Twisted Circles (Secret Society 2)

“I’m headed out for lunch,” he said when he spoke again.

“So I guess I’ll see you later?”

“Initiation tonight.”

“Right. The burial.”

“Stop thinking about it as a burial,” he said. “Think about it as an existential awakening.”

“Oh. Wow. Of course. Who wouldn’t want to be buried in order to find the meaning of their own existence?”

Adam chuckled. The sound hit me between the ribs. My mouth opened to make a flirty remark, but I shut it quickly, reminding myself of who I was, or who I was pretending to be.

I wasn’t sure I knew the difference anymore.

Chapter Eleven

Adam

Because Dr. Thompson had gone out of town, I was working with Dr. Maslow. Working with Dr. Thompson had its perks. I was able to sit in actual neurosurgeries and shadow him when patients came in. The last few weeks, I’d been jotting notes as Dr. Thompson examined patients who were recovering from strokes. It was the job I’d signed up for, the one I’d been after for as long as I could remember, but working in The Institute awakened a curiosity I didn’t have before.

And so, when Dr. Thompson left on his trip and told me to report to Dr. Maslow’s office in the morning, my excitement bubbled. I’d finally see the rest of The Institute, the areas that had been off-limits to me until that point, and to top it off, I’d get a tour from the boss himself. We were walking through the corridors of what everyone referred to as The Hotel, and I could see why. It looked like a swanky five-star, with white-glove service and everything.

“It’s like you dropped The Ritz in the middle of Ellis.”

Dr. Maslow chuckled. “We definitely took inspiration from The Ritz.”

“With a place like this, I wouldn’t mind taking a mental vacation.”

Normally, the connotations that came with mental institutions were negative—people strapped to beds, fighting their meds, getting electric shock treatments that would set their brainwaves into submission. They were all things I only knew of secondhand, due to a bipolar grandmother who spent more time in a mental institution than her own home while I was a teenager. My grandmother was one of the reasons I’d become so interested in the human mind. I figured, if I could help come up with a map for the brain and provide a solution that wasn’t as invasive as the ones I’d seen her endure growing up, I could make a real difference in the world. My family said I took after my mother, while my brother took after our father, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t straitlaced or perfect, but I did appreciate structure, which was something Nolan hated.

“This is where you’ll be working this week.” Dr. Maslow stopped walking in front of an office and led me in. It was a small office, all white, the only pop of color coming from the plush navy blue lounge couch in the corner. “There’s a questionnaire on the iPad that you’ll use whenever a patient comes in, you’ll ask the questions, press the answer, and that’s it. Simple. It’s connected to my server, so I’ll get the answers automatically and be prepared when I see the patients.”

“Sounds simple enough.” I nodded once, looking from the iPad on the desk to the large window behind it. “I’m surprised you have glass windows.”

“Hurricane impact,” Dr. Maslow said. “No way anyone can jump through them.”

“Oh.”

I’d never heard of anyone who had hurricane impact windows. We were so inland that the only thing we ever got was severe snowstorms during winter. The chance of Ellis ever being hit by a hurricane was precisely zero, but the forethought of someone here trying to break through it and jump to their death was pretty smart. Of course, when I paused to think about it, I wondered if anyone would try that. Even in movies jumpers sought the roof, but people couldn’t be underestimated.

“Come. I’ll show you the rest of it.”

I followed Dr. Maslow out of the office and down the hall again. The spaces opened into large, open areas, where people sat and watched television. Some were knitting, others were reading books, and some were talking amongst themselves. They all wore sweatpants and T-shirts or sweatpants and sweatshirts and even though their sneakers had no laces, they were still clean Nikes. Everyone was definitely under thirty and they all looked like they were here willingly, which, I knew couldn’t be the case for all. As we walked, Dr. Maslow pointed out things along the way—cafeteria, which looked like the five-star restaurant it was, two game rooms, where I saw even more people who looked like they could be enrolled in Ellis University, playing air hockey and table tennis. By the end of the tour, I was convinced The Institute was indeed the best hospital, mental or otherwise, that existed in the entire U.S.