Chapter 7 #2
I head for the door and slip into the corridor, keeping my steps light as I make my way toward Dr. Beckett’s office.
The alarm sounds. Screams rise behind me. Everyone is panicking, and I’m just ignoring them.
The distraction is for them, not for me. All I need is the information. After that, I can return to my cell and let them believe my mind blacked out under the dose of electroshock therapy Dr. Emily Beckett prescribed.
And that is precisely what I do.
As staff rush toward the room with the dead woman, I move in the opposite direction.
The front entrance is locked. The windows are sealed. Chaos fills the whole floor, and not a single person notices me as I pass the reception desk.
I slip into the corridor lined with offices.
I glanced back once. Then again. No one is following.
I stop in front of the door marked seven, and I enter the code and slide inside, closing the door behind me.
This is her office, but not a single thing inside belongs to her.
No photographs. No personal items. Nothing that suggests this office is hers. The room feels empty, with boxes filled with patient files stacked neatly along the walls. Behind the desk, a bookshelf is packed tight with volumes on criminal psychology, spines worn from use.
I move to the desk and sit in the chair. I lean down and pull open the drawer, searching through it, fingers moving fast as I look for a notebook, a scrap of paper, anything that might lead me to Detective Rourke’s address.
But there is nothing.
No handwritten notes. No personal files. She keeps none of it here.
Useless.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
I shove the papers off the desk. They scatter across the floor, pages flutter, and they land in uneven piles.
“Shit.”
I drop to my knees and start picking them up.
They can’t know I was here.
As I gather the pages, one catches my eye. It was a visitation log with names and dates listed in neat rows. One name appears again and again, five times total, all visits logged for the same patient.
Mabel Kinsley.
Why does that sound familiar?
I scan the page again. Next to the name is a cell number.
I memorize it first, then gently set the papers back on the desk, arranging them as before.
I stand and head for the door. The corridor outside is loud and chaotic.
“He has to be somewhere.” I hear them shouting.
Their boots pound against the floor, radios crackle with voices, but I keep my head down and shoulders slumped, and walk straight toward the cells. Walking slowly like I am just another patient returning to his cage.
They never look twice.
Stupid. A single distraction can shatter their focus. Just targeting one of them and stirring emotions does the job. Grief clouds their judgment, blinding them to what’s directly in front of them. As a result, they become easier to manipulate.
The name keeps repeating in my head.
Mabel Kinsley.
By the time I reach the cell block, the memory slowly comes back in pieces. And I remember. She was one of the nurses caught in the fire back in 1998.
I knew her.
I knew her very well.
I stand in front of cell twelve and gaze through the small square window in the door. Thick glass separates me from what’s inside.
An older woman sits on the edge of the bed. Her back is slightly hunched. She stares at the white wall across from her, rocking back and forth, over and over. Her breathing is shallow, her eyes glassy and unfocused.
I open the door and wedge it shut with my shoe before it can lock behind me.
“Kiki?” I whisper.
She turns her head instantly.
There is no warmth in her eyes. No recognition. The woman who used to bring me toys is gone. Panic flashes across her face, and she screams.
I rush forward and press my palm over her mouth, muffling the sound. I lean in close, my lips brushing her ear.
“It’s me, Kiki,” I whisper. “It’s Z.”
She freezes. Slowly, her hand lifts and presses against my cheek. Her touch trembles. She stares at me, searching my face.
“Z,” she gasps. “No.” Her head shakes weakly. “You’re him.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “You’re Ezra Zane.”
The name cuts deeper than it should.
I know it. I grew up with it. With the shadow of a father who tried to erase it from my existence.
“No,” I whisper. “Just Zayne.” My voice softens. “Just Z. The one you used to bring toy cars and stuffed bunnies.”
Her hand flies to her mouth. A sob escapes her as tears fall faster now.
“What did they do to you?” she cries.
I shake my head and lower my hand to her shoulder, grounding her.
“Kiki, why are you here?”
“That’s what they do,” she sniffles. “When everything goes to shit, they call us crazy. Or they get rid of us.” Her voice drops. “So we keep our mouths shut.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s what they all do.”
I stand and take her hand, wrapping my fingers gently around hers.
“Do you know how to leave this place?”
She pulls her hands back and rests them stiffly on her thighs. “I leave this place only through the morgue,” she says. “They won’t allow anything else.”
“Don’t you want your Z to help you the way you helped me?”
She looks up at me and smiles. “I want you to burn this place to the ground.”
She lifts her palms toward me. Burn scars stretch across the skin, pale and uneven.
“I failed,” she says. “But I know you won’t.”
I press my palm against hers. “If it weren’t for you, I would never have seen the sun or the moon.” My grip tightens slightly. “It’s my turn to repay that favor.”
I gather her frail body into my arms and lift her. She clings to me as I carry her out of the room. My shoe remains wedged in the door behind us.
I move quickly through the corridors, heading for the morgue. There is a service exit there, the one they use for bodies, the one that leads directly to the transport vehicles, and the door is always unlocked.
“How did you find me?” she asks softly, her arms wrapped around my neck.
“I saw a picture in the files,” I say. “I recognized you.”
I lied.
Then I ask, “Was Detective Rourke visiting you?”
“Yes,” she answers. “He wanted to know everything about the X-Files.” She exhales slowly. “He knows about the experiments. He wanted the truth. He wanted to bring it all down.”
I chuckle. “What a noble man,” I say.
“He told me he hid all the files in his cottage near the Ozarks,” she says. “He said once I went there with him, he would release everything to the newspapers.” Her voice trembles, but there is hope in it. “They would pay for all the years I was locked in here.”
Opportunity. Check.
Answers. Check.
Address. Check.
And they say destiny doesn’t guide us in the right direction. Yet here it is, placing the right people directly in my path.
I lift a brow. “Did he?”
She nods.
When we reach the morgue, I lower her gently to the floor. I point toward the small service door nearby.
“Do you remember the way out?”
She nods again.
“Do you know where to go?” I ask.
“My house.” Her eyes widened. “I will make myself coffee and a good damn pie.” A faint smile pulls at her lips. “If I die, I die in my own four walls.”
I’m not sure if her house still exists. It’s been eighteen years since 1998—time can erase places as easily as people. But I also know I can’t go with her. I have to return and pretend.
“Go to Ten White Street,” I say. “It’s not far from here. Find Emily Beckett and tell her you know Zayne Mercer. She will help you.” I pause. “A lot can change in eighteen years. Houses collapse. People change. You will need someone if you find everything gone.”
She looks at me closely. “Did he succeed?”
The question tightens my jaw.
I shake my head.
“There is still time,” she says softly, lifting her hand toward my face.
I catch her wrist before she can touch me.
“Time is the one thing I don’t have anymore,” I say. “Go. Now.”
I turn away and push the door open, pointing toward the exit.
Time is running out for me. I don’t have a machine to bring it back, and even if I did, it wouldn’t change anything. Some people can’t be changed. Time can’t be stopped.
The world is already falling apart. People are the ones tearing it down. I am only here to add to the destruction. My life was ruined before I ever had a chance to live it. Time became a leak I tried to patch, to keep it from draining away faster than it already had.
Now all that is left is pretending.
Because I want them all to be part of my show.
Not everyone in this place is crazy.
Some of us are lunatics.