“Why would I be annoyed? As you said, the fucker deserved to die.”
She blinks at me with her huge, brown eyes and then empties the air from her lungs. “You’re the easiest out of them all, you know.”
I furrow my brow at her, but I can’t help the slight fucking grin easing onto my lips. One little bit of praise, and I’m lapping it up.
Fuck, I’m whipped.
Like a goddamn pussy.
Viola leaves me to shower and put on some new scrubs. I fucking miss clothes. On the other side, you can wear whatever the fuck you like, within reason. When I go to check my stash, it’s fucking gone. The bitch must have taken it. What the fuck?! Why the fuck would she do that? I’m seething by the time I find her in the main common room. She’s sitting at one of the craft tables with her back to the wall, watching everyone. I can almost hear her brain ticking over as she takes each resident here and categorically puts them in a mental box of useful to not. She leans back in her chair when she sees me approaching.
I stalk over to her and lean down until my eyes are level with hers, placing my hands on either side of the chair arms that she’s sitting in.
“Where the fuck are they?” I say in a low voice.
“Careful,” she says softly, eyes flashing with a warning.
I don’t want to be fucking careful. I want my stash back. Why the fuck would she take it? I let my anger show in my eyes but she just smirks, glancing down.
I follow her gaze.
The bitch has a ballpoint pen in her hand. I’ve no idea how she got that, but the threat is clear. She’s will stab me with it if I don’t back off.
I swallow my anger down, snarling as I run my hands through my still-damp hair.
“Now, back the fuck away and sit down.”
I take a step back and collapse into the empty seat opposite her.
“There’s a good boy,” she says under her breath.
I blink at her, wrangling my temper back into its fucking box. For fuck’s sake. What am I doing? Viola is still watching me, face unreadable. But her hand is clenched around the pen as though her life depends on it. She has every right to shove that piece of plastic through my fucking eye. I’m acting like a complete tosser.
I drag a lungful of air into my lungs, closing my eyes for a minute.
Chill the fuck out, you prick. You’re scaring her.
I snort a laugh at that. As if I could scare her, she’s the fucking Terminator on steroids.
“What’s so funny?” her sweet voice asks.
I open my eyes and stare at her. “Me, I’m a complete prick for getting wound up about the pills.”
She raises a brow. “You can’t even sit still, can you?”
I look to where her gaze rests, on my right hand, which is clawing at the chair arm material. Fucking hell. I white knuckle my hand to make it stop and then stare at her.
“I just…need it to help me sleep. That’s all.”
She shakes her head. “I know addiction when I see it.” She tilts her head, studying me like she can figure me out. “I have the same thing.”
That pulls me out of my own fucking ass. I cast my eyes over her, totally aware that we are in a psych ward and were being watched, but not in the least bothered. It’s her and me, and that’s all there is. No other fucker exists.
“Explain,” I say.
She doesn’t get to because a nurse comes over with a tray of little cups with pills in them and hands us both one with a chaser of water.
Viola watches me intently as I knock it back. The nurse has already fucked off, so I needn’t have eaten the drugs, but if that’s all I’m getting tonight, I’ll take everything I can get.
She chuffs and pockets hers when the nurse is turned away.
‘If you don’t want yours, I’ll have them,” I say.
She gives me a look and then shakes her head. “You have one day to get your act together, or I’m moving without you.”
I glare at her. “Moving to do what?”
“What you couldn’t.”
With that, she walks off.