She places her hand over her mouth, covering up a gasp, her earlier vibrato quickly evaporating.
“Be careful with him. Don’t get too close to Raven. He is just as bad as Dr. Martin. Okay, well close. He’s fucking crazy, Bianca. You should be wary of anybody who gets off on skinning people alive. I know he’s hot, I have eyes, but just be careful.”
I give up on my food, because everything I haven’t eaten looks disgusting, and smells even worse.
“My life was never sunshine and roses, but this is worse than anything I’ve been through.”
Reaching across the table, she places her hand over mine and squeezes gently.
“Just stay alive. Whatever is asked of you, no matter what it is, endure it. I promise you, one day we’re going to fucking blow up this hell hole. Until then, we survive.”
Despite her optimism, it’s not as easy as Heather makes it out to be. Everything here is hard. It’s not just the things that have been done to me. It’s so much more than that. The sounds of wailing that comes from the other patients’ rooms all through the night is its own form of torture. My compassion has me yearning to help them, but realistically I know I can’t. The cause of their pain haunts me nightly. Are they crying because of voices in their heads, or from something being done to them? I have to imagine I’m not the only one being hurt here.
At night, I hear Heather sobbing through the vent, chanting something that sounds like a frantic prayer. And I hear Raven too, on the other side of the room, counting backwards. Wellard Asylum is never quiet. This place is filled with endless pain and suffering. The worst part is, I can’t believe for a moment that nobody knows what goes on here. It’s easier to look the other way, and pretend you don’t know, rather than admitting you do,but do nothing about it. The judges that send people here must know, on some level, what happens within these walls. Does nobody ever sit back and wonder why there’s never a single release from this asylum? People come here, and disappear from a locked facility? And nobody notices? Surely they do. They just don’t care. People forget about the mentally ill, because it’s uncomfortable to see what you can’t understand. A woman talking to herself, a man with more personalities than you can count, let alone keep up with, the woman that stares at the wall like it’s a person. The list goes on and on, and no one helps them. The staff here cause more pain than anything else. Torture is not fucking treatment. It’s like the convent I heard about years ago, that’s only a front for abusing women. That’s what this place is. A fucking excuse.
I look across the room, and stop breathing, when I spot Dr. Martin walking toward me.
“My doctor is coming,” I whisper on a jagged exhale.
Heather squeezes my hand again.
“We survive. Tell yourself that in your mind as many times as you have to. It doesn’t matter what he does. You survive. Because if you don’t, the devil wins. So what are you gonna do, Bianca?”
As my heart pounds, I breathe, “I’m going to survive.”
“Therapy time,” he says, without even looking at me.
Sliding my chair out from the table, I get up and follow him, while chanting in my head.
‘I will survive.’
We walk down the hall in silence, the doctor ignoring the pleas for help from the patients screaming down the corridor. Opening the door to his office, he waves his hand in the open doorway.
“Let’s go.”
I walk into the room, scanning my surroundings to find they’re almost identical to the last time I was here, barring the large chair in the middle of the room. A massive pink dildo sits on top of it, upright like it’s been secured. I swallow hard as I stare at it, my stomach rolling.
“Get undressed, Bianca.”
“Is Raven coming?” I ask, and instantly regret my question. He nearly sprints over to me, and slaps me across the face with the back of his hand. I cry out, as I cradle the left side of my face, and try to dull the throbbing.
“When I tell you to get undressed, you do it. No questions. You do as you’re fucking told.”
I hate this fucking asshole so much. I’m not fond of Raven, either. He practically drowned me, but this man is my doctor. The Dr. Martin I know should be trying to help me, not hurting me.
As I remove my shirt, I say, “Didn’t you take some kind of ‘do no harm’ oath? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to promise your patients?”
He moves closer to me as I remove my pants, and places his hand on my jaw in a bruising grip as he tilts my head back, and forces my eyes to meet his.
“You put yourself in this position. This is your fault, Bianca. You are not a victim. Sullivan is the only casualty here. Taking accountability for your actions is an important step. Owning your crimes is crucial, if you ever want to be free.”
Shaking my head, I force my face out of his hands.
“If I ever want to be free? At least be honest, Alexsander. You have no intention of ever setting me free. You’re as sick as the patients you claim to treat. I bet you planned this torture long before my husband was dead.”
The corners of his lips pull up into a smirk before he answers, “You’re right. I don’t, and I did. I always knew you’d eventuallybe within my grasp. I just didn’t know you’d deliver yourself to me with such perfection. Trapping yourself in an insane asylum with me? That was a gift.”
Casting his gaze to the weird chair, he says, “Go get on the chair, on your knees.”
