VIOLA
How often have you thought about blood in the past week?
I smile at the man in the inoffensive gray slacks and a sky blue shirt asking me that question. Blood. I’m always thinking about it. It haunts my nightmares and stalks my dreams. It stains the walls. It seeps through my skin and whispers in my ear. I see crimson, ruby, scarlet, carnelian, and vermillion reds everywhere. Never cardinal, though.
That color is gone.
I keep my smile in place and cock my head, letting him see in my eyes what I’d love to do to the prick assessing me today. It’s become a ritual—Dr. Shalpert and I discussing my obsession with slaughter. It was fun at first. Now it’s just tedious.
“Every second,” I finally answer him.
His frown deepens as he glances down to scribble in his notebook. He uses a mechanical pencil with a 0.5mm lead. It means he likes to be precise. It also means he’s not heavy-handed and won’t easily snap the lead when pressing down to take notes. I take that and add it to all the other partial bits of information I know about him, storing it away for another day. From the clothes he wears, the steel-rimmed glasses on his face, and the wedding band on his finger—Dr. Shalpert takes his job seriously even though he is not a bad man.
But he is the one person I need to convince of my insanity.
“Are you still seeing things, hearing voices?”
I stare at him, unblinking. I don’t fidget or look away, which is what the average person would do. “All the time.”
I smile, letting him see the crazy.
The drugs they found in my system when they arrested me will help paint a pretty picture of a history of mental illness. I made sure the ones I used to coat my lips, and that ingested when I kissed Dino’s brother, had the right cocktail known for hallucinations in users with underlying psychiatric or personality disorders.
There’s a soft knock on the door, and an orderly pokes their head into the room. “Miss Hartridge’s lawyer is here to see her.”
If you’re mentally capable, a visit from your lawyer trumps everything. Dr. Shalpert puts his canary yellow legal pad down, letting me see a glimpse of short-hand notes he’s already accumulated from our session and waves me away.
“We’ll finish this later,” says Dr. Shalpert.
I suppress the irritation at having to delay my diagnosis. Since this is a private facility, the doctors here don’t really care if their patients get the help they need though they appear to go through the motions. I have no idea if he’ll recommend transferring me across or not, but I need him to. I’ve been in St Michaels for a couple of weeks now, and it’s apparent Jude is not here. He’s not in this part of the facility anyway—where the juvenile delinquents, degenerates, and murderers are.
No.
He’s on the other side.
Where the mentally unstable ones are.
The orderly takes me to a lounge room with soft yellow walls, like every wall in this place, and fake plants—no hard edges, thick, shatter-proof plastic as windows set into the stonework, an aquarium sealed into the wall, and muted paintings all around. Two flowery sofas face each other, and an imitation fireplace sits in the middle of the external wall.
Lorcan’s lawyer, Carver, is waiting for me, and next to him, posing as his colleague, if his security tag is anything to go by, is Lorcan himself.
The lawyer runs a hand through his hair as he stands up, offering me his other hand to shake. My eyes flick to Lorcan’s as he stands to do the same.
Deep, vermillion green eyes shrouded by dark, thick lashes, devoid of any emotion that I can interpret, take me in. Lorcan leans slightly in as I take his palm in mine. His grip is firm, and his skin is warm. He smells of citrus and bergamot, of all things rich, sexy, and opulent.
It makes the itch under my skin, constant since I got here, subside.
Just a little.
“Are you okay?” Lorcan’s words are hushed but, nonetheless, are still heard by me as close as he is.
“I’m fine,” I say softly, meaning it. I was never scared of being caught by the authorities. I’m not a wilting flower needing to be saved. I never was. I let that shine in my eyes as I sit across from Carver and Lorcan.
Lorcan frowns but takes his place next to his lawyer, now mine.
“We want to take you through some of the required paperwork,” Caver says, leaning forward to pass me a file. There is no paperwork. It’s code for Lorcan and me to have an open line of communication while I’m in here. I flip through the file anyway and pretend to read as the orderly leaves. Once we’re alone and the light on the camera in the corner of the room switches off, and Carver gets up and walks to the reinforced window to look out, minding his own fucking business as he gets paid to do.
Lorcan gets to his feet, eyes narrowed as he looks over me from top to toe, as has become his routine every time he visits.