14. Forever For Her （Is Over For Me）
FOURTEEN
FOREVER FOR HER (IS OVER FOR ME)
HARKINS
Every single suspicion, every fear, every gut instinct that told me this place was bad news was confirmed by our falsified death records. They’ve made it so it even looks like I was never officially here—at least, not alive.
Camila’s death is marked for tomorrow; my dread grows from only imagining what that might mean on a greater scale.
The nurse had been easy to get through, her shock at seeing me unrestrained and without my guards nearly enough to do her in.
Still, I bashed her head against the counter of the nurse’s station for good measure and then did her the kindness of breaking her neck for a quick death.
After I leave our files on the desktop for Camila, I make my way back to my room, the two orderlies still out from the sleeping pills. I consider leaving them that way. The key to my muzzle is visible on his belt loop, and I wonder for a split second if there’s such a thing as needless death.
We all die.
Perhaps I’m the unavoidable harbinger of their fates.
Maybe from this, I bring about a series of necessary changes ignited only by this very event that must happen to coordinate their loved one’s evolutions.
Or perhaps there’s no one to mourn them, no one to be permanently scarred from their leaving this Earth, no lasting effect that succeeds this tragedy.
I play God in my mind for a few more moments, wondering if what remains of my conscience will save these two from their misery. I dig and I dig, shuffling through granules of would-be guilt, but I come up empty, satisfied with my single realization.
I do not care about anyone or anything that isn’t Camila Machado, and since the world will see us both as dead from the moment we leave this asylum, it is better no staff is left to wonder.
I wrap my bicep around Dwight’s neck, locking him in a chokehold, and I pull the toothpick from his mouth.
Before he can snap his eyes open, I’ve already cut off his breathing.
He’s not as easy as the nurse, scratching at my arms and kicking in the hope that I’ll let go, instead I push the toothpick into his ear, the movement is quick and forces him to reach for the bleeding hole.
Dwight squirms, fighting every inch of his neck that I turn against his will, yelling loudly as I push, his muscles and ligaments straining to keep his head attached to his neck.
It’s with the final jerk that his legs kick out against Mike’s chair, waking him up. My injured arm burns from overuse, fatigue fighting adrenaline for authority over my autonomy.
I cannot let my physical strength dictate the winner; there is no other option but to survive this.
There is no outcome other than leaving this room breathing.
Mike is groggy, falling out of the chair before he has a chance to recognize what’s happening around him.
With a purposeful need, I ignore all burning in my forearm, and with the wrong arm, I twist, twist, twist.
And then, it snaps.
I scurry to the floor, slamming myself on top of Mike while he’s still disoriented.
He reaches for his back pocket, but I thrust my foot into his stomach before he can succeed.
I’m bootless, and without my favorite weapon, it makes for weak shit-stomping of these little authority-desperate cucks.
It doesn’t stop me from trying, though, so I send the heel of my foot into his gut until I see blood spray from his mouth.
With another kick, I turn him over on his stomach, reaching into his back pocket for the taser and dishing out some well-served revenge.
He seizes, moaning a muffled sound into the polished concrete while a puddle of piss spreads below him. I charge it up again and hit the trigger, my arm once again bleeding at the stitches from the scuffle with Dwight, blood soaking into the white sleeve of the straitjacket.
I don’t bother to lift it to examine it; it’s not worth looking at until we’re far away from here.
I charge and discharge the taser dozens of times until Mike’s body is limp and I can’t find a pulse.
He’s got a ring of keys in his pocket, one of which opens the latch on my mask.
I don’t have the dexterity to open it one-handed, so I shove them into the pocket of my sweatpants.
There’s only one guard left now, only one person standing in the way of our freedom, and with Dwight’s taser, it seems almost too easy.
Her scream in the distance tells me I’ve celebrated too soon.
Typical.
I don’t blink.
My legs move under me, and without a thought coursing through my head, I begin to pound on every door. I slam them open, flipping on the lights to wake every patient. “Wake up! Time to play!”
I run through the corridor of the men’s side of the ward, calling every single sleeping patient into the hall to aid my escape. They don’t know it, of course, but the call of mayhem beckons to them anyway. The lack of order is like a siren’s song.
This environment begs them to answer.
Patients run past me in a stampede, a younger blond attempting to knock me over in his energized state, screaming something about how he hasn’t been outside his room in two days.
I wonder, for a moment, if he’s also been declared dead, but another scream from Camila redirects my course, reasserts my purpose.
I don’t see security by the door, at his usual nighttime post. It’s concerning because my entire plan was to use the patients as part of the distraction for our getaway.
I begin to push every door open, calling Camila’s name but only waking up the female residents and adding more chaos to the situation.
My panic begins to build, the same tunneling thoughts that warp my vision and alter my perception of what’s rational fear and what’s perpetuated by my own mind.
In seconds, I imagine the worst happening.
I create situations that don’t exist so I can brace for the possible realities that might eventually take place, as if preparing for devastation will somehow make it easier.
I reach the end of the hallway, a dead end with no Camila in sight.
She screams again, the noise not so distant now and easier to pinpoint. I’m led to the nurse’s station, an unmarked room I’d written off as supplies, and when I swing the door open, I find Dr. Valerian holding Camila under in a tub filled with water and ice.
My eyeballs feel hot, my palms clammy, and my heart thumps madly in my throat.
I can’t push it down or swallow the sensation.
It requires me to fight through it. My finger is already on the trigger, the taser on the back of his neck.
He falls over the tub, and I zap him again.
I want to kill him right here, right now, before I have a chance to think it through, but I know she deserves better than that.
She deserves her own revenge.
Camila doesn’t rise to the surface on her own, my heart already sinking with her as I reach into the tub but can’t pull her out.
There are metal chains secured to her ankles and wrists with cuffs, keeping her locked to the bottom of it.
The water is arctic cold. It bites at my skin, a shocking sensation that paralyzes my muscles and burns my flesh.
“Camila.” I shake her, but her eyes only flutter, no acknowledgement registering. “Fuck!” I shout, attempting to lift her despite knowing damn well I can’t break these chains with my bare hands.
The doctor groans, the reminder of his presence fueling my rage and igniting the fight back into my system. I drag his limp body toward the procedure chair, digging into his pockets to fish out the key. I strap in his legs first and then his arms before I turn back to help my girl.
My grip isn’t strong enough to keep the keys in my right hand, the tendons and ligaments still severed and mending from my attempt a few days earlier. “Stay with me, baby.” I say it more for myself than her, knowing she’s somewhere she likely can’t hear me.
I fumble with the keys, the cold seeping into my bones the longer it takes me to find the padlock.
Each hand is separately secured, so by the time I get to her ankles, my flesh burns in agonizing pain.
I scream in frustration, the doctor’s moans and grumbles growing louder as he gets closer to comprehension.
Dropping this damn key becomes a punishment the longer my hand wades through the icy water, my tolerance for it never reaching a mind over matter state. The pain is too much, but when I gaze back at Camila, lips blue and eyes shut, it reminds me that there is no other option.
Either we both make it out of here tonight, or nobody lives to tell the tale of what happened in Sunny Valley.
With fingers numb and my hand unfeeling, I reach into the water to free her ankles, both hands in the tub now. I push through the discomfort, ignoring the stitching tugging on my arm as I use my right hand to feel for the lock and guide my left hand to it.
I pull her out first, laying her onto the table before I rip the wet clothes from her body. Her flesh is discolored, her skin almost lifeless, her lips cracked and purple. It feels too late, but I pound her chest, remembering what little I know about CPR.
Pumping with the rhythm of the Bee Gee’s song, I urge her to come back to me, screaming that it’s not her time and that I need her with me.
Nothing happens.
I try again, and again, pushing harder against her rib cage as my frustration turns to anger and then fear.
It hits me that this is what a dead body looks like. This is what Camila’s dead body looks like, because she is dead and there’s no magic or cure that can bring her back. I pound my fist into the steel table, all my rage focused on one man and one man only.
I’m too weak to even turn and face him, too powerless to do anything but hold my girl, her skin still cold, her body still frozen in my arms. The blue-gray-ish tone of her flesh seeks my warmth even in the afterlife.