Asylum Bound

by Analeigh Ford

  I never stood for bullying when I was in private school so the last thing I’m going to do is stand for it now.

  Rather than shrink back, I stand up. I might not be as tall or as strong or have the same hold over this place as these three…these bullies do…but I have one thing they don’t.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I say, clenching my fist at my side. “So why don’t you three move along and focus on someone who isn’t going to be walking out of these walls while the rest of you sit here and rot.”

  The look Price gives me is something between pity and hate. Ives positively fumes at his side, but no one else moves.

  Price doesn’t stand up. He watches me from his seat now intently, the wheels of his mind spinning behind those dark eyes of his.

  “Three of us? There’s only two? Unless…of course…there’s someone else here with you that we don’t see?”

  Crap.

  “I meant two.”

  The voice inside my head cackles.

  You’ve been found out. Everyone knows you belong here now. Or if they don’t…they will soon.

  “Whatever you say. Just remember, the only delusion that has no place here,” Price says, “is the one you’re entertaining right now, greenie. The sooner you come to realize you’re here, and you’re here to stay…the sooner you can fall into line along with everyone else.”

  Ives leans in, his breath hot on my shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his agreement.

  “Well,” I say, holding out a hand so that Adelaide scurries out of her seat to stand somewhat behind me. She’s looking at her arm a weird way, and I’m a little concerned she’s about to chomp down on it right here, right now. “I’m not the type to take the easy way out any more,” I say. “You might have given up hope on ever getting out, but I haven’t.”

  I turn on my heel—or more accurately, the very soft leather soles of the flat slides that replaced my old stilettos—and march halfway across the room before Price’s voice floats over to me.

  “Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like you,” he says. His voice is low, so low that I shouldn’t hear it—but I do. No one else, not even Adelaide at my side, registers that he spoke at all. But when I look back, just for a second, he’s staring straight at me from across the room.

  “By the time we’re finished with you, greenie, you won’t even want to leave.”

  As soon as we’re outside in the hall, Adelaide turns on me.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  I ready myself to defend my actions, but then I see something that catches me off guard. She isn’t angry. No. The look that haunts her already gaunt features is far more unsettling.

  As if sensing something off as well, Jane slinks half behind the tiny girl. Adelaide snakes out arm out across her shoulders, even though it isn’t even able to reach all the way across.

  “Come on Adelaide,” I say, “It’s just a bit of fun.”

  “Maybe to you, it is. But for the rest of us stuck here to ‘rot’ as you call it, this is our lives.”

  See? Everything is already crumbling.

  “Adelaide! I didn’t mean it like that.”

  She just shakes her head again, and Jane tries to hide even further behind her. “There’s something you have to learn, Thalia. This place…the directors and the doctors, they just pretend they’re in charge. But the thing is, they come and go. But us, we stay forever.”

  “But—”

  “And whether or not you think you’re going to stay here forever, along with the rest of us,” she says, cutting me off but keeping her voice low enough that no one else might overhear, “you still have to follow the same rules as the rest of us. And the director might act like he runs this place, but he’s wrong. Price and the others…this is their house. The rest of us are just…”

  “Just guests,” I mutter. But I quickly shake my own head. I’ve been to plenty of private schools. I know these kinds of boys…all talk and no substance. I wasn’t afraid of them then, and I’m not going to be afraid of them now.

  “Even then,” I say, taking off past them towards the bedrooms. “What’s the worst they can do?”

  “I don’t know,” Adelaide says, the usual softness gone from her voice. “But I think you’re about to find out.”

  22

  Ives

  I don’t know what game Price is playing, and I don’t like it.

  But more than me, the creature inside me doesn’t like it. And at the end of the day, it’s that creature that rules, not me.

  Not even Price. No matter what he thinks.

  “What were you thinking, making a promise like that? Without talking to me or Kingsley, why not even Bentley…but with Silver, no less?”

  Price hasn’t turned away from the mantle since he told me of this new so-called agreement not to touch Thalia. Not even when Kingsley comes back. He just keeps staring up at that stupid painting of the ballerina, the ice melting in the untouched scotch in his hand.

  “I didn’t know I needed your permission,” is all he says.

  “Permission? This isn’t about permission.”

  Since he won’t turn to face me, I cross the room in three strides and wedge myself between him and the mantle. I’m keenly aware of how large I am. Too large. Dangerously large.

  And even Price, as much as he doesn’t want to acknowledge me, can’t ignore that either.

  “I thought you said you could hold yourself together.”

  He eyes me carefully, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing as he takes in my height—easily three inches taller than I was this morning.

  “And I thought you were watching out for us,” I snarl back. My pulse throbs in my neck until I think my blood vessels are going to burst.

  Price’s eyes glaze over as he looks back up at the painting. “Don’t you ever grow tired of it?”

  He swirls the ice around in his glass, lazily almost. It isn’t like him not to drink it. It’s a waste of good scotch, and for some reason, it makes me furious.

  “Tired of what? Of being here? Or of being a monster?”

  When Price’s eyes flick back over to mine, the pupils are slanted. Just for a moment, he looks back at me like a wily creature. And then he blinks, and his pupils are round again.

  I take a step back and look him over, shaking my head. “What’s going on with you lately? It’s Bentley, isn’t it? He always had a way of getting to you.”

  “It’s not Bentley.”

  “Then what is it?” I ask, my temper flaring again. I can practically feel the hair growing thicker on my arms, feel my teeth sharpening, my nails lengthening. “Why protect the girl?”

  Even as I say it, I remember a moment of my own. I remember her standing in front of me, her shoulders pressed to my chest as that monster of a man threatened her. The scent of fear was palpable on her, but she didn’t stand down.

  She didn’t run. Unlike the girl in her nightmarish story, she stood and faced it.

  For one confusing moment, I was prepared to too. I was ready to leap out and rip that man’s throat out. Kemper, was it?

  Just the thought of his face, his name, it makes a guttural growl form in the back of my throat. I don’t wait for Price to respond.

  “I wish Thalia had never come. She’s changed things. Upset things.”

  First Kingsley. Now Price. Even Silver’s up to something, which would be the most troubling if it wasn’t for the way my shirt feels too tight, or how my toes have started to curl at the ends of my shoes.

  “But come she did. And now we have to deal with her,” Price says. “At least there’s one thing we can agree on.”

  “Then why promise Silver we wouldn’t touch her?” I ask, stepping forward again. I have half a mind to swat that glass out of his hand. The way he’s swirling it over and over, the ice cube melting and turning the liquid a pale hue—it’s infuriating.

  Focus on that, I tell myself. Focus your fury on the ice. On the alcohol. T
hat’s where it belongs.

  Price shakes his head. “Even if Silver hadn’t asked, we still can’t do anything without Kingsley.”

  “Then bring Kingsley out,” I growl again. “You know how to.”

  Now Price looks at me sharply. “And take the risk? You know how he gets when we force him.”

  “But would that really be so bad? Tell me again, Price. What did Silver say?”

  Price’s lips form a thin line. “I can’t say.”

  “More like you won’t.”

  “Won’t or can’t…it doesn’t change the matter of the thing,” Price says. He absentmindedly lifts the glass to his lips, but he still doesn’t take a sip.

  I feel a buzzing in my head. The mucus in the back of my throat thickens. I have to measure my breaths.

  “So that’s what that was all about, back there in the billiards room? Just empty threats?”

  “They’re not empty, they’re just…postponed. Or different. You see how long she lasts here with the whole asylum against her.”

  “You’re going to do it again,” I say, but my voice barely sounds human. I keep my eyes fixated on the glass. On the ice. On the sounds of distant shouting, fists on flesh. My hands curl in on themselves, tucking the pointed tips of my claws into my flesh just like the first time, so many years ago. “You’re going to make us wait too long. You promised me it wouldn’t happen again, Price. You know it can’t be avoided.”

  “You’ll get your pound of flesh, I promise,” Price says.

  He finally tips back the drink, and I look on as the diluted amber liquid disappears down his throat. A long forked tongue snakes out after it, licking the rim in a long slow circle before darting back between his lips.

  When he looks at me this time, his eyes stay slitted.

  “Not Thalia. Not yet. But I have someone else in mind.”

  I feel my body still. My hands unclench. My toes uncurl. “When?”

  “As soon as Kingsley comes back to us.”

  “And if he doesn’t? If Bentley holds on to him much longer…I’m not going to be able to control myself.”

  “I won’t let it happen again. Not like last time,” Price says.

  “You better not. Because it won’t be like last time,” I say. Though my body has started shrinking, slowly returning to normal as the adrenaline fades from my veins, my voice still sounds rough as the animal I was about to become. “I don’t know for sure what will happen, but I can promise you…there’ll be no coming back from it if we wait too long again.”

  Price holds my gaze, and though he says nothing, I know he understands.

  Or he thinks he does.

  But all I know is that if Bentley doesn’t let go of Kingsley soon, I’m going to have to drag him out. I don’t care what Price says. Anything a frenzied Kingsley can do will be nothing compared to me if I don’t get to feed.

  23

  Thalia

  I wait.

  I wait for visitor’s day.

  I wait for my review.

  But more than anything, I wait for the boys who run this asylum to show me their promised punishment. All I get, however, is silence.

  Because it seems that whatever Price, Ives, and eventually Kingsley too, has in store for me, doesn’t matter. All that matters to the residents of Ashford Asylum is that somehow, I’ve betrayed them. By just hoping to get out of this place I’ve committed the ultimate act of treason.

  It doesn’t matter that with each passing day of silence, of therapy sessions, of long-winded analysis by an overly-zealous Dr. Silver, that little sliver of hope seems to grow smaller and smaller. The fact that I have any at all suddenly turns me into a pariah.

  A pariah among pariahs.

  You wouldn’t think I’d care…but everyone has their breaking point. Everyone grows tired of being invisible. Even here.

  “Alright, Adelaide,” I say, finally, after enduring a full week of silence. “I’ve been patient, but you can’t ignore me forever.”

  She was the most surprising.

  The rest of the asylum, I could understand. But it was her sudden about-face that struck me. As much as I don’t want to admit it I had started to consider her as something of a friend. At least, the closest thing to one in this kind of place.

  When she doesn’t look up at me from her seat at the table, I slam my metal tray of breakfast mash down and throw myself equally violently onto the bench beside her. Across from us, Jane flinches and looks like she’s about to cry, but Adelaide just keeps staring down at her untouched food.

  “And don’t you dare think of biting yourself to get out of this conversation,” I say, loudly. No one looks my way, not even the orderlies.

  I bet you wish Craven was paying attention to you now.

  “No, never that,” I snarl back.

  That gets Adelaide’s attention. As much as she tries to hide it, I catch her eyes flickering up to look at me before they flit away just as quickly.

  I know it’s a bad habit, answering the voices. But what else was I supposed to do when no one has said so much as a word to me all week? And the few doctors assigned to my so-called therapy don’t count.

  “See! I knew you heard me. Adelaide. Please. I told you I was sorry for what I said, but you can’t really be mad at me just because I still have a review coming up?”

  I swear every back in the room goes stick straight.

  “Shut. Up.” Adelaide doesn’t look up from her breakfast. She keeps pushing it around in endless circles. “You just don’t get it, Thalia. How could you?”

  “Get what? That this is some kind of weird hazing ritual? Some kind of…” I trail off. “Because that’s what this is, right? It’s Price, isn’t it?”

  Adelaide’s jaw is set. “You just don’t understand. We aren’t like you. We don’t have options.”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t ask to be here. Neither did you. Can you really blame me for trying to get out? Wouldn’t you want to get out of here too, if you could?”

  Adelaide’s eyes finally flicker up to mine. “That’s why you don’t get it, Thalia. There is no other place for me.” Her eyes cut over to Jane, then across the cafeteria. “For any of us.”

  “What is it with you?” Now, I throw up my hands. “What are you trying to say?”

  My voice is raised so that even now the orderlies can’t completely ignore me. I see a hand shuffle towards a pocket where I know a syringe is probably hiding inside.

  My heartbeat quickens. I should shut up. I should go. I’m probably overreacting, but something inside me is screaming that this is just wrong. And for once, I’m pretty sure that’s my conscience and not the…other…voice.

  “Adelaide!”

  She looks away from me, ready to ignore me again, and I raise my hand as if to strike her. I probably would strike her too, if it isn’t for the sudden strong grip on my wrist.

  Bentley’s breath on my neck makes my skin prickle.

  “You don’t want to do this, Thalia. Not now.”

  Bentley. I haven’t seen or heard from him since that day on the grass. I hadn’t thought about it much until now…but it reminds me of something Adelaide once said.

  You’ll get a lot of that here. People disappearing for a while…and then suddenly just popping back up.

  As much as I want to know what did happen to him over this last lost week…I refuse to look up at him. I’m too furious. I try to wrench my arm free, but his grip is too tight.

  “Yes, I do want to do this,” I hiss back. I catch sight of Craven finally caving and stepping away from the wall. He heads straight in our direction. Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see the flash of a silver needle in his hand.

  “No, you don’t,” he says again, his second hand reaching down to wrap around my waist. “You’ll thank me for this later.”

  Despite my wriggling, Bentley hoists me up out of the seat and throws me over his shoulder. The suddenness of it knocks the air from my lungs.

  “Don’
t worry,” he announces, loudly. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Before I can gasp in a breath to protest, he strides across the floor and out of the cafeteria as if it was a bag of flour slung over his shoulder and not a full-grown woman.

  I don’t get my voice back until he’s plopped me back on my own two—very unsteady—feet.

  “You—you—asshole!” I gasp between breaths.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You better be!” I snap.

  “I really am. Did I hurt you?” Bentley reaches out a hand but stops before he touches me.

  For the first time I glance up from where I’m practically doubled over trying to catch my breath, and I look at him.

  I’ve never seen a man look so sad. Remorse is written all over his face so strongly that even though he just humiliated and manhandled me…I can only stay mad so long.

  “Sheesh, Bentley. Stop it with the puppy-dog eyes already. If you’re going to kidnap a girl caveman-style, at least have the decency to let a girl hate you for it.”

  “Sorry,” he says, looking away as he rubs the back of his neck with one hand. His face has turned pink. “I hated to do it. You just…you don’t know what you were doing back there.”

  “I…” here I glance back towards the door and then shuffle a few more footsteps away from the memory of those silver needles, “I do know what I was doing. I was mad. I don’t know if you noticed…but everyone’s been ignoring me completely for the last week.”

  “I heard about that,” Bentley says. Something about how he says it makes me pause, however.

  “And you, what happened to you?”

  He swats away the question like a bothersome gnat. “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  “Fine then,” I say, stubbornly stamping one of the feet on the ground. “Then tell me what’s going on. Why the sudden shunning?”

  Bentley’s face looks pained again. “The people here. The guests…they don’t…”

  “They don’t leave, I know. I’ve been told.” I let out a huff of frustration. “Look, it’s bad enough to be here already. I guess I didn’t realize it could get worse than it already had. Even the bullying, Price, Ives, you…or Kingsley, whatever…I could handle that.”