Unhinge - Calia Read Page 0,98

next to the nurses’ station. My daughter is in her arms.

My daughter.

Alice sees me. The cocky demeanor that she had while she encouraged the doctor to inject me is gone. She looks terrified. Of me.

“Give me my baby.” The minute the words slip from my tongue I have a sense of déjà vu. This trips me up for the barest of seconds. I grab my daughter, ready to kill for her if I have to.

I hold her tightly in my arms. She’s crying. I try to soothe her but she won’t calm down.

“Look what you did….”

Wes’s voice is whispering in my ear. I whip my body around. He’s not there. The television is on just as usual, but no one’s watching it. Board games are paused. Books are on the table and multiple sets of eyes are on me.

And that’s when I see him.

He’s outside, walking along the length of the building. Plain as day.

I take a step forward but stop when he disappears out of my line of vision.

“No, no, no…” I whisper. This isn’t happening again. Not again. He’s not getting away so easily while I’m trapped in this prison. I walk toward the dining room. In this hall the blinds are always open, letting in bright white light, and in this case they give me a clear view of Wes.

His hands are in his pockets, and his eyes remain looking forward. He has a dark smirk on his lips.

My pace matches his, step for step. In front of me the hall cuts to the left and right. In front of me is the back door where the nurses take their smoking breaks.

I slam my shoulder against the door; it opens but a siren goes off instantly.

“Hey!” a nurse shouts behind me. “Come back here!”

Once I’m outside I take off. Wes already has a lead on me. He’s running toward the woods, cutting a trail between the long grass.

Barefoot and with my daughter in my arms I run after him. I can hear multiple voices behind me, but I don’t stop. I can feel it in my bones that this is the coup de grâce and everything has been leading up to this. All I can think about is that I have to catch up with Wes. The dry grass snaps beneath my feet. My heart is pounding so fast I think it is going to burst from my chest.

The alarm seems to be getting louder. And then I hear Sinclair’s voice. He’s yelling at me to stop.

But doesn’t he get it? For weeks I’ve been trying to untangle my past, undoing the knots, and I knew I was so close to having my life back. It was right there. I could practically touch it.

“Wes!” I shout. “Stop!”

He continues running. My muscles burn so badly I want to collapse in one big heap and greedily suck in all the air I can.

Yet we draw closer and closer to the trees until the next thing I know, I’m swallowed by them. The grass gives way to damp ground covered in leaves, pine needles, and broken branches. They puncture my feet. I barely register the pain. My heavy breathing mingles with the drone of the alarms. I lose my footing on uneven ground. I stumble a bit but remain upright.

Evelyn is screaming. This time I feel her heartbeat. It’s as frantic as my own.

But Wes remains unfazed. He jumps over fallen tree trunks. Dodges along slopes.

Sinclair’s still behind me. He continues to call out my name. I feel the weight of his stare on my back.

Clouds move in front of the sun, surrounding me in further darkness. The wind picks up, rolling through the trees. Strands of my hair whip into my face, blurring my vision before I impatiently pull them back.

We keep running. I don’t know where we’re going or what will happen. Wes is ahead of me, weaving in and out of the trees, stepping over thick branches as if he’s done this many times before. Finally the trees thin out and in the middle of nowhere stands a small cabin. Wes runs inside it, leaving the door open.

I hesitate.

And then I step into the cabin. I’m panting, ready to drop from exhaustion. But I stop dead in my tracks when I see what’s around me. On the wall, my face smiles back at me. There is not a square inch that isn’t covered in pictures. Some of them are of me alone. The others are of Wes