Twisted Bond by SR Jones
ChapterFour
Amelia
I'm in the library at the institution, allowed some time amongst the books as if I’m almost human.
Why? Because I spoke to Amanda and opened up some. Screw these sadistic, controlling assholes. Still, I've been given a one-hour pass for some reading time, and I intend to use it.
How the hell people are supposed to get better when they aren't allowed the smallest pleasures in life like reading a book is beyond me. It seems positively medieval to take people suffering from depression and anxiety and lock them up somewhere without any access to all the things that make life worth living.
“Hey there. I've seen you around. You’re new, aren't you?”
I spin around.
Crazy brown curls with blonde tips take up most of my field of vision. It’s the coolest hair I’ve ever seen. The wild mop sits atop a pretty face, and it gets even prettier when the girl smiles at me. She has light green eyes, and her eyebrows are blonde, so I deduce the brown in her hair is a dye job.
“Yes, I'm a newbie. My name is Amelia. Nice to meet you.”
“Oh, aren't we formal?” she says in a mocking tone.
I'm not sure if she's being nasty, and I shuffle my weight from foot to foot as I try to think of a reaction.
“I'm only joking,” she says with a smile. She pokes me in the side with her elbow gently. “Promise.”
“That's okay,” I say. “I'm really bad at reading people.”
I don't know why I just told this total stranger that, but there's something about her that makes me feel at ease despite her jerky remark of a moment ago.
She grins at me. “I'm really good at reading people, and that's part of my problem. I find people altogether far too predictable. Everyone out there is playing the same game. The same boring role of trying to fit in and make their way in this world. They lie, cheat, and work themselves into the ground so they can afford a tiny plot of land with a brick prison built on it, but I'm the one who's sick in the head.”
She hops onto a nearby table and simply sits there with her legs dangling, ankles kicking to and fro off the edge. She's very petite, and I guess she must only be around five-feet-tall.
“I think all the people who can adjust to our society are the sick ones. Why would I want to fit in?”
“I've never fit in either,” I confess.
She looks around her and leans in close. “What are you in here for? I'm here because I cut up all my clothes and then decided to cut Mother’s up too. She said that was the final step too far. It's kind of tragic; it took me destroying her wardrobe to get her attention. Cutting myself wasn't enough. Being so depressed I couldn't get out of bed for days on end wasn't enough. But dare to destroy her boring collection of blazers and slacks, and here I am.”
She raises her arms in the air and then smacks them down onto her legs as she gives a sigh of dismay.
“I ran away to Italy to be with my mafia lover,” I tell her with some glee.
“You did not!” she squeals.
“I really did. I was supposed to marry some boring local boy and be a good little wife and have children, but I just couldn't do it.”
The sound of someone stacking books interrupts us, and the girl hops down off the table, grabs my wrist, and leads me through the shelves to a space where there's no one else around.
“I'm Georgie,” she tells me. “How the hell did you meet someone in the mafia?”
Damn, I probably shouldn't have said that. It’s not even the full truth. I just wanted to sound interesting, I guess. Georgie is interested. Her eyes are wide, and her pouty mouth is slightly parted as she stares at me.
“He's not really in the mafia,” I admit. “He does hang around with some very shady characters, though. He's a businessman, and I met him when he came to my father's house a long time ago. He offered me a job curating the books in his library, and I couldn't resist. I left home without telling anybody, and apparently that's the original sin that cast me into this hellhole.”
I lick my lips and swallow thickly. My throat is so dry from the meds they're giving me, it's torture.
“What cocktail do they have you on?” Georgie asks.
“I don't know.”
“Girl, you need to find out. If you ask, they have to tell you. Some of the stuff they give out in here is pure poison. You might be on a light regime, though. A lot of the pills are things like vitamins, too. Hey.” She licks her lips, leans in again, takes my hand in hers and lowers her voice. “You know, it's easy to fool them that you've swallowed the pills. People stick them under their tongue and get caught out when they ask you to lift your tongue. You use some gum. Shove the gum right up between your top lip and your teeth, high to one side. Take the meds, and shove them into the gum hard, and then drink. It depends who they have on meds duty as to whether or not it's worth trying because some of them don't miss a trick, but if it's Aaron, he's really slap dash. The night-time ones are the ones to miss if you can, as they’re the ones with the meds to knock us out.”
My heart begins to beat faster. Hope rushes in where before I had only felt inertia and despair.
“Really?” I ask.
“Yes, he's really rubbish at checking. There are lots of us who don’t take our meds when he's on. It's good to have a break for a night or two because those things make you so sick. He's on tonight so you're in luck. You can give it a go. The other good thing about doing that is that you can stockpile them and take them all at once if you need to just obliterate things for a while. Not all at once, of course, because that would probably kill you. Some nights I take two or three tranquillizers, though, when the anxiety is bad, and it knocks me out. But other nights, I want to be aware, you know? They shouldn't get to control our bodily processes and minds. An individual’s mind is sacred, and it pisses me off they can give us meds to make us sleep, to make us awake, and then make us dance.”
Dance? I'm not sure what she means.
She drags her hand through thick, bouncy curls, and it snags a couple of times as she pushes it through.
“It’s movie night,” she says. “We're allowed one a week in the dining room when they've cleared away all the tables. They put the chairs out and line them up facing the front. It's normally something boring, but it's better than nothing. If they think you've taken your suppertime meds like a good girl, you might be allowed to watch it. It depends, though, on whether or not you've shared enough according to Amanda or Louisa. Which one do you have?”
I'm about to tell her, but heavy footsteps heading our way have us scattering apart as if the mere act of talking to one another is breaking some universal law.
Georgie wiggles her fingers at me and skips away between two shelves.
I giggle to myself as she continues skipping around the corner and out of sight.
The smile drips from my face as I contemplate that this evening might be the chance I get to put my plan into action.
I want to do it, but I'm also scared of doing so. What if I get caught? Do they have solitary confinement here like in a prison? I don't think I could bear that. I would go insane if someone put me in a cell for twenty-four hours a day with no contact with anyone else. I watched a program once about a prison somewhere out west, a long time ago, and they used to make the inmates who behave badly spend a week in a cell without any light. I think I'd rather be dead than go through that. Surely your mind would just shatter.
I spend the rest of the day in an agony of indecision. I'm desperate to get out of here because I've become convinced that the people here did something to my mother. They did not follow the normal procedures when they admitted me. As much as it pains me to even think about my own flesh and blood, I do believe Grandmother would be capable of doing something terrible. She always hated my mother. The way she talked about her; it was as if she was talking about some disgusting creature like a slug.
Memories assail me randomly throughout the day of Grandmother telling me hurtful, cruel things about Mother. She’d smile gleefully sometimes, as she talked about my mother being a slut, a drunk, and a crazy person.
By the time supper comes around, I'm an anxious mess. My mind is ricocheting between the past of my grandmother’s hatred, and the future of my possible escape.
It’s overwhelming, and I go on autopilot. I eat the tasteless food, take out a stick of gum, and thank God they allow it here, and join the line for meds. As I shuffle nearer to the front, I know I'm going to go for it.
I can tell from the increased heart rate and my rapid breathing, because even if I'm not consciously aware of having made a decision, my body has.
I need to get out of here. This is my only chance.
I don't think Grandmother would try to harm me the same way she did Mother because then who is there to carry on the family line? How far would she go, though, to make me behave in the way she sees fit for a Marshall?
Focusing on the here and now, my stomach flips when I realize there are only three girls left in front of me. One of the nurses, a round, cheerful woman called Vicky, comes into the room and claps her hands together.
“Ladies, tonight is movie night, and we will be showing When Harry met Sally. I have a list of names here, and if your name gets called, you may watch the movie.”
She begins reading the names out, and just as I get to the front of the line for the meds, she says mine.
It will be a lot easier to sneak out of the film showing in the dining hall than it will to get out of my room.
I have to do this.
I need to try no matter what the cost to me is if I don't succeed.
Aaron passes me the small white cup with my pills in, and I take them with shaking fingers. He then hands me the water. His gaze is firmly on my face, and my hand shakes more as I lift the white paper cup to my lips.
I can't do this.
His scrutiny is too intense.
There's a commotion to my left. Aaron turns his head to look at the same time I do. Georgie has fallen against one of the tables, pushing it into the one behind it.
Her eyes meet mine for a split second, and that's all it takes for me to know.
She did this for me.
I toss the white cup back so that the pills land in my mouth. Then with my tongue, I push them between my upper gum and my teeth as tight as I can, where the gum is.
I pray the pills don't fall out.
I lift the water to my lips and wait for Aaron to look back at me, knowing that if I drink it now, he won't believe I've taken the meds.
I've seen the guards pry open a girl’s jaw before and run their fingers right around her mouth. I certainly don't want Aaron's fingers in my mouth, thank you very much. When he looks back at me, I make a show of having waited for him. I lift the cup to my lips, swallow three times, as if struggling slightly to get the pills down. Then smile and open my mouth.
His impatient look troubles me. I open my mouth wider and lift my tongue, being the good girl. Compliant.
Aaron’s expression relaxes a notch as he leans close, glances in my mouth, and at a shout from across the room, he shifts his gaze right back to Georgie.
He glances at me and gives me a curt nod. I force myself to walk away slowly and calmly when everything inside me is screaming to run and spit the meds out immediately.
When I get to my room, I take the meds out and hide them under my pillow.
Twenty minutes later, there's a knocking on the door. I go to stand by it as we are ordered to do, and when it opens, I see Aaron again. He glances at me disinterestedly.
“Your name is on the roster for watching the movie tonight. You can come and watch it, or you can stay here. It's up to you.”
“I'd love to watch the movie. Thank you,” I say.
He grabs my arm just above the elbow, leads me out of the room, pulls the door shut, locks it, and then he guides me down the corridor.
We don’t say one word to each other the whole walk down the halls and trudge down the stairs. He grips my arm and leads me like a dog. And I let him.
When we reach the dining room, it has been transformed. There's a huge TV in the center of the room and chairs line either side of a central space that's a makeshift aisle.
I choose a seat close to the back of the room on the left-hand side near the back entrance to the dining hall.
I sit and wait patiently as the seats fill up. My skin is clammy, and my heart beats fast. I don't know if it's from anticipation and nerves, or my body missing its regular dose of medicine.
I've only been here a few days, and I don't know if that's long enough for me to become physically dependent on the medications they've given me or not.
Eventually, the seats around me fill, and Gavin, one of the other orderlies, or as I think of them, guards, marches to the front and messes around with the TV set.
Booming music makes me jump out of my skin, and he curses under his breath as he picks up one of the remotes and tries to turn the volume down. He finally manages to sort it out, and the movie begins.
I sit through a full forty minutes of When Harry met Sally, one of my favorite movies, and I don't really take in anything that's going on, on the screen in front of me. At some point, a body slides into the seat next to me, and a foot pushes against mine.
I glance to my side to see Georgie, and next to her a tiny slip of a girl.
I don't say anything to Georgie because I don't want to get her into trouble, but I reach out and stroke my little finger down her wrist, showing her I'm grateful for what she did.
Gavin is standing by the door that's my escape from this room, and I don't think I'm going to get a chance. I could say I need the bathroom, but one of them will follow me.
“Hi, I’m Rina,” the girl says, leaning over her friend to quietly introduce herself. She sits back in her seat, and starts to demolish her nails, biting them as if they’ve done her personal harm.
“You're very tense,” Georgie whispers to me. “Not enjoying the movie?”
“I was planning to escape,” I tell her.
It's a massive risk I'm taking, but she helped me before, so why not now? Georgie strikes me as just the sort of girl who lives for getting into trouble.
“There's no way out, babe,” she says sadly. “Every door is locked and alarmed, and there are guards on all the entrances.”
“I only need ten minutes. I found a way we can all get out of here,” I tell her.
I cast a furtive glance to my left, but Gavin is focused on the TV screen.
“Really? Cause, honestly, I don’t see how.”
“I swear it.”
“I can create a distraction,” she says. “I want to know what your plan is, though.”
“In the office where Amanda has some of her therapy sessions, there's a rickety old desk, and she keeps a box of matches in one drawer that she uses to light a candle. I only need to get out of this room so I can get up the stairs and into that room, so those matches can accidentally light and fall onto the floor...”
“Oh my God. You're crazy.”
“Well duh,” I say, waving my hands around me, showing our surroundings.
She giggles but then sighs. “I don’t know. Could be dangerous.”
“Yeah, but Amanda’s office is on the top floor, so there is no one above who could get trapped by the flames. To either side of that room there are only offices.” I'm whispering urgently to her now and risking attracting attention, but time is of the essence. “I can break the door down easily, and I don't think anyone would hear all the way down here. I just need some time, and if I can start a fire, it will set the smoke alarms off first followed by the sprinkler system. Smoke alarms mean they'll have to open the doors, and everybody will have to go stand outside. I don't see how the number of guards looking after the number of us can keep control. Most of the people will do what they’re told and line up outside. There's no need for you to. You know what's going on, and you can get away. I just need a chance.”
My heart crashes against my sternum as for the longest time she doesn't say anything.
In front of me, one of cinema's golden couples carry on their flirtatious dance as I breathe in and out as if I'm running a marathon.
Without saying a word to me, Georgie gets up from her seat and saunters to the front of the room.
She stands in front of the TV, pulls her pants down, bends over and bears her pale behind to the whole room.
I gasp and clap my hands over my mouth as I laugh in shock.
She wasn't lying when she said she could create a distraction.
Gavin and Aaron rush to the front of the room as Vicky walks down slowly, shaking her head and muttering under her breath. There's another nurse sitting toward the back who, for a long moment, doesn't move, and my heart sinks. But then Georgie starts to fight Gavin who has reached her, and the nurse gets up reluctantly and strides down the center of the room.
Keeping low, I scoot from my seat and dash for the door at the back of the room. I'm out of there and running down the corridor as fast as I can before anyone can see me.
When I get to the end, I push through the internal doors to the staircase and race up the stairs right to the top floor.
Once there, I realize my mistake immediately.
It's pitch black.
Scary as hell.
Oh shit… I don't know if I can do this. I'm in a Victorian asylum for God’s sake, in the dark, on my own in the top corridor. This is the stuff that terrifying horror movies are made of.
“Get a fucking grip, Amelia,” I tell myself. “Those kinds of things aren't real, but being here is. Your grandmother's plans for you are. This is your chance, and you need to take it.”
I make myself calm down as I walk along the corridor, clenching and unclenching my hands and shaking them to try to bring some of the feeling back into my increasingly tingly fingers.
I count the doors by trailing my fingers along the wall. Every stop is jarring, and takes me further from the safety of the lit stairwell. My breathing is so ragged, it’s all I can hear.
I finally reach the room where Amanda has her therapy sessions. I turn the handle of the door and find it locked as expected. But when I jiggle the door, there's a lot of movement in the lock. It's an old door in an old building, and I don't think the locks have been replaced for many years.
I try to recall if the best way to break down a door is with your shoulder or kicking it with your foot.
Everyone always breaks it down with a shoulder in the films and the TV shows, and I'm such a geek that one day I looked it up. It’s coming back to me now, and thank God I’m such a nerd because running at a door with your shoulder is a sure-fire way to dislocate it.
I focus my mind and remember what Google said about the best way to kick a door down. The best way is with your foot. I feel for the handle with shaky fingers, and I move my hand along another few inches to the left and away from the lock.
If I remember correctly, this is the best part of the door to aim the kick at. It is the weakest, and the door will either open, or you can kick it through.
I don't think the doors on this corridor are the original heavy wooden Victorian doors that you see in the entranceway and in some of the public spaces at the ground level. They look like they were replaced in the sixties or seventies, which is good for me because it means they're probably cheap, hollow wood.
Taking a deep breath, I place my right leg firmly on the floor and raise my left leg, but I stop myself.
I'm right-handed so that's my dominant side, which means it's my strongest side. I shuffle and plant my left foot firmly on the ground and then raise my right foot. Taking a deep breath in, I aim a kick straight at the point of the door a few inches away from the lock.
Nothing happens.
I repeat it and kick again.
Nothing.
I’m on what must be around my tenth attempt, and starting to lose hope, when there's a loud crack and splinter, and the door flies open.
Oh wow. I did it.
I enter the room, feeling around me, and try to see something, anything. Dark presses against me, almost a living, breathing entity. I realize I never knew until this moment what true darkness was.
I can hear my heartbeat in my ears.
Feel the air move around me.
Sense the isolation.
The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end.
Get a grip, Amelia.I soothe myself with some stern self-talk, and for a moment, it gives me courage to move deeper into the room.
A breath, whisper soft, rushes by me.
I freeze as some primeval instinct in me roars to life.
Dear, God. There's something else in the room with me.
I'm convinced of it.
I want to say something, but I can't speak. I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. I strain to hear, but the only sound is my breathing and my heart beating so loudly in my ears it could probably drown out a rock concert.
I can sense something, though. I tell myself it's my mind playing tricks on me, but then I feel it again.
Something breathes over the skin on my neck, exposed by my hair swept to one side.
Oh, please no.
I pray that it's one of the guards, and I'm about to get caught because the alternative is too horrifying to even contemplate.
I don't move, rooted to the spot as solidly as if I’d grown roots and become a tree. I wait for the next breath, but nothing comes. Faintness washes over me, followed by a rush of nausea.
I'm primed, balancing upon the balls of my feet and ready to turn tail and run when things change.
A wave of energy washes over me, and it fills me with strange warmth. Whatever else is in this room with me, I suddenly feel convinced that it doesn't mean me harm.
I close my eyes and let the energy wash over me again. A purpose and strength fills me, and I move forward. Opening my eyes, I walk right to where I think the desk is under the window. Light from the shutters guides me. It’s barely there, they’re so tightly shut, but the faint lines of pale against the dark lead the way.
My shaky fingers hit something solid, and I cry out. I slap my right hand over my mouth and muzzle myself as I breathe heavily in and out.
I might have felt a strong moment of empathy from whatever else inhabits this space, but I don't know how it will react to me shouting or making noise. Plus, I might alert the guards if any are patrolling nearby.
I hold my breath for a moment, and I don't move.
There's no sound around me, and no more breath touching me; nothing but the darkness pressing down on me. Am I alone again? My mind is racing, and I’m close to losing it.
I have to do this, and I need to make it quick. Georgie is in trouble downstairs, and if I don't succeed, she might be put somewhere terrible as punishment, like this room. Oh God, what if this was where they kept people who behaved badly back in the old days. What if there are spirits of people who were left up here chained in the dark, and now they’re roaming these passages?
Amelia, shut the fuck up, I tell myself.
I've read far too many books and given myself too much of an imagination, which is what's happening right now - a fantasy concocted by a scared mind.
In this moment I wish my second favorite genre wasn't horror.
I reach round the front of the wood, the rough edges catching on my nails as I scramble to try to find the small handle I saw Amanda pull the drawer open with.
Cold metal touches my fingertips, and I exhale fully for what feels like the first time in forever. I pull the drawer open and fumble inside, my fingers grasping the small square box.
Thank the Lord. I clutch it to my chest, holding it tight.
Now I need to cross this room to the fireplace. I might as well be about to climb Mount Everest because that's how daunting it feels. It might only be twenty steps at the most, but it's twenty steps into inky, dark, suffocating nothingness.
Trembling all over, I raise my right foot and step forward. I repeat the action with my left. As if I'm walking through thick, resistant mud, it takes me forever. Finally, I hit something and smile at the cool marble against my forearms.
I grab onto the mantlepiece with my free hand and hold on as I sag against it.
Okay, breathe. You’ve got this. Light the match, then light the candle so you can see. And then set fire to this fucking place and get out of here.
I slide open the matchbox, but I'm shaking so badly I drop the inner box onto the floor. Matches scatter everywhere, and I let out a cry of despair and sink to my knees scrabbling around the hard, worn carpet with my fingers.
The rough wood of a match scrapes against my skin, and I fumble for it, finally picking it up. My thumb touches the abraded edge at the outer shell of the matchbox, and I know that's where I need to strike the match.
I do it, but it doesn't catch. Trying to steady myself, I repeat the motion. Again, the match doesn’t light. Goddamn it. I'm almost sobbing now. The third time I get lucky. This time it strikes with a glorious wash of light-filled space in front of me. I hold the match up and look for the candle. I see it on the shelf and grab it and then light it using the match. I hold the candle in front of me, place it on the carpet, and pick up the matches around it.
I don't look around the room.
I know that if I see what I felt, I might really go insane.
With a candle flickering in front of me, and my gaze focused solely on that, I pick the matches up and strike them. I drop them on the floor as they burn, but the first few fizzle out. I repeat the action, and the match goes out again.
What the hell is this carpet made of – marble?
I repeat the process until there's only a few matches left.
Why won't this carpet burn?
I can't waste anymore matches. I think I'm about to be sick. My only chance of escape—
Georgie’s only chance too—and I’m about to blow it.
I look around me, forgetting for a moment about what preternatural beings might be occupying this space with me. It’s then I see the squishy old chair that I sit in for my sessions.
Yes, that looks as flammable as hell.
I grab the matches and the box, then march to the chair.
Strike.
Whoosh.
Throw.
Holy hell, it worked. I made fire. I stare in awe as the seat catches almost immediately.
I throw more burning matches onto the fabric, and within mere seconds it becomes an inferno.
I've never understood arsonists, but in this moment, I feel a rush of victory that is so overwhelming I want to revel in my power. I’m burning down the hellhole which killed my mother, and facilitated taking God knows how many women away without due process.
I don't have time to stand here, though, and watch the fire take hold, because I need to get the hell off this corridor.
I turn to the door and race through the darkness, and all the while that I'm running there's a strong sense that something is right beside me. Once more, I don’t feel malevolence from it, but almost a warmth, a caring. It’s crazy, so I push the thoughts away to examine another time.
I reach the double doors to take me down the stairs, but pause.
“Whoever you are, I'm doing this for you.” I close my eyes for a brief moment and send what I hope is a wave of love to the presence that I can feel on this corridor.
I hope seeing this place burned to the ground will give the poor lost soul a final sense of peace.
Racing down the stairs, the darkness above me retreats, and the light clinical whiteness below embraces me once more. I begin to think that perhaps I have lost my mind. Maybe I really do belong here. Then I don't have time to think at all.
Alarms blare out as freezing cold water hits me.
I give a startled cry.
Game on.