Page 1 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

Chapter one

I ’m not a psychopath. I’m not even insane.

If I were either of those things, my life would have been a lot simpler.

The mist parts. White wisps hang low, clinging to the inky waters and obscuring the violence of their choppy peaks. The sun is rising without warmth, without colour, like it doesn’t want to be noticed bringing in the grey day.

I can see out over the wide strait to the silhouette of Tregam's highest towers.

Back on the mainland, the city wakes behind the black smear of its industrial port.

Even from here, if the wind turns the right way, I can smell its acrid air.

That wind picks up, whipping up the bone-white cliffs that give this place its name, and buffeting everything on its edge, as though determined to pull what it can over the sheer drop.

And that drop seems a long, long way down.

I shove my hands further into my pockets and step back from the loose scree, my boots crunching over hardy, low bushes.

Voices carry to me on the whistle of the wind, and I look to my right, along the lip of the cliff.

A nurse from the far side of the asylum is guiding a bone-thin woman.

They both wear beige frocks that appear to have changed little in the 100 years since the asylum opened.

The patient looks to be older than me, and yet her nurse holds her hand.

When tugged back to the dirt path, she stumbles, but continues on with no more than a blank look out towards Tregam.

They take the track that winds down towards the village. I go in the other direction, taking the gradual climb up to Eternal Light Asylum.

Eternal Light. A place I never thought I’d be. At least, not voluntarily.

Had I stayed in Tregam, had I been convicted but not sentenced to the death penalty, I’d have been locked away in the East Ward of this place, the remainder of my days spent looking out over White Rock Island through thin iron bars.

Probably bored to death probably, and much too sane for the mad ward.

Outside of the East Ward, the rest of Eternal Light is pay-to-stay. A rehab home, where people, mostly from the city, come to get clean, get away, get sober, or get whatever they can't on their own.

The asylum is on the bare promontory that juts from this western edge of White Rock. As I reach the plateaued top, monolithic stone walls dwarf me, patched with newer, salt-stained stone. The structure is a gigantic Frankenstein of post-medieval castle, and practical, brutalist add-ons.

A small café clings to the wall beside the gatehouse, struggling to be a cheery counterpart to the mountain of stone and brick weighing down on it. I don't stop, only trudge past towards the open gate. Millie, the waitress, sees me and calls out, “John!” with a wave.

I wave back, lifting my head just enough not to be rude. Rain has started to spit, the drops sharp and cold on my face.

It’s been three months since I took a room in Eternal Light, and I’m friendly with no one.

They can’t know me, and I don’t want to know them.

Millie is young, her interest in me clear, despite where I reside.

How slim the pickings on this island must be.

She'd be better off some place that isn't slowly being chipped away at by a violent sea, some place where the main economy, besides an asylum, isn't seafood caught by an ageing population of fishermen.

Except, leaving never seems to occur to these people.

But, haven’t I chosen this too? To come here, when, in another life, this place would’ve become my punishment?

So who am I, to speak of choice?

***

There aren’t many conditions to living in the West Ward. There’s the curfew, and obviously, no drugs, alcohol, or sex. Talking to a therapist once a week is a requirement, though it has proved to be an exercise in futility.

Here, I'm John. Here, I have no past, and there is no future.

Which doesn't give a psych a whole lot to work with.

She folds her hands on her knees, as she often does during our talks. Her notepad and pen balance on the arm of her armchair, blank. Obviously, she knows I'm lying to her. Holding everything back.

Even if I wanted to; how could I tell her, or anyone, the truth?

"You don't just move to this island, and check yourself into the West Ward for nothing."

"No," I agree with her. "I've told you why."

Her lips purse against well-hidden irritation.

I smile. In some ways, her expressions remind me of Eleanor, or at least, how she'll be in a decade or two.

I wonder, briefly, if Eleanor is still on the force.

Still a detective. Part of me hopes not.

That she left behind the ghost of her murdering husband, the horror of gory crime scenes.

"A breakup," the therapist says, repeating what I've been telling her for three months. Her name is Charlotte.

"Yes. I was too attached to the idea of what the relationship was, rather than what it actually was."

"And how long do you think it will take you to get over this ‘breakup’? How long will you stay?"

I shrug. "A year, maybe two?"

"Then what? Will you move back to Tregam?"

I don't like it when she asks questions I don't know the answer to. I don't answer.

Charlotte sighs and considers me, tilting her head so that her straight blonde hair, just too long to be a bob, sways towards one narrow shoulder. "Are you happy?"

"Happy?" I ask, surprised by the idea for some reason.

"Yes."

"No. But I don't need to be."

"You don't need to be, or you don't want to be?"

I tap the wooden arm of my chair. This room is painted in a dark, calming blue, the chairs unholstered in velvet green. I wonder what this room used to be, back when the whole place was a madhouse.

Charlotte, figuring that I'm not going to answer, uncrosses her knees. Our hour is drawing to it's end. "John," she says it like she knows that's not really my name. I wonder how many false names she speaks in a day. "You feel you don't deserve happiness, that you deserve nothing."

I'm silent, but the muscle in my jaw twitches. The clock ticks to the hour. I stand. "Thank you, doctor."

The corridor is the antithesis of the dim, quiet health room.

The lights are florescent, and retrofitted skylights illuminate the wide hall, and the tiled floor reflects both.

A security guard is always on patrol, doing circuits that take them down this entire stretch of the western wing, around the corner to the south wall, then dipping down into the courtyard, and back up via the north stairs.

Over and over again. A separate guard patrols the east wing.

He's passing as I step out, and he nods to me as he goes.

I nod in return, watching his wide back recede down the hall before turning for my room.