Something clatteringonto the floor wakes me.
“What happened next, Mr. Lawson?”
The question echoes as I blink multiple times, trying my best to get used to the bright lighting.
The room is covered in white.
White walls. White table bolted to the floor in front of me. The chair I’m restrained to iswhite. The metal digs into my spine like it is designed to remind me that I’m not going anywhere.
Across from me, a man in a doctor’s coat picks a pen up from the ground.
That was the noise I heard.
His hands are folded neatly on a clipboard, pen poised as he sits patiently.
He can’t be any older than forty-five. His beard is highlighted with silver and his hair is the same.
My eyes shut as the throb in my head worsens.
Images try to surface. The creak of the warehouse door opening. The cold air drifting through my mask onto my face. The echo of footsteps behind me.
Chloe.
Then nothing.
My eyes open again.
“Where am I?” My voice scrapes out, gravelly and strained, like I hadn’t used it in days.
The man then makes a small note on the paper that’ssecured to his clipboard. “You’re safe,” he says calmly. “You’re at Beacon Psychiatric Facility.”
The words process through my head normally at first before I fully realize what he just told me.
Psychiatric.
My pulse pumps in my neck as I glance down at my hands.
Faint yellowing bruises circle my wrists like I’ve fought to get out of the restraints that were wrapped around them at some point.
“How long have I been here?” I press.
He glances up from his notes. “You’ve been here three weeks, Mr. Lawson.”
Three weeks. No, that isn’t possible.
“I didn’t-” I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.
He continues to explain.
“You were brought in after an incident,” he explains carefully. “You were found disoriented, covered in blood that wasn’t yours, repeating the same sentence over and over.”
My stomach drops.
“What sentence?”
He met my eyes then.
“You kept mutteringit wasn’t me.”
