Page 1 of The Locked Ward

You awaken slowly, struggling to surface, like you’re swimming up through mud. Your arms and legs ache, and grit burns your eyes. A headache throbs rhythmically at the base of your skull.

Your mouth feels sticky, as if your lips have been sealed together.

Your eyes flutter open, and as they take focus, you see you’re in a dimly lit room. It’s tiny; the drab beige walls seem to press in on you. The drop ceiling is beige, too. There’s nothing on the walls. Nothing to orient you. Nothing familiar at all.

The sharp, tangy aroma of bleach fills your nose, but it can’t mask the odor beneath it. If despair had a smell, it would smell like this room.

You have a good nose, a sommelier told you only a few nights ago—back when your life was your own—after he decanted a hundred-dollar bottle of wine and you identified notes of leather and blackberry.

You feel too weak to stand up, but something deep within you is screaming at you to try. Then you realize your arms are cuffed to the sides of the bed. So are your legs. You’re splayed out, completely helpless beneath bright green paper pajamas.

You strain as hard as you can, but the Velcro cuffs—red bands for your wrists and blue for your ankles—don’t yield.

“Help,” you croak in a voice that sounds nothing like your own. You try to swallow but your mouth is too dry.

Then you hear something that makes you wish you’d stayed silent. A man’s voice: “You’re awake.”

Your heart shudders as you glimpse him seated on a plastic chair down by your feet. He wears burgundy scrubs and a somber expression.

When you see his face, it all comes rushing back to you, a tsunami of memories, sending terror spiking through your veins. You remember why you are here.

And you know no matter what you say or do, you will not be allowed to leave.

You are no longer Georgia Cartwright, a thirty-two-year-old woman with a job as a high-end wedding planner, a city apartment with a wall of windows, a weakness for ugly dogs, and a love of running.

From this day forward, you are the newest resident of the locked ward.