by L V Chase
“Grandma,” I interrupt. “Calm down. I’m not getting locked up. I’m just visiting. I’m—”
“Shhh.” She grabs my arms, but her eyes sweep through the room. “Be careful about what you say. People are always watching us.”
I look around us. I don’t see a single surveillance camera in the room. Nobody is at the door. My grandmother shuffles past me, double-checking that the door is closed. She turns back to me, her hand rapidly patting against her cheek.
Now, she looks a bit more deranged.
“Do you have a plan to get me out, Sadie?” she whispers, sidling up close to me. “What’s going to happen?”
“No, Grandma,” I say gently, placing my hands on her arm. “You had a mental breakdown. They’re keeping you here until you’re well.”
She shakes her head slowly, pulling away from me. “You know I’m not crazy, Sadie. I don’t need to get well. I’m not…I’m not a patient here.”
“You aren’t well, Grandma,” I say. Maybe the staff was right. She wasn’t well enough to see anybody yet. All I’ve done is hurt her by coming here. “They’re just going to keep you here a little longer. Once you’re well, you can come home. We’ll celebrate with some ice cream or some takeout.”
“No, no,” she says. “You don’t get it. I believed the same things when they told me you had a breakdown. They told me that you broke down about your parents in the middle of school, and I believed them because I’d been waiting for you to let it all out. But now, I know. It was all…it was all a scheme. I—”
“I never had a breakdown, Grandma,” I say, concentrating on her bed, pushed in the corner of her room. The blankets are tucked in, just like she makes her bed at home. Apparently, insanity doesn’t override the need for a picturesque home.
“I know,” she says firmly. “I know that now, but they wanted to have you committed. It must be…it must have been for a reason. They must have done something to you while you were in here. Maybe that’s why you lost your memories.”
I look straight at her again. “You know I lost my memories?”
“Of course,” she says. “Forget about that. What you need to know is the Harringtons are behind this. Dr. Charles Harrington and his eldest son. It’s some kind of conspiracy. They’re doing something evil—”
“Grandma—”
“No, no, I know how it sounds. I’ve been thinking about it this whole time I’ve been here. How long have I been here?”
“A little over a week,” I say.
“I didn’t have any kind of meltdown, Sadie,” she says. “I was at home. Dr. Harrington came to the door. I served him some coffee. I don’t remember much after that, but they told me I had a meltdown at the grocery store. Campy’s Market. But I do my grocery shopping on Wednesdays. They say it’s the best day to shop because there are fewer people, and everything is well-stocked. They’re trying to say I had the breakdown on Friday, but I wouldn’t have been shopping on Friday. It makes no sense.”
I shake my head. I thought talking to my grandmother would bring both of us comfort when everything around me is on the edge of disaster, but talking to her now, I see she’s another layer to the chaos. She’s not going to get out of here anytime soon.
“Sadie,” she says, urgency making her voice strident. “Please just don’t trust the Harringtons. Please. I’m so, so sorry that I believed them when you were in the same position, but you need to believe me now. I’m not crazy. I’m not. I’m haunted by your father’s death every day, but I wouldn’t have a meltdown about it. I—just think about it. Do you remember when Dr. Harrington’s son suddenly started hanging out with you? He called the night before they took me here to check on where you were.”
Nothing she says makes any sense, but her voice is full of conviction, and when she looks at me, her earnestness is palpable.
“No, Grandma,” I say. “I don’t remember that. I lost my memories, remember? How did you know about that? Did Klay tell his father about it? Who told you about it?”
She stares at me. “What are you talking about? You lost your memories a month ago. I told you—I’m not insane. I remember what happened a month ago.”
I rub my temple. “You think I lost my memories a month ago.”
“You did. They kept you here to help you before you went back to school.”
I snort to myself, but as the absurdity of everything represses my fear of the hospital, an image presses into the center of my mind.
The mystery man with the blue plastic gloves with the blood on them. They were surgical gloves.
And there was that other memory—the one where I ran out into the rain, and he had followed after me.
Sadie, he’d said. I know it’s crazy. It’s insane. But it’s the truth.
I hadn’t believed him, either. I’d accused him of trying to break up with me by inventing lies. I’d been so consumed in the fear of him leaving me, it left nothing but doubt.
He told me, I love you, Sadie. I can’t stand it, but I love you.
He’d kissed me with an intensity that crippled all of my reservations. And I’d believed him when he said he loved me, so I had believed the insane thing he’d told me, too.
A new memory starts to push through. I’m in the hospital. In one moment, I’m nestled against the body of a man, and I’m feeling a mix of ecstasy from the orgasm and the steady, unwavering feeling of knowing he loves me. But in the next moment, I can’t move and all I know is fear. In this, all I see is a face, and it’s not Klay.
It’s Dr. Harrington’s.
27
Klay
“Could I get a patty melt and a cheesesteak?” I ask the cook.
He nods once, shuffling back into the hospital’s kitchen. In public, my father often totes the idea of how patients and their families shouldn’t have to worry about anything, so he’d aimed to create a diner that defied all expectations of hospital cafeterias. He accomplished it, but in private, he’s insisted that any expenses that don’t revolve around more advanced healthcare are a waste, and the fact that a cafeteria was considered a necessity is a sign that some people deserve to live less than others. And if anyone questioned his principles and the choices that grew out of them, he’d consider them an enemy.
I’m an enemy now. Before he’d left me in front of the diner, he told me that if I wasted this chance to use Sadie’s gratitude to get her to fall in love with me, he’d consider a more traumatic event to get Sadie to feel vulnerable enough to attach to me. It’s exactly why I didn’t want to come here with her—we’re behind enemy lines.
I’ve spent all of this time believing I could overcome our circumstances, but my actions always result in more suffering for the two of us. I don’t want Sadie to keep feeling like she’s a pawn, but the last time I told her the truth, my father kidnapped her and tried to force her into getting the surgery. Her memories were erased, and the stakes were raised too high. I can’t risk that happening again.
But I can’t let Ethan or Roman win.
The thought of either of them with their hands on her infects me, the virus triggering palpitations and a tightness in my chest. It’s all of the incubated rage my father passed down to me, exacerbated by the knowledge that without Sadie, I’m wandering through the rest of my life alone.
The only hope is infiltration. If she’s owned by my father, I can undermine him. I’ll have more time to come up with a solution. It’s a selfish, short-sighted choice. I can’t bring myself to think what would happen if he touched her.
The cook gives me the sandwiches in a paper bag. I pay for it and leave. I walk through the halls of the hospital. Negative memories branch off of this place.
When I was five, I witnessed a man brought into the ER with an iron rod piercing through his chest. When I was seven, I observed my first craniotomy, fascinated and disgusted to find out what was behind my skull. When I was eight, my arm was broken, and I told the orthopedic surgeon that I fell when I’d been trying to grind my skateboard down a st
airway railing.
My father watched the conversation, giving that surgeon his signature entrepreneur smile, and after we left, he told me that the surgeon was a Society member, testing my allegiance to them. I’d like to say I know that’s not true now, but I can’t be certain about anyone.
Except for Sadie.
Meeting her is the one good memory I have of this hospital. We met near the front doors. She was beautiful, and she was nervous, but most of all, she’d been consumed in how she was failing her grandmother by not being able to cure her. Her kindness cut into me, reminding me of how little I cared about other people. It angered me, it mystified me, and it revived me.
As I pass through the downstairs lobby, Vince runs up to me. He grabs onto my arm. I search his face quickly, seeing the widened eyes and the pale skin. Anger whips through me again. Someone has caused one of my family members distress.
“Leon was attacked,” he says.
I wait for him to expand on this information, but he only stares back at me. He needs me to lead him.
“Who attacked him?” I ask.
My thumb pushes down on my index finger, stopping before my finger breaks. I focus on the pain, so the anger won’t take over my brain.
“They were seniors,” he says. “Tom Heller, Aaron Wood, and Matt Hudson. I would have dealt with them, but they’re friends of Roman. It’s a gray area whether or not we can fight them, right?”
Roman told me he’d get revenge. I just didn’t consider he’d do it so quickly or aim for my brothers. Fucking worthless coward.
“How is he?” I ask tersely.
He blinks several times, thrown off by my avoidance of his question.
“Grade III concussion. Fractured orbital bone. Nasal fracture. A couple of teeth knocked out. Dad says that the concussion is the main concern, but he sounded confident that he’ll be okay.”
“Stay by him. Text me if anything happens,” I say. “I have to deal with this.”
“Are you going to go after Heller, Wood, and Hudson?”
Sadie or my family. The choice is always there, dogging my every step.
I shake my head. “If the police already know about it, they’ll deal with that part. This is Hunt business. I need to win this, and it won’t be a problem anymore.”
I clap his shoulder before walking away. I ride the elevator back up to the fifth floor. I lean against the railing. I could kill Roman right now. I’d been so self-centered when he threatened me. I should have known that he wouldn’t go directly for me.
We’ve proven time after time that he can’t win against me. He already threw away his last faithful follower, Greg, when he let Greg take the rap for drugging Sadie during the last Hunt. It would be difficult to find three people who would be willing to risk themselves and their family in the face of the Society. The Society, however, would care less about my youngest brother.
Vince could become a good legacy participant, so they might penalize a family for going after him, but Leon is less desirable to them—he’s impressive in his artistic ability and his quick wit, but he’s not as domineering as most participants.
I almost reach the room of Sadie’s grandmother when Sadie steps out. Her eyes are wet and her cheeks are flushed, but she gives me a small smile.
“Hey,” I say, stopping in front of her.
Her eyes search mine. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Sure, but I asked first,” she says.
I gesture with my head back down the hallway. “There’s a bench near the elevator if you want to talk.”
She nods. I lead her back to the bench. After we both sit down, I unravel the top of the paper bag. I hand her the patty melt, wrapped up tightly in foil. I take out my cheesesteak. She unwraps her patty melt slowly, her mind clearly occupied. She stops as she sees the sandwich.
“How did you know I liked patty melts so much?” she asks.
I peel the foil away from the cheesesteak. “I learned about it from when we were working on the biology project together.”
“Sure,” she sighs.
She takes a large bite out of the sub. We chew in silence. I should have bought us drinks. She plucks a string of cheese off of the foil and pops it in her mouth. “My grandma seems unstable.”
“She’s here. In the psychiatric ward.”
I take a bite out of the cheesesteak. Sadie looks famished as she attacks her sub. I don’t know any other time she’s dropped a question so quickly.
“Your relationship with your father seems a little strange,” she finally says in between bites. “I don’t mean any offense by that. I kind of understand because my relationship with my grandma isn’t as affectionate as most people would think it should be.”
In all of the time we’d spent together before her memory was erased the first time, we’ve never had this discussion. All she knew was that I despised my father, and when she found out about the Society, she connected my hatred to that.
“My father is disappointed in me,” I admit. “And I resent him.”
“Why? I mean, you don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.”
I shrug. “It’s fine. It’s just regular childhood things that built up over time.”
She focuses on her sub again. This is a part of her personality that I recognize. She doesn’t exhume people’s emotional issues for gossip or think she could use it to dissect my subconscious. Maybe it’s why I willingly gave her parts of myself that I’d usually kill and bury.
“My youngest brother is here,” I say. “I just found out a few minutes ago. Some kids from school attacked him.”
She sits up a little straighter. “Was it Roman?”
I didn’t want her to know that part. I should have remembered that she’s far more intelligent than the Society usually allows their Sacrifices to be. The last consequence they would want to deal with is their little lambs turning into lions.
“No, it’s just some classmates that hate him,” I say.
“Sure,” she says again.
In her own language, she’s telling me to go fuck myself. It’s a fair condemnation. She looks over at the elevator doors. She slowly folds the foil around her patty melt.
“Did you not like it?” I ask.
“It’s surprisingly good for coming from a hospital,” she says. She stands up. “But we should visit your brother.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. I don’t want to see him like that.”
She frowns. “It’s not about you, though, is it?”
Her tone implies she doesn’t mean it in a crude way, but it still stings. Altruism comes so easily to her while I have to constantly remind myself that I’m trying to be a better man. It was much easier to do when she knew I was trying to.
“Come on.” She offers me her hand.
Her nails have a faint gleam of nail polish on them. There are only a few chips in the paint, so she must have applied it recently—for the homecoming dance. It should have been a simple day for her, but we’d ended up tangled together, and she’d brought out the selfish asshole in me again.
After I’d felt her under my hands, trembling over me as her orgasm shook her, I was in denial, but I knew I’d never be able to give her up. I’d never let anyone keep her under their thumb. Even if she could find some spark of happiness with Ethan, I couldn’t allow it after having sex with her again. I wanted her so badly, all the morals she’d encouraged in me burned away.
I take her hand. She smiles at me, the curve of it enough to nearly make me forget the shitstorm we’re in the middle of.
“Where is he?” she asks, putting her sub back in the paper bag.
I wrap up my cheesesteak and place it on top of her sub. I crumple the top of the bag and pick it up.
“The Emergency Department,” I find myself saying.
She takes my hand as we step over to the elevator. She presses the down button. I keep my eyes on her as we wait for it. The doors open. When we ste
p in, she releases my hand, but I take it again as the doors close. She smiles at me, bowing her head and letting her hair fall like a curtain.
“So…” she says. “Can we be honest for a second? We’ve dated, haven’t we?”
My grip on her hand loosens. I can’t say I’m disappointed when her grip tightens.
“Are you seducing me for information, Miss Blair?” I ask.
Her cheeks flush, blooming like pink carnations.
“Um, no, of course not,” she says, tucking her hair behind her shoulder. “I was just…it seemed obvious to me at this point. The way…”
She turns her head away from me and mumbles the rest of her sentence, but I catch the word, touched.
I pull my hand away from her. She tries to tighten her grip again, but she’s not fast enough. I trace my finger over the curve of her shoulder and down her back. She shivers, more color rising into her cheeks.
“Yes,” I say. “For a short while.”
“It feels like it was longer than that,” she says. She looks at me, our eyes meeting. “It feels like I cared a lot about you.”
“I don’t know how you felt,” I say. “But you are important to me.”
The elevator doors open on the second floor. A family of four—two people in their thirties and two young girls—join us in the elevator, pressing the button for the fourth floor. Sadie moves closer to me, nearly hiding behind me. She steps a little closer, her chest barely touching my back.
“You haven’t been acting like I’m important to you,” she whispers.
“A lot has changed,” I say.
“What changed?” she asks, taking a step back. “Just explain it to me, Klay. I’m tired. Is what my grandmother said true? Is there some conspiracy you and your father are involved in?”
The couple in their thirties shoot us uncertain looks. The elevator doors open. I grip onto the paper bag tighter and take Sadie’s hand. “We can’t talk about this here. We’ll talk about it later.”
“Klay, my grandmother is in a psych ward, and she’s claiming that she was put in there without a good reason,” she says.