here, we’re not birds, and people only fly because they’re high or have lost their minds.

Aurora raises an eyebrow. “Get out of here?” she asks then laughs again and it reminds me of the cackle she let out earlier. I frown at her while she laughs at my expense then her face gets all serious. “It’s simple. You don’t.”

No, at Oakhill, it’s safe to say we’ll never be birds. We’ll always be caged lab rats.

Chapter 4

~AFTER~

“Patient’s name, Adelaide Carmichael. Age—twen—.” Dr. Watson sits at his desk, leaning back in his chair, tapping a pen against the leather arm rest, gold hair and stunning profile in perfect view. He spots me in the doorway and his eyes scorch mine.

Dr. Elijah Watson doesn’t look old enough to be a doctor. For some reason when I think of what a doctor should look like, I get this image of the pediatrician my mother used to take me to when I was a kid. An overweight man with a kind face, gold-rimmed wire spectacles, and white hair. Dr. Watson presses a button on the tape recorder he was speaking into and sits up straight in his chair, hands folded neatly on the desk in front of him. He smiles at me, but the smile doesn’t touch his hazel eyes. “Ah, Adelaide,” he motions to an empty folding chair in front of his desk, “please come in and have a seat.”

I hear the way the nurses talk about him. Some of the patients too. Standing here, in front of him for the first time, I can see why people here gossip about him and say the things they do. Hesitating, I trace the oak paneling of the doorframe with my finger. As beautiful as he is, with his sharp, angular jaw-line, pale pallor, and stunning eyes that border between hazel and warm honey in color. This man frightens me.

I don’t trust him.

“Adelaide.” There’s a rich texture to his voice. I eye him apprehensively. Yeah, this man is definitely smooth. “I promise you, I won’t bite.” He motions to the chair in front of his desk again. “Please. Sit.” Somehow I get the feeling that this is a command, not a request.

“Addy,” I tell him, making my way over to the chair and sitting down in front of him.

He raises a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Addy?”

“I prefer to be called, Addy.”

He steeples his hands against his lips. “Very well then, Addy .” His eyes do a clean sweep of me and the way they touch the bare skin on my arms and legs makes me feel uneasy. Tense. Nervous. Dr. Watson clears his throat and even that normal, bodily function coming from him puts me on edge.

I think the institution likes to switch up the doctors on the patients. I’m not sure why they do it, but up until now I’d always had a stern, yet informative doctor named, Dr. Matthew Morrow so this is my first visit with Dr. Watson. You see, even though he’s beautiful, I know that behind that flawless face lurks something truly capable of evil. It’s like a double sided coin. One side is beautiful and perfect, the other rotten and sinister.

Dr. Watson’s eyes are still on me, I can feel his gaze shredding through the flimsy fabric of my hospital gown. I do everything I can to avoid looking at him by staring at his plaques of achievement hanging on the white walls in this tuna can of an office, flicking a piece of fuzz off my knee, and then I drop my gaze to my hands and start playing with my fingers.

Finally, Dr. Watson cuts into the silence and says, “So Addy, since this is your first session with me, would you mind starting at the beginning?”

“The beginning?” I look at him, but try not to stare directly into his eyes. I think most women could get lost there. That one look into his beautiful eyes could be their undoing. Their unraveling. Most of the patients here seem unraveled. I wonder if men that looked like Dr. Elijah Watson are the reason why. In this day and age, a lot of women are tricked by beautiful men into thinking they’re something they’re not.

Pursing my lips, I examine Dr. Watson’s features further and decide that he’s the Aphrodite of most of the attractive men I’ve seen in my life.

I don’t want to take any chances. Or maybe I do. I know that Damien is here somewhere and I could never be unfaithful to him. So I bravely, stare directly into Dr. Watson’s eyes. And while they are stunning, they are also distant—vacant.

My attention averts to a manila folder on his desk. Dr. Watson flips through it for a moment then stares at me again. “Yes, the beginning. I have your file from, Dr. Morrow.” He pats the thick folder, but doesn’t drop his gaze. “But I’d like to hear why you think you’ve been brought here from your lips.” He stares at my mouth. The obvious shift in his attention causes me to bite my bottom lip and brings blood to my cheeks.

I frown. “I don’t know,” I say weakly.

Dr. Watson’s face is contorted in confusion. “Pardon me?

“I don’t know,” I say louder and with force.

“You don’t know why you’re here?” There’s a hike of surprise in his voice.

I shake my head. “No.”