Mirrors (2 page)

“It’s going to be all right, Christy.” Then again, without offering any solution. “It’s going to be okay.”

But she knew it wasn’t.

Nothing was going to okay.

ONE THING was certain: Austin’s quick trip to the storage room to check on Christy had pulled him into a hellish scenario that reduced the threat of a brain tumor to a mere sideshow. Fact was, he was in way over his head. That much he could no longer deny.

Showing no interest in Austin’s request for an extended audience with Lawson, the administrator had instructed the staff to leave Austin in his room, door locked, alone with his thoughts. Food would be brought to him. His therapy would wait a day.

He’d watched them lead Christy from the interview room, offering her assurance that everything would be okay. The pleading look in her tearful eyes had broken Austin’s heart. He was in a position to keep his senses about him, but she was already drowning in her own fear and desperation.

He spent the rest of the day pacing in his room, powerless and alone. Mind obsessing over their predicament.

Over Christy’s fate. Where was she? Upper floor, but where and under what conditions? Had she stabilized? Had they broken her down and given her drugs?

What now?

There was nowhere to go, no one to reason with, no connection to the world outside of his mind—nothing but the precarious balance between what he knew and what he did not know. At times, the distinction between the two blurred.

His mind refused to shut down and sleep.

The meal tray the nurse had delivered last night sat untouched at the foot of the bed. Next to it: a small paper cup that held three blue pills. Also untouched. Something to take the edge off and help him sleep, she’d said.

He wasn’t interested in sleep. Anything that wasn’t focused on the singular objective of escape was a waste of precious mental energy, sleep included.

Surviving this ordeal depended on his ability to outthink and outwit Lawson. Both his and Christy’s lives depended on him now, and only him.

He rubbed his head gently as he walked incessantly between the room’s farthest walls. A dull constant pain sank into his forehead and spread behind his eyes. Exacerbated by fatigue and stress, his migraine had worsened through the night. Then there was the high-pitched ringing in his ears, which had started during the meeting with Lawson.

He’d spent some time considering the possibility, however remote, that Lawson was right about both of them. There were a few logical threads that supported the notion that he was, in fact, suffering dissociative delusions of grandeur, but in the end, that reasoning couldn’t compete with the evidence that supported his sanity.

Still, the way his world had unraveled so quickly yesterday was unnerving. And if it was unnerving for him, it must be mind-numbing for Christy.

Who could say how far they would push her? Fisher needed them both insane to cover his tracks. He would go as far as he needed.

Some people were inclined to identify with their trauma, even to the point of falling off the cliff into madness. Christy might be such a person. He’d always known she had her issues, but maybe they cut deeper than he guessed.

Lawson, it seemed, was either in on Fisher’s plot or truly convinced that Christy was Alice. And that he was Scott. Possible? Technically. Realistic? So far from it that Austin had dismissed even the possibility of it in his mind.

They needed to get out of the psych ward, period.

Lawson said there was no way out, but there had to be. Finding it was simply a matter of outthinking the man. Austin had mentally rehearsed a dozen escape scenarios a hundred times, but like a mythical Hydra, each problem he seemed to solve sprouted two new heads, two more problems.

The facility was designed to keep its occupants in, and every eventuality had likely been taken into account. Getting out through any conventional means was almost certainly impossible. And he could think of no unconventional means except one.

Alice. Assuming she was alive.

Everything led back to Alice. More specifically, to the words he’d overheard.

I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I know.

Finding Alice might mean finding a way out. She might know what was really happening, information that might break this place wide open. Doing that might mean getting her out too.

So find Alice, but how? Where would Fisher have put her?

Upper floor? Maybe.

Basement? Maybe.

Killed her? Maybe.

Readmitted her with a new identity? Maybe.

Without more information, Austin was at a loss. What he did know at the moment, was that Christy was on the second floor and in dire straits, suffering treatment that was likely not sanctioned.

His desire to reach her overrode his desire to find Alice. Reaching Christy first was the most important thing, if only to know that she was safe.

He taxed his mind to the point of exhaustion, working incessantly to think of a way to her. Every course of action seemed to form a twisted knot of trouble.

But even the most tangled of knots could be unraveled, couldn’t they? While the rest of the world slumbered in peace, he had methodically dissected the challenge—but he could think of no feasible way to reach Christy.

His mind wasn’t processing thoughts properly. There was a way, there had to be, he just wasn’t thinking about it right.

“Lost in thought, Scott?”

Austin jerked his attention toward the door. Nancy Wilkins, the therapist Christy had mentioned, stood in the doorframe holding a small stack of folders under her arm.

It was strange to hear her call him Scott.
Scott Connelly.
An imaginary patient Fisher had fabricated to lock Austin in this twisted world.

“Excuse me?”

“You didn’t hear me opening the door.” She stepped in and pulled the door shut.

“Sorry. Just… thinking.”

“I can see that. Did you sleep well?”

“I never sleep well. Insomnia. Chronic, actually.”

A look of genuine concern softened her face as she glanced at the still-made bed, then back at him. “Sometimes goes with the territory.”

He was tempted to correct her but thought better of it. “So they say,” he said.

“Well, as you grow accustomed to your new surroundings, Saint Matthew’s will begin to feel like home. You’ll see.”

She considered him for a long beat. Austin noticed the methodical movement of her analytical gaze. In a single smooth sweep of the eyes, she had taken in him and the entire room. Question was, what did those eyes see?

“What time is it?” he said.

“Just past ten. You’re free to leave your room. Maybe go to the recreation room or grab some breakfast in the cafeteria.” She nodded toward the food tray. “Looks like you could use some food.”

“Maybe.”

She paused. “If you’d like, I can walk down with you. Show you around if that would make you feel more comfortable.”

“No thanks. I’ll be fine. I can find the way.”

“Of course.” She reached for the door, hesitated, and then turned back. “We’re here to help you, Scott. This is a safe place for you. You can trust me. Okay?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

She opened the door. The faint sounds of people talking drifted in from the hallway. “I’ll see you later. We’re scheduled for a two o’clock session in room 408. Sound good?”

“Looking forward to it,” he said with a smile, trying to suppress any sarcastic edge.

“Good. We’ll find you. Any questions, feel free to ask the staff.”

“I will. Thank you.”

She closed the door behind her as she left. Unlocked.

He was free to roam the floor. He’d been through the halls once before, but now he had enough time to inspect the rest unhurried.

An image of Christy filled his mind. Upper floor. His failure to settle on a clear course of action coaxed sweat from his pores.

He took a deep breath, opened his door, and peered out. Wilkins stopped in front the next patient room, knocked twice, and entered. Morning rounds.

Austin exited his room, pulled the door quietly shut, and walked toward the recreation room, ahead and to the left.

Lawson had said the upper floor was accessible only by a secure elevator. Since Austin hadn’t seen any stairwells or elevators he had to assume it was in a secure section of the building.

He might force his way in, or he might get killed. Regardless, he had no force. No gun, no knife. Even if he had a weapon, he didn’t have the skill to use it.

What he did have was his brain. Problem was, his brain was fried.

He paused at the door marked RECREATION ROOM and peered through the long rectangle of reinforced glass set in the middle of it. Inside, about two dozen patients sat around the room in various stages of disinterest. Some stared blankly at a TV on the far wall while others rocked to a beat that played only in their heads.

He was about to step in when laughter to his left drew his attention. A man dressed in white scrubs emerged from the patient room two doors down from his own. He wheeled a gurney through the doorway and guided it into the hallway, followed by a second attendant.

On the gurney: a patient, face to the ceiling. A girl, vaguely familiar even from this distance. His heart rate quickened.

He stared, uncaring that he was in full view. It was a psych ward, after all, and he was just another patient. The details of the girl became clearer as they drew close.

Young. Dirty-blond hair. She lay beneath a white sheet that was cinched taut. Her arms lay at her sides on top of the sheet. Four straps crossed her body—one across her upper chest, one at her waist, one at her thighs, one across her ankles.

A leather mask covered the lower part of her face. His mind completed its circuit of recognition as they drew abreast.

He knew this girl. Her name was Alice.

Time crawled as his eyes met hers. The gurney’s squeaking wheels and the distant sounds from the recreation room fell away as if the entire world had been plunged underwater.

The words she’d spoken in the basement loomed in his mind.
I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I know.

She stared at him without expression, unblinking, neither sad nor frightened. Just… there. She seemed to be looking both at him and through him at the same time.

His eyes flitted to the wristband cinched on her left wrist as they passed. He could see it through the bedrail. MICHELE MILLER.

After admitting Christy as Alice, Fisher had readmitted Alice under a new identity.

Or had he?

Austin dismissed the thought as the attendants made their way down the hall. Just another patient to be transported.

Austin wanted to run after them and rip the mask from her face. To ask her which way was out. How he could get to Christy. How they could get their lives back. He just needed to know the way, and the simple answer was locked in that damaged mind of hers.

But he couldn’t. Not now, not yet. Now he could only stare after them and wonder where they were taking her.

The question had barely formed when the answer crystallized.

The attendants pulled to a stop at the end of the corridor, in front of the double doors marked ADMISSIONS. One of the attendants waved his hand in front of a small black pad next to the door. An electronic lock. A loud buzz echoed through the narrow hall and the doors automatically yawned wide.

An anxious twitch needled every nerve in Austin’s body. He could barely keep his feet from launching him into a sprint.

Wait, Austin. Just two more seconds…

The men passed through and the doors eased shut with a pneumatic hiss.

Go…

He covered the distance to the admissions doors in long strides, hoping he wasn’t drawing undue attention from hidden cameras. He slowed to a stop in front of them.

Twin narrow windows were set into the doors, steel-mesh-reinforced glass. He leaned close, then stepped aside so the attendants wouldn’t see him if they looked back.

The men stood in a shallow alcove to the left of what appeared to be the admissions office. In front of them: a polished steel door, inset deep in the wall.

An elevator.

They were taking Alice to the second floor.

One of the attendants waved his wrist in front of a black pad identical to the one in the hallway, then punched the elevator button.

The secure access required some form of keycard, though Austin hadn’t seen the man use one. A chip in the man’s skin?

The elevator doors parted and the men pushed the gurney into it. Alice was slipping away.

As the doors eased shut, something in Austin’s mind shifted. It came in an instant, unbidden and unexpected, as if a fog that had hovered at the fringes of his mind now pushed deep into his thoughts.

So close. He had been so close to her that he could’ve reached out and touched her.

He heard the mechanical hum of the elevator as it rose. Watched the glowing red digit above the door as it changed then stopped.

Alice was gone. Right now they were wheeling her onto the upper floor, where they’d locked Christy away from the rest of the world. From him.

Austin stepped away from the door and leaned against the wall. Stared down the long hallway that stretched in front of him, lost in thought.

The fog in his mind thickened into darkness as the situation settled on him. Hope was slipping away. Every moment they spent behind these walls diminished their chances of escape. His control was beginning to slip and he felt powerless to gain any traction.