Insanity (13 page)

I linger in my room, pacing the length of the 12x12 perimeter, waiting for Daddy’s rumbling snores to blast through the walls. The sky outside my window is two-toned, half rustic orange, the other half deep blue. It’s past dusk. Panic unfurls in my lungs and I breathe in deep, wincing in pain when I forget about the damage Daddy inflicted on my ribcage.

Damien will be waiting for me. I hope he doesn’t think I’ve stood him up. I hope he doesn’t get worried and come looking for me. If Daddy doesn’t pass out soon I know he will.

Seconds pass by. Then minutes. It feels like I’ve been waiting forever for him to succumb to his drunken stupor. Finally, I stop mid-pace when I hear it, the nasally high-pitched sign of being lost to an alcohol induced oblivion. I wait. I’m careful not to move an inch. Finally the snores escalate into a concoction, somewhere between a grumble and a roar then I know for certain that Daddy has gone away for the night and won’t be coming back until the sun rises.

Thank God.

There’s a part of me wishes that Daddy would sleep his life away. A part of me that hopes that after all these years his drinking will finally catch up to him. That one day he’ll just go to bed and never wake up. But who am I kidding with that dream? It’s the people like Daddy, the wicked ones who go on living forever.

It’s like God puts people like Daddy on earth on purpose. Making them a test for the good people in the world. If you can withstand what the good Lord throws at you, by staying true to your goodhearted self, and persevering through all of the obstacles thrust before you, then you’ve earned a spot by his side in Heaven.

I look forward to that day.

I look forward to the day where I’ll be smiling down from Heaven, wondering what made my daddy become so sick, twisted, and rotten. I look forward to the day when I can forgive him for everything he’s done and watch him from a cloud up in Heaven, praying for his damned soul, while he’s doused in flames, and burning in hell.

Climbing out my window without Damien’s hands guiding me proves to be a challenge. Especially with bruised ribs. When I’m halfway through the square opening, my chest hits the windowsill, hard and as pain plunges through every part of my body, I release my grip on the window and fall backwards, my back slamming into the ground with a thud. The wind gets knocked out of my lungs and I cough out, but that only worsens the pain.

Sitting up, I hug myself as tight as I can, sliding on my butt against the dewcovered grass and rest my back flat against the white aluminum siding of my house. My lips quiver. Tears burn my eyes and threaten to fall. I hold my breath until I can’t anymore. The intense pain in my ribs dies down slightly and I let out the breath I’ve been holding in, slowly. Easily. Softly.

There. That’s better. I can kind of breathe again.

Using the house as a crutch, and taking my time, I manage to get on my feet. Then I heave myself away from the safety of hard sturdy surfaces and aluminum siding. During the first shaky step I stumble, but catch my balance by holding an arm out, keeping the other one wrapped around my chest. Then I stroll off, covered by an afghan of moonlight and stars to the giant looming weeping willow where I know Damien will be waiting.

Chapter 14

~AFTER~

After the Cynthia incident, Dr. Watson cancels my session and puts the metronome away. I am relieved and elated. He dismisses me so I can go and join some of the other female patients in the rec room.

Damien waits for me at the end of the hall and when I start to pass him, he falls in line with my steps. I shoot him an annoyed glance. “What’s with you?” I ask in a firm voice. “What’s with the hateful glares and scowls toward Dr. Watson?”

He scowls at me just mentioning Dr. Watson. “I don’t like the way that man looks at you. And I know he touches you. I’ve seen it.” His voice spits venom and I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a vile tone leave his lips. He wraps his finger around my arm and halts me mid-step. “You belong to me.” His voice is territorial. “You’re mine. Nobody will love you the way I do.”

Frowning, I yank my arm away and stalk down the hall. Damien is jealous and I don’t like it one bit. “You’d better quit with the nasty looks and scowls Damien Allen,” I spout off. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told you, that you’re my one and only. That I love you with every depth of my soul. Dr. Watson is my doctor. He’s only trying to help me and that’s all it is.”

Damien is silent for a moment. “If that’s true, then run away with me.” I stop walking and Damien grips my shoulders and I gaze into his radiant blue eyes. “Come away with me, Addy,” he repeats. “I told you once I’d help you get out of here. Now let’s do it. You know I’ll protect you. You know I won’t let them hurt you. We can break free.” He brushes his lips against mine and sends a shiver of pleasure throughout my nervous system. He pulls away and his moist luscious lips rest gently against mine. “We can be together. Love each other freely. Just you and me for the rest of our lives.”

When I saw him for the first time after I’d been brought here that’s all I ever wanted. All I ever wanted was for us to spend every waking minute together, worshiping each other, loving each other. His hands are on my face. His lips press against mine again, softly, sensually. Waves of desire rush through my body and I swallow hard to get a hold of myself. I rest my forehead against his and whisper, “I don’t know Damien. It’s too dangerous.”

After witnessing what just happened with Cynthia I’m not sure if I’ll ever try escaping again. The fear has been instilled in me. The worry. The doubt. Even if Dr. Watson is against the inhumane and vile torture Dr. Morrow inflicts on his patients, who’s to say Dr. Morrow won’t go against Dr. Watson’s words and punish me if I tried what Cynthia did. I replay the image of Dr. Morrow’s face. I saw the chilling gleam in his blue-green eyes. I saw the evil smile curl on his thin lips.

Damien pushes my hair away from my face and tangles his fingers up in my raven colored locks. “It’s not,” he murmurs. “I already told you, I won’t let them hurt you. You need to trust me, Addy.” His voice is full of love and warmth and true undying devotion. “I love you more than anything and I’d never ask you to risk your life like this if I didn’t think we’d make it through.”

I know he’s right. And I do trust him. But something is holding me back. I don’t know exactly what that something is, but it’s enough for me to question Damien, and that’s something I never thought I’d do. In the past, I’d always just go along with him. I’d always listen to him and just trust that he knew what he was doing. Then I remind myself that this is not the past. This is not me and him sneaking off in the dead of the night while Daddy was asleep to make love under the willow tree in my backyard. This is different. This is a life or death situation.
My
life or death situation. “Damien I—.”

He curls his fingers around the nape of my neck, positions his face inches away from mine and presses a finger to my lips. “Shhh.” His eyes dart around the hall, warily as the hanging light above our head flickers and the buzzing noise fills the walls.

My limbs tremble and fear sparks in my violet eyes. I shake my head as my lips begin to quiver and a sick feeling dances around in my gut. “No,” I cry softly. “No.” It always terrifies me when they take someone to the basement, but it’s worse now because I know who they took. Hearing about someone being taken down there is one thing, but actually witnessing it is something completely mind-altering.

Cynthia, so young, so innocent, with her wide powder blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and short blonde hair. All she wanted was a new life. All she wanted was a fresh start. A chance at normalcy. I don’t think it’s a crime for her or any of the patients here—myself included—to want to escape. I don’t think it’s wrong for us to have hopes and dreams for a future life outside of this place.

Before I came here, Damien and I had that plan, a plan for the future. We were going to pack our bags and run away together. Be together forever. Love one another without his mother and her elite blueblood qualms, and my father, his three best friends, and his deadly fist. And we were on our way until, out of nowhere, I wound up here.

Another flicker of the overhead light and my entire body stiffens. Cynthia’s muffled shrieks seep through the walls and I do everything I can to keep from shrieking myself. Failing to keep quiet, I let out a squeak then cover my mouth as Damien kisses my temple. “Come here.” He holds his arms out and envelopes me in them, wrapping them around me so tightly that I feel bound to him in more ways than one. He rests his chin on the top of my head for a second then says, “I’ll keep you safe. Follow me.”

With my head to his chest, he guides me a few steps to my left then we duck into the staff restroom. The vibrations of electricity don’t touch the pewter tiled walls and the overhead light is a long beam of fluorescent bulbs that don’t flicker. Damien locks the door with his free hand and I duck underneath his shoulder, walking straight toward the only white porcelain toilet in here. I plop down on the throne and bury my head in my hands, running my fingers through my tangled hair before pulling it taut against my scalp.

I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to burn this place to the ground. I want to save every patient and give them a chance at life. Because this…this…how we live every single God damn day, this isn’t a life at all.

Damien is at my side, removing my fingers from my hair, curling his fingers around my wrists and pulling me off the toilet and into his lap. Covering me with a blanket of his arms, he embraces me tightly and I rest my head in the crook of his neck. “Don’t worry my love, I’ll take you away from this madhouse,” he breathes into my hair. “I don’t care what it costs me.” He cradles me, rocking me back and forth then he smoothes my hair away from my forehead and places a soft, tender kiss on it. “You’ll never have to live in fear again.”

His words rush through me. Fill me up with hope. Send the fear that reared its ugly head just minutes earlier into a darkened corner of my brain. Damien has a way with words. He has a way with touching, kissing…come to think of it he has a way with everything.

The top two buttons of his white shirt are undone and I trail my finger along the hemline before sliding my palm inside. I wait to feel his heartbeat and gaze up into his sapphire eyes hidden beneath his thick, dark lashes. Strands of his shiny, black hair fall down into his face and I push them back and tuck them behind his right ear. “I worry about you, you know,” I mention. “You helping me escape could be dangerous for you.” He silences me with his lips. The kiss only lasts for a nanosecond and when he pulls away I feel like I’m going to spontaneously combust if he doesn’t kiss me again. “Don’t stop,” I plead needfully, clutching the open lapels of his button-up shirt. “Kiss me again.”

He traces my lips with his long finger, a teasing smile on his beautiful face. “I love you, you know that right?” I position myself in a different way so that our faces are inches apart and I’m straddling him. With a quick sweep of his hand he brushes my long flowing hair off my shoulder, fingers skimming a patch of skin next to my collarbone, and my body goes up in flames. The want inside of me explodes. Fire, sparks and raining ash everywhere. I feel the want in him too as it presses between my thighs.

I run my fingers up his shirt, and through the small patch of dark chest hair. My lips move in closer to his. My nose is against his cheek. I inhale his scent, basking in it, a toss up of his essence and laundry detergent. My lips are on his now. His mouth opens, welcoming my tongue with a sensual growl. My tongue rolls around the tip of his in a teasing way and I breathe into his mouth, “Then show me.”

In one swift motion, he grips my shoulders and shoves me back on the floor. His adventurous hands climbing up my gown, across my stomach before stopping at my breasts. There’s a moan in my throat that I can’t cry out. A heat between my thighs that I won’t let fade. When Damien presses his body into mine I am so far gone, contorted in a haze of love, lust, and desire that my legs are trembling.

The sound of his zipper echoes through the small room. The feel of his hand between my legs, sliding my underwear to the side sets off a chorus of screams inside my head.
Please. Please. Please.
I want to beg. I want to cry. I want him to make sweet, sweet love to me until my legs can’t function anymore. He thrusts into me and I bite my lip hard to hold back the groan of pleasure that’s stuck in my throat. My hips grind into his with each thrust and my breathing escalates with each kiss he places on my lips. “Addy, I’d steal the stars for you and serve them to you on a gold plate,” he murmurs against my lips. “I’d rip the sun from the heavens just so it would brighten your day.” Another soft brush of the lips. “I’d die for you.”

His words are so beautiful, so timeless, so completely and utterly perfect. And it’s not just his words, the moment is perfect, flawless, one of a kind, a moment that can never ever be recreated. I close my eyes and let out a whisper of a moan. Even though I don’t have much experience with men, I’ve convinced myself that Damien is a rarity when it comes to his gender. He spouts harmonious sonnets, is a devoted lover and boyfriend and claims he loves me more than his own life. And I love him more than anything too, so I can’t understand for the life of me why, when I turn my head and open my eyes to gaze into his deep seas of blue, that I see Dr. Watson’s face and his ocher eyes staring back at me.

My mind is in a blunder.

My heart is in an uproar.

I blink several times rapidly and wait. I widen my eyes. Damien locks my legs around his elbows and begins thrusting with more force. He grunts, the tip of his tongue hanging out of the right corner of his mouth and I’m still stunned by that brief flash of an image of Dr. Watson that I can’t concentrate on what we’re doing anymore.

Damien leans down and takes my earlobe between his teeth. He hums into my ear and I exhale as the warmth from his lips sends volts of heat down my thigh and in between my legs. The way he moves, grinds, and pounds his hips into mine feels so amazing, so heavenly, so transcendent, that it distracts me for a moment, but when I turn my head and close my eyes all I can think about is Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson and the intensity in his beautiful ocher eyes when I saw his face.