Blueberries forgotten, he stared across the room at the most broken woman he had ever laid eyes on.
Angry, mottled scars decorated her exposed skin like violent paint splatter on canvas. Crosses and deep gashes spider-webbed across her wrists and biceps, some long healed and others still puffy and pink.
What drew his eye, though, was the scarring that spread up her neck like veins of lightning, the flesh raised and violet like it never fully healed. Over top of it was one angry slash from ear to ear.
Her high, pixie-like cheekbones were as strong as steel and the fire in those cocoa eyes pooled like lava. Her pouty lips were blossom pink and her long brown hair fell in luminous messy waves down her back.
He wondered why she had been allowed to keep it long. All of the other residents, male and female alike, were forced to keep a shorter cut so that it wouldn’t get in the way of medical intervention during an outburst.
Or, fucking forbid, lice.
The hair raised on the back of Brooks’ neck as a tingle of awareness washed down his senses.
His eyes flicked up to meet her deep, assessing stare. Heat flared in his cheeks, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away from her espresso eyes. There was something unnerving in their depths.
Something broken.
Detached.
Not a single hair moved on her body, no obvious rise or fall of the chest, but she was tense as if poised to bolt at the sound of a pin dropping.
Bolt… Or maybe fight.
“Like calls to like,”a whisper brushed his ear.“We needed her, and she has given herself to us. Do not let it be in vain.”
As their eyes searched each other like starving beasts, something flared in her gaze and her entire body went stiff as stone.
She stood, her movements quick and jerky, and made a beeline toward his table with her mouth opened in a wordless scream.
Brooks couldn’t move, his limbs paralyzed in anticipation for their collision. He wasn’t sure whether he would run from or toward her given the chance.
His eyes tracked each hurried step she took, fury written across her features. She was a fucking storm hurtling his way and he was helpless to avoid the disaster she wrought.
Pandemonium ensued.
The asylum was on the fringe of chaos, but all he could see was the woman forcing a path straight toward him. Time stood still as the tips of their toes met. Ringing filled his ears as her hushed breaths stirred the hair along his forehead.
She reached out and the moment her scarred hand touched his cheek the expanse of the universe imploded with a shudder. Words froze upon their lips, and the darkness within their souls rejoiced.
The air chilled as that baritone voice skated across his psyche,“Like calls to like.”
“I’m home,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “I’ve finally come home.”
Time started back in a whirlwind as shouts erupted around them. Orderlies rushed the table from all sides prepared with loaded syringes. By the time he realized what was happening it was too late to stop it. He couldn’t pull his face from the scarred hand caressing his cheek.
He didn’t move. Didn’t try to fight the inevitable. Instead, he used his last conscious seconds to decode her look of wonder before the needle plunged into his thigh.
***
His traitorous body refused to move as his mind swam in a drugged haze. Only one thing was for certain– he was lying in a bed.
Whose? Probably his own. Hopefully not the infirmary.
Everything else was to be determined.
Brooks attempted to move his limbs but to no avail.
Alright,he thought.If this is how it’s going to be…
