Page 3

THREE

ROSALIE

T he room they stuck me in wasn’t anything fancy. Everything was decorated in white with a small bathroom attached. They’d said that I’d be forced to stay in here at all times of the day with the exception of counseling and group therapy until they felt like I wasn’t a threat to myself or to others. I hoped that it was just normal protocol for new patients, but deep down, I knew it wasn’t. No one believed me.

On the bright side, Mom had come through on her promise to bring me more clothes. But on the downside, they weren’t my clothes. I’d sifted through them after my shower earlier this morning, only to be left with a feeling of dread. She’d brought me tons of skirts and revealing tops that she must have pulled from her own closet. Hell, maybe the neighbor had given them to her, considering my mom never wore anything other than a robe or a T-shirt these days.

In the end, I’d opted for a black and white plaid skirt that brushed along the top of my thighs, pairing it with knee-high stockings in an attempt to cover as much of my skin as possible. The shirt I chose matched the rest of the outfit well. White polyester with a flaring collar and three buttons down the chest area.

Anxiety rippled through me for the millionth time over the course of the last week. It felt like my heart had been permanently lodged into the bottom of my chest cavity—the reminders of what put me here fluttered around my brain incessantly. How was I supposed to come back from this? How could I keep forcing myself to move forward after what had happened?

Regret seared through my chest, leaving a sharp pain behind in its wake.

Daisy .

My beautiful little sister who wouldn’t harm a fly. I meant that in the most literal sense. She’d always been amazed by all types of wildlife, that didn’t exclude insects or parasites. Every weekend, I’d leave college to go back to my family home. She’d often go to church with me and Alex, and then we’d take her out to eat and to the art gallery, or to see a movie of her choosing. She might have been my sibling, but she also felt like my child.

The goal had been to finish up college, get a place of my own, and then bring Daisy to live with me. She would have loved it. I’d planned it all out. From the color scheme her room would be to what school she’d go to. It was so close to becoming a reality that I could taste it.

If I’d just taken her sooner, I could have gotten a job and used that money to pay a babysitter while classes were in session. She would still be alive, and I wouldn’t be here .

Heat spread behind my eyes causing my vision to grow blurry, but before any of them could fall, a knock sounded against my door before it creaked open. My heart might as well have jumped into the back of my throat.

A woman in a blue button-down shirt—much like the white one I wore—stepped into the room. She was young and couldn’t have been much older than I was. The olive shade of her skin complimented her features and contrasted against her light green eyes and raven-colored hair. A lanyard hung loosely around her neck with a photo ID and key card, but she was too far away for me to make out her name on it.

Nervous energy flickered from her, filling the small space of the room we both resided in now. Steeling her spine, she carefully schooled her features as if she didn’t want me to sense the fear radiating from her that had already been so potent from the moment she stepped through the threshold.

“Rosalie,” she began, her voice more firm than her posture. “It’s time for group therapy.”

Group Therapy.

A place for mentally ill people to express themselves without judgement. A place to strengthen social skills and work on verbalizing unwanted thoughts and feelings with the other peers of the group while a therapist took notes.

Before being stripped away from my family home after nearly being murdered, I’d been studying psychology at Northbrook University. That’s where I met Alex, who had been studying the exact same thing. He had a passion for learning about how the mind worked as I did.

Hesitantly, I rose from the edge of my unkempt bed.

The woman offered me a small smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring you right back once you’re done. It shouldn’t take longer than an hour.”

She must have taken my reluctance for me not wanting to leave my room, when that wasn’t necessarily the case at all. Sure, the thought of being surrounded by crazy people was nerve racking, especially since I knew how much of a role physical and mental illnesses could alter a person’s way of thinking and the way they acted on those thoughts. The smallest thing could be a trigger for someone and sometimes those triggers resulted in deadly consequences for those around them.

“My name is Gloria. I’ll be your staff member through the first half of the day. Then, It’ll be Ms. Catalina. At night, you’ll have Mr. Mitch,” she explained at random.

“Is there only one staff member per shift?” I questioned, not liking the odds of that at all.

She shifted uncomfortably. “Per hall. These will be the staff members on your hall once you’re taken to your room.” A tight smile graced her lips that didn’t seem sincere in the slightest. “It’s already all set up for you in the East Wing.”

Once she figured that I had nothing more to say, she motioned for me to follow behind her. Hesitantly, I did so. With how she was acting around me, she must have read over my file. To them, I murdered Gentry in cold blood, and they possibly thought I’d been the one to kill Daisy, too. They weren’t there. They didn’t see exactly what had happened. If the roles were reversed, I’d probably be a little nervous too.

She led me down a narrow hall that was as white as the room they locked me up in. White marble with black specks laced within it decorated the floors, my dirty sneakers squeaking against it. The walls were bare and mundane, not even pictures adorning them.

Taking a right, she led me down another hall that didn’t look much different than the last other than the fact that this one contained more doors on either side and the sound of voices reached my ears.

“Here you go.” She smiled. “I’ll be sitting near the back of the room with Ms. Karla. You won’t even know I’m here.”

Swallowing thickly, I nodded and made my way inside. White tables littered the unexpectedly large room. A projector took up the front of the room with chairs stacked in front of it. Behind that area were the tables—or maybe the appropriate term would be in front of it instead since I was standing near the entrance.

My chest tightened as I glanced around the room, noting all of the unfamiliar faces. Some of them appeared normal, but that couldn’t be entirely true.

An older woman stood near the front with a long jean skirt brushing against her ankles. Her dark, graying hair was clipped back as she roamed her gaze over the rambunctious patients talking amongst each other. When her eyes found mine from across the room, a warm smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

“Quiet, Quiet!” Her voice rang out over the masses.

It took a few moments, but after a while, the room fell silent. The only person who was still standing was me, and realizing rather quickly that I didn’t want the extra attention, I moved to one of the large rectangular tables and slipped down into a seat beside a girl with blue, pink, yellow, and brown hair. Quite a fashion statement right there.

The sound of a male grumbling something along with a thumping sound captured my attention, making my ears perk up involuntarily. I looked around the room, my eyes landing on the source. A guy sitting at the table in front of me was talking lowly to himself and smacking his palm against the side of his head. He seemed clearly distraught and like he was in the middle of an episode.

My hands gripped the edge of the table, my throat tightening on instinct. What was wrong with him? My mind whirled with different possibilities as I sifted through my memory trying to differentiate between all the things I’d learned in my studies thus far. A number of different diagnoses could trigger something like that, so it wasn’t very helpful.

“Hey,” the girl with rainbow-colored hair said from beside me. It took a moment for me to realize that those words were directed at me.

“Hi.”

A kind smile graced her lips followed by a sympathetic expression. “My name’s Cheyanne. What’s yours?”

A laugh almost tumbled out of me. Not because I found it funny, but because it became abundantly clear that she was trying to calm me down. It was written all over her face and in the way her brown eyes kept bouncing from me to the guy who was having an episode a few seats away.

“Rosalie.”

“When did you get here?” she continued, maintaining eye contact like she’d done this a few times before.

Regardless, I was kind of thankful for her right now. The tension in my chest eased and my shoulders relaxed a fraction. It was difficult being here, surrounded by these people when I knew in my heart that I wasn’t crazy. This was all so overwhelming.

“Last night. It’s been—the transition has been…” I paused, a crease forming between my eyebrows.

She nodded despite my inability to form a full sentence. “I know what you mean. It’s always difficult when you first get here. Did you at least sleep well?”

“Not really.”

I’d stayed up most of the night tossing and turning, plagued by nightmares of the events that had taken place at my family home. It was always the same one. Daisy’s throat getting slashed and her coming back to tell me that it was my fault and to ask me why I’d let it happen. A chill swept down my spine and a sharp pain registered within my mind.

Glancing down, I realized that my nails were biting into the skin of my palms. Shaking my hands out beneath the table, I released a sigh.

“I didn’t either for the first few weeks. I kept throwing up and couldn’t keep anything down. It was horrible. It does get better, though.”

Somehow, I seriously doubted that.

The older lady at the front of the room started talking again, cutting off anything else Cheyanne could have said. “Since I see some new faces in here, we’re going to go around the room introducing ourselves before we get started. We’ll start at the left of the room and go right. I want you to mention your name, what you’ve been diagnosed with, your age, and what happened to get you placed into Brookhaven in the first place. I’ll start us off.” Her gaze swept over the room one last time before she continued. “My name is Ms. Octavia. I used to be a patient here, I’m fifty-six years old, diagnosed with severe clinical depression and anxiety. My depression was so bad that I’d go weeks without showering, I’d self-harm as a way of coping, and it was difficult for me to get out of bed.”

Surprise registered through me. She’d managed to overcome her illness and turned it into something good. That meant there was hope for me yet.

The large table to my left sat in an L shape, conjoined with ours. In front of me was a circular table that contained four patients. She encouraged one of the patients to start—the one at the far end of the table to my left. He had bright, platinum-colored hair that appeared white in shade, leading me to believe it wasn’t natural, but if that was the case, his roots should have already been peeking through and they weren’t. I was momentarily stunned by how attractive he was. Before I could think on that more, his smooth voice carried throughout the room.

“My name is Seven. I’m twenty-two years old, diagnosed with auto-hemophagia, AKA auto vampirism.” His lips twitched in amusement as if he found the term of his diagnosis funny. “And bipolar disorder. When I was eighteen, I had this girlfriend. She agreed to do blood play, knowing it fascinated me and was a huge kink of mine. Things got out of hand, and I accidentally killed her.”

My lips parted in disbelief. We were just now learning about the more complex diagnostics in class, but I’d already known about auto-vampirism. Typically, the person with the mental illness had anemia and it brought forth a thirst for blood. Sometimes, the person wasn’t anemic at all, but simply just enjoyed the taste of it so much that they truly believed they were vampires. Pair that with bipolar disorder and it was a recipe for disaster.

Ms. Octavia thanked him for sharing and motioned for the dark-headed guy to go next. He was just as attractive as Seven with dark brown, shaggy hair and piercing blue eyes. His golden complexion contrasted against Seven’s pale one, especially with them being side by side.

“My name is Archer. I’m twenty years old, diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, OCD, and depression.” He blew out a breath before continuing. “I had a crush on this girl who had just started going to our school. I was too afraid to talk to her since she hung out with a group of people at all times during school hours. So, I followed her one day. She had to cut through the woods to get to the neighborhood on the other side, but when she saw me, she freaked out. When she started screaming, I placed my hand over her mouth and backed her against the nearest tree. But then…she bit me. Out of retaliation, I slipped my hands around her throat and squeezed. I hadn’t intended on her dying, but…she did.”

One of the patients at the circular table in front of me started giggling and clapping her hands excitedly with a crazed look in her eyes as she bounced up and down in her seat.

“Ding dong, the bitch is dead,” the patient sang followed by maniacal laughter that sent my pulse thundering.

The next person to introduce themselves was Jordan. Once again, breathtakingly gorgeous. He was more muscular than the other two by a long shot, hell, he was the biggest one in this room entirely. He didn’t seem at all interested in this little social experiment. In a mundane voice, he listed off his disorders along with his age. Jordan was twenty-four and murdered his aunt and uncle in cold blood. His aunt was pregnant with a little girl, but that didn’t stop him from raping her in front of her husband and then killing her.

As a future psychologist, I knew that my personal thoughts on the matter should be neutral. It wasn’t like he could help it entirely, but that didn’t stop the judgment from tittering into my mind anyway. Murder was still murder, and she’d been pregnant.

A girl named Alina was next. She sat next to another girl who looked almost identical to her, except one of them was covered in tattoos where the other wasn’t. They both had long, black hair that trickled down the front of their shoulders, getting lost beneath the table. Their eyes were the same dark brown, and they had curtain bangs. Their heritage was a little more difficult to make out, but if I had to guess, they were either Korean or Guatemalan.

Alina flipped her hair behind her shoulders and glanced around the room as if she owned the place. She was the one with tattoos, giving her an edgier look than her sister. “Hi,” she began coolly, taking her time with it and drinking in everyone’s expressions. “My name is Alina Ravenswood. I’m twenty-three years old and I was diagnosed with Malignant Narcissism, Anxiety, Depression, and Sadistic Personality Disorder.” She sucked in a sharp breath that was so exaggerated it punctured through the air and reached me all the way across the room. “One day, my parents went out on a date, leaving us in charge of our little sister. We—” She sniffled, dropping her gaze down to her hands.

Whatever sob story she was about to tell, I knew she wasn’t truly remorseful. It was too obvious with how dramatic she was being. She enjoyed being the center of attention as most narcissists did. She wanted us to feel sorry for her. It was one of the most common manipulation tactics that narcissists used.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out, placing a hand to her chest.

Apparently the three hot guys sitting nearest to her didn’t buy it either because Jordan rolled his eyes. “Will you hurry the fuck up? It’s not like you haven’t told this story a thousand times over already.”

Alina’s head snapped over in his direction and she narrowed her eyes. Instead of entertaining him though, she returned her gaze to the expectant class . The sad look was wiped off her face as if he’d flipped the switch by merely calling her out. “I helped kill my sister and dumped her body at the lake,” she rambled off as if she were discussing the weather.

Her twin’s story was the same. Her name was Rachel, and she was diagnosed with Hypervigilant Narcissism—which wasn’t uncommon. It was a hereditary trait and could also be brought on by neglect or passive parenting. She was also bipolar, which could make for a deadly combination.

It didn’t take long for it to get to me. My hands trembled as everyone’s eyes burned into my face, waiting to see what I’d say.

Swallowing nervously, I began. “My name is Rosalie. I’m twenty years old. I haven’t been diagnosed with anything…yet.” My heart thumped against my ribcage furiously and I had to steady my breathing before continuing. “I came home from college during the weekend to spend time with my little sister as I usually did. When night fell, my step-father came home drunk. I told my sister to run to the neighbor’s house and I grabbed a knife from the kitchen. I lured him out the back door. Before he could attack me, he spotted my younger sister lurking near the house and went after her instead. I’d managed to cut him twice before he could really harm her and then I was disarmed. He grabbed the knife and started swinging with zero coordination and he accidentally slit her throat. So I took the weapon from him while he was distracted and stabbed him repeatedly until his body fell over and went still.”

As the words left my mouth, they sounded foreign to my own ears. I avoided eye contact with everyone else, the sound coming from me almost robotic.

Cheyanne was next. She was twenty years old, diagnosed with schizophrenia and anxiety. Her mom died of natural causes, but in her deluded state, she believed she was still alive so never called authorities. She continued speaking of her mom like she was really alive, thought she was feeding her, bathing her, and things of that nature. Her story was probably the saddest one of all.

As the rest of the patients continued telling their stories, a heat was searing into the side of my face and I had the most unsettling feeling as if I were being watched.

Chancing a glance around the room, my eyes locked with a pair of light blue ones similar to my own.

Archer .

His expression was unreadable, but it was intense. Even when our eyes locked, he didn’t bother looking away, staring at me as if he could see the inner workings of my mind.

Ripping my gaze away, I focused it on anything other than him. The lingering feeling of his stare had rattled me to my core, and I couldn’t shake it, still feeling his eyes on me.

After therapy, Ms. Gloria guided me back to my cell—I mean, room. She told me I was due for one-on-one therapy tomorrow morning after breakfast as if group hadn’t been enough. She seemed slightly warmer to me since group therapy, which was a bonus.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Luckily, Mom stashed me some books, so I spent the majority of my time reading and decided to go to bed early after dinner.

The first thing I did when I woke was shower even though I’d done that the night I’d arrived. This place just made me feel icky. Breakfast consisted of pancakes, two sausage links, and miniature hashbrowns with a cup of milk. Their food was far from the best I’d ever tasted, but it wasn’t utterly disgusting either.

Just as I was finishing up my food, the knock I’ve been expecting sounded against my door before it creaked open. Ms. Gloria smiled down at me since I was seated on my floor finishing up my sausage.

“You look better rested today.” She smiled.

I didn’t know why. Probably because I went to sleep earlier, so even though the nightmares taunted me, it was still more than I’d gotten the night before.

“A little,” I admitted, rising to my feet.

She opened the door wider to allow me through and I slipped on my shoes that were right by it. Instead of taking a right like we had done for group, we went straight and stopped by a door at the end of the hall.

A golden plaque was plastered to it with the words Dr. Blake sprawled across the front in cursive lettering. Ms. Gloria brought her knuckles against the wood and waited, unlike the times she barged into my room soon after. Then again, I couldn’t open the door from the inside.

After a few moments, his voice sounded from inside the room, telling us to come in.

Gloria turned toward me. “I’ll wait right outside this door. When you’re finished, I’ll take you right back to your room.”

Joy.

I was getting tired of being locked up like some kind of criminal. I’d never even had homicidal thoughts before. This felt inhumane. Sighing, I pushed through the door, letting it close softly behind me.

This room had a lot more color than any of the other rooms I’d been in before. A small leather sofa sat against the wall closest to the entrance with a wooden coffee table in front of it. The floor actually had carpet that complimented the rest of the room nicely. The walls were painted a light gray color and to the right was a large wooden desk with a younger looking man seated behind it.

Dr. Blake’s black hair was kept short, his face extremely smooth and baby-like. Hell, he looked like a college student. Striding across the room, I sank into the chair across from him and waited expectantly.

“Rosalie, I presume,” he said, tasting my name on his tongue and meeting my gaze. Even though he hadn’t said it like a question, I knew he wanted a response.

“Yes.”

He nodded and glanced down at the folder he was looking at when I’d first entered. “I’m going to make this quick. Today isn’t an official one-on-one session, I just wanted to see where your head was at and see if there’s anything that requires immediate assistance at this time.”

In other words, he wanted to see how crazy I was and if that required immediate medication.

When I didn’t say anything, his expression softened slightly. “Can you go over what happened that night? I know you’ve probably told this story several times by now, but it’s all part of the process in finding the root to what the trigger had been that caused you to snap in the first place,” he explained.

The trigger? The trigger had been fight or flight. I did what I could to save my sister and in the end, it still wasn’t enough.

Just to get him off my back, I went over the events that had unfolded the night I wound up in the hospital. He was quiet as I spoke and his patience helped to ease some of the tension in my shoulders. When I was done talking, he scribbled something on a piece of paper.

“It sounds like you might have a form of dissociative disorder and PTSD,” he continued. “It’s not uncommon given the trauma you experienced. I won’t know exactly how much this will affect you moving forward until we’ve had the chance to speak more.”

I balked.

Dissociative disorder?

“W-what does that even mean?” I asked in bewilderment, scared that what he was implying might have been true.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I mean that your stepfather was already dead when your sister was killed. He didn’t kill her.” He grimaced. “ You did.”