“He touched me,” I say. It’s not a lie.
Ray’s gasping, sweat slick on his face. “She’s crazy— She attacked?—”
“She defended herself,” Doctor Callaway cuts in sharply. Her voice is quiet, surgical. “We can’t have staff endangering the program.”
He stares at her, disbelieving. “The program?”
She looks at me. I see it then – the flicker. Not fear. Calculation.
A rationalisation starting to bloom.
I step closer, fingers curling around the ladle’s handle. “Want me to take care of it?”
She exhales through her nose, long and slow. “Make it quick.”
I do. But I have fun doing it. And I leave the mess for someone else to clean up.Bye, bye, Ray. Rest in Pieces.
Later, I find her outside by the fence, cigarette trembling between her fingers.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” I say, taking one from her pack. She lets me. We share the silence, smoke curling between us like a secret we’re too tired to hide.
“Youshouldn’t smoke. Normally I don’t but it’s…been a day. It’s bad for the baby, Kayla.”
“With a mother like me, I think a little smoking will be the least of its worries.”
“You understand what happens now?” she says and I breathe a silent sigh of relief at the change of focus.
“Of course.” I flick ash into the dark. “You write a report. He slipped. Kitchen accident. Tragic, but preventable.”
Her eyes cut to me. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s efficient.”
She looks away first. That’s how I know I’ve won.
Hours later,when the corridors are empty, I wander. Bare feet. Quiet.
The supply room hums under low light. I open the door and run my fingers over labels:Sedatives / Sleep Studies / Transfer Stock.
A pallet stacked high with blue bottles gleams under the emergency light. I twist one open, dip a finger, taste. Bitter. Potent.
Enough to put down an army. Or an asylum.
I screw the lid back on, smile to myself, and whisper, “Dreams are better than cages anyway.”
The sound that answers isn’t the hum of the fridge. It’s laughter – soft, breathy, impossible to tell if it’s mine or the walls echoing me back.
I carry one bottle back to my room and sit on the bed, rolling it between my palms.
The walls hum with the static buzz of the cameras. There’s still one above the door; I can almost feel the lens blink. I look up at it, smile slow and deliberate, and hold the bottle up to the light.
A little shake – rattle of pills like tiny bones – and then I set it down on the bedside table, plain as day.
No hiding. No panic. Just proof.
“See?” I murmur. “You trust me.”
The silence that follows is thick and alive.
