“But then, there was that little voice in your head, wasn’t there? Saying,What if his words become actions?” He’s cornered her like a wild animal that has been set free in the asylum, and she has nothing to defend herself with.
His final step is a chain around her wrists. And her complexion is no longer that of peach ice cream—the back of Dessin’s fingers caress her moist, gray cheek.
“You see, I have no intention of entertaining visitors today.” He smiles. Polite, yet masking aggressive intent. “I promise to make this less painful.”
Without even so much as lifting his hands, she faints, body tumbling to the floor like rocks from an avalanche.
The booming sound of the metal door swinging into the stone wall forces a shriek out of me. Two orderlies in gray scrubs widen their stances as they scope out the scene, running their frantic eyes over Suseas’s limp body. But they are not quick enough. Dessin is an arrow in the wind, in two short strides, a guard flies over Dessin’s shoulder and drops unresponsive to the floor, just as the other guard slides down the wall to our left with blood trailing after him.
I’m swaying like a ship in a hurricane, a fine cocktail of adrenaline and shock coursing through my veins.What just happened? Why the outburst? What went wrong?
There’s an echo of jingling bells in my ears. I need to lie down, rest my head, close my eyes until I’m able to make sense of this.
A set of large hands wrap around the backs of my arms.
“I know you don’t understand why, but I can’t be here. At least, not right now.” Dessin has stopped, the motion warping my stability. He’s searching my eyes. Squeezing the backs of my arms desperately.
“But—”
“I’ll come back,” he assures me.
I wait for an explanation, but he doesn’t offer one. I should try and stop him, talk some sense into him after this outburst. And maybe it’s because I know what happened when Sern got in his way, but something tells me it has nothing to do with fear.
I nod, and he practically dissolves into the air.
Chaos forms down the hallway, screams, metal trays hitting the floor, and words of panic and rumor passing from person to person. I decide I should join the other conformists to help calm the tension and help him do what he needs to do so no one else gets hurt.
I sprint, careful not to slip or trip over the orderlies that stood in his way. They aren’t dead,thank God. Most of them struggle to get off the ground as if the air had been knocked out of them.
Council Member Martin exits the stairwell, blasting through the door with hands running through his short black hair. “My God!” His hands reach out as if to touch the pane of glass he’s watching this mess through. “Is there something in the water? What has come over all of you?!”
An orderly approaches Martin from the mass of people running in separate directions and whispers something in his ear. Martin’s face falls, darkening with fear disguised as anger. He reaches under his vest to fetch a double-edged knife, shouting to the orderlies to draw their weapons and retrieve the gas masks.
Gas masks?I’m instantly reminded of the brutality that encompasses the best practices of this asylum. I can only imagine with great hesitation what their process is for capturing a stray patient. I have to quell this now.
I shuffle through the maze of individuals in their navy-blue dresses, pushingpastthe ones that are standing in shock as they are told that Patient Thirteen has escaped and breaking through the arms that reach for me, desperate for me to share what I know. I use my body as a roadblock to keep Martin from taking another step, holding my hands up in protest.
“Sir, there’s no need to panic. If you can give me a moment to explain—”
Martin’s squinty eyes flash to me in disgust. “You.” He gives me a quick up-and-down look. “Did you have something to do with all of this?”
“No, sir. But I was in the room and saw what happened.”
“Didyouset him free?” he accuses, breath expelling foul whiffs of old coffee.
Are you not hearing me?“No… But sir, you need to get everyone under control first, and I can get him—”
He snorts. “You’re telling me how to handle operations?” His jaw suspends in offense, elongating his potato face. “Do you even know who I am? How dare you!” His right arm winds across his body, showcasing the back of his hand before he barrels down to strike.
A powerful scream blasts like a fire alarm from behind me, and a tan arm shoots forward, snatching the back of Martin’s hand midair, just before it makes contact with my cheek.
Dessin broods at my side, arm flexed and veins swelling under his skin.
He came back.
“I’ll thank you kindly to keep your hands off of my conformist,” he says, his rugged voice quieting the panic in the room like a theater. “You wouldn’t want me to lose my temper.”
Martin shares the same look of stress that Suseas had earlier.
