Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
I needed to get the fuck out of here.
More than a week ago, I could have cared less about being brought to Severfalls. At one small point in time, I let myself accept this place, even allowed myself to feel a sliver of comfort, whether from the sessions with Leo or the five women who supported each other.
I wish I could have been like them. So blissfully unaware.
Something was deeply off about this place. I didn’t have to guess why it took me so long to figure out.
Because at the time, I hadn’t cared.
All my thoughts had been looping over and over. To Emery. To the last day I saw him.
Since then, he had been haunting me.
He still is.
I see him now more than ever, lurking in the shadows and dark corners. At first, he was nothing more than a black, ominous shape—a dripping shadow I refused to acknowledge. But over time, he transformed into a specter, one I was too terrified to face. Then I did; I forced myself one night to gaze at him. His face…it was all wrong. A nightmare. A decaying corpse, with his skin peeling back to show the bone, half his face nothing but a skull smiling at me. Blood dripped from him onto the floor. He stalked me when I walked the halls at night so nowhere was safe now.
I had no choice but to start taking the sleeping agent Leo offered since the lack of sleep made things worse.
Only in the day did Emery not appear, but I was always in a daze. The Lulladex kept him at bay but it also made me feel like a zombie. If I wasn’t napping, I was sitting somewhere staring at nothing with a stupid smile on my face.
The girls looked out of it too but still happier to be here than not. Jonsei appeared as if nothing had happened several nights ago, even though she had a patch over her eye.
“Just a small side effect.” She smiled. “They said it should clear up.”
“Do you remember anything from that night, Jonsei?” I’d asked.
She’d shaken her head. “I just had a bad dream.”
We were all having bad dreams and bad sleep. It wasn’t normal. Something was wrong.
I started to suspect it might be the meds. One morning, I forced myself not to take the pill even if it meant seeing my ghost and feeling like shit the whole day.
“You forgot to take your medication, Eve,” Jackie said when she went to take my plate. “Here, I’ll get you some more water.”
“I don’t want it,” I snapped. Even though that was a lie. I wanted it real bad, wanted to feel that numb, blissful nothingness. But I also hated how badly I wanted it.
“I know it’s hard at first, but it will get better. If you stop now, you’ll have an even harder time. Your body will get used to it, you’ll see.” She’d left and gotten me more water, setting it down on the tray. I hadn’t moved but neither had she, standing over me, waiting.
I wanted to scream at her to get the fuck out. Instead, I quietly took the pill and slid it between my lips then took a sip of water.
“That’s it.” Jackie took the tray. “Why don’t you go down to the spa and get yourself a massage? It will help.”
When she’d turned and left, I waited a few seconds, then went to the bathroom and spat the pill out into the toilet, flushing it down.
I had a headache all day and dizzy spells, but I ignored them as best I could. I took my walks outside despite the weather growing colder, strolling along the forest paths around the facility, hoping the fresh air would do me good. The woods would have been beautiful in the summer. Now, they were barren and way too quiet.
I still went to my sessions with Leo, but my conversations with him had grown more reserved. I confessed to him one day about seeing Emery in my room and in the halls.
“Trauma can bring on hallucinations,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “But they will fade with time.”
I wrung my hands, staring at the fire. “I think the Lulladex is making them worse.”
He had grown quiet. When I glanced at him, whatever had been in his gaze vanished in an instant.
“I don’t recall that being a side effect,” he said. “It may come from the lack of sleep.”
I shifted in my seat. “Yeah, right…”
“Take the sleeping agent and try to get a full night's sleep, Eve. Do some meditation, maybe in the garden. Remind yourself the hallucinations aren’t real.”
I nodded, staring past him. “I don’t want to take the medication anymore.”
“Give it some time,” he said.
I took the sleeping agent and slept better than I had in days after. I thought I could get away with just taking the sleeping pill and not the Lulladex, but the days grew worse, the pain and heartache returning, making me feel sadder than I had ever felt before.
I cracked three days later and caved in.
Maybe they were right and the negative effects would pass.
I was probably fooling myself.
But the nightmares did cease once I took the sleeping agent and fell deep enough that they couldn’t find me.
“They got most of us on a sleeping aid too,” Maria said as I hung out with her and the others again in the sunroom. “Usually, it does wonders. But sometimes I get the worst night terrors.”
The others said they had similar dreams. The thought made my own stomach twist.
This had to be all wrong. But I tried to tell myself it was all in my head. That I was growing paranoid. The others looked fine and didn't seem worried at all. Every so often, when I lingered around the halls, I’d see them being wheeled away to the medical ward in the back. They talked to each other with smiles as if it was any other day.
The incident with Jonsei had just been one weird but rare moment. Nothing like that happened again after that night. And every medication had side effects. Kennedy and his team had to be working it out.
I tried to believe all this, to ignore the tiny feeling of dread creeping its way inside. To not feel like the walls were slowly closing in around me, trapping me.
Until one night when I stood staring at the paintings in the art gallery.
It was late, and I had yet to take my sleeping pill. I’d crept out of my room and, for the first time, had gotten by the security desk without getting noticed. They didn’t usually stop me, only greeted me and moved on. But always after that, I felt watched.
I snuck down the stairs and it was empty. I started to wander but found myself in the gallery, studying a painting of a young girl in a beautiful white dress being led to kneel in front of an execution block. I heard the sounds of footsteps first and looked over to see several nurses and a doctor wheeling Adrien away toward the medical ward. They hadn’t noticed me. When they turned down the hall, some wild instinct made me follow.
When they stopped halfway down, I kept hidden in a doorway and peeked around.
The staff talked in whispers around Adrien who sat limply in her seat, her hands and feet strapped to the chair. Her head lolled to one side and her eyes rolled back.
They started walking again and went through a set of doors leading to the back. I stepped out of the doorway and stood in the middle of the hallway, staring at the doors.
When I asked Adrien about it the next day, she looked at me like she didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about.
“I just wasn’t feeling well,” she said.
“You don’t remember them carting you off?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
I didn’t consider them dumb. Really. But I couldn’t fathom how they could be so blind, so uncaring. Then it dawned on me that they were just happy to be somewhere they thought was safe. They trusted this place to take care of them.
The next night, at twilight, I took a stroll through the woods, hoping that whatever eyes were watching me stayed indoors. I ventured farther than I ever had before and eventually came upon one of the large stone walls that encircled the property.
I followed the wall until it gave way to iron, where a small gravel path stretched before me. The iron gate stood at the back of the property, chained and locked. The gravel path ran from the gate up to the building, while beyond the gate, a paved road disappeared into the distance.
I curled my fingers around the iron like an inmate might do between the bars of their prison. I stood looking out, wondering where the road might lead and if I could climb over and start walking.
Before I could decide whether to turn back or look for a way over, a black Mustang with a red line down its side came flying down the road. It flew past me and then screeched to a halt.
It sat for a second, then drove backward and jerked to a stop before me.
The windows were so dark I couldn’t see inside. The car stayed there for a long moment and I started to feel unease.
Because I was being watched again.
Nowhere was safe.
I backed away and whirled around, practically running back to Severfalls.
That same night, I had an awful night terror. I took the sleeping pill and laid down, curling into myself and facing away from the door so I couldn’t see Emery’s phantom watching me. In a matter of minutes, I fell into what was at first my usual dreamless sleep.
Sometime during the night, I heard whispers. The sound of my door opening reached me, followed by the sensation of hands on my body, but I couldn’t wake. Something jabbed into my stomach, and pressure weighed heavy on my arm. Then, I felt my pants being pulled down and something cold pushed inside me. I wanted to wake, to scream, to flail, but I couldn’t.
Then it all faded away, and darkness took over again. Another dream swelled in my mind, relentless, like a tumor. I was strapped to a wheelchair, unable to move or speak, as nurses wheeled me out of my room.
They took me downstairs, down a dim hallway, and into the medical ward. The door opened into pitch-black darkness, and though I couldn’t see it, I knew something terrible was waiting there. The faint screams of children echoed, mingling with the rattling of cages. They pushed me forward and the darkness consumed me.
When I woke, the sun was still not up and my bed was soaked with sweat. When I flung the sheets off, I was still in my pajamas. I didn’t feel pain or discomfort, and yet I still felt wrong, violated.
Something was very fucked about this place and I was done trying to pretend otherwise.
Now, I sat on my bed, phone in hand, watching the first light break across the sky. Lena and Jamie had texted me a few times and called twice. My replies had been short and uninspired, but they never stopped reaching out. For that, I was grateful.
I dialed Jamie’s number first and hit send. The phone rang twice before he picked up.
“Eve, you okay?”
“I need you to get me out of here,” I said.
There was a pause. “What happened?”
“I don’t like it here. I just need to get out.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll talk to Lena this afternoon and see what we can do.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“Did you talk to your uncle?”
I bit my lip. “No.”
“You should see if he can get you out early.”
“I haven’t talked to him since I’ve been admitted,” I confessed.
Jamie cursed. “He’s not talking to you?”
“I guess not. I don’t know.”
“You need to call him, Eve. I think he’s the only one who can officially sign for your release.”
I clutched the phone tight. “I’m not suicidal. I just want the fuck out of here.”
“I didn’t say you were. I’m just telling you like it is.”
Fucking damn it.
I knew how most places like this ran. As policy went, if they thought you were a danger to yourself, they weren’t likely to just let you leave. And it had only been a little more than a week now that they had been monitoring me, probably not long enough to determine I was good to go.
“Call him,” Jamie repeated. “And talk to the people there about coming to stay with us for a day or two. I’ll let Lena know.”
I hung up and stared at my phone. Then I dialed Uncle Wes.
Seven rings later and it was Aunt May who picked up instead.
“Eve,” she breathed. “So sorry we haven't checked on you. It’s been a very hard couple of weeks. Are you okay?”
“I’m...I’ve been better honestly.”
“Right, of course.”
“Is Uncle Wes there?”
I could hear her shifting around. I heard whispering before she said, “Now isn’t a good time, Eve. Uncle Wes is sleeping. He’s still recovering from the attack.”
“I just need him to sign me out of Severfalls,” I said.
“Why? Is something wrong there? I heard it’s one of the best facilities in—"
“I just need him to. Please.” I didn’t mean to snap but I was on edge and ready to break something.
She let out a slow breath. “I don’t know, Eve. Wes was very keen on having you stay until we all felt like you’d be okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, what did the doctors say?”
I wanted to fling the phone across the wall. Instead, I said, “They think I’m doing better.”
“But we’ve heard nothing from them and they said they’d call when they felt you were ready to be released.”
“Well, I say I am ready and I need you to tell Uncle Wes I want to leave.”
She sighed again as if exasperated. “We’ll talk about it and see. But you should give it some time. You’ve been through…a lot.”
“No shit.”
I froze, realizing I said that out loud.
“And so have we,” she added more sternly. “Wes needs time. Try to make it work.”
I shook my head, rubbing my eyes. “I can’t, not here.”
“Just try, Eve. I have to go. We will…talk later.”
When she hung up, I went to throw the phone and instead dropped it on the bed. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that she and Uncle Wes hadn’t called me once and now I understood why. I’d threatened the company and was therefore a threat to them.
Uncle Wes didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to release me. It was his lawyer who’d come when I went to be interviewed by the FBI. To make sure I didn’t mention the company. And when I had, the lawyer had marked it as insufficient evidence. Which was bullshit because they had my laptop with all the evidence they needed. And if that wasn’t enough, the external drive was still at my apartment.
It was clear our relationship was tarnished beyond repair by my confession back at the masquerade. Now Uncle Wes saw me as an adversary. He wanted me silenced. He wanted me shut away.