Chapter 29 Dreams Are Better Than Cages
DREAMS ARE BETTER THAN CAGES
Good Girl - Morganne
Kookaburra
The first rule of captivity is to look tame.
The second is to make them believe it was their idea.
So I start playing the pet.
I smile when they bring food. Say thank you. Ask about the weather. I even hum sometimes – small, tuneless little noises that make the orderlies think I’m finally settling in.
Doctor Callaway calls it stability. I call it reconnaissance.
Two weeks in and she’s getting softer with me.
Staff come and go here faster than the weather changes – agency hires, burnouts, ghosts in uniforms – no one stays long enough to ask why.
The crisp professionalism is still there, but it wavers.
The doctor lingers in my doorway after sessions, tells me things she shouldn’t – tiny, human details.
That she hates the beds here. That the power keeps cutting out. That she hasn’t had a day off in six months. Every confession is a thread. And I’m already weaving.
Two weeks in and my body finally remembers I’m pregnant – tiny shifts, little tugs, nothing dramatic, just enough to annoy me.
Mostly, I ignore it and it ignores me and we can get along just fine.
I know it can’t last forever, but as they say, ignorance is bliss.
Though, let’s make one thing clear: I’m not attached.
I’m aware. Awareness is survival. Attachment gets you killed. And I very much intend to live.
By the end of the second week, I’ve learned the rhythm of the facility.
Three day orderlies on rotation now that I took care of Mr Mulcherson.
Two actually work. One sleeps through half his shift.
Eight guards. Two additional night orderlies on alternate late shifts.
The security cameras buzz on a half-second delay.
The medication fridge clicks when it unlocks.
The outer door? Takes six seconds to close fully once the alarm is keyed.
Plenty of time if you ever wanted to follow someone out. Not that I do. Not yet. Patience is an art form.
I start small. Tests. Doctor Callaway leaves her keys on the counter while logging an incident report. I move them one inch to the left. She frowns when she picks them up but says nothing.
The next day, I move them again.
Still nothing. Progress.
In the evenings, I cook. Therapy, she says. Self-regulation. “Routine is grounding.”
She doesn’t know I’m using her routines to map blind spots.
Tonight it’s soup – thin, grey, tragic. I stir it and hum under my breath until one of the night orderlies wanders in, a book tucked under his arm. His name’s Ray. He’s the type who talks to women like they owe him a reaction and I hate him.
“Didn’t know the monster could cook,” he says, smiling with his teeth.
I smile back. “Didn’t know the help could read.”
He laughs, but it’s too close, too warm. His breath smells like instant coffee and arrogance. He leans an elbow on the counter beside me, eyes crawling down my arm.
“You get lonely in here?” he asks, suggestively. I swallow bile and smile.
“No,” I say. “But you will.”
He doesn’t get it. He never would.
He reaches out, fingers brushing the inside of my wrist – slow, testing.
I let him. Just long enough. Then I turn the ladle and pour boiling soup down his arm.
He screams. It’s high and sudden and perfect. The smell of scalded skin hits like burnt sugar. He staggers back, knocking the cart. A tray clatters to the floor.
Doctor Callaway bursts in at the sound. Her eyes take in everything – the overturned pan, the steam, the orderly clutching his arm, me standing there calm as a saint. For a heartbeat, the air doesn’t move.
“He touched me,” I say. It’s not a lie.
Ray’s gasping, sweat slick on his face. “She’s crazy— She attacked—”
“She defended herself,” Doctor Callaway cuts in sharply. Her voice is quiet, surgical. “We can’t have staff endangering the program.”
He stares at her, disbelieving. “The program?”
She looks at me. I see it then – the flicker. Not fear. Calculation.
A rationalisation starting to bloom.
I step closer, fingers curling around the ladle’s handle. “Want me to take care of it?”
She exhales through her nose, long and slow. “Make it quick.”
I do. But I have fun doing it. And I leave the mess for someone else to clean up. Bye, bye, Ray. Rest in Pieces.
Later, I find her outside by the fence, cigarette trembling between her fingers.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” I say, taking one from her pack. She lets me. We share the silence, smoke curling between us like a secret we’re too tired to hide.
“You shouldn’t smoke. Normally I don’t but it’s…been a day. It’s bad for the baby, Kayla.”
“With a mother like me, I think a little smoking will be the least of its worries.”
“You understand what happens now?” she says and I breathe a silent sigh of relief at the change of focus.
“Of course.” I flick ash into the dark. “You write a report. He slipped. Kitchen accident. Tragic, but preventable.”
Her eyes cut to me. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s efficient.”
She looks away first. That’s how I know I’ve won.
Hours later, when the corridors are empty, I wander. Bare feet. Quiet.
The supply room hums under low light. I open the door and run my fingers over labels: Sedatives / Sleep Studies / Transfer Stock.
A pallet stacked high with blue bottles gleams under the emergency light. I twist one open, dip a finger, taste. Bitter. Potent.
Enough to put down an army. Or an asylum.
I screw the lid back on, smile to myself, and whisper, “Dreams are better than cages anyway.”
The sound that answers isn’t the hum of the fridge. It’s laughter – soft, breathy, impossible to tell if it’s mine or the walls echoing me back.
I carry one bottle back to my room and sit on the bed, rolling it between my palms.
The walls hum with the static buzz of the cameras. There’s still one above the door; I can almost feel the lens blink. I look up at it, smile slow and deliberate, and hold the bottle up to the light.
A little shake – rattle of pills like tiny bones – and then I set it down on the bedside table, plain as day.
No hiding. No panic. Just proof.
“See?” I murmur. “You trust me.”
The silence that follows is thick and alive.
Somewhere, I imagine Doctor Callaway’s hand hovering over a switch, wondering whether I’m testing her or thanking her.
Two things can be true.
My pulse is still racing, the echo of the orderly’s scream still coiled inside me. It burns through my veins, sharp and electric. Power feels like this – hot and clean and terrifying.
I lean back against the wall and let the adrenaline hum under my skin until it turns to something else. Something darker. Something that feels almost like peace.
The camera light blinks once, red, steady. Watching. Always watching.
I grin up at it. “Sweet dreams, Doctor.”
And then I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of blood, smoke, and victory.