Page 17

17

LAVINIA

When Dorin comes to my cell sometime after the masked girl left, he’s wearing a furious expression.

“Who’s been here? Did anyone bother you?”

At first, I don’t understand, watching him with confusion.

He points behind him to the door.

“The hatch. Who the hell was here? The guar—People know not to bother you. Did they speak to you? Hurt you? Touch you?” His voice is raw with violence at those last two words, and I reflexively scoot back on the mattress even though I’m clearly not the one he’s mad at.

“No, no one touched me,” I say breathily.

“Then who the hell was here?”

I don’t know why the idea of someone coming here and talking to me bothers him so much.

His reaction feeds the gnawing worry in my gut, but I don’t get to consider it further.

“Who was it?” he demands.

Too shocked to think, I’m almost about to blurt that it was another patient, but my brain kicks into gear in time.

“An orderly,” I say.

“H-he came to check if I needed a bathroom break, and then someone else came and talked to him, and he forgot to close the hatch.”

He watches me with suspicion for a moment before the tight lines on his forehead soften.

“Goddamn idiot. I told them not to use the fucking hatch.”

I breathe a heavy sigh when Dorin lets the subject go.

For some reason, I hate lying to him, but I’m more than grateful I did when the girl with the muzzle returns a few days later.

The first thing I do when the hatch opens and I see her is to apologize.

Wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, I push up.

“I’m so sorry if I said something to offend you.” I go to stand near the hatch.

“I really didn’t mean to. Please believe me. Please stay.” Even though Dorin has been coming in here more often lately, reading and talking to me, I’m starved for company—any kind of mental stimulation, really.

More so, there’s something about this girl that makes me want to talk to her.

A soft disposition and a vulnerability that seems to match my own.

I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding when she reaches a hand through the hatch to touch my palm, her eyes round and soft with something unspoken.

An it’s okay, I think.

I close my hand around hers.

“How long have you been here?” I ask to start a conversation—or, open up for whatever communication is possible since she’s still wearing the leather mask.

She seems almost as eager as I for company as she stays and listens, answering my questions as well as she can.

After a while, she even gestures to me, wanting me to sing to her, which, of course, I’m happy to do.

I sing a lullaby that my mother taught me, both to soothe her and myself.

When the last note rings out, she’s resting her head close to the hatch, her eyes dreamy and distant, and I feel calmer myself.

She gives a long nod as if to thank me.

Then she points to my mouth and lifts her shoulders.

When I don’t understand, she does the same again.

“If I like singing?” I try.

She shakes her head, then makes a motion that has me leaning in to see her hand move up from one invisible point to another as if saying, child, teenager, and adult.

“How old was I when I started?” I guess.

She nods.

“I’ve been singing forever.” A smile tugs at my lips as I remember singing with my mother and sister.

“Music is in my blood. I played the violin too when I was a child, but then…” I trail off as I remember how I lost everything in the fire that took my home and the only two people who ever mattered to me.

“I lost it,” I say, and she must see the deep regret on my face as she reaches in to stroke my cheek.

“Thank you,” I tell her, grateful for the comfort.

“I love singing, but I really miss the violin sometimes. Moving my fingers across the strings, the smooth glide of the bow, and the vibrations. It really was something…” I let the dream sweep me away for a moment before I ask, “Have you ever played an instrument?”

She shakes her head, then lifts her hand, pointing at her ear with a smile glittering in her eyes.

“You like to listen?” I ask.

She nods eagerly, but then her expression grows somber—full of longing.

“There’s not much music around here,” I say.

She responds with a wistful sigh.

“Do you want me to sing some more?” I offer.

Her expression lights up as she nods, and I end up singing three songs to her before she has to leave.

During the next couple of weeks, she comes by every few days.

I have no idea how she’s able to come here, and it’s more than lucky that she never gets caught.

I try to ask her about her situation a few times, but I don’t get much information out of her.

It’s difficult with her wearing the mask, and I sense there’s something she doesn’t want me to know.

One day, I notice she isn’t wearing a paper bracelet on her wrist like me.

“Why don’t you have one?” I ask, holding up my right hand with the hospital bracelet.

A frown forms between her brows, but she quickly softens her expression, almost like she remembers herself.

Then she responds with a seemingly unknowing shrug, but I have a feeling there’s more to it that she won’t divulge, even if she could.

It makes my suspicion about this place grow, and one day, something happens to make it spike even more.

I’m singing softly to her when she suddenly panics and slams the hatch shut.

I can only guess what’s happening, and I know for sure a minute later when steps echo in the corridor.

Someone’s coming.

My heart lodges in my throat as I lean my ear close to the door, convinced she’ll get in trouble.

“Are you Dax’s special project?” a man asks.

There’s a beep that makes me jump away from the door, thinking he’s coming inside.

But when nothing happens, I carefully move back to press my ear to the padded surface.

“I don’t get why he lets you stand out here. Untied and without a leash.”

A leash.

Untied.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

The heavy steps of the orderly disappear, and then there’s the quick thuds of her running away.

I back up and drop onto the mattress, my head spinning as I try to connect the odd dots of this place.

Things don’t add up.

The lack of doctors and therapists.

The warped electrotherapy.

The lack of clothes.

The men who never speak a word to me.

The way they seem to fear Dorin—a mere orderly.

The degrading mask the girl wears.

And those words.

Untied.

A leash.

It’s like a punch to the gut as I finally face the stark truth I’ve been trying to deny with weak excuses and threadbare logic.

This place is not what I thought it was.

I don’t know how I could believe it for so long.

My entire world flips as I suddenly see it all through a different lens.

Dorin never actually told me this was a hospital or tried to convince me it was.

I did it all by myself.

He simply didn’t deny it.

He never told me he was an orderly.

He just didn’t correct me.

Horror coalesces in my belly, making nausea rise in my throat as I stare into the room.

If I’m not in a mental facility, then where the hell am I?

If I’m not a patient, then what the hell am I?

A captive?