Chapter 21 Delia Fucking Smith
DELIA FUCKING SMITH
Let’s Go To Hell - Bhones
Kookaburra
Iswing one leg in a lazy arc and grin at her like a cat with blood on its whiskers. “Don’t you know what it means?”
“I…” She presses her lips together, adjusting her glasses like that’s going to give her a better view of my brain. Spoiler: it won’t.
“You say I’m not a prisoner here, right?” I ask, flipping upright with a groan and folding myself cross-legged on the cushion like a polite little psychopath.
Doctor Callaway sighs, already tired of where this is heading. “We’ve been over this, Kayla. You’re not a prisoner.”
“Right,” I nod, wide-eyed. “So why is there nothing to do?”
She blinks at me. “To…do?”
“Yeah. Activities. Something between ‘wake up’ and ‘be sedated for bedtime.’ You know, hobbies.”
“You…have hobbies?” she asks carefully, like she’s tiptoeing through a minefield with a clipboard and a superiority complex.
“I guess.” I shrug. “I like fucking. Fucking shit up. Taking fucking lives.”
There’s a pause. Not even a flicker of a smile. God, she’s boring.
“Those aren’t really hobbies we can support here.”
“I like getting tattoos,” I offer, stretching my arms overhead and admiring the ink like it might start crawling. “Big ones. In places you probably wouldn’t approve of.”
“Probably not wise in your condition.”
“What condition?” I bark-laugh. “Contagious boredom? Terminal disinterest?”
Doctor Callaway blinks again. I can almost hear the mental Rolodex flipping through safe responses.
“Fine,” I huff, flopping back down. Even lying on my back feels wrong lately – too much pressure in the wrong places. “What can I do, then?”
She taps her pen against the clipboard. “What about…knitting?”
I stare.
“Crochet?” she tries. “Sewing. Weaving. Baskets. Rugs. You could always take up baking.”
I sit bolt upright. “Do I look like Delia fucking Smith to you?”
There’s a twitch at the corner of her mouth. A near-smile. Or a tic.
“What about…” she starts, then rattles off a few more mind-numbing options I immediately tune out.
I give her a death stare that could wilt steel.
She sighs. “We have a garden.”
That gets my attention. I perk up like a dog who’s just heard the treat drawer open.
“Wood chipper?”
Doctor Callaway hesitates. “…Yessssssss.”
“Perfect.” I grin slow and steady, like Christmas has come early and someone’s gift-wrapped me a corpse. It’s all teeth, a blade coming unsheathed.
“Perfect,” I repeat, and hop off the sofa like I haven’t spent the last hour sulking like a teenager on house arrest.
Doctor Callaway doesn’t stop me. Not that she could. She just watches, cautious, trying to pretend she’s in control of the situation when we both know the leash is imaginary. And fraying.
“You’re not allowed to operate the wood chipper unsupervised,” she calls after me, flipping to a new page on that clipboard of hers.
“Uh-huh.” I wave a hand without looking back. “Sure. Supervised murder’s still murder.”
“I said operate, not murder.”
“Semantics,” I sing, skipping down the corridor.