Chapter 12
BANDIT
"Ifound your boys," I tell her, her hand still clamped on my wrist. Up close the fog is worse than it looked from across the room. Her eyes keep sliding off mine and finding their way back, like she has to locate me fresh each time.
"You're a good girl," she murmurs. "Like the one living in my house."
"Birdie's safe," I whisper. "And the Bastards are coming for you."
"They'll come." She says it with total certainty — and then the thought lets go of her, and her gaze drifts to the dark window.
I stay crouched when I should already be moving. I need to get back to the locker room, get my phone, and get out of here.
"Bennett."
I don't hear him come up. That's the thing about Kessler. He's just there.
"Could I borrow you a minute before you head off? Quick word." He's already lifting me up by the elbow, already turning me toward the hall.
I look back once. Darling's gone somewhere I can't follow. I nod and go with him.
The room he takes me into is small — three chairs around a desk. He motions for me to sit and closes the door behind us.
"You found a friend out there," he says, lowering himself into the chair beside mine like we have the whole afternoon. "I'm glad. Connection matters, in this work."
"I wouldn't call her a friend. Just a sweet old lady I remember from her stay here."
Kessler nods and says nothing.
"You wanted to tell me something? It's getting late. I really should start back."
"Of course." He folds his hands. "I just want to be sure you're all right first. You seemed quite affected to find her here."
"I'm fine. Truly. But I need to go — I need my phone, I want to call my boyfriend?—"
He shakes his head. "You don't have a boyfriend. You live alone. You have no family."
I'm about to argue when he asks, "When did you last sleep a full night, Bennett?"
I don't answer. He nods like the silence was an answer.
A knock, and a woman comes in. Younger than him, with a real warmth to her — the over-rehearsed gentleness of someone who chose this work to help people and still believes she does. She introduces herself as one of the facility's psychiatrists, takes the last chair, and asks me how I'm feeling.
That's when I understand, with a sick lurch, that there's no version of I'm terrified because I'm being railroaded she won't read as paranoia.
"I just want to go home," I tell her. "I'm not a patient here. I'm a visitor. I'd like my belongings, and I'd like to leave."
"Nobody's keeping you," she says, and smiles. "We just want to do a brief evaluation. A precaution. Given what Dr. Kessler's observed."
"He hasn't observed anything. He's decided something."
She writes that down on a tablet, and I know I'm doomed.
Calm is a symptom. Distress is a symptom.
Arguing is a symptom. Insisting I'm fine is the textbook thing the unwell insist on.
There's no register I can speak in that isn't already accounted for.
The more I am exactly myself — sharp, stubborn — the more I sound like someone who needs help.
"Can I have my phone?"
"Phones go in the lockers. You know that." A soft laugh, like I've forgotten a house rule.
"Then let me make a call. From your phone."
"After the evaluation."
"I want to call now."
"Let's just get through the assessment, and we'll sort everything out after. Okay, Riley?"
Everything is after. Everything is we'll sort it out. Nothing is no — because no would be a wall I could push against, and there are no walls in here. Just warm voices and a door that isn't locked, that I'm somehow not allowed to walk out of.
The interview doesn't last long. Then they leave me alone "to rest" in another room — minimal, a bed and a small table, both bolted to the floor.
I sit on the edge of the bed and let myself understand it: I'm not getting out. Not tonight. If I fight them, I hand them the excuse to keep me under, and I can't be under. So I breathe, slow, against the fear settling over me like a weight.
They didn't take my lanyard.
I'm still wearing his thunder charm. His tracker. Bones will find me — he'll come, and he won't come alone, and when he does, he'll take Darling out of here too.
I close my eyes.
Please. Find me.