Icanthink of my wife. I can think of Niklaus as a little boy, the same age as Renly.
“Renly,” I choke out. “Close your eyes, son! Think of the minnows!”
Renly nods frantically, throwing his little hands over his face as he sobs. And with a furrowed brow, he goes somewhere else in his head. Somewhere with cold creek water, his father, and the minnows.
34. The Emerald Lake Asylum
Niklaus
I used to wake upin the middle of the night to my dad screaming for help.
Peeking through my parents’ door, I’d watch my mother hold him in tears. Telling him that the asylum is gone. He’ll never see the inside of those walls again. She’d kiss his temples and remind him of good memories. Remind him that Meridei is gone. Remind him that the hose they would use to spray him with cold water is gone.
Aunt Skylenna burned it all to the ground.
But as I stand here in the shade of this spring afternoon, that is no longer true.
The Emerald Lake Asylum is a living, breathing vessel. An evil conduit of torture to the mentally ill. And it mocks our generation by standing here, gawking down at us like insects.
My lungs feel heavier as I study the backside of the architecture.
Haunted. Gothic. Deadly. Sinister.Evil.
It’s like looking into the abyss of the ocean. The asylum is looking back at me. It recognizes me.
Vines crawl up its pillars. The garden is well-watered. The gray statues and fountains are blotted with moss and slimy algae. Lily pads in the pond. Rose bushes. A perfectly cut lawn.
“I don’t want to be anywhere close to this place,” Sapphire mumbles, mesmerized by the same scenery I can’t look away from.
“We’re fine.” Though I don’t believe my own words.
Sapphire pins me with two daggers, scorching me with those heterochromatic eyes.
“Do you see my body?! I’m not skinny like the women here! I’ll get thrown into the female ward for not keeping up with the dietary standards!” Genuine disbelief at my naïveté parts her lips.
I can’t help my gaze trailing down her curves. Even in that black ballgown, her breasts swell over the top, her hips and ass are full and…
I turn away, grinding my molars together.
“You look a hell of a lot better than forcing women to achieve the skeletal look,” I say.
Sapphire narrows her eyes at me, blinking in surprise, wondering if I just complimented her. Did I? My gaze falls to her breasts again.
Fuck.
“They’d take me in a heartbeat.”
A spike of anger hits my lungs.I know they would.
Curtains fly shut in a window on the third floor. I lean against the black iron gate to watch that window for movement again.
“What is it?” Sapphire asks.
I watch the back of the asylum for additional movement. None.
“I thought I saw something.”
“And I thought I saw Adam and Eve standing in the garden of Eden at the sight of you two.” My eyes shoot to a man sitting on a stone bench under a tree to our far left. “But I suppose that’s what happens when I read Genesis 3:1-24 for the sixth time today.”
