“Not romantically you idiot. For fucks sake. Men and their superiority complex.”
She grumbled under her breath as Brooks tried to pull himself back together. She must have undergone therapy way before him if she felt well enough to sit up, bitch at him and throw a pillow at his face.
“You need to pull yourself together. They’ll be coming for us at sunrise, and we need to talk.”
He froze as dread filled his gut.
“Why are they coming for us?”
“Doctor Crazy ordered hydrotherapy. You know, to ease the muscle ache after hours of post-shock convulsions.”
“Right. Okay. And why do we need to talk? We hardly know each other– your words by the way. Kind of weird to be friendly now, don’t you think?”
“First of all–”
“And where have you been the past couple of weeks anyway?”
Her smile was mischievous as she said, “That implies you’ve been looking for me. Did you miss me, Brooks?”
He could have denied it. Could have ignored her, or lied straight to her face. Something about her, though, felt… companionable. Like they were one and the same. She was just as sarcastic as he was and, if he were one for assuming, just as broken.
“I have been looking for you, but only because I was intrigued by your dramatic entrance into the asylum. Not to mention your roof top escapades. Then you disappeared off the face of the planet and I got shocked into fucking oblivion.”
“Do you remember your intake therapy?”
“Random, but no, and I’m probably better for it.”
“That’s because you’re weak and happy to live in ignorance.”
“That fucking escalated quickly. Tell me how you really feel.”
Either she didn’t catch the sarcasm or ignored it when she replied, “I did. You have the ability to remember. You just don’t want to because it’s easier that way. I know what it’s like to have a dark passenger. It’s powerful and either it will control you, or you will control it. It’s chaos, but it is yours.”
Before he could form a snappy response, she continued, “Now go to the bathroom and get cleaned up. Seriously, I think you pissed yourself.”
Brooks looked down and, sure as shit, there was a large wet spot covering the crotch of his scrubs.
“Fuck.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s pretty standard with electro. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d shit yourself on that table, too.”
He had in the past, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.
Brooks stepped carefully from the bed and padded toward the bathroom. He used the wall to guide his way as his weak knees threatened to buckle. Each movement was agony, a result of the post shock convulsions that racked your muscles.
The infirmary was a large square room with beds lining both sides. The entrance was on the wall perpendicular to the beds, and the bathroom was straight across from it. There was a station dead center where two nurses normally monitored the infirmary patients, but they would have already gone home for the night. The orderlies would be in control now, and they weren’t the best at watching over the sick bay. What did they care if a patient died? Less work for them.
The walk to the bathroom was short. He stumbled in the dark to find the light switch and avoided the mirror once he flipped it on.
It was a basic square bathroom equipped with one toilet, a pedestal sink, and an acrylic mirror screwed into the wall right above it. Glass mirrors weren’t allowed in the asylum for obvious reasons, so something sturdier was used in its place. One light fixture was placed in the middle of the ceiling and burned the brightest, medical-grade white light possible.
Brooks leaned his backside against the sink as he studied the stain on his pants. There was a possibility he’d pissed himself, but his heart pounded as he thought of the other possibility.
He thought of the dream with his Siren and what they had done.
The dreamer was eager to remove the scrub pants to see if he could still smell her on them. Hopeful, even, because then he could prove that shewasreal.
Prove to whom, exactly? He wasn’t sure. No one in this hospital would listen and the likelihood of ever leaving this place and returning to society? Low. Very low.
