Whenever Dr. Kore’s clipped steps were but a whisper down the hall, Lytta turned to Brooks and whispered, “Whatever happens we will make it through together.” Her scarred throat bobbed above the wooden head hole and Brooks nodded.
Though their friendship was still new, it had blossomed and flourished at an alarming pace. Brooks didn’t have the energy to be concerned about how or why the broken girl had entered his life so unexpectedly.
Especially when he felt so close to losing it all.
Thatnight,Brookslayin his bed and allowed his imagination to run wild.
Would he ever get to sneak away to the rooftop again to see the stars?
Would he ever feel the pull of the alluring darkness between them?
If Dr. Kore had her way, she was going to take his life. Her tortures had been endless and he knew she was only looking for a reason to lobotomize him. It would be the ultimate way to deal out pain. She was a doctor, after all. If she wanted to prod his brain without killing him, she’d know how.
Lobotomies were unpredictable at best, but that didn’t mean he would die.
Brooks thought back to the countless patients returned to morning therapy after being missing for several days. Orderlies escorted them in a wheelchair and placed them right in front of the bay windows that looked out toward the greenhouse. More lively residents painted on easels or organized dominoes delicately into patterns. The patients in the wheelchairs, however, gazed out the window with their one good eye, the other covered in a bandage that wept red.
Those patients never walked again.
They never spoke again.
They never lived again.
That’s how Brooks knew Dr. Kore kept an eye on him.
He would never forget walking the greenhouse days after a session of electrotherapy with a fragile, brown-haired man. They pretended to pick flowers in an attempt to expand their time in the lush gardens. They both enjoyed the wall of black flowers and spent time brushing the velvet petals with hesitant fingers, careful to avoid any thorns.
They had good conversation, he and Brooks. Lighthearted with small touches of sarcasm in between. Toward the end, he threw paranoid glances over his shoulder. Brooks hadn’t paid any mind to it at the time. They were in an insane asylum, after all.
“Answer the darkness,” he whispered.
Brooks looked from the flower he grazed and met the man’s bulging stare.
“The darkness calls to you. Answer him.”
“What are you–”
“The darkness calls to you, answer him. The darkness calls to you, answer him. The darkness calls to you, answer him!”
On and on, his voice crescendoed with each word until the orderlies came and dragged him away, syringe in hand.
Brooks hadn’t seen him again until one day he was escorted to the bay windows and placed in front of an easel with an array of paints scattered about. The fragile man with brown hair was rolled in with a blooming red bandage. That was the first time Brooks had seen the results of a lobotomy, and it hadn’t been the last.
After the second, Brooks began to keep his distance from the other patients. If for some reason those people were being hurt because of him, it was easier to be a lonely asshole than it was to watch them lose part of their brains for talking to him.
Once they made contact with him, their lives were at an end.
Except… for Rue.
Brooks didn’t have long to ponder this before his door opened and shut with a quiet click. His heart raced as he shot from bed prepared to fight whoever had come to gather him for Dr. Kore.
When a small frame with erratic brown hair turned to face him, he was stunned.
“Lytta?”
“Come on,” she grasped his hand firmly in her own. “Come with me.”
“Lyt, where are we–”
