Asylum Bound

by Analeigh Ford

Or, at least, not quite.

  Bentley towers over me a minute, his hand relaxing its death grip on my shoulder as he continues to steer me away from the doors out onto the lawn.

  I have half a mind to scream for help, but something—maybe the way his hair falls into his face, the unsure look in his eyes, or the sound of screeching unrest outside—it stops me. This isn’t the boy that gleefully threw me down into the cellars last night. This is the boy that, as confusing as it may be, tried to defend me this morning.

  And right now, he also looks like he could be my ticket to avoiding those that are chasing me now.

  So rather than rip my arm away, I allow myself to be led away.

  “You really shouldn’t have done that,” he says, something close to fear in his own voice as he chances a glance around the corner.

  “I know,” I say, daring one quick glance over my shoulder as well. From this angle, I can’t see outside any more, but I can hear the echoed grunts of the scuffle still going on.

  I only allow myself to be led around the first corner before I dig my heels into the tile floor. I’ll not let him steer me all the way to the top of another staircase to throw me down. After all, there is some small chance this is all some elaborate ruse.

  That’s right, the voice whispers. Watch him closely, this one.

  I stop and plant my feet, my eyes roving over Bentley once more. This could all just be another trick, I know…but he does actually look like a different person. The physical changes might be subtle, but his vibe…the feeling he gives off…it’s like he’s Kingsley’s hopefully-less-evil twin.

  “I wasn’t about to just let them throw me in my room again. Not if I have anything to say about it anymore.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that. I meant earlier, with Price.” He straightens up a bit and peers back down the hall behind me. I don’t hear anything coming, so I resist the urge to follow suit. “Though I get that. We’re not animals meant to be caged. Even if your bedroom is better than solitary…it’s still confinement.”

  I open my mouth but find myself unable to respond. I didn’t expect this kind of sympathy from the same boy who left me a swarm of spiders earlier this week.

  Bentley continues in my silence.

  “Even though that little stunt at breakfast was the stupidest thing you could have done…it was kind of epic,” he says. There’s a certain breathless excitement in his voice that makes me want to let down my guard.

  “I’m going to regret it, I know,” I say. “I just couldn’t sit by and let it happen.”

  “Sorry about Price and Ives,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t know what Kingsley sees in them.”

  “Strong words for the man who left me quite the little gift earlier this week.”

  He cocks his head at me, a pained expression spreading across his features. “Oh no…what did Kingsley do? Was it the spiders again?”

  “Again? You mean he’s done this sort of thing before?”

  Bentley runs a hand across the top of his forehead, pushing his hair back away from his face and then letting it flop back down in a disorganized mess. “I should have known. So sorry. I thought he’d stopped doing that…thought he’d grown out of it…but obviously, I was wrong.”

  “You…you don’t know what you do when you’re Kingsley?” I squint my eyes up at him, still not ready to fully trust him. “So how does this whole thing work then? Like…are you Bentley or Kingsley?”

  He cocks his head and looks at me blankly. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean….” I think about it a moment before I decide that there really isn’t any way to ask another person about this sort of thing and still be polite. “Are you Kingsley, but sometimes you turn into Bentley…or is it the other way around?”

  He thinks about this for a moment. “You know,” he says, “I used to wonder the same thing.”

  “And?”

  He shrugs. “I like to think I, Bentley, am my true self. But ask Kingsley, and he’d probably tell you the same thing.”

  “If that’s the case…how am I supposed to trust you?”

  “I might not have Kingsley’s cruelty…but I wouldn’t tell you to trust me just yet.” Bentley’s eyes grow hooded, and a spark of mischief glints in the corner of his eyes. “I too have less-than-honorable intentions in mind.”

  In any other world, any other situation, I like to think I would walk away right here and now…that I’d never trust a person who could change into a terrible, cruel version of themselves on the flip of a dime. But this is an asylum. As far as crazy goes…it could be worse.

  And it could certainly be worse on the eyes.

  I am still a woman after all. A woman…I think as my eyes trail more slowly over Bentley’s attractive face and broad, well-formed shoulders…with a certain, undeniable affinity for dangerous boys. Blame it on my brother. Other girls have daddy issues…I guess I have brother issues.

  Same difference, right?

  So, with the sound of footsteps heading back inside, I let down my guard, just a bit. Even though I know it’s going to come back to bite me in the ass eventually.

  “So,” I say, “Where are these less-than-honorable intentions going to take us?”

  Hopefully somewhere near Dr. Silver’s office. I somehow doubt he’s here since I didn’t see him outside…but I don’t think I could find his office on my own. Also, I’m not about to tell Bentley my plan to take advantage of this upcoming visitor’s day until I’m absolutely positive it won’t find its way back to Kingsley. Or Price.

  Bentley perks up, and he offers me a mock bow. “I’ve got just the place where no one should find us. And while we’re at it…I’ll try to give you a proper tour. Once you’ve been here as long as I have, you get to know the place.”

  “But first…”

  The sound of footsteps and voices has grown louder. The mass of guests and doctors has started filtering inside, and it’ll only be a matter of time before someone turns that corner and we’re found out.

  But Bentley takes my hand and pulls me down the hall, through the dining room, and back into the kitchen. One of the cooks glances up at us, but she takes one look at Bentley and goes back to pretending she didn’t see us at all.

  “Just through here,” Bentley says, tugging me past a rack of pots towards a narrow, tiled hallway. The walls are so close together here, Bentley’s shoulders almost touch on either side. I have to ignore the creeping feeling of claustrophobia as I follow at his heels.

  The hallways lead us back around towards the front of the building somehow. I know this because I start hearing footsteps again just before Bentley puts out a hand to stop me as he pauses to take a listen.

  “Wait here a moment,” he says, then strides out of the old servant’s hallway without waiting for me reply.

  I keep my breaths quiet and try to listen for anyone headed my way.

  How many passages like this are there?

  I wonder how long I could stay hidden in them. I wonder how long someone else could hide me.

  Long enough for it to be too late before I’m found.

  I’m not left here long enough to dwell on that when Bentley returns just a moment later.

  “Come on out. The coast is clear. I think that orderly who’s looking for you is a little caught up at the moment.”

  “How can you…”

  “I saw him being carted off to the nurse’s office. He’s so tangled up in that lady’s hair, I don’t expect we’ll be seeing him for at least an hour.”

  “They won’t just cut him out?”

  “Not if the new director has anything to say about it. Apparently cutting guests’ hair is a violation of their human rights.”

  “Well, at least there’s that,” I mumble. “You can hold a person against their will, but you can’t cut their hair.”

  “You have to celebrate the little things here,” Bentley says. It makes me want to slice him across the face again.

  But since I don’t have my stilet
to-turned-shank on me at the moment, I just follow him out into the hall.

  Beside him, it’s like I’m invisible. Anyone who does happen to look our way quickly glances another direction as soon as they lay eyes on Bentley, even some of the doctors.

  To my surprise, he leads us right back around to the great hall. The rest of the guests and doctors seem to have dispersed, but that doesn’t stop me from hanging back a bit.

  Bentley, meanwhile, strides right up to the desk and greets the attendant there.

  She’s a younger woman with fiery red and orange hair that looks like it was dyed in her kitchen sink. She glances up at Bentley and at first looks alarmed. Then I see her eyes looking over the subtle shift in him and, to my surprise, she blushes instead.

  “Good morning Natti,” Bentley says, winking at her. She quickly looks back down at her work, but I catch her making sneaky glances up at him. He turns in a slow circle, arms outstretched and head thrown back to look up at the ornately carved ceiling panels. He only stops when he’s turned all the way round back to face me.

  “If the entrance to the academy is the face, I like to think of this room as the mouth,” he says. “It’s where we all come rushing out like vomit onto the lawn every day, and where greenies like you are first swallowed whole.”

  Despite the fact that his analogy is equal parts disgusting and disturbing, Bentley bounds off towards the hallway on the other side without being so much as fazed. I make accidental eye contact with Natti at the front desk and hurriedly scurry after him.

  I’m only a few steps down the corridor when I have to stop.

  I recognize this place now. We aren’t far from where he and the others, or more accurately I guess, Kingsley and the others, cornered me last night.

  “Where do you think you’re taking me?”

  It takes him a second to register what I mean. He looks back down the hall, and then at me, and then back down the hall again. He shakes his head so that his hair flops down even more in front of his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I forget, sometimes.” When he looks back up at me, his face is sheepish. “Between you and me . . . I think they had something nasty planned for you before I woke up last night,” Bentley says.

  “You mean worse than what you already did?”

  Bentley flinches a little, but he doesn’t try to correct me. “Yes.”

  “Is that normal?” I ask. “For you…I mean them…to torture the new patients?”

  Bentley squints up his eyes a bit. “Define normal.”

  “Touché.”

  Even so, Bentley steers me away from that hall and up a back set of servant’s stairs that lead a very roundabout way back to the landing on the second floor above the great hall.

  From up here looking down, the great hall suddenly looks smaller. The big double doors leading outside have been shut, leaving the dark tile floors to melt into the dim lighting. There are no rugs in the great hall, so every time a guest scurries by their feet echo loudly up into the second floor, their small white bodies always seemingly in a rush to go nowhere.

  The small landing on the second floor leads into another hallway, this one lit with long narrow windows looking out on the gray-hued lawn. Compared to the darker corners of this asylum, the pale light spilling across the carpet almost looks cheery. Or would, if it wasn’t offset by the appearance of Craven suddenly storming out into the hall downstairs.

  Bentley’s grip on me tightens, and before I can protest, he tugs me further down the hall and out of sight. For once, I don’t actually mind.

  “Oh god, sorry. I thought that would take longer.”

  He keeps steering me away until we’ve turned the corner, gone down another, smaller, flight of stairs, and can no longer hear the tap of my pursuer’s shoes on the tile floors.

  Even then, Bentley checks over his shoulder, opens one of the doors, and slips inside. He beckons for me to follow, but after last night I stop in the doorway to the dimly lit room and peer in only somewhat suspiciously.

  To my surprise, a murky swimming pool is set into the center of a concrete floor. It makes me think of the old images of Turkish baths; all dark green water, concrete pillars, and an intricate tile pattern that draws the eye to the middle of the pool. Something about it is mesmerizing, drawing me into the room in a way that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  Here in supposed safety, Bentley’s arms drop back down to his sides and he takes a step away, looking shy. Where Kingsley’s wild look makes him look more terrifying than attractive, the softness that comes with Bentley’s personality is . . . well . . . kind of intoxicating.

  I feel my guard dropping as soon as he looks back up at me with those wide blue eyes of his, and I swear, like the rest of him, they’re a darker, softer color today too.

  “C’mon,” he whispers. “He might come around the other way.”

  Up until now, I thought he was dodging the orderly entirely for my benefit, but one more glance his way and I wonder if that isn’t the case. It’s the nudge that I need to step inside and let the door swing shut behind me.

  Even though the pool sits empty and still before us, the room still echoes with a gentle sloshing sound. It’s both calming and eerie the way the surface of the water shimmers, like it’s hiding dark secrets beneath.

  Bentley rests his back against the wall and closes his eyes.

  “What did they do to you?” I ask, only letting a little sarcasm into my voice. I know full well what he did to me…and I’ve barely been here a week.

  He peeks open one eye to look at me through his dark lashes.

  “It’s not what they did…it’s what they will do. If one of them gets word back around to Dr. Silver, he won’t leave me alone. He doesn’t get many opportunities to meet with me, so when he does he gets a little…crazy.”

  I scoff, and then immediately realize my mistake when he looks at me. Whatever Dr. Silver has done to him…it isn’t a laughing matter. Exactly who I want to talk to right now…and Bentley here is determined to avoid him. If the look on his face is any indication, it’s probably with good reason, too.

  I lean my back against the wall beside him and tear my eyes away from the water to stare up at the cracked concrete walls.

  I know it’s crazy, but I feel comfortable here with Bentley. He might be one half of a dual personality…but I like him. This half of him, anyway.

  He’s the least crazy person I’ve met here so far. If I didn’t know that Kingsley was inside there somewhere waiting to get out and basically torture me…I’d think he’s just as normal as, well, me.

  We stand in silence for a long moment, nothing but the gentle splash of the water to fill the space around us.

  “So,” I say, swinging one leg to kick against the wall at my back. “What do we do now?”

  “Well . . .” he starts, and immediately I know something’s up. Suddenly he’s shirtless and I didn’t even see him move. “We could go for a swim while we’re here. Kill some time before one or both of us is inevitably caught.”

  And then, just as quickly, he’s dropped his trousers and stands before me—completely naked and unashamed. There’s no point in averting my eyes. He stands proudly before me, his manhood dangling between his legs like a trophy he’s excited to show off. And I see why.

  Warmth grows in my cheeks . . . as well as elsewhere.

  I finally do look away, but more for my sake than his.

  “Is it normal for them to just let you run around here doing whatever you want?”

  “Besides the fact that Kingsley, Price, and Ives practically run this place, regardless of what the directors and doctors say,” Bentley says, “this already wasn’t your typical asylum.”

  “Right,” I say. “The whole rich and famous thing.”

  He nods. “It really does make a difference. People pay a lot of money to keep this place away from prying eyes. It has some benefits…but also a fair share of drawbacks.”

  “Here we have it folks, t
he understatement of the year,” I say, using my best fake announcer voice. It echoes satisfyingly between the damp walls.

  “As far as being crazy goes, though, this is the place to be. Anywhere else…and I don’t think half of us would be allowed out of solitary confinement for a second.”

  “I’d rather just not be crazy.”

  “The thing is . . .” he says, trailing off a moment while he sticks a toe in the water, testing the temperature, “not all of us get to choose.”

  His words grip me with guilt.

  I forget, sometimes, just how lucky I am. I’m not really insane. I’m here on accident.

  Not everyone else has had that same luxury. Those same hopes.

  Or they did, once, but it’s slowly been wrung out of them like water from the wash.

  I feel my throat tighten a bit, and my breath grows shallow.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  I can’t tell the voice to shut up, not with Bentley here. I just have to focus on him. Ignore the voice.

  Thankfully, Bentley keeps giving me things to distract me.

  He’s started wading down into the dark water until all that remains is the very tips of his shoulders and head before he turns back to look at me. His arms float out to either side, buoyed by the water surrounding him. The soft lights catch on the surface of the water and reflect shifting patterns onto his bare skin.

  “You coming in?”

  A moment ago, I was ready to say to hell with it all and climb in after him . . . but his words have gotten me thinking. For all the fancy academies, all the haunts of the rich, I’ve never met a boy like him. Like, well, any of them.

  We are not the perfect spawn of perfect parents. We are the broken beyond repair, the embarrassments and tragedies; the sum of all the parts that don’t add up. We are what even money can’t fix.

  We’re all prisoners here. Some of us, more than others.

  Here, framed by water dredged up from the earth, Bentley looks like a lost little boy. There’s no sign of the cruel man who tormented me last night, and, I am sure—will torment me again when he gets the chance. One more look at him and I know I’m wrong. He’s not a boy.

  He’s far too old, too experienced, too broken for that.