intent on returning to the warmth of the boys’ room across the hall.
But when I open my eyes, I gasp.
It’s back.
Impossible as it is, the plush bedroom with the burnt door is gone. In its place is the cold, wet dungeon with its iron bars and locked door.
I jump up and hurry to the cell door, grabbing it for proof that it isn’t just my imagination. But the feel of the cold metal is undeniable beneath my hands. Forcing my breaths even and calm, I shut my eyes and will the lock to slide free. I’ve done it enough times now that it should be easy. But when I open my eyes again, the door is still locked. I try a second time. And a third. But the door remains locked tight.
A sob rises in my throat and I return to my cot, drawing the thin blanket up and over me as I curl into a ball. Maybe the doctor is right and I’ve truly lost it. Maybe I’m imagining things.
Maybe we’re all mad here after all.
9
I stare down at my wrist, perplexed. As I run the pad of my finger over the thin white scar, Dr. Livingstone sits, watching me. Waiting.
Always watching. Always waiting.
For me to say something. To do something. To be something.
But what? What will get me out of this place? I don’t know anymore. I never knew. I’m in a prison within a prison. Trapped by them, by my own mind, by my fragile clutching of a reality that turns to glitter dancing on the wind.
“How long have I been here?” I ask. Wasn’t it just a few days ago that the doctor was rebandaging my wrist, the wound still full of stitches? When were they taken out? How am I already healed?
“How long do you think you’ve been here?” he asks.
I glare at him through my bangs that have grown too long. If I had more strength, more energy—or even any at all, I would rage. I would punch the wall. I would scream.
But all I have left is my glare. “Why can’t anyone here answer a damn question?” I ask through clenched teeth. “Is it so hard? To give the time? To give the date? To give the most basic of god damn information?”
The doctor’s face softens in that way I have come to crave and hate in equal measure. So full of compassion, of genuine concern, and yet here we are. So how much compassion and concern could he possibly have? And I hate myself even more for the feeling in my gut when he looks at me that way. Warm and loved and safe… when none of that is true or real.
I’m an idiot.
“I engage in reflective listening to help you process your reality and discover the answers for yourself,” he says, his accent lilting and sexy.
“It’s not helpful,” I say.
He nods, like he agrees, but I know it won’t change anything.
I see a flash of something from the corner of my eye, but I don’t move my head to look. I’ve learned to avoid showing my hand when it comes to the ghosts that haunt this place. I don’t want them to know what I can see, what I can hear… what I can learn.
They aren’t the only ones watching and waiting.
I can watch and wait too.
“I have a surprise for you,” he says with a boyish grin that makes my traitorous stomach flutter.
“You’re freeing me?” I ask, but of course I know that’s not what he was going to say. I just want to deflate him as much as this place has deflated me.
It works; his smile drops into a disappointed frown. “I’m sorry, Celeste. You know we can’t do that. Not until we can be sure you’re not a threat—”
“To myself or others. Yeah, I know the company line.”
He stands, straightening his striped dress shirt as he does, and holds out a hand. “I’d still like to show you the surprise. It may not be what you want, but I do believe you’ll like it.”
I sigh, but take his hand. Mostly because all the drugs they’re pumping me with make it hard to walk on my own sometimes.
And not because I like the way his large hand feels wrapped around mine—which has become bony and frail since my time here.
I feel as if I’m made of bird bones, like I could be easily snapped to pieces by the smallest of creatures.