“I just asked her who she was,” he said, turning around. It was like his body was in slow motion and so was his brain.
“Her name is Jayne, like I already told you about twenty times.” She sighed, rolling her eyes. “Mental patients. Can’t remember a dang thing.”
“I’m not a mental patient,” he said, sounding very much like one.
“Sure you are. So am I. So is she.” She pointed at me. “You’re part of the cool club for once in your life; don’t complain.”
I frowned. “Speak for yourself. I’m about to become a former mental patient.”
She looked at the doors and laughed. “You think you’re going to just walk out of here?”
I tried once more to call The Green to me, but there was nothing…still not even the sense that it was being blocked, like it had ceased to exist. So fucking frustrating. My big plan to show her I wasn’t messing around was totally in the toilet. “Yes,” I said anyway. Bravado is my friend when I have nothing left to my name.
She gestured at the corner of the hallway with her chin. “Cameras are everywhere, and a fatass security guard named Julius sits in a chair all night and watches the feed. During the day a woman named Clarisse watches…except on weekends when it’s Darvin and Dewan being the eyes in the sky. Big Brother is alive and kicking ass in this place, believe me.”
“They have to take a dump sometime,” I said.
She paused and tilted her head for a second. “Huh. I never thought of that.” She straightened up. “But how would you know when they’re taking a dump?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t figured that out yet.” But all I had to do was come up with some Ex-Lax and access to their food, and I could have the makings of an actual escape…
She pulled on my sleeve again and started walking, distracting me from my mad plan-making session. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I followed her somewhat reluctantly.
“Meet the others. Place your bets on the next episodes.”
“I don’t have any…carrots.” I really, really didn’t want the best part of my life to be about betting on Judge Judy with vegetables. My existence had to have more meaning to it than that. Oh, how far I have fallen… I had a feeling that if Red had a crystal ball to spy on me with, he’d be laughing his saggy, wrinkled ass off in that moment. I flipped a bird into the air, just in case he was watching me.
“You will. Trust me, you will. It’s their favorite side dish here.”
“I thought the favorite around here was Jell-O.”
“That’s dessert.” She paused in the doorway to the TV room. “Don’t worry, Jayne. You’ll get the hang of things pretty quickly.”
I stared hard into her eyes so she would fully appreciate what I was about to say. “I’m not going to be here long enough to get the hang of anything.”
Her smile was slight and sad. “That’s what we all said when we first got here.” She gestured into the room. “Behold…the mental patients.” She pointed to each person, starting on the left side of the room and moving to the right. “Maniacal Mary, Batshit Crazy Beth, Cuckoo Carrie, Demented Danny, and Zany Zack.” They all appeared to be in their mid twenties or younger, and they also all seemed pretty out of it. Not a single one of them looked over during the introductions. They looked half asleep, which was surprising considering how loud the TV was.
“What’s your handle?” I asked, enjoying the fact that they at least had a sense of humor in there.
“Looney Long.”
“I’m Murderous Mike,” said the tall guy behind me.
I slowly turned and saw him in a new and improved light. I took a step closer to Looney Long as I responded to him. “Please tell me you didn’t earn that one.”
He shrugged. “Not on purpose.”
I felt some of the blood leave my head. If the demons or witches keeping me from fulfilling my destiny as a dragon’s companion could lock me up in here against my will, surely they could spell an already accomplished murderer to end my life. That would really seal the deal for me and humanity. Fear gripped my heart as I realized once more that I was completely defenseless in this place without my weapons or my connection to the elements.
Looney Long reached up and punched the murderer in the arm. “Stop being so melodramatic. The guy didn’t die, he’s in a coma. Big difference.”
I tried to smile at her pep talk. “Hey, I’ve put people in comas before.”
“Awesome,” Looney Long said. And she sounded like she meant it too, which made me like her just a little bit more. Anyone in favor of me comasizing others was okay with me.
Batshit Crazy Beth looked up and scowled. “You’re interrupting the program. Could you shut your pie holes, please?”
I let the little looney bird lead me over to an armchair that was big enough for two. She pushed me down into it and then wedged herself into the space at my side.
“Uhhh…this is cosy,” I said. “Maybe you could sit somewhere else, though?”
She stared at the television and answered me without moving her lips. “Can’t have a private conversation from across the room, can I?”
My heart skipped a beat. For the first time since arriving here and meeting her, she didn’t sound crazy. It made me wonder what she’d done to get committed and what her deal was. I put my hand over my mouth and pretended to cough. “What’s up?”
She did her ventriloquist act again. “I’m going to cause a fuss. Then you’re going to go sit in the corner and pretend to be scared. I’ll join you there, and we can talk.”
“A fuss?” That was all I got out before she was leaping from the chair and running over to the couch. She grabbed the back of Batshit Beth’s head and Cuckoo Carrie’s head and clunked them together like a couple of coconuts. It was obvious as hell that she’d done it, but it was like the victims never saw her. The two women turned on each other with screams erupting and fingernails extended. Pandemonium ensued.
I leapt out of the chair and ran to the corner of the room, crouching down into as small a ball as possible. I wasn’t faking being scared either; I was pretty sure furniture was about to start flying, and the last thing I needed on my plate was a concussion. I was soon joined by Looney Long, and she spoke fast while also ducking down.
“This is the only way to say shit people won’t hear. The microphones around here are very sensitive and they always break us up when they see us talking too much. Cover your face and mouth.”
I did as I was told, and she did the same as she continued. “Visiting day is two days from now. You need to be a good girl and follow their program to the letter or you’ll never be allowed to see anyone.”
“What if no one’s here to visit me?” I highly doubted my mother would bother.
“They have to. Whoever put you in here has to come see you the first week. It’s the rule. They want to evaluate your relationship.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I moved my hands away from my eyes and stared at her, wondering what her motivation was.
“I don’t know. I just got a feeling about you.” She glanced away, taking in the view of our fellow mental patients running around the room yelling and throwing things. They looked way more entertained by their mass freakout than they had been by Judge Judy.
“My mother put me in here, but she’s not going to change her mind and let me out,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter. You get to take a walk outside, just the two of you. There are guards and cameras, but there are also blind spots. That’s your only chance to get away. And it’s the one time you’ll have before they start really drugging you up…or worse.”
My chest went suddenly very cold. “Worse? What could possibly be worse than being drugged up and stuck in here?”
“You don’t want to know.” She actually shuddered.
“I’ll get you out,” I said, grabbing onto her wrist. “We can go together.”
She held my hand steady against her skin and looked me in the eye. “I’m never
leaving here. Trust me. I’m a lifer.”
“Why?” She seemed mostly normal to me, especially now that she was the only person in the entire universe giving me a chance at freedom. It was like she was the only sane person around.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the sound was cut off when the shouting suddenly got louder. Big guys in white appeared—more orderlies—and two of them had Tasers. Murderous Mike went down first, shortly followed by Demented Danny. Looney Long stood up and turned to face the crowd.
“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to grab onto her hand and hold her back.
“Going to face my demons,” she said, looking down at me. “They know I started the fight. Cameras, remember?” She pointed to the ceiling where a dome-enclosed surveillance device rested. “Time to pay the piper.” She walked over slowly and was grabbed roughly at the back of her neck by the skeevy guy who’d come into my room earlier. She was pushed out the door, and I lost sight of her and the rest of them as they were escorted away.
I stood and faced the last guard head on, trying to look as innocent as possible.
“You gonna give me trouble?” he asked. He was a chubby guy wearing a uniform that made him look more like an overweight cop than a mental ward bouncer. He had handcuffs and a nightstick attached to his overworked belt, and I had a feeling he wasn’t afraid to use them at the slightest provocation.
I took a stab in the dark. “Are you Julius?”
“Yes, I am.” He nodded once, eyeing me warily, his breathing labored.
“I’m Jayne, and I’m not here to cause any trouble at all.” I held my hands up in surrender.
He gestured toward the door. “Good to know. After you.”
I hesitated. “Where are we going?”
“You’re going to your room, and I’m going to lock you inside.”
This place is a friggin prison. “What if I have to take a whiz?”
“You can ring the call button by your door and someone will escort you out.”
“Okee dokee.” I kept my eyes on the floor as I walked past him. I almost expected to get beaned in the head or the spine, but he kept his distance and his nightstick to himself, thank all that is holy. I went dutifully back to my assigned room and perched on the bed as the sound of the lock clicking into place filled my ears. I stared at the empty space across the room and attempted to put together the pieces of what I’d learned.
Apparently, Looney Long had decided she wanted to help me for whatever reason. She said she’d had a feeling about me. Maybe she had fae blood. Perhaps somewhere deep down inside her, she recognized me as the Mother of all fae. That would make some kind of sense, at least. Then again I’m supposed to be crazy, so maybe it doesn’t make any sense at all. I pushed that horrid thought out of my head immediately. No fucking way was I going to start buying into their crap. I was as sane as a person or fae could possibly be, and nothing they said or did to me would change that.
According to my new best friend, my chance at escape was a one-time deal, and it was going to be here before I knew it. It didn’t sound like she had any intention of trying to go with me when I took off. I felt bad about that. What could she have going on that was so bad she thought she needed to stay in this prison for the rest of her life? Mission number two was to find that out before I left. Maybe I could convince her it wasn’t that bad and she could leave with me.
So much could happen between that moment and visitor’s day to get me in trouble and get taken off the allowed-to-have-visitors list, I didn’t even want to think about it. My only hope was to stay out of everyone’s way and make all these jackasses think I was toeing the line. I looked at the notebook sitting on the table next to my bed. There was a tiny pencil like you’d see at IKEA sitting next to it.
So…this Doctor Aleman chick wanted me to journal my shit? Fine. I snorted. I’ll journal my shit. I’d give her every single last detail so she could take it back to her office and laugh about what a looney bird I am to be believing in fae and magic and the power of the elements. I wasn’t going to hide who I was and what my real life was all about. I wasn’t ashamed of being fae, and I wasn’t about to play their game to the point that I lost track of who I was. That would be like throwing myself right into the arms of the fates and witches who’d put me here. Oh, they were going to be so very sorry when I was finally free of their spells.
On visitor’s day I’d make my move and get as far away from this place as possible, as quickly as possible, by whatever means necessary. I’d get to Miami, find Jared, and tell him about the fae compound and all its secrets, and he’d have to believe my story about having been time-slipped, because otherwise how would I know everything I do about his world? And maybe somewhere along the way we could find a witch that could help me reconnect with the elements.
It was a perfect plan that hinged on me being able to get around a sophisticated security system, an unknown number of burly guards, and a landscape I had absolutely no familiarity with…oh, and I’d have zero magic or connection with the elements to help me. No fucking problem.
My heart filled with the warmth of hope for about two seconds before the door opened and a guy in white came in carrying the limp form of my looney friend. He put her down on the bed and strapped her in at the ankles and wrists. The guard rails on the side went up too.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked. It made me queasy to see such a small, seemingly nice person treated in such an undignified way.
He didn’t respond.
“She’s completely knocked out. How much trouble could she possibly get in?”
“You’d be surprised,” he said, before he finished the job and walked out the door.
I sat across from her and stared, wondering if I should free her or wait to see what kind of lunatic I was really sharing a room with before I did anything stupid.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LOONEY LONG STAYED asleep for so long I fell into dreamland waiting for her to come out of whatever they’d jacked her up with. When I awoke, she was gone. I had no idea if someone had freed her from her bindings or she’d done it herself, nor how many hours had passed since I’d basically passed out. The sun was up, though, and its light was being filtered through the nasty dirty window of our room. There was a note on the side table next to my bed: Group therapy session at 10:00 a.m. It looked like it had been written by someone official with very nice penmanship. Apparently, I’d been asleep for longer than I’d realized. At least that meant the hours were passing by fast, getting me closer to the day of reckoning.
I left the room in search of a toilet, food, and a clock. My stomach felt like it was a bottomless pit that hadn’t seen sustenance in a week. The TV room had the toilet and a clock, and I realized after I was done doing my business that I had fifteen minutes before I had to report to kiss-ass class, otherwise known as group therapy. My stomach growled loudly.
A woman’s voice coming from the doorway surprised me. I spun around to see Doctor Aleman there wearing her uniform of a white lab coat over a navy blue dress and sensible black heels. “Have you eaten yet?” she asked.
I shook my head no.
“Follow me. I’ll bring you to the cafeteria.”
We went through the double doors that were locked; she used a plastic card placed against a black box to release the mechanism that kept us patients on one side and the nurses on the other. As I passed doorways in this second hallway, I looked into them. Many of the rooms were empty, but some had people in hospital beds hooked up to lots of machines. They weren’t moving. A chill ran through me when I considered that this might be what Long had been referring to when she said The Establishment could do worse things than drugging me up. Oh, hell no. No friggin way am I down with any shock therapy or a lobotomy or whatever is going on here. This fae girl is most definitely flying over this cuckoo’s nest.
We passed the nurses’ station, made a left, and were soon in a larger room that apparently served as a cafeteria. There were six round
tables with plastic chairs around them and signs that I’d missed a meal—empty plates, crumbs, and tipped over styrofoam cups.
“Don’t worry. Once the medications are calibrated properly for you, you’ll be able to get up in time to eat with everyone else.”
I held back my response: Fuck your calibrated medicines. I won’t be here long enough for you to chemically lobotomize me, bitch. I just smiled and smiled, acting like I would be happy to have her take my personality away and turn me into a carrot-betting Judge Judy zombie.
She took a plate from a cart that had something on it that may have resembled scrambled eggs and toast a few hours ago, but at this point looked like a bathroom accident. “You can take an apple from that bowl over there too, if you’d like.” She placed the plate on the nearest table and pointed at the door. “Group therapy is just down the hall to the left. We’ll leave the door open, so you can hear us. See in you ten minutes.”
She was almost to the door when I spoke. “And if I’m late?” I couldn’t help myself. I mean, what the hell…she was giving me ten minutes to ingest this…muck?
She didn’t even turn around. “You don’t want to be late.” She reminded me so much of all the bad fae I’d come into contact with, it made me shiver with a serious case of bad omen-itis.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“HERE SHE IS,” Doctor Aleman said from her seat as I walked into the room. All the patients were sitting in a circle in blue plastic chairs, with Doctor Aleman nearest the windows. There was an empty chair next to Long, and my roommate patted it. She looked no worse for wear after her night of drugged out stupor.
I took the seat and folded my hands in my lap. My plan was to pinch myself anytime I was tempted to open my mouth. As far as I was concerned, group therapy was for mental patients, and I wasn’t one of those. I was there to listen, that was it. And in another day’s time, I wouldn’t be there at all.
“We were talking in our last group session about the richness of fantasy worlds and how we use them to help us deal with the anxieties and stresses of our daily lives,” Doctor Aleman said. “Long, you were saying that you like to pretend you’re a dragon sometimes…”