Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
HIM
Ipaced back and forth in the living room.
I was crawling out of my skin. I needed to get out of here.
The snow was finally melting, but I couldn’t bring myself to push through the front door.
They should have been looking for me by now.
They probably were. But that wasn’t why I didn’t want to leave. Why I couldn’t leave.
It wasn’t just the snow storm that had caged me inside these walls.
It was something to do with this woman. The way she clawed her way into my head.
The last woman to have done that… well, I’d give ya one guess.
She certainly wasn’t someone I cared to see again, even if I’d never stopped seeing her.
I popped a couple more pills and forced them down with a glass of water from the kitchen sink.
At this point, I only had a few days’ worth burning a hole in my pocket.
I hadn’t gone without ?em for as long back as I can remember.
Since the day I was dragged out of that temporary foster home and left to rot in a cell at Briarwood.
Wasn’t even sure if I needed ?em, just that I liked the way they seemed to dull everything around me.
I could hear her feet padding across the floor.
I could sense her watching me long before that, though.
Like she was trying to decide if she should approach me or not.
If she wanted to. Which was both smart and dumb in equal fucking measure.
Didn’t take a genius to know that what she should be doing was staying far the fuck away from me.
“Are you okay?”
The question was so ridiculous I dropped the glass into the sink, lifting a curious brow when it didn’t shatter before turning back in Jules’s direction. “You tryin’ to be funny, sweetheart?”
She shook her head, her eyes just as wide as the first time I’d seen her walking the halls at Briarwood. Like a pinkie mouse dropped in a den of snakes.
“No, I’m not the fuck okay. Haven’t been okay in a real fucking long time, Nurse Keller. But ya knew that before ya asked, didn’t ya?” I mumbled under my breath, digging around in my pocket for another Xannie, only to come up empty. “Fuck…”
“What’s wrong?”
Jules stepped closer. She reached out an arm and I snatched it up before she could make contact, rearing back to take a look at her wrist as soon as something wet brushed against my skin.
The wound was oozing. Not blood either. Pus.
Greenish and clumpy. Shit was infected. It was starting to smell too.
“What the actual fuck? You just gonna let your arm rot off? What kind of nurse are you?” I shoved her arm back towards her chest and rubbed a hand over the fuzz on my head.
She was rotting away, walking around but not any less a corpse than the bags of human meat I’d buried.
As if the rest of her hadn’t realized she was dead yet.
She glanced down at her wrist, clutching it to her chest before peering up at me again. “I need some antibiotics, a few sutures, but it’s not bad.”
I didn’t know who she was trying to convince, me or herself. Neither one of us seemed to believe it.
“You need something too, don’t you? What are you taking?” She offered a palm and waited. Watched me.
I shoved past her and headed for the living room.
Crouching in front of my backpack, fishing around for a few moments, then drawing out the little orange bottle that was tucked at the bottom.
The staff didn’t exactly like coming downstairs every day, so those of us who weren’t chained to bedpans were tossed a handful of pills every few weeks and left to fend for ourselves.
Made for horrible compliance and fantastic currency.
Hey, whatcha got there? Oh, I’ll give ya ten of these peach-colored ones for five of the blue.
Fuck no. Make it fifteen and you have yourself a deal.
Not always the way it went. Sometimes shivs were involved—discarded syringes were the worst ?cause you never knew what was in ?em—but you catch my drift.
I tossed the bottle in Jules’s direction. It landed at her feet and she bent down to grab it. Running her eyes over the label before looking back at me.
“These are antipsychotics. Do you need antipsychotics?”
I couldn’t tell if it was fear or concern I heard in her voice. Maybe a mix of both. Didn’t know what she was expecting from a mental patient. Wasn’t like I was locked up for daydreaming.
I shrugged a shoulder while pushing to my full height to tower over her again. “Depends who ya ask, sweetheart.”
She nodded once. “Okay, what else?”
She didn’t have anything stashed around the house. I would have found it already if she did. Which meant Miss Goody Two-shoes was thinking about raiding the drug closet.
I cocked an eyebrow at her, without bothering to ask the question.
“You said it yourself. I need antibiotics and you need these.” She shook the empty bottle as if she were trying to justify her actions. She didn’t have to justify shit to me. I was surprised. That was all. “So what else?”
“A few bars.”
“Bars?” she repeated.
“Xannies, Jules. As many as you can grab without raising alarm bells.” I had to admit the confused look on her face was cute. She nodded before I added, “And don’t go in the basement. Nothing good’s in the basement.”
She turned to walk away. I grabbed her wrist—the oozing one—and tugged her back in my direction.
“I mean it.”
She peered up at me for a long moment, but she didn’t flinch. Like she found me more interesting than scary and that was a problem. For her as much as it was for me. I’d make her afraid if I had to. It was what was best for both of us.
“You were in the basement,” she finally replied.
“My point,” I grunted before shoving her towards the door. “Nothing good.”