Fractured Minds (Rebels of Sandland 3)

“I should go.” I stepped back, holding my breath and waiting for him to say something to stop me, but he didn’t. He nodded, with heavy resignation visibly pulling on his shoulders, and he let me go. Any fight he might’ve had was long gone. For it to disappear that quickly, he must have very little reserves to call upon, and something told me his uncle was the reason for that.

I clicked the lock of the little wooden gate closed, leaving Finn where he stood on the path, and made my way to my car. Each step I took felt like I was wading through quicksand. I half expected his uncle to jump out at me and spill more bile into my ear, but the road was empty now. Eerily so.

Opening my car door, I could feel the all too familiar sensation of regret; like my heart was filling with concrete, becoming heavy and hitting my stomach, making everything seem gut-churningly hopeless. I started the engine and checked my mirrors before I pulled out, and there, with his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the gate and leaning forward like his world had just come to an end, stood Finn.

“You’re breaking my heart,” I whispered to myself in the safety of my car, and the tears I’d kept at bay fell freely.

I wiped them away and pulled off. When I came to the end of the road, I indicated right, deciding to take the long way home. I needed the extra time to gather my thoughts and pull myself together.

I drove through the industrial estate, keeping my eyes ahead and regulating my breathing. It wasn’t enough, so I clicked the radio on, and James Arthur singing, “Say You Won’t Let Go,” made me bawl my eyes out all over again as I sang along to every word.

As I pulled up to a junction, I noticed a familiar graffiti tag on the side of an old building. Ahead of me was one of Finn’s masterpieces, and what I saw made my skin go cold and realisation blare within me like a siren. There was a little boy holding a blanket, about to wrap it around a little girl that sat cowering on the floor, wrapped up in barbed wire that pierced her skin and made her bleed. The boy wanted to protect her, make her safe, but his blanket wouldn’t help when she was already trapped within the grip of the fierce spikes. Finn’s work was always a reflection of how he felt, and what was happening in the world around him. And I knew right then that this was his sister, Alice, and Finn, in all his innocence, was trying to save her.

Dear God, what had happened to these two to make them like this? I prayed it wasn’t what I thought it was. But in my heart, I knew. There was a reason Finn Knowles kept people at arm’s length. And it wasn’t because he was cold or unemotional. He had too much emotion, he felt too hard, but he was hurting. He kept people away to protect himself, because anyone he’d let in had hurt him and his sister, and like a wounded animal, he couldn’t trust anyone. Not even me.

It was days later, and I still couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that’d set up camp in my stomach thinking about what’d happened to Finn. What could still be happening right now.

Against my better judgement, I’d given him space. I hadn’t called, text or tried to see him. But I’d asked about him every single day to Brandon, Ryan, and Emily, hoping to find some small grain of hope that he was okay. Trouble was, they knew as much as I did. Finn didn’t want to share what was going on, and nobody, not even Brandon, had the power to get through to him.

By day five, I couldn’t take it any longer and I decided to do something to try and ease my desperate, painful thoughts. If I couldn’t see Finn, I could visit the next best thing, and maybe get a deeper understanding of the whole situation. Find out more about what made him tick.

Sandland Asylum was a rundown, creepy, eerie-looking building that stood on the outskirts of town. The grey walls and pillars that ran around the front of it were crumbling, decaying even, like they were giving up from the strain of having to carry the burdens that these walls held. An empty, desolate place, and if bricks could talk, they’d whisper tales that nobody wanted to hear. Stories that would keep you awake at night. Kind of ironic that Finn liked this place so much. His tale was as secret as the ones locked within these walls.

The security here wasn’t great and I was able to slide through a hole in the fencing that was doing a really rubbish job of keeping people out. When I got to the front doors, I could see the padlock to secure this place hung open, and I took it off, placing it carefully on the floor. The door itself was old and heavy, and it didn’t have a lot of give in it. Sliding my body through, I winced, praying my coat wouldn’t snag on a nail or anything and trap me here. But I made it through and sighed when the door jammed itself shut again behind me, locking me into the foyer.

There was a huge ceiling above me, and long ago it would’ve looked impressive, but now the coloured glass was shattered, dirty and covered in bird mess. I was thankful it was a dry day too, because I’d probably be wet through, judging from the holes up there.

I squinted, peering around me, and I noticed there was a corridor up ahead. So, I stepped forward, picking my way over the uneven flagstones and holding onto the wall to steady myself. I kept my eyes on the floor, but as I lifted them to look down the corridor, I gasped.

The walls were painted to look like an underground tunnel, and if you looked closely you could see creatures hiding behind the twisted roots that appeared so lifelike you could almost see them moving and spiralling through the dirt. Roots that grew like menacing fingers, invading from the world above, trying to make a grab for the magic that lived below. This was Finn to a tee. A perfect representation of him. He was the creatures that lived down below, hiding in his world, trying not to get dragged away by the roots of life that were clawing to get to him.

I swallowed down my sadness at the thought of it all, and took a few steps forward, running my hands over the paint as I did. I was in awe of his work. I was in awe of him. Nobody had an imagination like Finn Knowles. He was one of a kind.

I smiled as I got farther along, noticing his take on the Mad Hatter’s tea party hidden in a larger opening of what looked like a rabbit’s warren. The Mad Hatter wore his top hat with the price tag sticking out of it, but he wasn’t a cartoon character like the books. He was a boxer dog, sat in an armchair like the king of the castle, sipping tea from a cracked teacup. I laughed to myself, guessing this was a representation of Brandon. The boxer. He was crazy most of the time too, he loved drinking tea, and this suited him perfectly.

Right next to him, the March Hare sat, rolling his eyes at the Boxer Mad Hatter, and I assumed that was Ryan. Then there was the dormouse, asleep at the end of the table on what looked like a laptop. Zak.

“This is brilliant,” I whispered to myself, and moved closer to see what else I could find.

Further down the warren was the White Rabbit, holding his pocket watch, and as I looked closer, I noticed that the watch didn’t have numbers on it. The clock face spelt out the words, ‘Enjoy the Silence.’ So I guess that was Finn. The silent one.

Right next to the White Rabbit was Alice. But she didn’t have blonde hair like in most of the portrayals of her character

. This Alice had shorter brown hair. I tried to recall what colour hair Finn’s sister had and I was sure she was blonde, but maybe I’d gotten it wrong? I hadn’t seen her in years, not since she left school just as we were starting. She was older than us, and Alice Knowles was an enigma, much like her brother.

I traced my fingers along the warren as it twisted and turned, but just as I came to the Cheshire Cat, grinning in the shadows, I heard a voice that made me jump out of my skin.

“What are you doing here?”

I turned, flushing pink with embarrassment at being caught. Finn stood in the middle of the corridor, his chest rising and falling rapidly and his eyes boring into mine.

“I wanted to see what you’d done,” I said, trying to get my nerves under control. I was shaking so badly but I didn’t want him to see. I didn’t want to look guilty. “You told me about this the other day, but after I left, I wasn’t sure the invitation to come together was still open.” I was giving him a chance to tell me it was, that he’d wanted to invite me but hadn’t gotten round to it. I was always making excuses, but I was getting confused about who they were for. Me or him.

He sighed and looked at the world he’d created then back at me.

“It would’ve been nice to give you the proper tour.” His shoulders dipped slightly, like some of the tension was easing up, and then he folded his arms over his chest and smiled. “What do you think?”

I stepped closer to him so I was adjacent to the Hatters tea party and I pointed at it.