Chapter Twenty-One
Tuesday
A strange sense of pride worked through me as Bunny told her story. No one had come to her rescue, so she’d taken matters into her own hands.
It was brutal, what she'd done... But so was her stepfather.
He had it coming.
“You’re not still pregnant, are you?" My eyes darted to her flat abdomen.
"Ha! Hardly. I lost the damn thing a few weeks after I got here. They said it was my fault that I lost the baby. You know, with a coat hanger.” She made a motion with her arms that had my stomach flipping at the imagery.
Her mouth curved with a pensive frown. “I don’t remember doing that.
But it’s been years, and my head is fuzzy. ”
It couldn’t have possibly been years. If her stepfather impregnated her when she was seventeen, and she was eighteen now…that math didn’t add up.
What was ages to Bunny could have been days to me or others. Though with every passing hour I spent here, I was doubting more and more that it was just the patient's confusion.
Rook’s experimental drug maybe wasn’t the miracle “treatment” he’d advertised it as, but maybe it did make everyone who’d taken it appear younger.
Without thinking, I gently took Bunny’s arm and pulled the sleeve of her gown up. She held up her dolly and wiggled it around while speaking in a higher octave. “What are you doing to my mommy?”
“Checking to see if she’s healthy, Joanie.”
“If you’re looking for those weird green veins, you won’t find them.”
My gaze centered on Bunny’s. “No?”
She shook her head and lowered her doll. “Only the hospital staff have those, silly. If you don’t have them yet, you will soon. Unless you turn into a monster."
The woeful dip in her voice had me shifting uncomfortably in the pew. "What do you mean?"
"The green stuff they shoot up all the staff with. Turns the strong ones into demons and everyone else into gross monsters with mush for brains.”
If Bunny were a patient of mine at Braith Psychiatry, I would have written her tangent off as nothing more than a result of the outdated brain procedure she'd received. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
"Tell me more about these monsters.”
"They live outside.”
"I have a window in my office, and I haven't seen any monsters. Just fog."
She rolled her eyes, as if I were the one being obtuse. “They’re hiding in the fog. You’ll become one of them too if you let them shoot you up with the green stuff.”
“So what are you wanting to see Dr. Rook’s office for, anyway?”
I couldn’t give her an answer; I didn’t know what I was looking for.
It’s not like Seventeen gave me much of a lead.
He’d made me degrade myself for peanuts.
Here’s hoping he didn’t send me down a pointless rabbit hole.
If he were going to fuck me, he’d actually fuck me. So he could gloat in my face.
“I— I don’t know, really. All I have to go off of is a feeling.”
“What kind of feeling?”
My jaw set. “I can’t really say.”
“Why?” she asked in the cadence she used when Joanie was speaking, with a shake of her dolly for the full effect.
For an eighteen-year-old—allegedly—Bunny was very childlike. Age regression was the name of the syndrome, often used as a coping mechanism. I couldn’t blame her. Her innocence had been stolen much too early in her life. It was healthy for her to hold onto her inner child for as long as she needed.
“I’m just looking for answers. To a lot of questions,” I told her with a gentle smile, squeezing her fingers still threaded through mine. She hadn’t let go of my hand since we left the chapel.
Her head flopped to one side, and I imagined invisible bunny ears perking up with her palpable curiosity. “What kind of questions?”
“Why it feels like I’m…” I paused in search of the right words. “Underwater? Since I got here, my head has been filled with static. I’m having strange dreams. I’m seeing things.”
“Maybe you need a lobotomy.” She pointed to her scar with her doll, speaking in its voice.
“Yeah… Let’s call that Plan B, Joanie.”
It didn’t surprise me when Bunny led me down to the basement. It made sense that Rook’s old office would be on the same level as his laboratory. What threw me for a loop was when we stepped into a small service elevator tucked in a corner, one you wouldn’t see unless you knew it was there.
“Why did you lead me down here only to take us up again?” I asked when Bunny stabbed the upward arrow button.
“This elevator is the only one in the whole building that goes up to the bell tower. There used to be stairs, but those are blocked off now. This is the only way up.”
“Rook’s old office is in the bell tower?”
“He didn’t like his dad. He wanted to work as far away from him as possible.”
The inside of the elevator looked like it had gone through a nuclear fallout. “Uh, is this safe?”
Bunny giggled. “Sure.”
Her answer didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. Cautiously, I stepped inside, and it wasn’t until the doors rattled shut that I noticed the claw marks in the metal, as if an animal had been trapped inside.
As I was about to ask Bunny about the scratches, the elevator doors parted again with a ding, and my jaw dropped at the view greeting us.
While most of the original building had been renovated when it became a hospital, with many of the original Gothic features stripped, the bell tower had remained untouched.
The bell tower was more spacious than I’d imagined. There were several levels, with a large opening in the ceiling where the bell could be seen high above, attached to the sloped roof.
“Does the bell still work?”
“Used to. Hasn’t since Patient Seventeen became one of us.” The girl skipped out of the elevator to a far corner of the tower’s base level, where a heavy door stood. I followed her with a far more cautious gait.
Nailed into the door was an engraved name plate reading:
Dr. Mal. Rook, PhD
“Silly place for an office, isn’t it?” Bunny hummed.
I couldn’t disagree more. It was a wonderful place for an office, minus the accessibility problem.
ADA compliance aside, I loved how isolated it was.
The architecture had Hunchback of Notre Dame vibes.
The atmosphere was heavy with something otherworldly; I wouldn’t be all that surprised if the stone gargoyles came to life.
Bunny pushed the brass handle, and the door’s old hardware groaned open.
The room inside was the most beautiful I’d seen so far at Saint Bart’s. Worn leather furniture decorated the center space, filling the air with a warm, masculine scent that had a strange heat swirling low in my belly.
Stunning built-ins lined the walls, every inch of their dusty shelves jammed with books and knick-knacks. It was a stylish study, decorated with antiques and vintage music posters. A stack of records sat beside what I guessed to be the newest thing in the room: a Victrola player from the ‘60s.
Curious, I moved the tonearm onto the dusty vinyl already loaded on the turntable. “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” by Lesley Gore started playing. The notes crackled, giving the upbeat tune an eerie cadence.
“Oh!” Bunny bounced excitedly. “I love this song!”
I smiled, leaving the record to play for her, even though it gave me the willies.
To the right of the record player was a small desk, pushed against the wall. Above it was a small circular stained-glass window. I knew the one. I’d seen it from the outside when I first arrived.
Even with the overcast day, there was enough sunlight to paint the desk in shades of green and yellow.
It was as if there was an invisible leash around my throat.
It tugged me toward the desk, making the simple task of breathing next to impossible as I lowered myself into the desk’s chair.
My attention snagged on a yellowed wall calendar from the ‘70s. Suddenly, I found myself wondering which Rook this office had belonged to. Maybe it hadn’t belonged to the noseless asshole who was currently in charge at all.
Opening the desk’s single drawer, I found myself staring at a journal. Stamped in gold leaf on the cover was the name Dr. Mal Rook III.
The third?
If the man in the glass case was the founder… Did that mean the Dr. Rook I knew had a son?
I flipped it open and read the inscription on the inside cover.
Mal,
Congrats on graduating from Brown. Your grandfather would be proud to know you’re coming to work with me at Saint Bartholomew's to continue his legacy.
Your loving father,
Malcolm Rook
P.S. Don’t disappoint me.
“Mal,” I whispered out loud, remembering where I’d seen that name before. It was one of the few pieces of information in Patient Seventeen’s black file.
The pieces of the puzzle snapped into place, and the realization hit me like a ton of bricks.
I’d known Patient Seventeen—Malcolm Rook III—was a neurologist who’d been a physician at Saint Bartholomew’s.
But it still didn’t add up. If Seventeen hadn’t been committed for the murder of his father—who was very much alive—then what crime had been so great for his own flesh and blood to have him committed?
“I’m bored.” Bunny flopped in her chair with a groan. “I want to play a new game.”
I wasn’t listening. The journal of the man who’d invaded my mind had taken me in a chokehold, and just like everything else that had to do with Seventeen, I was powerless to do anything but surrender.